Hot Rods 51 Plymouth Questions & Build Plan

Shes up and running!!!

Here's a vid:


And a few pics:









I've still gotta get the e-brake adjusted right, get the carb linkage finished correctly, and get the exhaust set up.

What do you think!

 

Hey guys,

Just throwing out a quick update to you.
Car has been at the exhaust shop
(American Muffler in San Diego, CA)
getting the pipes installed.

I went with Lake Pipes from SpeedwayMotors.com,
70" length, and 2" OD.

Shop did an excellent job installing everything, taking into account the car is going 3" lower, so it's all tucked up nice.

Sorry for some crappy cell phone pics, but what do you think?











Haven't heard her run yet, picking it up this afternoon.
I just swung by at lunch to check it out.

 

guaranteed you are gonna like the way it sounds...man you are kicking ass on this project

 

Yo got another update for you guys.
I had the car towed over to Tony & Abe at San Diego Rod & Custom
in El Cajon, and they did a great job setting up the carb linkage and dialing in the carbs. I'll post some pics of the linkage setup tonight. The car fires right up and runs awesome!

I'll have some video up later tonight so you can hear it!

 

Hey guys,
Sorry it's been awhile since I've posted an update on here.
I think some of you were following my build on my 51 Plymouth.

Theres been a lesson learned here....DO NOT EVER BUY A "REBUILT" ENGINE OFF OF CRAIGSLIST. Bottom line, I'm an idiot.

Well I got everything up and running strong, and put about 50 miles on the new engine with no problems.
Then last Saturday, I was cruising on the freeway to work, going about 55mph, and a knock developed. I was almost to my exit and got off the freeway. As I came to the exit and back down to idle, the knock got progressively louder and worse. It stopped with a clunk and the engine died. Smoke was pouring out of the hood and into the cab.

So I pushed her around the corner, and opened up the hood...didn't look good. Something blew up good and oil was EVERYWHERE.

I've had it towed over to my buddies at San Diego Rod & Custom (www.sandiegorodandcustom.com, I run their website ), and they're gonna take a look. I'm expecting pretty bad news, probably threw a rod.

So, do you guys want to help me with options on engine/trans swaps?
I'm thinking for cost-effectiveness probably a SBC swap with a floor shift manual. Any ideas, comments?

I'll keep you updated as this develops. I'm definitely hanging onto the car though, she's a keeper.

-Evan

 

Might be putting something bigger in my panel just for more horsepower and so that I can tow a trailer...I will pm you

 

That sucks bad man really sorry to hear that do you still have the stock motor?

 

Nope. Another bad decision. I didn't have room so I sold the stock engine right after I pulled it.

Oh well, I'm still young and stupid I guess...
gotta learn my lessons somehow.

 

From what I know about those cars a sbc can be a tight fit around the steering on the driver side a 318-360 mopar is a bit better a 250 chevy 6 will fit nicely but I have seen them with baby hemi's too the easiest would probably be the 250 or the 318 you might want to try to keep you ear to the street for another flathead 6 they usaly are good motors and its a direct bolt in.

 

hey man congrats on your learning experiences!
I have a 52 plym, that I did a whole drive train swap on a couple years ago. I went with a 225 (+.040), 904 (3spd auto) and a B body axle with 3:23s because I wanted to keep it all mopar. It was incredibly cheap (aprox $2000 for everything front to back) as far as building mopars go, and its better than bullet proof (and its 'strange').
I have a build that I can direct you to if you want to got this route.

This is my personal opinion: At this point I am sick to death of seeing small block chevys. Its boring already. Sure they are cheap as dirt, and do amazing things for relatively nothing. Don't get me wrong, I have a lot of respect and appreciation for them, but IS IT STILL 'CUSTOM' IF EVERYONE HAS ONE AND THEY ALL LOOK AND SOUND LIKE EVERYONE ELSES??
the cons of my slant six build were these:
-I had to take a chunk out of the frame underneath the radiator for the oil pan
-move the radiator to the outside of the radiator support because the eng is about 5in longer than the flattie
-which in turn meant moding the hoodlatch support
-and also had to recess a section of the passenger side of the firewall.
Incidently I ditched both my inner fenders because they were both horridly rotten, but if wanted to keep yours, you would have to get the alternator relocation bracket that puts it were the power steering pump would go.
As far as I can tell the biggest pitfall with the /6 + Stock inner fender set up is: I believe with the angle of the engine, and the the position of the stock passenger inner fender, the only way to get at the sparkplugs, distributor, oil filter, fuel pump, is from under the the car. Luckily the passenger side inner fender is a two piece deal so one could adjust the valves on the flattie w/out taking the mannifolds off, but mine were so rusted and covered with shit, that I was never able to actually seperate them.

