10-9-14

Repaired small pitted areas around windshield with metal, filled, sanded and primed.

Removed and cleaned rear brake backing plates and drums from Fury. Unable to identify original donor model as drums don't match any dimensions found in Rock Auto catalog. Looking for Internet help.

Changes

In the past I've tried to make regular entries, provide pictures and text to explain my progress, and sometimes to simply share my thoughts. Since that didn't work very well, I've decided to turn these pages into nothing more than a journal for my personal use. However, it will remain public and if anyone chooses to drop in, they are welcome, but shouldn't expect anything more than a few pictures and notes to myself.

Facing Reality

I began this ’56 Plymouth rebuild blog four years ago with the idea of sharing my frustrations, successes, and learning experiences with others contemplating, or already immersed in a restoration project. Because my car is an oddball make and model there wasn’t a lot in the way of body parts that could be ordered from a catalog, and the people who knew and had experience restoring these cars were few and far between, so the task was intimidating. Boy, was that an underestimation!

What I was unwilling to accept was that we truly live in a belly button world and for every person interested in a ’56 Plymouth there are a hundred thousand sheep enamored with ’57 Chevys. I had hoped to attract readers who wanted to see what else is out there from the glorious fifties besides Tri-five bowties, but apparently there is even a smaller handful of people who fit that description than I thought.

In those four years, despite blog links in my signature on a dozen car and motorsports forums, I’ve managed to attract a grand total of one follower, and while I’m grateful for his interest and loyalty, it’s rather foolish to continue writing for a nearly empty house. I know that some of you drop in periodically, and others stumble in with a web search, but for the most part, there is no interest in either the car or my narrative. Even my letters seeking information and guidance from “recognized Mopar authorities” go unanswered, so I’m pretty much on my own when it comes to research. I can’t even discuss the project on the Forward Look forum, as there is so much ingrained opposition to modifying any part of the original factory design and I’ve discovered that it’s counterproductive to ruffle the feathers of purists. Although it sometimes takes a while, I eventually get the hint.

I think the time has arrived to back out gracefully, with heartfelt thanks to the few who took the time to read my posts, offer suggestions and encouragement, but more importantly just for being an Internet friend with similar interests.

At my age, there is a real possibility that my project may never see the street. However I intend to keep chipping away, and maybe someday I’ll be able to post photos of the old Plymouth under power. If so, it will probably be similar to what a friend used to tell me when he had accomplished something he was proud of, but had been dismissed or ignored by others…”It’s like wetting your pants in a dark suit, you get a warm feeling, but nobody notices”.

It Rolls!

After two and a half years, there are four wheels on the ground again. The front suspension is installed, along with the wheel portion of the disk brake conversion kit. I couldn’t mount the calipers yet as there isn’t enough room inside the 14” roll-around wheels. The 15” Cordoba wheels will cure that, and since it will be a while before brake lines will be installed, there is no reason to mount calipers and expose them to the weather.

 

I had a couple of issues while installing the AAJ brake kit, but nothing that wasn’t easily resolved, and it wasn’t a fault of the kit. The first was very minor as there was an interference fit between the adapter and the spindle casting on the right side that was cured by grinding a small notch in the adapter.

The left side had a different problem as the spacing of the holes to mount the adapters and the steering arm was slightly off from the spindle holes. It was only .02”, but because of the close tolerance, I had to slightly oval the bracket holes to get the bolts in. Although they appear to be original, the spindle castings have several minor but measureable differences, including that hole spacing. Different Chrysler suppliers is my guess.

 

Another minor issue that might be applicable to others installing this kit was the fit of the main castle nut. After tightening, and backing off enough to free the wheel to spin easily, the cotter pin couldn’t be installed. Deepening the notch in the nut by a few thousandths fixed that. So far, the brake kit parts seem to be high quality, precision made and even the smallest parts have been supplied.

I wish I could say something similar about the Kanter supplied, Chinese sourced, front end kit, but it’s a real disappointment. Besides the problems identified in a post several weeks ago, even more surfaced today. The most irritating problem was the threaded bushing dimensional tolerance. The outer threads were not cut accurately and the bushings would bind while being installed in the spindles and control arms, so once again I had to use some of the old bushings in order to make everything work.

The grease seals are cheaply designed; with some being nothing more than glorified garden hose gaskets. They fit loosely and don’t cover the open areas, leaving gaps where dirt can penetrate down into the threads. They will probably be adequate for a fair weather car, but if the kit was to be installed on a daily driver, parts wouldn’t last very long once exposed to a steady diet of dust, water and mud.

