1939 Plymouth Coupe P8

[earthman]

Enjoying your progress Chris. Thanks for posting.

 

[1952B3b23]

Enjoying your progress Chris. Thanks for posting.

Thanks. I'm trying like hell to get this thing back up and driving.

 

[1952B3b23]

I made some decent progress this past weekend. I made a new set of battery cables, got my re-wire job 95% complete, finished putting together the entire front suspension, finished the brand new brake lines, and new fuel lines. Nothing is really to picture worthy but i'm really glad the lines are done with. That's by far the part i like the least. Soon i'll be able to run the engine.

-Chris

 

[Torchie]

"Some decent progress" I'll say so.[cl
Keep at it.
Torchie

 

[1952B3b23]

So i made a little bit more progress over the past few weeks. Awhile back i had bought some 2" lowering blocks for my car from Butch's Cool Stuff. I decided i wanted to install these finally, so i undid the spring U-bolts and installed each block. Every thing went pretty smoothly until i was done and had the car back on the ground. I was crawling around underneath it and noticed that one of the lowering blocks cracked in half while i was tightening down the U-bolts! I wasn't too happy about this so i decided that i needed to pull the block out and make a new one. Well once i disassembled the rear again i then realized that both shackles where totally shot, and i had tons of excess play in the rear end. At this point i realized i opened up a can of worms, since it was already open there was no turning back, i had to fix it right. In the end it was worth it...

I spent the next couple days taking the leaf springs out. That turned out to be one hell of a fight. I ended up cutting the passenger side out so i could remove the bolt that attaches the front spring eye to the frame. The driver side shackle bushing that passes through the frame mount would not come out (FYI, this bushing is LEFT HAND THREAD). I needed to use the oxy-acetylene torches to heat up the mount to get the thing to budge. This led to having to drop the gas tank, i was scared i would blow myself up. Good thing i did cause the tank had a crack in it on the top. So after a lot of cussing, penetrating oil, and the torches, my leaf springs where out. This entire time i was crossing my fingers that i could get replacement spring packs made since i had to butcher the old ones to get them out.

This turned out to be a blessing in disguise cause i got to fix a bunch of problems that i now dont have to deal with for a long time. I called up St. Louis Spring and ordered two new leaf spring packs. I brought my gas tank over to a local guy who repairs radiators, he sealed up the crack and pressure checked it. I ordered some 2"x 2" aluminum stock from McMaster so that i could make new lowering blocks. I also converted the shackles that i am using from the "Silent U Type" to the kind in the attached picture. I really had no choice because the passenger side bushing frame mount was badly worn. Since the gas tank was out of the way i was able to tidy up some wiring going over to the fuel sender and tail lights.

Sorry for the long winded post. I haven't updated the thread cause i was busy working on the car.

-Chris

 

[Torchie]

Ah yes. It's those "Little" jobs.[ddd
Looking good now Chris.[cl [P [P
Torchie

 

[bob w]

Never liked those cast lowering blocks. You should be much happier with all the improvements you made.

 

[smallfoot]

Sometimes repairs tend to snowball, but you're doing it right by fixing it all now.[cl

 

[1952B3b23]

Thanks guys. The little jobs can definitely take on a life of their own. It was like when i removed the front springs to cut a coil off. Well i ended up having to rebuild the front suspension At least i'll feel a lot safer going down the road now, and the car should drive A LOT better than it did.

Yea, I'm not a big fan of the cast lowering blocks either. The clearance hole in the bottom of the block for the leaf spring bolt is way oversized and to deep. This adds a big stress concentration. Combining that with a non-grade A casting will cause the block to crack. I also didn't like the fact that they were supposed to be 2" tall and when i measured they where only 1-3/4".

-Chris

 

[DJ3100]

Good information, I never dreamed one of those cast lowering blocks could break.

Getting all those problems ironed out at this stage leads to more fun driving later. Nice work.

 

[1952B3b23]

I had some good luck Wednesday night. I fired up the engine for the first time in almost 2 years. I ran into a little trouble with the carb that i had on the engine. It was flooding the engine immediately without me ever touching the gas pedal. I took it off and looked in the intake and there was a 1/2" of gas pooled up in there. So i cleaned up the gas and swapped it to another Carter Ball and Ball i had laying around. It fired right up on the first go. I was pretty happy, it only ran for a very short time cause i dont have my radiator hooked up yet. I cant wait to drive again.



