Hello, Engine People,
I'm beginning to 'get around to' one of our pet projects, which has been 'dormant' awhile.
A few years ago, we found a nice original, low-mileage, well-preserved '34 Ply sedan, and my partner Tricia just 'fell in love' with it. You can probably guess my opinion of the original low-compression 201 engine, tho.
I managed to find, by some nice dumb luck, a new-old-stock 1943-ish military Dodge engine, which had been donated...in the cosmolene...to a high school automotive class after the war. The kids took it all apart, to be sure, but fortunately didn't lose any critical pieces.
The 1943-ish date is purely a guess, and might be wrong. I'm guessing '43 to '45 production as the block has the milled surface with two little studs for mounting the oil filler tube, like a M37, but has head studs rather than using the later style head bolts, as the M37 engines....or at least those I've seen....used. The milled serial number flat is blank, so thats no help.
Does anyone have any info about these military engines by casting/forging numbers on the block and crank? Does anyone have the info as to whether the military engine cam-timing is the same as civilian truck specs?
The obvious problem is the starter position on the '34 bell-housing. Its just been too many years since I was working on these for me to remember some of the fine-point details, and I'd appreciate any help I can get.
The really best adaptation, I realise, would be to modify the '34 cross-member by cutting out the centre, and fitting the centre section from a '35-'38 cross-member, to use a '35-'38 bell-housing, gearbox, etc.
To avoid doing that amount of cut/fit/weld work, I'm thinking of keeping the '34 bell-housing and modifying the starter. Does anyone remember doing this successfully?
I think I remember just milling a flat on the starter housing, down to paper-thinness, and grinding a corresponding flat spot only about 1/32" deep on the block, at which point the '34 starter will fit and function normally....does that sound right to you?
And...if its alright to be asking any number of questions here.....I'd like to build up a nice gentle, smooth, reliable 'road engine', with some subtle improvements, and would ask the opinions of those who have been doing up these old 230's.....
So far, I've found a '57-'59 Dodge passenger head, which adds a little bit of compression....how much can safely be milled from those, in your experience, and what comp ratio has worked well for you?
I've found a mid '50's manifold set, with the slightly larger bore single carbie....I'm thinking of running this set for now, just splitting the exhaust.
I don't like to use much more than 3500-ish on the road, and have the impression that going to dual carbies/headers just aren't all that cost-effective if you aren't running much over that level of revs. Likewise, I'm thinking that I may as well stay with the original cam-timing....What's been your experience?
Does anyone have a spare Mallory dual-point dist for the 230 that they'd consider selling? (I realise that the original coil/dist will do alright up to 3500, but....well....I've always fitted Mallory equipment to the engines I did up, years ago, and never had to worry about ignition problems....the Mallory reliability is 'cheap at the price'....or, at least, was, when we could get the Mallory parts 'off the shelf'....
cheers
Carla
