Picked up a new project this past Tuesday. A 1951 Plymouth Cambridge. Mostly stockish for now.

Getting ready for safety inspection and when trying to sort out the turn signal issues decided that between the PO aftermarket wiring harness hack and the remaining original wiring falling apart I'd just completely redo the electrical system. Since I plan to put AC in it at a later date the 12v conversion is happening now, rather than later. Makes more sense to just get it done during the rewire.

So, step one, remove generator, install alternator. Note, going as all Mopar as I can. See the alternator? It's spec'd for an 87 Diplomat.

beautiful car. Good idea on the 12v conversion.

This will be fun to follow.

I don't understand the level of some people's hackery. In the following picture you see where some prior person's attempt at a repair. Seems someone threw in a new wiring harness in this car. But rather than be professional about it and replace the crappy old wiring in it's entirety they just spliced in to the original stuff as convenient. In this picture you see a dash light, where they used a Sta-Kon (hack one) to tie into the old wiring that has it's cloth covered insulation literally falling off and has been missing for so long the wiring is oxidized. They make replacement contacts with a pigtail to fix this exact issue, all else failing you could have slipped some heat shrink over the old wiring to at least keep it from shorting out.

Hack two for the day. in this pic you will see a Sta-Kon, a bullet connector and a Scotchlok crimped to two original wires with the insulation missing.

This and more is why I just decided to completely rewire the car.

Pulled all the existing wiring out. Picked up a 22 circuit kit from Speedway.

So, today I carried on with the rewire. Put in a solid 12 hours on the Cambridge. Funny thing, when my son first saw it he said "It looks like Doc Hudson", which is exactly what I thought when I first saw it.

I pulled all the old wiring out, not sure why Mopar decided the headlight dimmer switch need to be mounted under the floor with the wiring connections exposed to what ever crud there is on the road. Found the only rust on the car, a nice hole right next to the switch.

Pulled all the lenses and housings off the car, cleaned them up, painted the insides of the rear housing white as they were covered in black over spray, apparently it's been repainted at least once. Originally it looks like the housing were just galvanized white metal of some sort.

All the rubber grommets are completely dry rotted and fell apart in chunks as I pulled the old wiring out. So I have a list of grommets to buy.

Reassembled the gauge cluster as far as I could. The actual bezel itself is awaiting new switches, not stock replacements as those are available but not cheap. So I am putting it switches from another source, once I test fit and mod, as needed, I'll paint the bezel.

Pulled the horn button off. The horn button looked all rusty. It's not rust, it's actually Bakelite. So I cleaned it up, got the remains of the original paint off and repainted it. That steering wheel is worse than I thought. Might have to pop for an aftermarket wood rim one.

Tightened up the parking brake as it was only applying at full travel, found the brake light switch. It's back by the driver's side forward leaf spring mount, ???

Started installing the new wiring harness. I have it in the car, with most of the wires laid out where they need to go and started taping some of the wiring up, using wire harness tape. Got the aftermarket turn signal switch installed and connected up all nice a neat with the wiring harness taped. No sta-kons allowed. I did have to splice the flasher input and indicator wire together. Used an uninsulated butt connector, crimped and soldered with heat shrink.

Got to the point where I need my Molex connector kit to finish up the interior wiring. Need to extend the brake switch wiring because the kit assumes it's on the pedal assembly not 10 feet aft.

Pulled the blower motor out to compare to the dimensions I have for the A body blower motor. We'll see if it'll fit and function, which reminds me I have to extend that wire too because the blower motor is located right behind the grill and not on the fire wall or inside the pass compartment.

That sums up today's highlights

Can't quite put my finger on what's wrong with the stock coil here. In the process of running new wires to it so I pulled the power lead off, the points are still connected as delivered.

Got the rear light housings painted and new grommets.

Got the GE Nighthawk lights installed, they stick out about 3/4" past the headlight retainer.

Here you can see the new VR mounted and wired, put in a ballast resistor and replaced the original 6v solenoid with a 12V one, using the I terminal to bypass the ballast in start.

At this point if I pulled the original 6v coil out and put in the new 12v one I could hot wire it and run it, well put in a 12V battery too. I might do that tomorrow.

Got the charging system running.



Finished up all the wiring forward of the core support, that includes the heater blower motor. Put 1157NA bulbs in the front.

Finished up all the engine compartment wiring, replaced the old 6v coil with a 12V unit. I do still have to swap out the condensor, but that isn't technically wiring.

Finished up the tail light wiring. 1157 bulbs in the back. Finished up the license plate wiring as well, I forget what bulb is in there as the bulb I took out was a 12v one so I put it back in.

All lenses and housings were taken apart, cleaned thoroughly, painted as needed and reassembled with dedicated grounds to each housing, except the headlight housings as the bulbs have a dedicated ground. all connections were rewired with new contacts and wires. All dedicated grounds run to the battery to body junction in the engine compartment.

Tested all functions I could, turn signal switch works properly, hazards work properly, hi/lo beam functions properly. Only issue I ran into was the connector at the base of the steering column for the turn signals, had to fully seat one pin.

The horn will wake the dead. Sounds like a train. I startled myself when I tested it.