-Chris

 

[smallfoot]

Probably just some trash in the float valve on the carb but little victories are still victories. good to hear it runs huh?

 

[earthman]

peace of mind hearing the motor running again

 

[1952B3b23]

Yea it was definitely a good thing hearing it run. I had to have a celebratory beer for that one

I'll have to sort that second carb out so i can install it on my Nicson dual carb manifold when the time comes.

-Chris

 

[Torchie]

Congrats on the engine fire up Chris.[cl [cl [cl
I apparently am not as fortunate.[ddd
Torchie

 

[1952B3b23]

Congrats on the engine fire up Chris.[cl [cl [cl
I apparently am not as fortunate.[ddd
Torchie

Thanks Torchie. Hopefully your luck changes and she fires up!

-Chris

 

[1952B3b23]

Hey Guys,

I've been thrashing away on the car for the past two months and i got a ton of work done. What i didn't do was a good job of updating this thread and taking pictures of my progress. The last time i was updating this i rebuilt the rear suspension, new leaf springs and shackles, plus 2" lowering blocks. After doing that i moved onto patching up the lower rear quarters behind the passenger and drivers sides. At that point i had a car with no gaping holes in the sides, and it was looking much better. I then tackled re-assembling the front sheet metal. That was a bit of a PIA because i had to relocate the mounting holes for the front fenders on the cowl. All of that had rotted away over the years so i had to patch both sides. Once that was done i finished up connecting the last bits of wiring and making new battery cables. I also got my gas tank repaired as well as the original radiator.

Then came the fun part, i got to fire up the engine for the first time with it sitting between the frame rails. At this point i had a car that could move under its own power. So i took it for a couple of spins around the block, boy was i happy. Until i realized both of the front brake wheel cylinders where leaking, i had just rebuilt them two years prior. So i sourced some new ones and re-bled/ adjusted them. I was back to cruising around the block. With all the mechanical stuff basically sorted out, I got this crazy idea that i was tired of looking at the previous owners ugly two tone black and battleship grey paint job.

So here i go walking next door to the neighbor who just so happens to own a body shop. I start talking with him about how i want to paint my car and it doesn't need to be fancy or pristine since the car at this point still needs lots of body work. He looks at me and says, "Why don't you try painting it?". Ughhhh, okay what the hell i'll give it a shot. I had never painted anything before other than small stuff with a rattle can. So he ordered me some hot rod satin black paint and told me what to do to prep the car. So i literally spent from 9 am Friday*morning till 2 am Saturday*morning preparing. I scuffed the old paint with 400 grit paper then back over it all with red scotch-brite pads. That was the easy part, the taping of everything took FOREVER! Once that was done i wiped the car down with paint prep and then a tack rag to pick up any little debris. The neighbor came over Saturday morning and showed me how to mix the paint and how to use my new harbor freight HVLP spray gun. After 5 mins of showing me how to use the gun i half ass got it and set off painting the car.The paint job is far from perfect and still has tons of imperfections simply because the car still needs lots of body work. For my first time it came out decent and it was overall an enjoyable experience.

Before painting the car i put a set of lester whitewalls and got a front end alignment. During the alignment i learned i need*to either adjust or rebuild my steering box. Thats something i'll have to tackle this winter. For now it drives pretty decent and ive done some cruising, even had her up to 55 mph which was a little sketchy with the loose steering box.

Sorry for the really long post but i've been busy these couple months. If theres any questions feel free to ask.

-Chris*

 

[1952B3b23]

Heres a few pics of me broken down on the side of the road. The thermostat housing gasket sprung a leak! At least it was a nice night to be broken down, not to hot and no rain.

-Chris

 

[DJ3100]

Wow, congrats on getting it driving and on the first paint job. [cl[cl[cl

I get annoyed at fixing stuff I already fixed, but everything will probably last longer when the car gets driven regularly.

 

[Torchie]

Congratulations and good for you on your first paint job.
It still amazes me that people that can build a car from scratch get all wonky over doing a paint job. That's my favorite part.
Love the lesters too.
Torchie