Make sure what you have before you start plating if you want the car to remain authentic. The rule of thumb for Plymouths prior to about 1938 is: Interior 'silverware' is nickel plated,exterior is chrome plated. You can tell on a good piece if it's nickel by cleaning with a cream polish and your cloth should go black. Chrome does not come off nearly as much if at all. In fact if you have polished chrome in the last month,nothing really comes off except the dirt/smog. Nickel however will 'bleed' every week. I put a good paint polish like McGuier's TECH 2 on nickel to stop it from oxidizing. You can go through nickel if you polish it too much. (While we're at it: headlight reflectors are silver plated. And it is VERY thin. DO NOT polish with a metal polish. You will go right through to the brass. Seen it done. Clean with a good glass cleaner like SPRAY NINE glass and stainless steel cleaner from NAPA. It will not dissolve any metal platings. Generally speaking rear lamp bucket's interiors on Plymouths and Dodges are not plated. To brighten up the lamp I spray the interior with 'chrome paint'. You can get a really good rattle can of chrome like paint now and it really brightens up the rear lamps. Because it's inside out of the weather it stays pretty well.)     

I know they are on Dodges and suspect they would have been on early Chryslers and DeSotos. I have the configuration/terminal connection up to the end in 1932 and they appear to not change,always 6 terminals. The 1934 PF shows an identical lighting switch diagram but no "hole" in the center for the horn wire. I believe the switch ,like 1933, was on the dash. I don't think Plymouth or any Chrylser vehicle returned to controls for lighting on the steering column? It appears although it looks like CLUM made the switch ,it just "looks" the same from the rear.  (My Chrysler Sebring convertible has more switches on the steering wheel than you can shake a stick at!)

Chet: Wow it a good thing we have an editor. I had mislabelled the 2nd terminal as 2 greens when it should be 2 yellows. I use my own numbers starting at the left side of the car. That's the right side of the drawing. I assumed that Plymouth would assume you would be looking at it from inside the engine compartment not from inside the car. And I just numbered it up from there. So my number 1 terminal would be next to the left fender on a lefthand drive car and next to the engine on a righthand drive car.   

This is the colors of the wires at the different terminals as per original Plymouth doc. The 3rd terminal up on the right side is just a floating tie point for the horn. The green goes to the horn. The 1st terminal,2 greens 1 red, is hot from the 6 volt fuse. One of the greens goes to the other side of the horn. (Grounding terminal 3 with the horn button sounds the horn. It's done with the black wire that goes up the steering column and onto terminal 3.) The 2nd terminal goes to the parking lamp bulbs on both headlights(yellows). The 4th terminal goes to the headlight bulbs,left and right, not sure if high or low beam(reds). The 5th terminal goes to the other headlight bulb filaments,right and left(blacks). Again not sure if high or low beam. It should be obvious with the position of the toggle. The 6th terminal goes to the rear bucket parking lamp filament(black). The rear brake light filament(red) goes through the stop switch(red) and then over to terminal 1. It gets it's 6 volts from there from the green wire which is hot from the fuse. All filaments in the lamps get their grounds at their respective shells/housing. I believe terminal 1 is the main 6 volt supply for the internal switch lighting functions. (In other words remove it and all lights,headlights,brake, parking,and the horn would fail to operate. This one green wire is the master wire to the car's 6 volts. Yes this one thin green wire runs all the headlights and rear parking lamp and when necessary the brake light and the horn. All at the same time!)   

I wonder if you guys actually know that Walt Chrysler was bilingual. His parents came from Chatham Ont. where the family name was Griesler. The Griesler family is considered one of the founding families of Chatham. When his parents emigrated to the U.S. there was some dislike at the time towards Germans so they anglizied their name to Chrysler. But Walt learned German at his mother's knee. I oftened wondered what he would have thought of MB taking over Chrysler Corp. Maybe he wouldn't have minded. Now I don't know about the Ities. (All the previous bio info from Walt's biography 'Life of an American Workman'. There must of been something in the water around then because the Canadian Disney family started to move south over the border also. Elias Disney born in Bluevale Ontario moved down and his 1st child was a Walter as well. I have Disney's just up the road from me. )  p.s.- Many of the early Chrysler vehicle bodies including Plymouth were made in Chatham ,the Chrysler ancestral home,by different body manufacturers. I've often wondered if Walt had something to do with that.