Mailman delivered my Ebay wiper motor. It looks pristine compared to my old one. It functions as well as it looks and it parks properly. That needs installed.

Still have to finish wiring the dash, prepped the guage cluster with new switches. Heater wiring and wiper wiring under the dash needs finished. All the wiring is run, just need cut to size and connectors installed. Relocated the wiper swich to the gauge bezel rather than atop the dash. Going to reuse the original wiper switch to power my hidden audio system.

Have to pull the back seat, anyone know how? I know how to do later one where you use your knee to push the bottom cushion back to unhook. Once I get the seat bottom out I can run the wiring back to the trunk and finish the back.

I hope to get it registered Monday after it passes safety inspection.

Well, that was fun.

I spent about three hours on my head today sorting out the wiper linkage connection. I didn't take it apart and the FSM was less than clear on how it goes together. Maybe if I had a parts book it might have helped.

Well, I got it sorted so that's the key take away. I might have to put in a dropping resistor because they wipe real fast. The linkage has felt washers that are to be lubricated with engine oil once a month. Yay, not. I wonder if I can find some oilite bushings for a reasonable price. Well, there you go, Aircraft Spruce has them for $0.35 each, I wonder what the minimum order is?

The obligatory blood sacrifice was extreme, I lost chunks of flesh, literally. Sorry, no pictures for that. Remounted the front license plate holder.

Tidied up the wiring, put the rear seat back as well as the side panels I took off to run the wiring to the trunk. Vacuumed out the interior, put the floor mats in the washing machine, they cleaned up nice. Too bad the entire carpet couldn't go in the machine.

I have a whole list of stuff that needs redoing or restored but right now I need to get it inspected. I had hoped to get that done today, but I got a late start as Saturday mornings are laundry time for me, I am kind of afflicted with the Sheldon Cooper disease where certain things need to be done at certain times and if they aren't I don't alike it.

As it stands, the wiring is done, all the lights work, the turn signals work, the hazards work. Wipers work, Monday I take it for inspection and register it.

That's it for now.

Friday update...

Didn't get any chance to do any work on it during the week, paying work needed doing. I did get it inspected and registered Monday and my military plates should be coming in the mail eventually.

Parts have been arriving all week. New wipers and arms. The old ones had some sort of funky fishhook looking attachment at the blade to arm connection. I do need to step down the voltage because it wipes real fast right now. Torn between a dropping resistor and a motor controller.

New 12v heater blower motor arrived. The old 6v unit is in sad shape, insulation falling off the wires. The replacement is one for a factory AC A body that looks like it can be made to work.

some electrical connectors to tidy up the job and replace temp connections I put in for the inspection. New speedo cable with some firewall grommets to seal things up as needed.

Decided to upgrade the gauges, once done I'll post a pic. Picture of old gauge cluster to ponder.

No one mentioned it, but the problem is that the points are attached to the negative terminal of the coil, this was a positive ground system and the points should have been attached to the positive terminal.

It ran but I have seen other brands not even start hooked up backwards.

Spent most of Sunday sorting out and organizing my tools in my new tool cabinet, got tired of my work bench being covered in tools.

Got the the Cambridge's heater blower motor upgraded to something new and 12v capable.

After this morning's trip back from the grocery store it moved to the front of the line.

I wrote it up on my webpage.

Relatively speaking it was fairly painless.

But, and we all knew this was coming, the snowball rolleth.

I may have mentioned that the heater controls were somewhat of a mystery to me. So I spent some quality time with them to figure out what did what.

Left knob is temperature, simple enough and last weekend I sorted that out and lubed that control cable. You pull the knob, it opens a water valve on the head and hot coolant flows thru the heater core.

Next knob to the right is the fan speed. This is the only electrical part of the controls and it has three positions, all the way in is off, one notch out is low speed, second notch out is high speed.

Third knob to the right is air off. I had no idea what it did, trying to pull it didn't do anything, turning it unscrewed the knob.

Last knob was defrost, it is a control cable that pulled out some to give me air on the base of the windshield, not much air but a bit.

I decided to work out how this was supposed to function. I pulled the radio delete plate, pulled the glove box and I ended up pulling the air plenum. Disconnect the defrost duct and two nuts on the engine side of the firewall out she comes.

Two control cables are attached to the plenum, the defrost cable and the air off cable. The air off cable was all bound up. I disconnected it from the plenum end and worked some cable lube into it from both ends and straightened out a kink. This freed it up and I was able to reinstall it so that it now properly controls the flap on the input to the plenum and doesn't bind. This shuts off any airflow into the plenum from the engine side of the the setup.

Next I got to work on the defrost control cable, it sort of functioned initially and all it really needed was lubrication. This cable controls the flap that directs air from the floor to the defrost duct. It is located right behind the air off flap. I also lubed up all the pivot points on the flaps.

The lube I used is specifically designed to go on with a fast evaporating carrier and lubricate dry without attracting dirt or dust.

I now have a very good understanding of what and how my heater system functions. Sorry, no web writeup for this as my phone was down to 8% and got put on the charger.

Not too shabby a day considering I did my grocery shopping and had to spend 2+ hours with the cable company getting rid of them. Seems you can turn in the equipment at the local office, which took 50 minutes of standing around till I got to the counter. But they can't terminate the contract, I had to call a number to do that. The "retention team". Lol, he got an earful. No cable means more time and money for the Plymouth.

