Projects 1930 Chrysler CJ build (UK) ...

Is there an automotive electric shop, preferably a rebuilder, nearby? Make a template of the bell housing. Take it, the 53 starter, pictures, and maybe a winning smile & couple of pints to the shop & ask them about front wheel drive Chrysler product starters & Nippondenso starters for Toyotas. Maybe you can borrow broken ones from them for trial fitting? Getting the gear right is key, probably trial and error.

I think you are basically breaking new ground, hotrodding-wise, and won't have many people who will have specific answers for you, sorry.

 

You need to find the 1930 or 1931 engine to mate up to that bellhousing/engine mounting system. No other combo will work.

 

Breaking new ground I think is good. IMHO, my main problem is geographical.

Yeah but I think the setup below (thanks Ed) would make it all come together. I just need to find the parts...

 

Open google maps & put in:
Automotive electrical near three bridges west sussex.

Here's a couple worth a phone call perhaps ?

Auto-electrical
145 Buckswood Dr, Crawley RH11 8JB, United Kingdom

All car electrics
6 Silver Birches, Haywards Heath RH16 3PD, United Kingdom

 

Hello all, been up to my eyes in work of late but reserved this weekend to sort out car bits. My girlfriend is 6 months pregnant so any time down the workshop is becoming a rarity! Thanks to drillmastertommy for putting me on to ColinD, I took a trip up the M40 to visit him and solve a few problems that anyone who has read this thread may know about.


I purchased a bellhouse, gearbox and carburettor. I'm told the gearbox was from a 1940's Plymouth Pickup (if anyone could confirm or advise this from the pics below it'd be great).







Also as a no brainer for some people out there but a total mystery to me is what is this symbol? (below)


Plan for me will now be to systematically strip the body off the chassis, research to pros n cons of acid bath dipping, strip the running gear off the chassis, replace with my new bellhouse and fit that starter i had shipped from Cali. I will then need to work out which gearbox would be best, the new 40's Plymouth one i've bought or the 1935 Dodge D2 one that i have already. Thoughts and opinions on tha appreciated greatly!

Hope everyone had a great weekend!

 

Here you are,dud,NP, New Process Gear! I just Googled NP transmissions'!!
http://www.allpar.com/mopar/transmissions/NVG-history.html

 

Genius mate! Sometimes you can't see the wood for the trees and that's one google search I'd neglected to run.

 

Don't tear the car apart yet. Make it run and find out just what work it needs before makeing a pile of parts that you no idea what is good and bad.

 

Thing is there's not really alot to discern from. Its a really simple car really, just a chassis and running gear with the body bolted on top. Its that simplicity that I love in these cars from that period of infancy for the motor manufacture.<O</O
<O</O

I got a good idea of whats good and bad though and my Dad is on hand when I get real confused, even if the previous owner made a real hash of wiring and chopped and carved bits up. I've been advised by the school of Dad to make sure if it comes off i know where it goes. So, i'll document each part, photograph it and strip it.<O</O
<O</O

Next on my list to learn is the complexities of a gearbox. Engines I understand from my days in college with the principle of Suck, Squeeze, Bang, Blow but this thing with gears is new to me, helical gears, spur gears. I always knew they were in there and usally i'd leave it all alone if it runs well but I'm a little older now and well... I wanna know how it works!



</O

 

Having gearbox, starter and motor from the same year range should get you much closer. If you pull the motor to test-mount the transmission you may be happier, despite the 600+ pound weight. Getting it running and gears working outside the car will give you confidence when reinstalling it.

 

I gotta make you right BuiltFerComfort. Poured some diesel down the head this weekend, let it do its *magic*, get the engine turning over while i can get good purchase on it. After that I'll pull it all out and mount it in a cradle while bodywork and chassis is addressed.

Last week I picked up this carb:


What are these Carter BBR1 carbs like? Anything I should look for, pitfalls or problems? Will it serve me well if I tweak the engine up?

Duds

 

Had a 60th birthday bash for my Dad on the weekend, lots of people came including two great engineers who've known my Dad for many a year. By way of motivating me to get my Chrysler fixed up and giving a few of us petrol heads a chance to have a good chat they both brought they're cars...