Just don't go by any of those quasi color magazine ads of the era. They are all fanciful ideas of the different artists of what a Plymouth should look like. However they didn't have all those beltline surrounds and window surrounds. At least none that I've ever seen. I've seen a couple of original '29 Canadian sedans and they were just black running gear and colored body with plain double line pin stripping. I understand that at some time in the U.S. your college colors could be put on your roadster but this was rare and only in the U.S. Also there is some talk lately on the net of Chrysler putting ANY color they had in a can in house on any car for $30 just to move the vehicle. Also I know of a Dodge truck series(10 units) that had their company livery put on at the Dodge factory rather than waiting until they reached their destination. BUT unless you know for sure your car mostlikely had one the brown,blue,green or red colors originally,all very dark. (This is why all the cars and trucks appear to be black in old b+w photos. The film stock was monochromatic but the vehicles were all very dark in color. I had an original '31 PA Plymouth that appeared black most of the day. But blue came off on my polishing cloth proving it was Plymouth Radio Blue. It is my understanding that the 1st car that could be ordered from the Big Three in white from an assembly line was the 1953 Cadillac Coupe De Ville.)       

  This should answer some of the questions. The dome light is integral with the light itself. The dash lights are switched by a toggle which I believe is the one on the lower dash lip with the 3 holes,two for mounting and one for the switch stalk. You can see the dome light at the bottom with the switch in it and the dash light toggle up above it in the schematic.  I did notice in some of my documentation that the wiper control valve is always on the lower right dash lip but the dash light switch does not appear until '31 PA. however I don't trust Chrysler as far as I can throw them and I suspect the holes were always there waiting for 1931 to have the switch installed. They did a lot of this in the early cars. (The oval rear window of the '31 PA can be in your late '30U right from the factory.) So I suspect the switch was not installed until '31 PA but the holes were there. The wiper valve was always there beside the holes until '31 PA when it went up on the header board where it remained for several model years. Yes,no,maybe?     

Check for compression. Remove the plugs and DON'T turn on the ignition. Take out the sparkplugs and spin the engine over with the foot starter switch and either put a compression tester on each sparkplug hole or just your finger. ANY compression will blow your finger off the hole. You can also use a piece of hard rubber over the hole instead of your finger. You can push and hold the rubber harder than your finger to gauge if you have any great compression difference in one cylinder.  This sounds ugly but in a more powerful later model car it sounds like you punctured a piston. A stuck valve would not involve oil smoke (I think).     

The gas flooding may be a red herring. These are 'upside down' carbs and the only way gas can be drawn up to the manifiold is by induction. I suspect this is only unfired gas when the ignition quit. As the others are saying I think you're back to the firing order being out. I don't think you ever found the original problem. The main cam drive gear is indeed Bakelite and they were know to strip. They have a metal keyed sleeve that fits inside the Bakelite and they were know to start to slip around inside the Bakelite. They drive both the camshaft anf the distributor and the oil pump. They had a big load on them. My 2 cents.   