Fun reading of your exploits. Neat car! Brought back a lot of memories. Years ago while in college I bought one of those at a farm auction for $30.00 and used it as a winter beater.

I remember vividly trying to sort out the heater controls. Not what you'd call intuitive. I also got confused over the coil wiring as the car wouldn't start at the auction and I was of course used to negative ground systems. I initially thought the wires had been reversed and that was the problem, but then found a fuse in line to the coil that was blown. A new fuse cured everything.

The car always started, no matter how cold out, although on bitterly cold nights I'd bring the tired 6V battery in the house. We used to take it out and try to get it stuck in snow. The thing was so rusty the bench seat rocked back and forth with the floor pan, or what was left of it.

The following spring I was done with school and moving on so drove it to the junk yard. I felt guilty junking the poor car.

Anyway, keep the updates coming. Enjoy following along.

Got more done on her.

Some days it doesn't pay to get out of bed. I started out trying to find a set of wiper blades that would work with my arms. No dice.

This is what it had, I am looking to go with something still readily available.



I bought a set of Anco 41-02 universal arms, but as I should have remembered, universal means fits nothing. In this case I cannot find any blade that fits that arm. Though it fits the Plymouth's pivots just fine.

So I Rain X'd the thing for now. Gonna email Anco and [censored] them.

I then got my Polk Audio 5x7's installed. I had to make my own spacer/adapters for them, used some 1/2" oak I had left over from another project. Still waiting on the amp to arrive to finish up my custom hidden sound system.

Was gonna knock off for the day when I realized it wasn't even noon so I pressed on. Been wanting to test fit a set of roll P255/60R15's on cop car rims I had in storage. Well they fit with loads of room to spare. I could comfortably put 295's back there with plenty of clearance. However, while I was there I saw the rear brake lower pivot bolts were very loose, as in I saw daylight between the nut and the backing plate. These are supposed to be torqued to 55-75 ft/lbs. Digging into that I found the axle shaft nuts, two piece axles here, were at best finger tight (142 ft/lbs minimum). Good news is that the hubs were the easiest I have ever pulled.

I ended up doing both the major and minor brake adjustments front and rear and torqued the hardware to the specified values. The PO included an FSM. But I guess they never opened it up. Once I got the brake adjustments done I now have a good brake pedal. Went from needing two pumps for brakes to 2" and brakes. Guess I don't need to rebuild the master. Funny thing is the brakes stuff looked all new, but the adjustments were so far off the brakes were iffy.

Here's a shot of the meats

Spent some time yesterday o it with my son. Got rid of the peep mirror and put on a pair of swan neck mirrors.

Got the wipers sorted out as well.

beautiful car!

Thanks, it really photographs better than it is.

Cool car, looks pretty decent and it's nice that it's found a good home.
I don't know squat about Mopars of that era, and was surprised by the heater location and the wheelhouse room.
Had to laugh about the wipers & horn: yup, 6V devices on 12V sure get peppy !
Did a reducer on a '53 F250's wiper motor when I converted it to 12V Neg ground & alternator; it was OK but not to modern standards.
Big wheels & tires on that car would be pretty amusing...something like a vintage TransAm deal rather than the typical Gasser stuff...
But stock-appearing is cool, too.

I am probably going to go with a PWM controller for the wipers, unless I can find someone that rebuilds and converts them to 12v, I have my old one that is in sad shape wiring wise.

As for the look, I am thinking vintage NASCAR

That'd be pretty cool. Definitely something different.

doesn't have to be show car quality to be a beautiful car.

Got the new gauge cluster wired and installed. Everything worked first try. Always nice when that happens, though if you take your time and double check everything that usually happens.

Kinda blurry, I'll have to retake this.

This looks great.

Thanks to all for the kind words. These old cars can be fun and they keep you on your toes. No computer to crutch things for you. If somethings wrong you'll know about it right now.

We had a cold front roll in the other day, like a 50 degree drop and the Plymouth was running poorly that morning. I figured it just need the winter tune up to make it happy.

Nope, I had put in new plug wires and number 4 had popped off the distributor cap

Found it today. I went ahead put in a new set of plugs and repositioned my wiper arms so they didn't hit. Tried to check the timing and dwell. The FSM calls for a 450-500 rpm idle speed. It was at 1600 rpm. My dwell meter is so old I don't remember the last time I used it and it reads funky, 20 degrees vs spec of 38. Not to mention my vacuum gauge is MIA. So I ordered a fancy automotive multimeter and a new vacuum testing kit. Supposed to be here Saturday, in which case I will finish tuning the engine. Right now I can only go by the idle speed drop method and I don't like that one. Can't find my feeler gauges so I ordered a new set. I suspect all this will do is encourage me to turning the distributor into an electronic one based on marrying a /6 distributor with the flathead's.

Had to repower the heater blower as I had it hooked up to constant 12v rather than switched. Got the cigar lighter wired up now as well. That was the last of the gauge cluster wiring to do. Finding the proper connector was a PITA though, DORMAN 85845 in case anyone is looking. Now I can power my phone that I use to stream music through my hidden audio system. Which I still need to put the final amp and voltage controller in. Right now it's just running off a homebrew BT amp and it sounds tinny as heck, almost like AM radio, lol.