You might agree, both beautiful cars (even if the Mustang is OT on the HAMB forum) and about 100% better than any new piece of expensive S#%T car that was in the parking lot! If Chris or Brian should see this, thanks guys, really appreciated you motoring down!!

 

After what seems an eternity I'm back at working on the coupe...

The strip down has begun and my oh my what a rusted pig she's turning out to be! I certainly knew I was getting in to something quite labour intensive the day I bought it but its just so relentless! It seems like one nut & bolt in ten wants to play ball! Its now become pretty clear that where nuts have corrodded to something that barely resembles a nut im having to break or drill every fixing out. She's over 80 years old and i know I have to be understanding but its that moment of realisation that i'm going to be here some time that finally dawned on me on Sunday.

Oh well, its my first real project that I'm doing, more or less on my own, and I'm enjoying it.

I've managed to unseize the engine, diesel down the bores worked out well enough, and I started to strip her down fenders/wings first...















If anyone has any tips on getting these pins out the door hinges I'm all ears, they're in there tight as tight. I'm guessing penetration oil heat and patience?!

Duds

 

Good to see you back. Hinge pins are ever a pain. I've seen several ruined through impatience or perhaps they deserved to die.

First try: Freeze up some paper straws full of ice. Heat hinge quite hot & apply ice to pin. Using punch held by pliers, drive pin up from bottom with sledgehammer. Hit hard! A two man job.

Second try: buy disposable cheap drill press. Figure out how to mount it so that it drills through the pin not the hinge - maybe something welded (?) to the stand to attach to the car somehow. A few dozen drill bits later and much back and forth to clear the shavings (amidst endless ribald "in and out" and "hard drilling" jokes) you are done.

 

Frozen straws, never heard of that but i get it, heat to expand the hinge and shrink the pin with ice. I'll definately give it a go! As ever thankful for the benefit of experience

Duds

 

Make sure the straws are paper, or just roll up some office paper. When I saw that trick as a wee lad, the garden-variety straws from the supermarket were waxed paper, now they are all plastic.

 

the carter carbs are simple and effective. Easy to rebuild. Only areas of concern are, the acc pump diaphragm dries out and looses effectiveness, the float wants to be adjusted lower than factory with today's fuel to prevent hot shutdown perculation leading to hard hot starts due to flooding the manifold, and the step up jet wants to have a good vacuum signal. there is a pick up port in the bottom of the carb base that must be aligned with a slot in the carb to maifold gasket. If this doesn't get ist signal, it will be open all the time and will provide an over rich mixture at anything but WOT.

 

And the last thing i wanna do is waste fuel, especially because its so DAMN expensive in the UK. A little early morning rudimentary maths and i found that we pay the equivelent to roughly $8.42 per gallon.

Thanks plym_46 invaluable experience, i was reading another thread: http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=727467 and I think i've said before that i probably wouldn't have bought this car if it hadn't have been for the interent and all its search engine/forum uses!

 

A weekends progress. Stripped the front end down with hood off, rad off, dash out, windscreen out, side lights off and some engine ancillaries removed.

Really struggled with those darn door pins but after some persuasion, heat and penetration oil they gave in with only having to drill one out.

Well here's a few pics to show where I'm up to. Thanks for looking.















Hopefully get some time next weekend to take the tub off. One thing on my mind though is the body number. Is there any information or history to be gained from the above body number?

 

I geared up this weekend to get the body prepped for lifting off the chassis, didnt happen though... not enough hours in the day on saturday and family event on Sunday. Oh well, theres always next weekend.

While persuading the bolts to release from the body/chassis I discovered something I thought a little strange. The tub and floor are mounted on a wooden frame on top of the chassis. Is this the same for all cars of this period?


You can see here where I cut a portion of very rotten floor away which revealed the wooden beam sitting on the chassis rail.

 

Lots of old cars had wood blocks, Chrysler went to rubber a few years after yours was made. I would suggest replacing the wood with hard rubber or more wood - its use is to isolate the body from the frame. Just a guess but the later cars had fewer, rubber body mounts to get better vibration isolation so "think like the car" and see what you want to put there.