We went from basically a very cool Summer almost straight through to Winter it seems again. Have been throwing a couple of logs in the airtight every evening now. They say we're in for another very cold Winter like last year! Ugh! Went through 5 bush cords. Usually only about 3. Have 5th cord coming in this week from wood lot. Last Cruise for the area tomorrow. Looking up travel brochures for our annual trip to Cuba in Nov.
   Wife has had both knees done now. She says you wouldn't know she doesn't have the originals. They were made in England and are stainless steel. Put in in Toronto and Peterborough. She also fell 3 years ago on ice and snapped her upper left leg and that's now a stainless steel 'Stryker screw' from the U.S. doctor said he slid it in beside her bone marrow and screws holding it in place at the knee and hip!!! Her bottom 3 vertebrae were fused with stainless steel clips about 10 years ago. All to do with arthritis. But she says you wouldn't know it by her. Ain't modern medical science wonderful. Good luck Steve.

p.s. Yes she 'rings all the bells' at the airports. But since we're not flying into the U.S. they just 'wand' her all over and say 'have a good trip'. Haven't flown into U.S. in many moons but understand they are VERY strict.         

I have had very good luck,20 years and more, with Coker Commanders in 16".

All Chrysler vehicles had Goodyear Diamond Tread tires for decades. Right from 1924. I don't know when they finally changed but I believe the factory was still installing Diamond Treads up to WWII. Chrysler vehicles were known for their Goodyear Diamond Treads. If you look at any original factory photos of any Chrysler car or truck you'll see Diamond Treads on it. You can see the diamond shape going up the side wall of the tire for a couple of inches. And 99.9% of Chrysler vehicles,Imperials included, came with blackwalls. 

Interesting. Reading between the lines it seems Chrysler had the gauge hooked up to the wrong side of the pump. The later 6s run oil pressure at the same number as the road speed,30 mph/30psi,40mph/40psi,50mph/50psi etc. At first start up they will run 60 psi on cold (room temperature) engines at 50 mph. They idle at 20 psi. I use SAE 40 any manufacturer. I buy by price. They all have to meet the same ASI ratings up here or they can't be sold. Not at retail anyways. We seem to have fewer problems up here in Canada maybe because we have a smaller market and the word gets around fast if there's any problem with any product. Chet,I add a slip coefficient additive called Prolong,have for many years. I had a knock in one of my 6s for 2 or 3 years that I finally got around to and it was on a big end of a rod. I found no damage whatsoever and I just changed the bearing shells and that fixed the knock. I believe that the Prolong saved the day. I highly recommend you use something like it if you're going to muck around with your oil pressure especially on the a slung babbitt motor. I have a friend who has a 1953 Chev truck and says the 5 psi that it runs is the normal oil pressure and he has no worries,so he says. He has had the truck for several years. Maybe we worry too much about our Plymouths. And they have better metals in the block etc. than the off brands. Also Chet you can't compress a liquid. You can only compress a gas. This is why brakes work the way they do. The brake fluid works as a solid when pushed against but goes back to a liquid when the pushing stops. (Pumps ,such as on firertrucks, are pushing the water out at exactly the same rate as they are moving it through the vanes of the impeller. There is no compression. What you see coming out the firefighter's hoses is what is moving through the pump. )           

The Amish mostly live up around New York and Pennsylvania. I have a large community just north of me just west of Fenelon Falls Ont. here in Canada. They migrated from southwestern Ont. a few years back where there is a huge community. They are very good at doing blacksmithing and woodworking. Concerning the wood moisture content. I'm not up on how much a piece of wood should or should not have,percentage wise, but when I first started my van I would come back to find my newly cut pieces warped. I happened to mention it to a older man who had worked at a casket company and he told me I had to seal my work that day or the wood would try to change it's moisture content causing the stress in the wood to change and the resulting warpage. So every time I cut and sanded and shaped a piece of oak or maple etc. I sprayed a light coat of clear polyurethane on it from a rattle can and that stopped the warpage. I did it even if I wasn't quite finished with the piece. When I was sure I WAS finished I brushed on a couple of coats to seal it once and for all. I have been through 98% of the wood construction on my van for some years now and the wood has never warped. That was the answer.     

The Amish make wood spokes for the guys for their old cars. They have never lost the skill because they make their own for those black horse drawn buggies. They're also quite good at making roof bows and other wood pieces for our cars. Do you have an Amish community near by? Where are you?