Inliners International Forums General Discussion MOPAR new guy

i'm a newb

1950 plymouth deluxe, 4 door
the motor is a 218 ci flathead,
dual two-barrel carbs, offy intake
dual exhaust (langdon's cast iron)
HEI ignition, 12v with alternator,
about a month or two away from startup
(although im sure it will never be quite finished)

as for the body and chassis,
needs some a little TLC and a paint job
im working on a front disk brake conversion and looking at coil over rear suspension,

will have some pictures soon, just have to dig out the digital camera

the current state...







i believe you can click it for the full size???

Aw, Gilroy, she'll sound sweet!

You going with an OD transmission?

I've never had a mopar flat 6, but could the headers be reversed front to back or is that how they are supposed to be???

yea it should sound great i already picked up a pair a glasspaks an i cant wait to hear it.
im planning to get a T5 but rite now the plan is to just get it running as soon as possible and then i start messin around with a new tranny


the headers are supposed to be that way. (why i dunno maybe to clear the oil pump?)) the 2-3 and the 4-5 cylinder exhaust ports are right next to eachother so in switching them it wouldnt line up. with the front one dumping in the middle i did run into problems with clearing the fuel pump an had to switch my vacuum/fuel pump for a smaller single action one and its still realy close

Gilroy,.....I have glass packs on my 41 Fargo 230,....lots of the " older folks " tell me they remember " that sound "......you won't be disappointed.
Nice photos,........be sure to show us the finished product.
Cheers
Bob.
Vancouvr Island

I will bet this looks backwards to you because you are use to seeing the exhaust and intake on the left side of the motor. On the old MoPars the exhast and intake is on the right.

Hi Graham, you are probably right. I looked at theat thing before I posted, wondering why it was the way it was.

Dear Mr, Graham;

Have you tried them the other way??

That's a lot of heat, to close to the fuel pump. The oil pump is lower, angled down and now (engine out) would be the time to 'double check' it.

If not; you may have to go with an electric one in the rear of the car.

Good luck.

Check out the sound clips from Blueskies '50 Plymouth. He's using Smithy's.
http://www.50plymouth.com/12-sou/sou.html

im going to either cut out some kind of plate to use as a heat shield or get a heat shield to wrap it in, but it is ceramic coated so the heat should be a lot less. if i run into problems ill just block it off an get an electric seeing as im going to run 12 volt anyways. but the headers definitly dont switch from front to back

Okay, just wanted to be sure etc.

Those engines had "vapor loc" problems a lot in the 50 (stock) so I would just plan on a electric one to start with and insulate the fuel line.

This will be a lot safer and look smart too W/O to much extra costs.

Good luck.

Vapor-lock: Fuel vaporizing in the fuel lines, carburetor and/or fuel pump, causing disruption of fuel flow.

I don't remember ever having a vapor lock With a Chevy, or Ford OHV Six, but have experienced it with both flathead V8/6 cylinder Fords and a VW.

I've found that, with an insulating spacer under the carburetor and aluminum foil wrapped around the fuel lines, (that pass anywhere near the engine) the problem ceased on the Fords.

I'd bet that stainless covered fuel hoses would be neater-looking and even be less prone to heat-soak. Routing fuel lines as far away from the engine as possible would surely help, too.

Restricting the exhaust flow through the VW intake manifold heating pipe and insulating the fuel lines prevented vapor lock in my '67 Beetle.

I suspect the heat-riser being inoperative as one reason for excess heat on inline intake manifolds. If it is stuck in the open position, the exhaust will continue to heat the intake even after warm-up. I've never seen a vapor locked engine with a water-heated intake.

I notice that with Flathead MOPARS, the fuel pump is close to the front headers and exhaust pipe. I would think it'd be prudent to make a shield to go between the fuel pump and headers and design it so air from the fan could draw heat away from the pump. I'd insulate the fuel lines, too.

D;

The MOPAR flathead 6 fuel pumps had a shield from the factory but, many were discarded when the pump was changed. During Summer months in the desert areas is where the problem was worst.

He has a set of custom headers that are even closer and why the 'stock' pump or shielding won't work well in his case.

Happy trails.

i have the factory heat shield still but it wasnt designed for the split headers or the different fuel pump. ill endup doing what ever it needs me to, if i endup having vapor lock problems changing to an electric pump wont be a problem and im running the fuel lines myself so i can route them with the possiblity of changing in mind.

pulled the body last weekend, hopefully i can have the frame powdercoated and the body back on pretty quickly and then its off to paint...