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Got a great run at working on the Chrysler today. Finally got the body completely free of the chassis and damn is it ever heavy, wow! Gonna get a few buddies over to help lift it off.



While I was getting ahead I decided to strip down the 218 engine which is a bit of a pig, see the pics...








Pistons look chewed up big time but the bores dont look too damaged. Would anyone know why theres a small 3mm hole in the head centred above the piston nearest the firewall? Is that abnormal? Something for compression testing perhaps?

 

this is a very interesting Thread. One because most people would not take the time to mess with the engine. (At least from where I live.) The motors; Flat head Sixes are all over the place here in the US.( or at least I have four of them laying around.) After reading through this thread , I understand more about how hard it is to build something that didnt come from your part of the world.I have a 29 and a 31 Ply.(Or at least most of it.) both I have not worked on yet. Second because you learn from being patient. U have asked a lot of Qustions and waited for the answers.
I am learning things that I didnt know just reading this thread. I was wanting to put a 354 hemi in my 31. But wanted to build the 29 (What there is of it) to be more cheap to drive. Building it with a flat head six is interesting!! ( it came with a 4 Cly. originally .) Thanks for posting your thoughts. I will be Reading.

 

Actually your pistons don't look bad. These engines have a tendancy to wear out ring grooves and have broken top pistons. Some to the point where the top pf the piston gives up and ring pieces are loosed into the combustion chamber. This comes from spark knock or over reving loose engines and banging the rings into the cylinder ridge. Even with three or more pistons in this conditions the engines will start and run, not much power but smooth as ever. What is your engine number? It should be stamped into the boss on the side of the block above the dynamo, just below the head. Should start with a C, how long is the head?

The hole in the head should be topped with a plug. It allows you to insert a piece of wire and the wire rides up and down with the piston allowing you to find TDC for a good static timing starting point. 1 and 6 are both up at the some time, so you when you detirmine 1 is on its compression stroke, you then insert you dist and do your static set up. It also allows for a quick way to measure stroke to easily confirm engine displacement.

 

This could be a really great car..... I see it as a great big Model A ;-)

I can see that you want to keep it Mopar and an I6 but you're going to be paying more in air freight than parts.... and you're going to be paying a lot for parts (and wrong parts too). It might be possible to hop up the original engine and running gear in So Cal but I don't think it is realistically doable in Blighty. You'll need to work with what you can get here.

Cheapest way to keep it I6 Mopar is find a 2WD 4 litre petrol Jeep Cherokee from the mid 90's. You can get one with an MOT for less than a £1000. Or a 4WD and put a 2wd gearbox on it. You'll get everything you need if you buy a whole running car..

Another option is to find an accident damaged BMW 5 series and use that lovely smooth six - lots of kit cars in the UK are doing this now so there's no problem running them on carbs if you want to.

Repair the chassis and box where necessary. Fit a new Model A front cross member and go Ford front axle, spring and Ford brakes and other Ford running gear too. This is the UK and all that period Ford stuff is available from the likes of Langy's Rod Shop. Get it touch with Steve Lang and talk it through with him - he can fabricate anything you're not confident with.

BTW - roof needs a 4" chop and could probably be filled using a bonnet skin from a Mondeo or similar or section from an estate car roof. You'll need to get into the breakers yard with a tape measure and a template.

 

putting a 33 inch long engine in a space designed for a 25 inch long one is going to present some unique problems. You might be pleasently suprised at the availability of mopar engine parts. They are found in a lot of things besides cars and trucks. Air port tugs, aux power units, compressors, welders, pumps, plus a lot of military equipment. I would investigate the local availability of parts before thinking of shipping stuff from the US. But do check the Vintage Power Wagon site for prices part numbers etc.

 

Best thing I ever did was join this forum, as well as p15 d24 and AACA forum. I often wonder whether it gets peoples heckles up that I ask alot of, what would seem to many, as obvious questions. Reality is, i'm learning on the job and love the challenge it provides and the advice i've received has been invaluable. Gotta say, life would be easier if I lived in the US for sourcing parts but you'd be suprised what has found its way over the pond. I even sourced a 1940 Plymouth 218 from a great guy over here recently, just negotiating terms... fingers crossed my girlfriend will wrap it and put it under the Christmas Tree.