So, having said that, how 'bout a baby hemi? (a more direct bolt in than enything else), or maybe a early 49-57 Olds Rocket?, or early Cad?

cheers!

 

Dont feel bad if anybody here hasnt had that same feeling, is because it just hasnt happened yet. Not a happy time but dont let it get you down, that car is still a good one and worth another attempt at a motor. Maybe another 6 cyl or V8 will show up. Back intheday we used to give up on projects that had bumps in the road , but not many here on the web let that happen.Gads maybe a mopar HEMI 6 will turn up?

 

i put a sbc chevy in my 51 plymouth. feel free to pm me with any questions. i have owned 3 51-52 plymouths. putting the sbc in was the best thing i could have done. i get the same gas milage and have gobs of power.

 

Now why would you go and put a chevy in it ?? You would not put a 318 or a 360 in a chevy would you. put a 318 or 360 in it and keep with all mopar.

 

I'm considering pretty much any option.
I really don't know what way to go yet.

SBC's are just cheap, available, and reliable...which after being out a TON of money from this engine mess sounds pretty attractive right now.

 

Well you might notice the car up for sale in the HAMB Classifieds. I definitely don't have my heart set on selling it, but I figured I'd see what offers were out there while I'm looking into engine options.
I might be kind of burned out on this project, not sure yet.

Open to trades as well. I dunno what I'm gonna do.

 

I bought a "rebuilt" flattie for my Plymouth fastback off Craigslist too. It's at the machine shop being re-rebuilt, right now. Happens to everybody sooner or later. And the seller's idea of "rebuilt" is usually different that the buyer's.

Have you heard what the damage was with that motor yet?

 

Ok got another update here
Finally gettin rollin on this thing again. Its up in the classifieds, I would sell for the right offer, or trade for another running daily driver -reliable car.
However, I went and spent the evening with my Tony & Abe at San Diego Rod and Custom (www.sandiegorodandcustom.com I run their website ) and I'm getting excited about her again.

We're looking at swapping in a nicely rebuilt 350sbc, still deciding on trans, with a new axle. I know the SBC swap is not the popular kid on the block, but as far as price, availability, and reliability go, its one of my only options.

So if any of you guys got trade or cash offers get em to me soon because otherwise I'm diving back in to this thing! It's a beautiful car, and pretty damn cool too, so I gotta get it back on the road.

 

Sorry forgot to respond to you Tragic.
I don't know what the exact problem is yet. If I keep it I'll be ditching the whole driveline anyways so at this point I don't really care. It will turn over though without making any bad noises, so I'm not really sure. It blew quite a bit of oil around the engine bay for sure though, and I'm still not sure where that came from.

I'll definitely do a post-mortem writeup when the engine is pulled just so everybody can get some sleep haha

 

I suggest that you think twice and do a tiny bit of detective work before you decide to deep six that engine. It might not be as bad as you think.

Here's why: I believe that you stated that you had good oil pressure right up thru the end. IOW you never lost oil pressure. That's good, because it implies that the lower end is OK.

There are two weak points on these engines. They tend to lose connecting rod bearings if the bottom end and oiling system is not right. The other is that they tend to destroy pistons.

This is what I think happened to your engine. I think you lost a piston.

The issue is that the aluminum pistons on these motors is not the best alloy for the job. Hey, back then many cars still had cast-iron pistons. They were still learning.

What happens is that the ring lands start to pound out, making the slot that the rings fit into wider and wider. Over time, the widening slots get to the point where the top ring and ring lands come apart. You get an awful knock and plenty of smoke. Sound familiar?

When they rebuilt your motor, they probably used a ring land scraper to remove the carbon that would prevent the new rings from fitting properly in the grooves. It is easy to remove some aluminum, too.

So you get new rings that are scraping pretty well on honed cylinders, creating plenty of drag on the rings, and now the ring is slamming up and down against the ring lands, already a little too big and made bigger during rebuild.

I'll bet that if you do a compression check that one cylinder, probably number 2, has no compression.