What does the end of your new doesn't fit anything wiper arm look like?

W900B flat window Kenworths use a blade similar to what you have except instead if the hook deal you have, they just have a bolt that goes through it. Blade is about 18" long. You might be able to cut it down if it's too long.

Kevin

Thanks for the wiper lead. I ended up sorting it out by buying a set of ANCO 4102 arms and initially a set of ANCO 2015 blade assemblies. The book called for ANCO 2012 but I figured a 15" set of blades would cover more than the 12's. As it turned out the 2015's are not only longer but the attachment parts are not compatible with the 4102 arms. I ended up getting a set of the 2012 blade assemblies and everything worked.

My other option was to get a set of ANCO 4103 arms to keep the 15" blades. I may end up going tithe 4103's in any even because if I do then replacement blade assemblies will be an off teh shelf item, whereas almost no one carries refills anymore and the odds of finding a blade assembly that fits the 4102 arms off the shelf is minimal.

Cold weather rolled in and the Cambridge needed babying till it warmed up a bit. Time to adjust the automatic choke. Back then things were a bit different. Supposed to get below freezing here Monday, we'll see how the new adjustments worked. Choke setup

Gathering up some hot rod parts for the 218. Right now a bit of bling for the side covers.

Nice, heavy duty Made in USA side covers for your viewing pleasure.

More hot rod stuff, split exhaust. Again, made in America, very heavy duty too. Now to sort out what muffler(s) I want to run. I like the sound of Super Turbos but finding a sound clip of a flathead Mopar 6 with split exhaust that also says what muffler they are running is tough. Also got the intake water heat plate.

Got the carb rebuilt, a few minor issues found. For Christmas I got an ultrasonic cleaner for a gift, put it to work on the carb. Did a very good job.

Carter BB rebuild

After shot

More hop up goodies for the flat head.

Now to decide carbs.

Been kinda following along on this but didn't realize 'til just now you also have a blog about it as well. Your web page is VERY well written and laid out!

Go check out Sniper's page! The Sniper's Nest

Big to the project and your website!

Thanks, I have seat belts to put in next.

Got the seat belts in yesterday. Learned a few things, like the best way to remove the rear seat is to pull the front seat out first. I didn't do that and yes you can R&R the rear seat anyway but that was one wrasslin' match I'd not care to repeat, sore today.

I got my three point retractable seat belts from https://www.wescoperformance.com/

Finished product

Got the last major part for the engine today, a high compression, finned aluminum head.

I haven't decided on a performance cam regrind or not. Going to pull the engine to clean and regasket it so now is the time if I am going to do it.

Got started on the EFI swap. Had to make adapters to mount my dual throttle bodies to the intake.

http://www.im-creator.com/free/yourolddad/the-snipers-nest/tbi-adapters

Lot's of other fabbing to be done. Going with Microsquirt, with a one off like the Cambridge everything will be up to me to sort out. Fun times.

Your head and intake (nice parts!) look new. I didn't know such parts were still available?

I think I got one of very last batch of that head. The maker is designing a new head that looks stock, has all stock mounting points but will have a better combustion chamber and higher compression, sort of a stealth head for the flattie. The intake is a reproduction (continuation?) of the original Thickstun casting. A batch pops up on Ebay every so often. Both the head and intake are cast and machined in the USA too.

If you are patient and your googlefu is strong you can find just about anything for that engine, except a bolt in EFI kit.

I planned on getting to the swap some more today, but I ended up spending all day (12 hours or so) getting the Cuda out back together so I can roll it out of the garage as needed. Maybe tomorrow.

A pic of both Plymouths, side by side.

Got more mocking up done with the EFI swap. Made the air cleaner bases, tapped the spacers and plumbed for a PCV setup, ran a line to each spacer so I don't have a lean cylinder condition. Also tapped a separate fitting for the MAP and fuel pressure regulator vacuum source. Split the fuel rail and extended it, injectors installed. Likely going to upsize the fuel rail connector tube. Started in on the TPS adapter, need different hardware to clear, being metric finding button head M4 machine screws in this town is tricky.

Nice work!

Thanks.

Spent some time this weekend with my son testing tire fitment on the Cambridge. Going to go from P215/75R15 to P255/55R17 and probably Moon Discs. Got to thinking on how to double check a tire's fit without having to buy the tire first. I came up with an idea that may help others.

Did a write up on my webpage.

Those will fill up those big wheel wells nicely.

apparently my free website hits the limit, so I got my own domain now.

www.yourolddad.com

The Cambridge build ought to all be there by now.

I joined this forum just to say: Niiiiice.

I just bought a 1952 Cambridge myself back in December. Seeing what you're doing here makes me want to do some upgrades to my car.

I'm definitely following this thread.

If you have questions I would be happy to answer, as long as we all understand "I don't know" is an answer, lol. This is a learning experience for me too.

Got the air cleaners finished, haven't written it up yet so here a shot of it done.

Got the air cleaner housing write up done

http://www.yourolddad.com/air-filters

As well as the TPS adapter mount.

http://www.yourolddad.com/sensors

Still have to decide where to put the AIT sensor, real estate on the air cleaner base is tight, might put it in the intake. Internet opinions are mixed on which is a better spot.

