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Messages - Old Man

#46
General Discussion / Re: Vacuum Tank For Sale
July 31, 2014, 04:05:38 PM
bump
#47
I think it depended on what your family did for a living. I'm told the Depression had little effect on my family. My great grandfather had started a fire wood and building supplies company in the small town of Aurora about 50 kms. north of Toronto in the last half of the 1800s. He died in 1903 and my grandfather took over and changed it to coal. My father,born in 1905, joined along with his brother and the town of 2500 only had the one company suppling heating coal and building supplies through out the 'teens ,20s 30s and later. I remember in the 50s watching my father and some other worker putting coal in the public school bunker while I watched during recess. My father told me I should get into either shoes or food as people will always need both and continuously. I didn't though, he told me I was going to be the 1st of the clan to go to college. Which I did and became,eventually, an electronics engineer. But my Dad had the money to send me because by then the business had changed once again to home fuel oil. I now know by bank and business records left after my father died that he was a millionaire during the 60s and the time I went to college. So I expect my grandfather was at least near there in the 20s and 30s. This is not a boast just a story that not everybody felt the Depression. As Dad said, the cobbler and grocer must of done alright regardless. (As I expect school teachers,doctors,dentists,farmers and other essential people did. We didn't have the "Dust Bowl" in Canada that the U.S. midwest did.)           
#48
General Discussion / Re: 1930 U question
July 21, 2014, 10:14:12 AM
As far as I know only the 1932 PB had 2 cowl vents. And they weren't optional. I have seen 30Us over the years that had some parts on them left over from the 1929 U and some parts that would show up on 31 PA,like 19" wheel wires. The '29 parts were the narrow ribbon rad shell and longer '29 hood. The 30U rad shell was much wider than the '28 Q and '29 U and so the '29 U hood had to used to close the space not there because of the narrow '29 U rad shell. (Hope that's clear as mud. LOL) I have never seen a 30 U with a 32 PB cowl BUT anything's possible I guess. It would be 2 models away from it's date of manufacture so I'm doubtful it was like that on day one. No other Plymouth,other than the '32 PB, was to have 2 cowl vents.     
#49
General Discussion / Re: Misc stuff this summer
July 07, 2014, 10:29:05 AM
The 'turbine effect' is the effect of the rotating gears throwing the lubricant out to the walls of the box. I have taken apart several trannies and diffs over to the years and spent a lot of time scraping the old grease off the inside walls. They used to use that kind of stuff back then but thinking has changed and looking at the scan I've included ,Chrysler,which had MUCH better engineering than any others,tried to keep the lubricants as fluid as they could. Even to adding kerosene to dilute it. I have spent many years converting the old lubricants to modern equivalents and I highly recommend you use your original manuals as display material with your vehicle and leave it at that. Right now I'm using SAE 20W-40 API/SN oil in my old stuff. They do not see Winter use so the viscosity will remain at 40 for my use in the Summer. They are the most the modern engine oils you can buy in the world and yes they are detergent. I use anything that's on sale be it Texaco or Shell etc. But I have never had a problem with the detergent removing 80 years of crud and mixing it with the crankcase and blocking oil passages. Most likely because I have had the pans off everything years ago and scraped out anything that had built up on the crankcase walls. And I change the oil every year even though I might put only 200 or 300 miles on the vehicle.  And my 6s have original outboard oil filters on them that I have found the modern equivalent cartridge for so they are changed each year. I add a 'friction modifier' that I like called Prolong made in Alberta even though all Canadian retail oils now state they have a friction modifier added already,even house brands. I HIGHLY recommend you use some make of friction modifier in addition to your oil or trannie/diff lubes. I have determined my engines and trannies/diffs are not wearing. This as I've said is in part because of the quality of the CPDD materials but I have modernized the lubricants and what's in there now is being used in 300+ horsepower engines and 4 wheel drive JEEPs. So I think my engines and drive lines think they have died and gone to heaven. ( I have noticed over the years that we Canadians have different products and nomenclatures up here. We also have better quality gasoline. I suspect because of our adverse temperatures. Our gas is changed every Spring and Fall by the retailers. Our Winter gas has benzene added to it to lighten it up for quicker starts in 0 degree weather. It's then removed to prevent pre-ignition in the Summer. There are other additives in it as well I understand. We don't have the stale gas problem every year the Americans seem to. I never change or drain any gasoline and never have. My old cars and farm equipment start in the Spring just like they were just turned off yesterday. So my point is, some of my comments may be Canadian in nature and not applicable elsewhere. Sorry.)

