Check this photo. The visor has to go. For one thing I think it's an aluminum "universal" model from J.C.Whitney and the hardware is way too crude. It's hell on gas mileage over about 45 MPH, and this car would go fast enough stock to probably rip it right off the roof.
BTW, the paint was ruined by fumes from a factory, where I used to park it at work. It's been cracking & flaking off for about 25 years; but I had to put the car outside about 10 years ago to make room in the garage for much more valuable stuff, & that really sped up the process Everything on it needs real attention now, but it always did IMHO. See, many small things were done poorly by the original "restorer." For instance the headliner bows were never cleaned & painted, so the rust on them chewed through the cloth they support, allowing the headliner to droop. The upholstery had many shortcomings. The seats weren't re-padded correctly, and the springs started to poke through. The glued on vinyl was glued over rust and dirt in some places, and eventually came loose. Really, this guy never cleaned a lot of hidden places which needed attention. The window fuzz was all replaced, but not using wire staples. He used flat head screws which all loosened and scratched the glass. There was lots of dried mud inside the doors & the door drains were never cleared. The hood lace was Model-A stuff, the fog lights attach only to the tin apron (!) the underdash wiring was a mess. I'd feel a lot worse about it all, but I really didn't pay that much for the car. I could probably sell it today for almost what I paid then (not accounting for inflation.) As far as customizing, I think the roof wants to be removed & replaced with a custom padded top. There's a stress crack right in the crease by the door post & Edith's showing me where to cut her. ;D I've seen how tough it is to chop one of these & make it smooth & I think I'd rather have a removable top anyhow, as we have 300 sunny days a year here.
nice car ,love the striping . please dont cussstomize it . i had one back in the day had split manifold and i painted the road toad on the sides of the front fenders because of the stance. wrist pin went bad in it also but it was a fun old car
I hope those fumes didn't do any harm to your body. A Carson top would look cool. Maybe a fellow H.A.M.Ber can photoshop some ideas for you.
I classify it as a very kool car. Clean it up and drive it. Very nice. Lot's of these late 40's Plymouth's coming out.
Yes, well my Ford owner friends tell me we're scraping the bottom of the barrel Many times I've considered selling it off because of what it is not, more than for what it is. What it's not is prime customizing material & it's even further from being prime hot rod material. Or so I've been told more than once... Anyhow, since it'll never be 100% original, and since I basically consider that it's something yer maiden aunt might have driven back then, and thus it'll never be really cool enough as a mild stocker (even if I was interested in driving this as a stocker) and since I originally bought it to rod more than show, the only option is radical surgery. I want to take huge heavy chunks off of this car and toss them out. I want an engine which makes twice the power & weighs half as much. I want modern electrics. Modern brakes. Good seats. Direct steering. A/C! I got as far as buying a donor car for all that stuff--a Buick Skylark, but there was this divorce which forced me to sell it. Some years after I bought another--a Volare Premier--which would have made an interesting subframe job with the torsion bars being adjustable for ride height--but reduced finances caused me to drive the Volare & sell my other old cars ('59 Ford Pickup & '59 Edsel Ranger coupe) and so Edith just sat & sat until I'd eventually just ignored her for over 2 decades. So what's a mother to do? Anyhow, I've got the bug again. The bug to build another car in a line of cars, all beneficiaries of that bug which my dad planted, when he handed 6 year old me a hand full of dirty bearings and a pan of gasoline and said, "Here, wash these." Anyhow I'm on the lookout for another donor car.
Bring the top down about 2 1/2 inches, mold in the rear fenders, get some radiused wheel openings from a fifties Ford and graft those on to the front wheel wells, and drop it on some wide whites. These cars actually have some pretty decent lines when you give 'em a massage. Look around here a little. There's a nice one happening now with a thread of its own. Posted using the Full Custom H.A.M.B. App!
Ulu, If you like the car, then fix it up however you envision, be it rod or custom and have yourself a nice looking ride. I've been following your thread with interest and would like to see how you fix up your car and I am a Chevy guy who usually makes fun of Mopars more than I make fun of Fords. So follow your heart, not your friends.