EFI is about ready to go in. Going to pull the engine out to clean, inspect, regasket, etc. While it's out need to clean up the engine compartment, plumb the fuel lines, the fuel sump and the EFI pump.

So, the son and I built a gantry crane to pull the engine.

Nice job.

Did you get that engine out?

Not yet, I found a complete rebuilt drive train (engine and trans) takeout from a 51 Plymouth some one decided to hot rod I am negotiating for it. So I can go thru it while I enjoy driving at the same time. But when I get one, or the other, on the hoist I'll post pic.

Sounds like a great way to go!

Not much of an update right now, finally got the temps down, 100+ degree days takes a toll and work has been crazy lately, catching up after the covid slowdown.

My son and I got some maintenance time in today. We greased up all the zerk fittings on the car, there are 23 of them. Showed him how to check tie rods, kingpins, sway bar mounts, etc for play and looseness. Only iffy thing we found was the driver's side upper shock bushing had a bit of play. Since relocating that mount is on the list to do and that requires different shocks it will be addressed. Taught him how to remove the hubcaps, check tire pressures and reinstall hubcaps. I know it seems basic to us but hey when was the last time you saw a new car with hubcaps anymore? We also played around with my IR gun and discussed how the cooling system functions. We also went over camber, caster and toe as well as bumpsteer. These jobs tend to run long since almost everything is a learning opportunity for him so we go into the why things work alot.

I know the project is going somewhat slow, but I only get him one weekend a month and we squeeze in what time we can on it.

This worked out better than I had hoped, he's been enjoying it so much he signed up for collision repair class this year at school.

ANY progress is better than NO progress. DAMHIK

Good to hear the project has had a positive impact on your son!

Sort of an update. I got a core engine to build and hop up since my original engine is in good shape I don't want to blow it up hot rodding it. Took the opportunity to go from a 218 to a 230. It got delivered today and as I was looking it over I noticed the engine number, a good omen?

Use my home built gantry crane to pick it up off the pallet. I was a bit worried it may have been undersized for the load. It didn't even notice.

Started the tear down of the core 230 has begun. I am surprised how clean it looks behind the tappet covers. I expected it to be all sludged up. several valves are stuck, no biggie. It;ll get them loosened up.

not bad at all!

Spent some time with my son on tearing down the 230, had to drag him away from Band of Brothers to do it though.

Got all the studs but two out of the manifold mounting area, going to leave those two for the machine shop as I already broke off an easy out in each and managed to remove the broken parts, which if you've ever had to remove a broken easy out you know how fun that can be. So my son learned some valuable information with that, first don't break an easy out, second how much fun it can be removing the broken one.

Pulled all the external stuff off of the distributor side, except the oil fill and dipstick tubes. No real issues there.

Got the plugs out, some of them really did not want to come out, used Kroil on them but even so number three was a bear. All of them had gaps in excess of .045" some well in excess. Wonder how well it ran? Number six looked a bit rich but the rest looked ok colorwise. This kind of thing will tell you how well it ran aforehand.

Pulled the head off, most of the head bolts came out ok, one or two were a bit reluctant but came out. Solid copper head gasket on it, no copper coat or sealant that I could determine, head popped off with no issues whatsoever, one moderate whack with a plastic headed hammer and the head moved. No idea what brand that head gasket was, couldn't see any name on it. Not planning to reuse it so it doesn't matter, might turn it into wall art for the garage. Some of the coolant holes in the deck were a bit goobery. It was interesting to see where, in the chamber, the carbon build up was. Tells a bit about the thermodynamic characteristics.

Cylinder walls barely had a ridge, just enough to barely catch a finger nail. Might have just been carbon build up, haven't looked close at it yet. Might bust out the KaBar to see if I can scrape off the carbon or if it's a ridge. Both the KaBar and I have found other uses for ourselves these days, lol.

In the tappet picture above you can see some of the valves are stuck. I put some penetrating oil in through the ports three or four times since last weekend. Once we got the head off we squirted some more penetrating oil in thru the opening between the deck and the open valve. Then hosed down the valve stems as well. the objective being to loosen up the carbon and rust. I got all but two loose with nothing more than some penetrating oil and a plastic faced hammer. I will work on the other two some more tomorrow, they are soaking in penetrating oil right now.

More as it happens.

Jumping to the 230 eh? The big block of the Plymouth flat head sixes!

Found a good core for a reasonable price so I figured, why blow up my original engine hot rodding it?

Besides, no replacement for displacement

Got a bit more progress into the 230, the water distribution tube was almost completely plugged up. Drained the oil and it smelled like oil, not gasoline or antifreeze. Looked liked oil too, no water in it.

Used one lifting eye in the center head bolt hole, worked great. I bought 4 lifting eyes, just in case. Neighbor gave me the engine stand, seems the arms will only bolt to the engine in one place.

cool beans!

More progress today, of a sort.

Started taking out the valve train. Had a couple sticky valves that repeated applications of many different penetrating oils didn't affect. Started at the front of the block, working aft. Got to valve 7, of 12, when I dropped a valve keeper. Heard it hit sheet metal, didn't see it. I do have a sheet metal drip pan under the engine, no it didn't land there.