  ps- When I was in the R.C.A.F. I was responsible for Pratt and Whitney 9 cylinder radial engines of 1340 cubic inches. In the Canadian far north the SHELL SAE 100 aviation oil would solidify in the Winter. You haven't lived until the 1st time you've seen the dry sump pet cock opened on the engine bottom to drain out the last few dregs of hot oil on to the snow, to have it turn to a solid you can pick up in your hand!! So the 9 gallons of oil in the master tank would congeal overnight and there would be no lubrication to be sprayed on the engine parts on the next start. So we had another electrical pump that sprayed raw 80-87 gasoline from the main tanks into the oil sump. Depending on temperature we would hold the spring loaded switch ,on the instrument panel up, for so many minutes while the air cooled engine still ran at 100 C operating temperature. Then we would shut it down. Next morning I would go out and start it up and run it up to 100 C. (Bloody cold work!) Then start timing it to a graph to make sure the gasoline was burnt off. The aircraft was considered to have a 'major snag' and could not be flown until I performed the burn off. It was called 'oil dilution' and is still in use and very necessary in Canada. Very Canadian eh!               
#50
General Discussion / Re: Misc stuff this summer
July 06, 2014, 09:33:31 AM
Don't use 600w. It's far too thick for our trannies and rear ends. The 85W-140 is perfect as the original manuals from Chrysler Plymouth recommended SAE 90 (which is what I have always used). I don't know why the Ford owners would use 600W as it's pretty well 'grease'. Our cars were meant to have a fluid in their driveline parts. I do use an additive called MolySlip G ,the G standing for 'gearbox'. Lucas and others make their additives and I see lots of guys using Lucas and the choice is of course yours but I would use something for easier shifting if nothing else. These Chrysler trannies and rear ends are not like GM and Ford. I know Chev owners who carry a spare axle under the rear seat because Chevs snapped axles before lunch. Our gears are made of chrome nickel inside a cast iron housing. I have taken apart several trannies over the years to replace ball bearing races for the input and output shafts. (It's a wear point in all the CPDD boxes I've seen. The shafts started to wobble after a few years and the seals and bearings needed replacing. After that they appear to never go again. At least not in our lifetime. Maybe better replacement parts now?) But every box I opened appeared to have assembled "the day before". Absolutely no wear on teeth or slop in shaft collars. To put it another way: Have you ever tried to drill a hole through one of your wrenches or ever wondered why they outlast the thousands of nuts and bolts they are used on;it's because of their hardness and forging. They are 'stamped' out of chrome nickel the same as the gears in our CPDD trannies. It's like having a 'box of wrenches' for a tranny or diff. I understand you can snap off a tooth,I don't know how we would at this stage of the game, but you won't wear them out. But 600W would be thrown out to the sides by the 'tubine effect' of the gears,both in the tranny and rear end, and only a very little would be on the gears at any moment. I would stay with the 85W-140 or use the SAE 90 high pressure gear box lube I use and an additive of your choice. This has worked for me for over 35 years.
  ps-I understand GM has really lost their mind now. They are getting away for solid metal gears for their trannies and rear ends and are making the gears out of powder. They take a metal powder and crush it under high pressure to form their gears. It's called 'sintering' and I understand my Pontiac Montana has them and it's scares the hell out of me. I'm told if you are pulling a trailer and jerking the trailer during takeoffs, you can disinegrate one of these sintered gears. Progress?           
#51
General Discussion / Re: Vacuum Gauge Readings
June 24, 2014, 10:02:24 AM
That's what has me confused. How does an engine move it's timing by 180 degrees while it's driving down the road? You're absolutely sure the timing gears up front are OK? That's about the only place a movement of the timing like this could normally take place. Did you not say you were out for a drive and it suddenly did this? And you barely got it home? This,to us out here reading this,does not make any sense. Engines don't do this. But also the position of the distributor is puzzling. The only other thing is the distributor key on the shaft. Is it in good shape? Is the distributor bottoming in it's hole to keep good contact with the camshaft? Is there anything we're missing in the distributor that can slip. I seem to remember part of the distributor shaft is locked to another by a pin. Has the pin sheared and you're being fooled because it's just assumed another position for now and is going to slip again.       
#52
General Discussion / Re: Vacuum Gauge Readings
June 23, 2014, 03:55:51 PM
15 inches and above is good for these old engines. It may go even higher when you adjust idle air bleed. In a perfect world the needle should not move at all but they always jiggle some. Not much you can do. If the spark has not got 'holes' in it and the fuel hasn't got 'holes' in it as well, the jiggling will be valves. But to re and re the valve will be expensive and time consuming and the car won't drive one bit different. Especially since we only use them in warm weather. Been there,done that. Your numbers are perfectly usable and indicate good rings and valves. So I wouldn't worry. You never did say why the engine would never start all that time. 
