1948 Plymouth Special Deluxe (p15)

Chet's Old Plymouths

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Sunday  April 22, 2007

I was able to take a couple of days off from the day job and put some time into the 48.

  • I picked up two good original rims from a fellow on eBay.  Sandblasted the rims along with the remaining inner front wheel wells.  I now have 5 excellent rims and about an equal amount of bent, broken, and generally unusable rims.

  • I thought the final assembly of the car would go quicker but the devil is in the details.   I continued working on the Dash and the wiring.  I am installing new wires where needed and using the existing wiring which is good or can easily be repaired with shrink wrap

 

  • Since my car didn't originally have signal lights I am running new wiring to accommodate a new turn signal assembly with four way flashers.

  • I am also splitting out the circuits and installing a fuse block on the drivers side wall right below the main wiring harness.   The purpose of my restoration is not for a show car but rather I am building a reliable driver.

  • Circuit breakdown is as follows:  ckt 1 - Ignition, brake and headlamps, ckt 2 - Signal lamps and 4 way flasher,  ckt 3 - Cigarette lighter, ckt 4 - Heater blower motor, ckt 5&6 - Are yet to be determined.

  • I am running additional grounding wires to most lamps and accessories. 

 

  
 

  • Ground continuity is extremely important especially in a 6 vdc system.  I found out first hand how true that statement is.

  • As you can see in the picture to the right I bolted a ground wire directly to the rear signal lamp assembly.  I thought that this would give me a solid ground.  Opps..

  • The bulb housing is connected to the mounting bracket via pressed tabs at the bottom.  It appears corrosion and rust between these two metal parts makes for a poor connection.  Even with the ground wire attached to the bracket when I squeezed the bracket to assemble the lamp into the car the light would go out. 

  • I resolved the problem by running a copper wire from the ground bolt directly to the lamp holder.

  • I used pigtails purchased from Napa to retrofit the existing single element holders into duel element lamp holders.  They worked perfectly after I remounted the wires into the proper orientation.   Brake & running lights are nice & bright.