Repair is easy. Just drop the pan, pull the head, and replace the bad piston and rings. You will probably want to hone lightly while you are at it. It is not a big deal to hone the cylinders with the motor in the car; this was common practice back in the day and engines would even be bored oversize with the motor and crankshaft in situ.

You can also replace all 6 pistons with new ones if need be. But this will be a lot cheaper and easier than swapping in any V8. Don't forget that with the swap, there will still be things to dial in. Before you abandon the car, be true to the nice work you have done so far, and fix those pistons!!!

 

Plym,
Thanks for the great reply. Thats pretty informative and I think you're probably right on what happened.
Honestly though, I'm pretty burned out on that six. It looks like I'll be keeping the car, and if so, I'll be dumping the engine for a small block swap.

I think with the route I want to go with the car I'd rather have some more power out of it anyways.

I will try to do some detective work on what happened before the engine is sold off so we can put rest what caused all of this in the first place!

 

Hey
i did a small block and a fatman kit on my 50 plymmie convert although i am happy with the resuts it was expensive!!!! i used the old stuff on my wifes 51 wagon 2 yeears later its great if i were you i would rebuild the 6 properly and find a o/d unit!
the wagon gets 20 mpg on the hiway .and use the suspension triks posted if ihad it to over i would have left my stock stuff in my convert

 

I think this is great advice and probably right on the mark...maybe we'll work out that trade or maybe you'll have a change of heart and dig into the 6

 

Thanks for the input guys.
I'm pretty set on the 350 swap if I keep it.
I know in the long run I'd be happier with more power, and its probably what I would end up doing anyways. I'll try my best to get some more info on the outcome of this six, but I suspect you guys are right on the piston issue. I'll try and do a comp test before pulling it.

 

If my chassis wasn't shot I would have put in a Mopar engine in my 53. I'm all for Chevy engines . They are cheep , easy to find parts for no matter where you are in the U.S and reliable. I do however feel with these mopar chassis it would have been an easier swap with very little fabrication. This just my opinion. I'm no one of those guys saying keep it Mopar.....Hell if you can figure out a cheep ,easy way to put a Honda V-Tec in it I would be happy for ya. In short I don't care what engine you put in it. I just want to give you my thoughts on it. Just build it, build it safe and have fun driving the wheels off of it.
P.S Check out one of our fellow H.A.M.B members website. He's done a great job with his swap. I've must of read it 20 or more times.
http://shadowmtkustomz.blogspot.com/

 

If you were to do this swap 'today', I agree that some sort of MoPar motor would be nice.

But is you were to do this swap back in the day, it would have been with a SBC. That's why they are so popular and, yes, overdone. Because they were good and because everyone had one.

Just as this '51 first went thru a metamorphosis with flathead speed parts (like it would have gotten in the late fifties), the logical next step would be a SBC (because that is what it would have gotten in the early to mid sixties.

Been there, done that.

But I probably would deck out that SBC with perod accessories. No billet. Four bolt valve covers. An oil fill tube on the intake. Probably even a generator (or an early GM alt). Cadlillac generators look bitchin', IMHO, and they are a good way to retro-up your engine compartment.

 

yeah dont worry about it, gotta get it runnin, can,t go wrong with the chevy, I put one in my first rod [but then they were rare] You want it to run good and now you cant be fooling with the right or wrong choice, just go with the one thats most likely to work, and not break the bank.

 

Ok quick update.
The car is getting a 350/T350 combo.
new driveshaft and axle.

All the old stuff is going.
Speed parts are already sold, but the whole engine/trans/2 driveshafts, and axle are all available for the best offer.
Need to get rid of them immediately.

I'll start a new thread soon about the engine swap.

 

ouch. sorry to see the ole flattie go...

 

gas guage-------- i had this on my 51 plymouth. check the grounds as the other user mentioned. I did this on mine too. I also removed and disassembled the fuel level sender from the fuel tank...this was real real real easy. i noticed there is a small spring on the fuel send lever that was broken. i had this fixed....real easy. then i inspected and reexpoxied the cork float. after i did this my fuel guage worked perfect and stable.

ps------- i had to replace my guage because the fuel level needle in the guage broke off from going back and forth constantly over the course of a month or so,,,,so be sure to fix this quick otherwise you will be fixing the sender and opening the dash up and replacing the fuel guage too...........with one that doesnt match your others like i had to do!!!!!!! good luck.

 

...sorry to see the sbc coming...