So, I drop the oil pan, which was on the list of things to do, but not right now. Such is fate. Keeper is in the pan. I see some minor sludge in the pan and run my fingers through to see what there is to see. I found Blackbeard's treasure. Number 6 cylinder skirt in the pan.

Shot of the number 6 cylinder. Nothing catches my finger nail, heck there is virtually no ridge at the top of any cylinder.

Inside the block is nice and clean. Oil pan didn't really have much sludge, more like thick oil that would have drained if the engine was hot. The oil pan pic I took is blurry, so no pan shot for now.

Here's a shot of the oil pick up. Pretty clean.

So I pull the #6 rod cap, taking care to not lose the lock washers, The Freewheeling Tony Smith says they are very hard to find.

Not the worst bearing I have ever seen.

backside of the rod bearing. .001 undersize, hmm. No date code I recognize. Anyone have any ideas?

So I decided to pull a main cap to see what those bearings looked like.

Not bad, not sure why the bearing color is black though, both rod and main that I checked.

So I pull the bearing from the cap to look for sizing and date codes.

You know I do have 13 letters in my last name.

What the heck is a brass shim doing under the insert?

Well, no info on the main bearing that I understand. I assume, for now, that is is standard size, but the shim??

That was a typical way of taking up the slack. Old FSM's as I recalled even told you how to do it.

.

Thanks, my FSM is a consolidated reprint that doesn't really address that. I have been looking for a real 1951 Plymouth FSM to no avail. I do have a Motors Manual that covers that era though.

Gotta finish the tear down and start mic'ing things out. That will tell the tale.

You can just google shimming engine main bearings and see all kinds of articles. People were pretty frugal on repairs back then. Now days with the right machining and parts shims like that are a non issue.

Looks very clean in there. Except for the piston skirt pieces of course...

Yes sir, till I found the skirt pieces I was thinking I might be able to get away with a cleanup and not a rebuild. Still need to mic the bores and such to determine the future direction.

Awhile back there was a tear down video posted that showed someone using vice grips to remove stuck valves. I was unimpressed with that procedure as it pretty much requires new valves not to mention it makes a forensic analysis of the valves tough to do if they are all chingered up by vice grips.

So when I got my core 230 to build it I decided to find a good way to unstick the valves that would not render them useless in all but the most hack builds. I tried a few things like penetrating oil, heat on the valve guides, cycling the valve up and down with a plastic faced hammer (down) and the cam (up). It worked on three of the five stuck valves but the last two were recalcitrant.

So then I picked the brains of guys older than me and have BTDT. I was given a possible solution. This morning I implemented it. Success, the last two valves now function as they are supposed to.

Brake fluid was the solution. I used a precision oiler to put the fluid on the top of the guide and the valves stems. I put brake fluid on the top and the bottom of the stems and rolled the engine over with a socket and ratchet. When the tappet was fully seated I hit the open valve with a plastic faced hammer till it seated. Took maybe 10 minutes of rolling the engine over, tapping the valves and adding more brake fluid.

I no longer have any stuck valves and they go up and down as designed. So, next time you have a stuck valve to deal with maybe this will help.

Thanks for that reminder. I know that brake fluid 'creeps', but had forgotten. I have a carb with a stuck shaft. Gonna try the b fluid trick.

A bit of progress, sort of.

Last week I had a rear tire sidewall come apart. So I bought one new stock type tire. Decided to finally pull the trigger on new, fatter tires. maintained the same height as the newly purchased stock one so I can use it as a spare.

Went with P255/50R17's in the back on 08 Chrysler 300 steelies. Closest point of contact is the front of the tire to the fender, about an inch and and a half. I could go much wider, but wheel hop is now a big issue. So time for that to be addressed.

Clearances, I don't have a good pic of the top of the tire, sidewall to fender lip clearance, but it's and inch and a half.

Brake fluid for stuck valves. I've not heard that one before. Glad it worked.

Interesting that you bring this back up. I rolled the engine over to day for the first time since I did the brake fluid trick. 2 months of sitting and the valves still do not stick, I'm going to say this trick works.

Got some time in on the Cambridge today.

Putting disc brakes on the front. Well, some days you avoid the snowball, other days the snowball runs you over.

Going to have to take the uprights steering kniuckle to the machine shop to get new kingpins fitted up. Tie rod ends need replaced, steering box needs adjusting and if I am reading the date code correct I probably have the original hydraulic shocks.

Front shocks are damned expensive if you want stock hydraulic types. Pass. Did a bit of measuring adn found an alternate, 60-62 C10 front shocks will fit and work. Not to mention you can get good, gas charged ones for a reasonable rice.

All will be very nice upgrades.

Well, update time. Got the uprights and knuckles back from the machine shop. No slop in the king pins now. Dry fitted the disc brake swap on both sides. Had to do a bit of clearancing between the bracket and the caliper housing, was too tight. Not sure if it was a bracket issue or a caliper issue. Whatever the culprit was, it's fixed. Other than that everything went together as I expected. Maybe this week I can permanently install the swap. I have new tie rods to install and I may as well adjust the steering box while I am there.

