Projects 1956 Desoto Fireflite Sportsman... Custom?

The wife and kids ended up staying in town so I didnt get to do much. I built some wooden wheel cribs and drained the oil, and thats about it.
I do have a question for you hemi guys... Is it easier to get the trans off the engine while its still in the car? I'd like to just pull the engine because of how little space I have in front of the car in the shop. I cant roll it out of the shop because it drops down into the grass so Im stuck with the space I have. Ive read some threads about how much of a pain in the ass the torque converter bolts are to get out. And I was thinking It might make it a little easier to work on while I lay under the car. I have the shop manual but it has no pics or specific instructions.

 

8 nutted studs, takes a loong wrench to reach. If you have a lift....

 

I’ve never had a car up this high in the air so I went a little overkill with the wheel cribs. Lumber is crazy expensive right now ($10 for a 2x4 8ft) so I used what I had laying around. I think I could put a tank on them. The first 2 courses are 3 4x4's, and the next 2 are 3 2x4's all tied together with glue and timber bolts.

I was able to get at the converter bolts really easily with the car up. I hung the box end of a 5/8 wrench on the bolt and hit it with a dead blow to break them loose. They came out pretty easy, getting all 8 off only took about 15 minutes.

Finally got the engine out to start cleaning it up.

There was a solid 2 inches of dirt and gravel on the bellhousing, I thought a lot of it was the structure until i pryed against it. I'm pulling the trans today so I can get the drivetrain sorted. Shouldnt take much, it ran good before so I think it just needs some cleaning and resealing.

 

I built some hyper-beefy wheel cribs like that to do my '57 and now I use them all the time for all kinds of shit. Po-boy hoist, it's a bit of hassle to get it up and down but if it's going to be in the air for a while it's fantastic, particularly for fitting body panels and other things that require the car to have the weight on the wheels. Nice to see this still coming along.

 

I knocked out a little bit more last weekend. The bellhousing has a few stress fractures, probably from the motor mounts being broken.

The second picture is how much crap came off of the trans after I got it out. There was 2X that while it was in the car.
Started tearing down the engine too, had a pretty good helper.

There is some ring ridge, I havnt measured it. Is there like a max that could just be removed before the cylinder needs to be bored? The cylinders look fine, no crosshatch is left but they there isnt damage.
Everything is HEAVILY coated in carbon so this will be a little more involved than I was thinking but its no big deal.

 

I havnt put it on the stand yet because I need to get the right length bolts but is it ok to mount the fixture at the marked holes?

It lines up well there, the hub on the crank gets in the way on the lower holes and I dont want to put too many washers. But I've never done this before so I dont know.

 

For the upper arms, yes. I would attach the lower arms in the lower holes myself, if possible.

 

Been a while so I thought I'd throw an update. Mostly just more disassembly. I finally got around to pulling the windshield and back glass out and pulling most of the trim off. This caught me off guard.
There's a seam that runs under the the trim on the quarter panels. After I saw this I decided I need to just poke around and see how much rust there really is. I got to experience the the tar removal from the floors. I'm looking forward to never doing it again.

Found quite a bit and I haven't checked everywhere yet. Whatever, it's steel and it can be fixed. To be honest I'll have the time since it will take me a while to save up for the engine rebuild parts.
For the rear quarters, having the seam might actually work out pretty good. I think I'll just drill out all the spot welds and pull the whole quarter off. Should make it easier to work on. LOTS of rust repair to do under there.

I'm going to try and find a good deal on square tubing and build a body cart like this: https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum...-cart-dolly-for-frame-off-restoration.209590/
Should make repairs a LOT easier being able to get under it.

 

get your engine stand figured out?

 

I apologize. I have not read all the posts to know if your wheel well opening situation has been finalized.

These cars have nicely styled wheel openings in my opinion.
https://insider.hagerty.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Volvo240-3.jpg
They have got me fantasizing about transplants onto several cars over the years. In part probably because I have a few donors sitting at the edge of the field.g

 

Ya, I got the stand figured out a while back. Engine is disassembled.

Cylinders look great, just a very slight ring ridge. The lifters were cupped a little, oil pump pickup was all the way clogged, and there was a solid 1/2 inch of sludge in the pan. No metal shavings though. Cam looks ok, all the bearings looked fine. Once I can afford the rebuild parts I'll take the block to get cleaned up. I don't want to pull this beast more than once!
Built a new workbench and shelves. Had to figure out a way to store the ridiculous amount of chrome and 500lbs of motor parts. Lol.

Speaking of chrome, I think i'm going to delete everything but the window/door trim. I really like the look of this 56 https://www.instagram.com/paint_and_body_by_chris/ . It emphasizes the body lines IMO.

 

After pouring over what seems like 100's of pics I'm thinking about keeping the stock wheel opening and just lowering them about 1.5in. I did a test with some cardboard and it was still easy to get the wheel off. That may change after I get the quarters off though. The lips around the wheel openings are REALLY rough so I'll be making them basically from scratch.

 

Yeah its got a Hemi!

Fun to read this build.

 

I am the previous owner of this car. If there are any questions regarding the history or the originality of the car please feel free to ask me.

 

Welcome to the HAMB! I'm sure the current owner will have a bunch of detailed questions, some that might be better handled by private message (that little envelope Icon at the top of the page), but if you want to give a brief history of it's time under your care go ahead.

 

I purchased the car back in 2017. It had been sitting for many years so I got the car running and driving. Didn’t do any major projects on the car, just drove it and enjoyed it. I found an original steering wheel out of a 1956 DeSoto Adventurer to replace the original one. I just painted the gold plastic black so it would match the original. I also fixed one of the exhaust manifolds as it was cracked and installed new a new exhaust system. I ended up replacing the radiator after the original one sprung a leak.

 

I like it. Would like to have something like that.

 

Very cool car. Hope it hasn’t become one of the zillions taken apart and given up on.