My opinion only here. Pull the old engine, and front suspension, paint and detail the engine compartment, frame, trans tunnel. Install new engine, trans, rebuild front suspension. Remove interior, clean up the floors take care of any rust, clean and reuse what you can and make a few new interior pieces. Do the same with the trunk. Paint - CLR it, buff it, remove the visor, remove the bumper guard,remove the skirts. Paint the roof, either a flattened color match or set it off with cream pearl. Set the stance with a forward rake with as much rim and tires as you can get in the rear. Chrome - clean it with coca cola and tin foil. Get it running and driving and go down the road. No offense intended here, but if you cut the top and work on it for a couple years, will it sit around or lose momentum? Is an all out custom build what you want, and do you want to do an all out build on this car?
Don't use rectangular headlights if you decide to customize the front end. They don't fit in with this car's curves and overall roundness.
indyjps makes a very good point: if you bite off more than you can chew your project will grind to a halt...and end up being sold at a huge loss, or getting junked because you've ruined it. When it comes to "following your heart and not your friends" use extreme caution. Just sayin'.
A very good point indeed. In fact, it was the proliferation of competing projects which stalled this one for so long. It was never just a matter of finances either. I managed to buy a house, a boat, a motorcycle and 7 or 8 other cars in that time frame. But I was never in as comfortable a position as I am now, and with the largest of the competing projects to be out of the way soon, I can start planning on this one again in earnest. As far as "ruining" any investment, I have under $5k in this car, and I drove it nearly 5 years & 60,000 miles back in the 1980's. It's not a big economic loss if I just crush it at this point. Yet you see so many bad custom jobs, that ya'll think it would be a pity to butcher up such a complete and solid old antique. It is solid too. (The rust is virtually all superficial.) Well this is not my first rodeo. I was working on cars and bikes before I could drive. At 13 I was involved in my first engine swap. My first car was a junk '66 Ford coupe I rebuilt when I was 16. It was a mild job: no real metalwork except patching a big rust hole & de-chroming the sides & hood. But it was a custom job nonetheless & not to be my last either. I've done 'most every automotive job applicable here except serious machine shop work, but I've done lots of minor machine & fabrication, and was engineer at some nice machine shops and fab shops & ran a prototype shop as well. I can weld with stick, wire, TIG or torch, braze and solder, though I've never put lead on a fender in my life. I've built engines and transmissions and differentials, and busted 100 tires. I do A/C work and electrical, and I can bump out a fender too. Most important in my mind, I was a tool designer and pattern maker. I've done sheet metal layouts & I've been a manufacturing engineer since the 70's and working in structural engineering for some 20 years. So, the mechanics of it all are not such a concern. Coming up with really tasteful and workable re-styling ideas is a big challenge though. I've only seen a few of these cars done as full customs, and I thought most were ugly. I've also seen the irreparable results of some horrible ideas, sitting abandoned in the back corners of junkyards. It's really sad if you love these old things and like to work on them.
Don't crush it. Sell it to someone else and let them have a whack at it if you're not sure. They don't make these any more. No, they may not be the most popular style to build but I think there will be a resurgence of these soon. I feel it gets old seeing the 49-51 Mercs, 49-50 Fords and on and on being done. Great cars, yes but when will it get to the point where they all start to look the same?
Don't be silly! Never! If you're my age, a long time ago, but it's a nice look. Classic Americana. BTW, I never bought this Plymouth because of how it looked. I thought it was good fodder for a radical custom chop job, and it looked like it'd hold a pretty big V8. That was always my intention. Fate had other plans for my time, but now I'm putting things back on track. That doesn't mean you folks will be seeing my project photos anytime soon. There's a lot of planning to do, and after this many years, I've no cause to rush anything. But it's not gonna get sold or crushed, though I might sell parts of it if it appears it might help fund a better engine. Also, there will probably be a donor car purchase involved & I'd like to get a 318/727 or similar if available. The 318 Volare I had was a sweet car once it had the right rear end gears. I wouldn't hesitate to hop one up. I have a lot of research to do. I'm so far behind the current state of the business that I find myself at a consioderable disadvantage.