I have a 218ci P24 out of a 1953 Plymouth Belvedere and its a US 23" one. Thanks for the info on the hole in the head, now i think about it, it seems like such a good idea for setting up the engine, easier than pulling a spark plug for the same result. I took a picture up close earlier...

Thanks for the ideas blackjack, that's what's great about these forums, everyones got an opinion. While I agree that my car could be great I dont share the modern twist you allude to. I think I prefer the more traditional approach and yeah, i know I have a engine from the 50's in a 30's car but I still think flathead all the way. If I have problems with the straight 6 then I'd look to a Ford V8 24 stud perhaps but never something from the 90's, just not my own personal taste is all. One other thing I'd like to ask, what is better about the Ford front axle and traverse leaf spring suspension? I dont understand how that is superior to existing twin parallel leaf suspension system I have already, ideas?

 

V8 Ford Flathead would be nice too if you can get one. Plenty of parts availability in the UK. The suggestion of an 80's/90's powerplant was purely on price, availability and convenience. Don't forget the Jag DOHC engine - around since 1949 and looks beautifully traditional wearing a 2 or 4 SU carbs.

I suggested switching to a Ford transverse beam axle simply because of the parts availability in the UK and the ease of uprating brakes, springs and dampers. If you have the skills or access to people with skills then I'm sure the same could be done with the original set up - just not as easily.

I'm building a Model T Modified with a 57 Pontiac engine here in the UK. It is a lot more difficult than building an SBC powered car. Your power plant is rarer still and whilst it all may be a breeze sourcing off piste parts in So-Cal where you can go back and swap non-fitting parts I can confirm it's much more difficult to do that from here.

 

Another weekend off work...

Everyone is busy Christmas shopping so I hid in the garage, its the location of choice in the consumer nightmare month of December.

Task was to strip the remaining ancillaries off the 218, unbolt the block from the bellhouse, pull the block out then take out the bellhouse. All of this had to be done without an engine lift, one thing I dont have, I've got a rig to mount it on, just nothing to make my life easier getting it out. Remarkably nearly every bolt was loose, i didn't skin my knuckles AT ALL!

Initially I assumed I could unbolt the block from the bellhouse and lift the block out, I was woefully in the wrong. The flywheel impeded the movement to come away without lowering the engine right down below the inner wall of the bellhouse. This I did not want to do because the further down it is, the higher I have to lift it back up without a jack underneath it. I'm sure some of you have obvious alternatives to what I did but I was just getting on.

So I made a ramshackle jig to hold the engine while I whipped the bellhouse out to take the strain off my back lifting the chunk of iron/block.


For those that have read the entirety of my posts, you'll know that the bellhouse was the original 1930 CJ bellhouse which was never able to accomodate the starter against the 50's block. It was finally time to drop it out, and drop out it did.

To my surprise, once I unbolted the bellhouse from the chassis mounts the chassis mounts fell off... I just didnt expect them to drop, does that make me naive? I had no idea the bellhouse would be held, in part, by compression. I understand the theory that the vibration is limited through the rubbers but I still laughed when they hit the deck.




A little bit brute force and ignorance and that engine was out and I'm another step on the restoration road.




So, next weekend off is the 22nd December, might throw a Christmas party, invite some people round and coerce them into the garage to pull the body off!

Until then I got tidying up to do...

 

Its official, I'm the proud owner of alot of bits... rusty bits.

The body is now off and the chassis is exposed, happy days. Only took two young guys and two old farts. Strange thing is I watched a program on the tele box the other day and it looked like two chaps can easily lift the tub of a same era Ford Coupe?! This thing was an absolute monster!

Pre lift...


After the lift...










Now would be a good time for people to point out any glaring errors or forseeable problems I face now that we're down to the bare bones! One thing I've noticed is that it appears something has been cut off and I'm not sure what it did, see pic below...



This is on the outside of the chassis, hidden by the "skirt" over the chassis. On the opposite side of this is where the rubbers are attached to the inside of the chassis to receive the bellhouse. Anyone got any thoughts? Looks like whoever cut a part of it off made a real mess... annoying.

Plenty to be getting on with over Christmas then!