Hey guys, I can't get enough of reading about the flathead 6's. I've got a '50 Ply Club Coupe I picked up a couple years ago and have been undecided about what motor to run in it. I bought it less motor/trans so I figured I'd put a v8 in it, but these flatties have got me rethinking that idea.

-Troy

They're certainly different to the mainstream...

The 251 will fit in there with the right mounts, that would give it serious grunt. Then an overdrive gearbox to complete the package.

You can read about what I've done with mine here:
http://www.50plymouth.com, if you haven't already been to the site...

I'm having lots of fun with it, very happy I kept the six.

Pete

I wished I had pulled the body of my '50, it would have been much easier to get the crud off the frame...

Looks like yours is in great shape. Looking forward to the progress pics.

Pete

yeah the car has been in my family since it was brand new and i think my great uncle stopped driving it in the early 60's, (of the pile of old newspapers stored in it, '62 was the oldest date i could find). he passed away before anyone could ask why he stopped driving it but its been inside a barn for at least 40 years so its not in bad shape except for some rats that got into the seats

just dropped the frame off at the powder coat shop today, should have it back in a week or two hopefully....

So i picked up the frame from powdercoat this morning, and everything looks amazing
they baked it for three hours to burn off all the oil and grease,
tanked it, and then sandblasted it.
well worth the money and the extra work to remove the body

Hey, that frame's too pretty to put a body on it! Looking forward to watching your pile of parts grow into a car! Hope you send photos of your progress.

that paint on the frame just makes all my other rusty parts look that much worse, so i definitly have some cleaning to do, which brings up a question,

any recommendations what kind of paint should i put on the springs and sway bar?

i mite cut a little out of the front springs and possibley replace them and the swaybar with new ones, depending on how tired they are, so i didnt want to powdercoat them. but the way theyre looking now i wont put them anywhere near that red paint, so i gotta clean it up with somethin.

as for the rearend i had a ford off a '68 cougar that happened to hav the same bolt pattern and width,
i have it laying about two feet out of the picture past the old mopar rear, (and of course its looking just as dirty )

but i figure the auto-adjusting drums will be easier to work with and buy parts for,
and the gear ratio is pretty close too

so as soon as i get that ford rear under those frame rails the mopar rearend will be up for sale

im in the process of putting back together the front suspension, and a while back i bought the "deluxe" front end rebuild kit from kanter, and im realizing now that there are no bushings for the control arms, did they forget to include these or are they built differently and dont need it for some reason??

correction...
there are none of the larger bushing for where the steering knuckle connects to the control arms, just small little rubber rings

so i have the inners,

and there IS what you mite call bushings on the outer part, but not even close to what the originals were like



im gunna call kanter tomorrow unless someones done this and what i have is how its supposed to look,

Aw,heck. That frame looks so nice you might as well cough up the do-re-me for some chrome on the springs and sway bar!

thatd be nice,
i just havent decided yet if i want to cut the springs, and how much. so maybe sometime down the road, but im gunna get it all together first and see what the ride height looks like and how it handles

i didnt have time to call kanter today, but i messaged blueskies about it,

I got the same rubber "washers" in my rebuild kit from Kanter that you have in your picture above. The new rubber is not the same design as the old.

The rubber is there to keep the dirt out of the eccentric bushing and threaded stud. The original rubber seals had a sort of stepped profile that overlapped the eccentric bushing. The new rubber that is supplied in the kit is just a rubber washer, that is supposed to fit between the face of the eccentric washer and the face of the upper control arm.

I have only installed one side on my car, and was very dissapointed in the new rubber. I don't think it fits worth a ****. I had to get mine put together in one night to get my car on the road to Tulsa the next day, so I didn't have a chance to find anything else.

Not sure if there are any other suppliers of the correct rubber parts or not. If you find something better, let us know!

Pete

well as kanters just going to tell me thats the way the kit is supposed to be, its going back together as it is.

has anyone bought Andy Bernbaum's kit? he's got the king pin bushing package, but the pictures are terrible.

i guess without the larger dust guards the steering knuckles will just have to be checked more often for dirt.

are there any special tools ill need for the front suspension?

so ive run into problems getting the front lower A arm shafts together.

i built a tool for preloaing the bushings but still, when i get the bushings torqued on the shafts are wayy to hard to spin, anythoughts?

i used a piece of threaded rod with bolts on the end to preload it, is there maybe a better way to do this, and how easily are these supposed to spin?