Maybe I miss read your last post but I was scared for a minute. Posted using the Full Custom H.A.M.B. App!
The second incarnation of my '48 coupe - there have been several - included the swap to a 318 with matching automatic out of a late '60s Dodge Dart. Worked out very well using a 4x4 oil pan and offsetting the engine to the right by a couple of inches for steering box clearance. I had already installed the 9" from a late '60s/early '70s big Ford Galaxy (which I still have and is for sale) which was the perfect size and ratio - and had big drum brakes to boot. I ran this combination for many years and had no reason to change it...but I did for reasons not related to the way the car ran and drove, which was excellent. I think I posted the build info on this swap here on the HAMB some time ago and it might still exist. If so, perhaps it will help you with Edith. Good luck!
Thanks, I'll go look it up. I'll probably keep the stock front suspension (which I rebuilt stock except for lowered coils) BUT R&P steering would be a BIG plus IMO. Dropped spindles with disc brakes would be cool too. Though I have a good stock steering box on it now, the original steering design is a compromise which still leaves lots of room for improvement. Plus I'd hate to push the engine right, when in theory it really wants to go a smidgen left, but that stock box/column seems just in the way of everything unless I stick with an inline engine. Customizing an oil pan or the frame wouldn't be a big deal to me. I'm rather looking forward to that.
The car's got a Mustang II front suspension in it now, but it drove just fine with a mildly lowered stock front suspension and steering. It's necessary to relocate the shock absorbers, but other than that the front end itself works just fine. I cut the front coils to lower it - mine ran a forward rake, not the taildragger look that so many HAMBer seem to prefer - and eventually got dropped spindles and a disc brake conversion. Regardless of what so many well-intentioned people will tell you, the stock Plymouth brakes are not sufficient for modern traffic - especially with modern tires. There's a couple of bolt-on front disc conversion kits available now, and the drums on just about any 9" will work just fine. A simple proportioning valve in the system will give you the ability to tune the balance front to rear for optimum stopping power - and to keep the car from trying to swap ends if the rear brakes lock up first in a panic stop as they often do when a system is pieced together from different donors. Not to fear moving the engine to the right for clearance. Done moderately there is no downside, even with a centered pumpkin. In fact, many full size RWD vans had engines offset to the right to give the driver's feet more room, but they did often use an offset pumpkin. Though unnecessary, swapping in an offset pumpkin in a car originally equipped with a centered pumpkin will work fine, but you'll need to deal with floor and crossmember clearance issues to get it all to fit and work properly. Sounds like you've got a great project going. Reminds me so much of the evolution of my own car. Hopefully I can help you avoid some of the pitfalls I encountered during the buildup of mine.
Thank you Missysdad. I really appreciate all the info. I know how popular the Mustang II suspension is for these cars, but I hate the thought of it because I drove a Mustang II once and absolutely hated that car. LOL Also, the stock steel-bushed suspension is in good condition & I'd replaced all the bushings & pivots & cams. It feels really direct compared to a rubber-bushed one. I hate kingpins though. Very high stress & thus wear, but when they're tight they work. I don't mind cutting sheet metal up but don't really want to chop the frame; except that I would like to narrow the rear, junk the leaf springs, & use a narrow axle with bar links, coil-overs & fatter rear tires. I don't want to tub it, just fatten the stock wells a couple inches. I can get some respectable sized rear tires on it now, but only on the skinny old wheels. If I use 2"wider rear wheels. the axle must get narrow, but I can probably afford to spring for a custom axle setup.
LOL that's the stuff. White lightning in the gas tank, and gasoline in a Clorox bottle on the seat. Actually I was born in Kentucky but the truth is I've only spent about 2 years there, while I've lived in central California almost 40 years now. But I do lean towards a forward rake. So to speak...
Well now that I know a bit more about what's what, I'm going to start another thread to explore some restyling ideas. But I may well decide to keep the body stock. While I've long considered this body style to be ugly because it is notably inferior to the typical prewar car, I have spent quite some time looking through the photos here in a quest for new styling ideas, and now I find it to be more attractive than the typical car of the early postwar period. It's funny how your perspective can change with more data.... ;D
Do what you want with the car, but consider it has history and patina created as you watched. How about sanding body till flat, add flat clear coat, polish chrome in place, Drivetrain of your choice, clean interior or period seat covers and leave the rest of interior alone, wide whites and drive like you stole it.