I have the C10 shocks I mentioned. I physically verified that the new shocks have more extended and less collapsed lengths than stock so no bottoming the shock out. Boy those original shocks are weak. Dead spot in about 2 inches of the travel and even past that it is pretty light duty. New shocks are gas charged and a lot stiffer. Ought to work better with the Aerostar springs I put in.

Shot of the swap dry fitted up.

New shock next to the old one.

I had previously converted the old spindle nut to the newer style used on later Mopars in anticipation of this disc swap.

Comparison of the Aerostar spring vs the stockers. Even thought the Aerostar springs are shorter the front of the car rides higher. Need to cut a coil off before I put them back in.

progress!

Those brakes will be a very nice upgrade for sure.

Update time.

Spent some time cleaning things up in prep for reassembly. Pulled the tie rod assemblies out so I could clean up the sleeves and install the new tie rod ends I bought. Turns out my plan for less expensive tie rod ends hit a snag. The threaded ends are fine, the location of the zerk fittings would have worked. However, the diameter of the tapered studs was too small and my window for returning them passed, two days ago, lol. Teach me to slack off. So I have new tie rod ends coming. Decided to pull the pitman arm off so I could crape off decades of grease and clean it up, only to decide that I may as well replace the pitman shaft seal. Would have been nice if I remembered that before I finished my tie rod order, oh well NAPA can get it for me for about the same cost

Cut one coil off the Aerostar springs I installed earlier this year. Got them back in where they belong. Bought a Pneumatic cut off tool, but it appears either my compressor can't keep up or the tool is under powered, so I converted an old miter saw into a chop saw and got it done.

Found that my oil pan screws were all loose, I suggest this might be a maintenance item added to the oil change check list. Heck this might even slow up the oil leak I have.

Tomorrow, I hope, I start final assembly on the disc brake swap. I should have all the stuff I need on hand, except the tie rods. Might reinstall the old ones just dso I can move the car about.

Sunday update

Another other issue I ran into during final install. The specified hose has a pair of squarish tabs where it passed thru the frame mounted tab. I assume that in the original application those tabs are an alignment feature, in my case it was in the way. So I hand filed off the smaller of the two tabs, it fits fine now. Though the instruction to mention the need to remove a mounting bracket on the hose, easy enough, it makes no mention of those tabs. Again that would have been nice to know. I have the pass side done, driver's side hadn't been started. Spent that time yesterday degunking both sides and cleaning up the tie rod sleeves, pitman arm and other semi related areas. Seriously thinking about dropping the pan to clean and reseal it since I have the tie rod assemblies out of the way and I have a large mess under there. But to be honest this might turn out to be one of the snowball things and I don't want to get that ball rolling. Because I fear the timing cover and rear main seals "ought to be replaced while I am there".

A couple of other minor nitpicky details that fall under the customer service aspect of this disc brake swap. it would have been nice to have the torque specs for the bracket to spindle bolts listed, rather than "Torque to recommended settings for 5/8-18 bolts."
Turns out the grade 5 zinc plated bolts supplied need 144 ft/lbs. It would also have been nice to have the caliper mounting bolt torque specs listed as well as the brake hose banjo bolts torque spec, 28 and 32 ft/lbs respectively. I may have mentioned in another update that I had to clearance the bracket to caliper area as the opening was insufficient to clear the caliper. No mention was made of this in the kit instructions and it took me a while to find it but there is a GM TSB that details that clearance requirement, .005 to .012", this kit uses GM metric calipers and 10.87" Mopar rotors.

There are a couple of things about the kit I would have done differently and the instructions would have been much more detailed and clear if I had written them.

So if anyone has a 40-54 Mopar, is thinking about the Rusty Hope kit and you have questions, fire away.

I just like the Rusty Hope name. Sounds like something that should come in a can, that you can spray on rusty old cars.

I do have a Rust-eze sticker on the bumper, bought it that way and kept it.

Perfect!

Been awhile since the last update. I only get my son one weekend a month and Covid hit me the last weekend I was supposed to have him, hence the delay.

So this update will show the process of converting to an electric fan setup. Backstory, the original radiator sprung a leak and the price for an aluminum replacement was way less than getting the old one properly restored. So I figured if I wasn't going to spring for the proper restoration of the old radiator I may as well get the much, much less expensive radiator. I wanted a two row core, but that was out of stock and I ended up getting the three row one instead. First up, a pic of the old radiator and the leak is seen.

I really prefer to have a puller fan but the clearance between the water pump shaft and the radiator precludes any single fan. I could have tried to fit up a pair of smaller fans, but I didn't like the CFM ratings of what would work with the room I had. I tried to find a reference for CFM requirements vs HP produced, good luck there. I did find several that gave a CFM recommendation based on cylinder count, useless. Pretty sure a 300 HP 4 banger is going to need more airflow than my 97 hp flathead 6, but that's not how the cylinder count recommendation works out.

After some research and thinking I ended up with a Derale 18217 fan. Designed to work as a pusher or a puller, 1800 cfm on low speed, 2400 on high speed. I did some airflow measurements with the stock fan that I will post up later once I have the numbers for the electric fan.