#53
General Discussion / Re: Distributor Play
June 20, 2014, 09:11:15 AM
This is why engines have timing marks so a timing light can be used to set the firing point on the system while it's running and all the lash is taken up by the forward (backward?) torque of the gears etc. Setting the timing on a stopped engine is difficult because of the slop in the system. I've been known to put paint marks on an old engine on the crankshaft hub to duplicate modern timing marks. These are set mechanically to TDC or whatever your engine runs at ,8 before TDC etc. with out reference to the distributor. Then hook up a modern zenon timing light gun to an external 12 volt battery and don't forget to ground the 12 volt battery to the engine. Hook up the spark plug sensing wire lead from the gun to the #1 spark and start up the engine and idle it. Then watch the timing marks with the gun and rotate the distributor to align the marks. Voila the engine is set to it's real timing point with all it's own unique lash taken up. Don't foget to unhook any vacuum line to a vacuum advance system. (The early Plymouths did not have any.)   
#54
Water will work but ether works better. Spraying starting ether around the intake manifold and the base of the carb will smooth out the engine and speed it up momentarily.
#55
From reading many stories and tales of repair from over the years, I believe some of these misfires can be buried in the valve train. They can be caused by a bouncing valve caused by weak valve springs to a sticking valve because it has worn in the guide and 'falls over' every once in a while and doesn't close properly. Obviously you will never fix this without a complete tear down and rebuild of the valve train. The old guys,older than me LOL, used to be able to listen to an engine and hear if it was a valve. They could listen to the exhaust and tell you if it was a valve or not. I had to rebuild a flat head 6 a while back and was shown by a parts dealer that the valves from my Plymouth had all lost their hardness from heat cycling over the years. He dropped one of my valves from about a metre to a cement floor and it barely rebounded or made any noise. He then took a brand new GM  283 ci V-8 valve and did the same thing. The new valve bounced up and flipped around and sang like a bell. He said that's what a valve with it's hardness still in it should do. I used 12 exhaust valves from a 283 V-8 in my engine instead of searching out NOS Plymouth valves. (Which are available, but he recommends I not use any NOS valves,springs or piston rings. I also used modern 3 1/8" ,4 groove, piston rings with backer springs instead of NOS.) But he also said the new GM valves would last many years longer than NOS Plymouth ones. He thinks the hardening and materials today are better than what NOS ones would have in any case. My point? The valve return springs in your cars are most likely suffering the same fate and losing their spring and taking a 'set'. This could cause the occasional bouncing or sticking as the springs are not strong enough to 'snap' the valve down on it's seat and hold it there. This will sound exactly like a fuel starvation or spark miss to us.         
#56
General Discussion / Vacuum Tank For Sale
June 15, 2014, 01:13:29 PM
Stewart Warner Model 122X Vacuum tank (fuel pump) -I believe I'm the 1st person to open it up in it's 80 odd years. Cork gaskets were still there. It appears to have sat on a shelf for the last several decades. Price is $250 plus the Canada Post postage.   
#57
General Discussion / Re: Exhaust manifold leak
June 12, 2014, 03:09:37 PM
Not sure if I got it right. But wouldn't a second exhaust gasket had cured it or have I got the wrong outlet that was too far away from the block?   
#58
Yes sorry they are wrapped copper. I believe nickel plated originally. I do not know if Canadian and American production brake lines were the same or not. But if I were there I can actually tell by just looking. The line will have a pronounced line down the side of the tube and you can pick it up with a sharp small knife. You can also bend the line sharply and the tube will unfold and wrinkle att he sharp bend. Been there,done that. However I do not see the telltale line in your photo.
  BTW that battery cable is the original day 1 that came with the car in '29. Congratulations you're lucky most have been incorrectly replaced with 12 volt ones that are too thin and give starting problems. That's the original thick 6 volter that I think is even thicker than the 6 volt one you can get today.   
#59
Just a note on the original brake lines. Believe it or not the industry ,or maybe just Chrysler, could not extrude a solid tube of steel for their brake lines. They are wrapped around like you would roll a piece of paper. The sheet of steel they used was thicker at one side and very thin at the other. The thin,knife edge, side is the outside of the brake line. If you want to prove the lines have been replaced with modern ones, cut off a small piece of line where you can reflute it if you have to. Then try and see if you can unwrap the piece. If you can, I would replace all the lines with modern extruded steel.   
#60
It is fibre. Take a magnet ,one of those 'collapsing radio antenna like' ones for retrieving errant parts, and see if it sticks to the gear. I think you'll find it won't. They were all red fibre with teeth cut into the gear by some machine. They were not formed in a die. Anyways I can't tell if the valves are being pushed up at this moment or not. I would have to be there and watch the lifters movement to see when they are closed or open because you can't see the camshaft. So it appears the engine is in mechanical time but I don't see why it hasn't caught and run. I've been thinking about your problem and I really believe these engines will at least run when spark and fuel are within +/-20% of factory spec. It might run "ugly" but it would run. This engine should not be this ticklish. Sorry I'm running out of things to give you. I think we're going to have to start over and take it step by step.