I'm not sure I understand the attraction of "patina". I understand paint though, and this paint is gonna come off whether I sand it or not. Big chunks are already peeling loose, and there's no way I'd not sand this car to bare metal and repaint it. In any event, there's two issues I can't fight. It's not the original paint and the guy who did the repaint wasn't really good at the prep work. The paint which remains is polluted with residue from an anodizing line, which means caustic soda and aluminum hydroxide. Nasty on the paint.
There's nothing wrong with a love for antiques. I own a few & they do have their charm. With my apologies to the "I love patina" guys, I did some more reading here and on P15/D24, and I now sorta get it. It's a preservationist thing. As engineers we are called upon to evaluate "antique" buildings for safety reasons, and it's dang hard to tell people that the object of their historical pride and devoted affection is really an unsafe eyesore that should be destroyed before anyone gets killed in it, because it'll never be worth the cost to fix it correctly. THIS has been my perception of the car from the time I bought it in '85. It wasn't rare enough to even begin to justify the cost of a real correct restoration. In fact, the majority of "serious" rodders, restorers, & customizers I met wouldn't consider it worth fixing at all. It was born a homely slug and would always be a slug: case closed! Now I didn't give 2 cents for that attitude myownself, but I gave full credence to the pages of Hemmings, and I could buy a restored car any day for far less than the cost to fix this one all perfectly original. In fact, since the car had been repainted, that wouldn't really be possible at all. With all those things in mind I say, "WTH, light the torch & plug in the sawzall!" Any social duty I might feel to preserve an evidently very minor piece of automotive history for some future admirers to enjoy is swamped by the desire to make it fun for me. That doesn't necessarily mean that a spliced frame on a channeled body with gullwings, batwings and 400 cubic inches of exotic Ba-Zing is in my future, but it could be, depending on how I feel about it when I really get to work.
ULU, wasn't meaning to call you out with my post, hopefully it didn't come across that way. My only thought was is this car the one you wanna go all out on,or just drive it and have some fun. If this is the car, let the sparks fly and ideas roll, pancake the hood, bring the front of it down to lose the peak, chop the top with a reverse rake, taller front more out of the rear, look for donor rear 1/4 windows and frames or reshape yours, seems like the car needs more metal behind the 1/4 window, the bulbous trunk lid will be difficlt to work with,take some peak out of it for a fastback look with the reverse rake roof. The grill looks good as is, lose the accessory bar, french the headlights That still leaves the squared off fenders, hmm. Set the stance level, no tail dragger, lose the skirts, see how the wheel arches look, maybe reshaping the arches into a slight teardrop shape will take the boxiness out of the fenders, the teardrop will tie into the fastback lean of the new roof. Simple bumpers tucked in tight, the stock ones look like they'll work.
When I was a kid, my dad had a 47' with a vette 327 in her. We got stationed in Spain & the car went into storage in my gramps basement garage. We came back state side but to the west coast. Well after my parents split up I inherited the car. When we moved back to Cleveland, & I was to get the car, I find out my gramps sold it to a junk yard for 50$. Its a cool ride bro build it & fk anyone who says its not worth anything. If you build her to spank their ride they to will see the worth of her. I say rod her instead of a custom, but thats my opinion.
Not to worry. I'm just curious about how attitudes have changed. When I parked this car some 25 years ago, I sorta dropped out of the whole rod & custom scene & in that time period these cars have become 25 years more rare. I'm dealing with some slight emotional turmoil to think that a car I which brushed off back then has new appeal in the present climate, so to speak. OG Lowrider, from what I'm told. Perhaps in the weeds soon though. What a killer! The local junkyard had a 47 sedan back in the 90's & I offered the guy $100 to let me strip her. He declined then promptly forgot about me. The next time I visited the yard he'd crushed it for the $5 or $10 which a crushed car was worth as metal.
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