Some might wonder why I wanted to go with an electric fan. Well Engine Masters did a Dyno Shootout and the type of fan I have took 30+ HP to spin that style of fan at 5000 rpm. My stock flathead put out 97 HP when it was new. That's a big chunk though the EM fan had 6 blades, mine has 4, they ran a shroud, no shroud on my setup and If I ever hit 5000 rpm on my flathead I won't be worried about fan HP loss but rather why my rod put a hole in my block, lol.

Here's a shot of the stock fan setup, my Trusty Assistant is pulling the radiator.

In this shot my Trusty Assistant has pulled the radiator and fan and is reattaching the water pump pulley. I did have him spin the water pump pulley once reattached to ensure there were no issues with the bolts hitting anything. As I explained to him, the bolts will sit a bit deeper without the fan in place and it's a heck of a lot easier to address that now rather than later when everything is in place.

Here we see the poster board being fitted up to test the template. We laid the new radiator atop the poster board to mark out the mounting holes as well as the width, height and shape of the body of the template. We are going to sandwich the mounting plate between the radiator and the radiator yoke, which is why you see mounting studs rather than bolts for the mount.. I do not trust the skinny little nylon mounting things they give you with the fan. They will break and I don't need that.

Here is the template all marked out. We had to shift the fan to the driver's side some to clear the heater fan motor. I really wanted the fan shifted to the passenger side so as to give more access room for the petcock but that was not to be. I can still get to the petcock but it will be somewhat awkward. I might end up using some tubing/pipe to move it somewhere more convenient.

At this point my pulse rate dropped to the upper 40's and I was pooped out so we called it a day, Covid after effects, got to love it. We did get the template transferred to metal and most of it cut out. I decided that I needed a dimple die to take care of some of the excess sheet metal which I didn't have, so this made a decent stopping point anyway. Still have to cut out the big hole for the fan to blow through. The circle shown is the outer diameter, it's about an inch smaller for the inner diameter of the housing. Which will give me a nice clear area to mount the foam rubber weather stripping to seal the fan to the radiator.

One last thing we did do, the timing marks on the stock lower pulley, no balancer on this engine, are extremely faint. So I cleaned them up and Marked TDC (small mark) and 5 BTDC (large mark) so I can see them when I am timing the engine. I need to spray it with clear to keep it readable.

Pace yourself...wife had the vid in Fall 2020 and the fatigue still is felt. Great progress.

Glad you got over covid and are making progress, but don't overdo.

Got the cooling fan swap done, sort of.

I am tired of buying third world junk and paying first world prices for it. I had to buy three toggle switches before I got one to work without a failure of some sort. First one mechanically locked up after one use. Second one, the cheap pot metal threaded part stripped upon installation. Going to go to Aircraft Spruce and buy a good one I guess, would have been much cheaper in the long run. Then the temperature sending switch, not sensor, typical GM type aftermarket switch, never worked. Engine got up to 210 then I just grounded out the switch lead and the fan came on. Toggled on the high speed and it worked fine too. If I hadn't of gotten my haircut the other day I would be bald right now, lol. Anyway, the details.

Yesterday I did all the electrical work. Not much to say other than it was a long tedious day of routing wires, cutting to length, crimping, soldering, heat shrinking and wire looming.

Used two relays to control the low and high speed functions of the Derale fan I am running. The instructions for the fan kind of casually mention that the low speed portion needs to be running before you fire up the high speed side. So here's how it's wired, for now.

Low speed relay has switched 12v provided by the wiring harness I put in a while back, this is hooked to one side of the relay COIL. The ground side of the relay COIL is hooked to the aforementioned (failed out of the box) GM temperature switch. If it worked this switch would have grounded the relay coil when the temperature of the coolant hit 185ish. Seems there is some slop in the the actual turn on temp. In my testing I ended up just jumpering the switch wire and the fan came on, I figured if the temperature switch hadn't come on by 210 it was either never coming on or was useless for what I wanted. Once this relay is energized it takes power from the battery side of the remote starter solenoid, thru a fusible link and 10 ga. wire, and sends it to the fan low speed connection. It also sends 12v to one side of the high speed relay COIL connection. This was the easy way to ensure that the high speed side only came on once the low speed side was running. Since the high speed relay will not have power to it's coil till the low speed side was energized it was a fail safe setup.

High speed relay COIL gets it's ground from a toggle switch on the dash, for now. I plan to put a temperature switch on this relay to automate it's activation. But I will probably keep the toggle as an emergency override as well. Output side is similar to the low speed relay, fusible link, 10 ga. wire to relay, outputs to fan high speed connection. It works as expected. Will not turn on if the low speed relay is off, toggle switch cycles it on and off manually.

Near future plans, I have two new Speedmaster switches coming, from Jegs. One is set to turn on at 185, off at 175, this will control the low speed fan. The other is designed to turn on at 200 and off at 185. this will control the high speed fan. In order to install them I have a water outlet spacer with two ports coming as well. Fortunately, the flathead uses the same water outlet setup as the pre 79 Mopars do, so that was easy, lol. Otherwise I would be doing it myself. The low speed temperature switch will work just like I have it wired right now, on the high speed side I will wire the higher rated temperature switch in parallel to the toggle switch so that either can turn on the high speed side.

The relays were mounted so as to not drill new holes in the core support.