The holes for the grease zerks were also not tapped properly and several had to be re-threaded. If it hadn’t been for the hardened grease in the old front end parts, I believe I would have been better off buying only a king pin kit and tie rod ends, but boiling out and using all the old parts along with new zerks and seals. It would have been much cheaper and the quality probably as good. I wonder if American consumers will ever get tired enough of crappy Chinese goods to stage a buyer’s revolt? I know that after I install the last pieces of this Kanter kit, they will be on the receiving end of a very nasty letter.

One final comment on the front end and brake install. Yes, with moderate mechanical skills, a novice can do all the tasks required to rebuild and/or install the parts, but would be hard pressed to do it all without a shop full of professional grade tools. If you don’t have access to the right tools and you had to buy everything required to do the job, you would be much smarter financially to forego ordering tools of unknown quality and save the money to have your local machinist to do the hard parts. That said, the spindle holes that I had the machine shop tap were done with a tap that did a rather poor job of cutting and the bolts would start to bind before going more than three or four threads deep. Fortunately, the tap I had previously ordered finished the job just fine.  

One Step Forward...One Step Back

I thought I had everything needed to assemble the front suspension, but realized the control arm snubbers were not included in the rebuild kit from Kanter. They were part of a kit from another source, and I missed the fact that the one I bought does not have them. I fired off an order to Gary Goers this morning, so Hope he can get to it quickly. I can still assemble most of the suspension and brakes, so it’s not a big deal, but I have to pay better attention when ordering parts.

The trophy shop finally completed the engraved legend plates for the shifter, so one more step is complete. I hooked it up to 12VDC and it looks okay, though I’d still like the numbers to be better. Now I'll box it up for storage until I find a transmission.

 

Got the Belvedere trim holes filled in the quarter panels and applied a few coats of Bondo. I really don’t care to do body work, but unless I want sanding dust in unreachable areas, most of it needs to be done before joining the body and frame. The pictures are blurry, but my cheap camera does that occasionally and I’m sure everyone has seen enough Bondo applied to make that unimportant.

 

Friday 9-19

I decided to farm out some of the work I dislike, mainly because I don't have all the tools needed to make the job easier. One of those tasks was modifying the spindles for the disk brake conversion. I had ordered a 37/64th drill bit to bring the holes that needed threading up to the size needed for the tap. The damn thing wasn't cheap in price, but even though it wasn't stamped Made in China, it sure was cheap in quality! The holes only had to be opened a few hundredths, but despite lots of oil and slow feeding, the bit was dull before I had gone a quarter inch into the cast spindle.

Rather than fight the issue, I decided to take the parts to the local machine shop and spend my time on things that interest me more. Lord knows there no shortage of work to do! The machine shop had no problem tapping the holes, but they wouldn't do the necessary grinding with the king pins installed, as they couldn't mount them in the mill. There was no way I was going to remove anything after the difficulty getting them installed! Oh well, I guess I'll have to do the grinding myself.

I finally figured out how to apply the numbers and letters on the pushbuttons without hand engraving. I bought a set of cheap steel stamps, heated them with a propane torch, and "branded" the end of the Lexan button. It was difficult getting the imprint to align perfectly, but at least they are marked and don't look too bad. Without a doubt, better quality steel stamps would have made a better looking imprint. Now the legend plates must be engraved for the Park lever and a "TorqueFlite" replacement for the "New PowerFlite" plate. The remaining appearance tasks for the shift pod will be bonding a piece of felt to the back of the trim plate to prevent rattles and light leaks, and finally, a paint job. Then I can put it away until I get a shift cable and mock up the remaining shift hardware.

It appears that an embossed aluminum side spear replacement is not going to be found, and even if all the NOS pieces could be found, I wouldn't use them on a faux-Fury. The only alternative I can think of is vinyl so I visited a sign shop to see what they can do. They were very interested in the project and suggested using a gold, brush-finish metallic appearing material, and then try printing thin, non-gloss lines to visually simulate the OEM texture. They had some research to do, so I left the job with them.

The weather forecast looks good for the next week, and my wife is healing and getting around better, so maybe I can get more body work accomplished for the next entry.

Remembering 1956

Too many interruptions to do any work on the car today, but I sat in the garage with a cup of coffee and took a few minutes to reminisce about my first affair with a '56 Plymouth.

I was listening to a radio talk show last week, and they were discussing why everyone believes that music from their generation is always the best. They said it has nothing to do with the technical or artistic quality of the music, but rather which songs you associate with the most enjoyable times of your life, and the nostalgia that music generates. Not sure if that's true, because there wasn't an awful lot about my high school years that I recall as enjoyable.

Anyway, my memories of driving dad's '56 Belvedere include my first girlfriend...cute, brown-eyed, straight-laced, not quite filled out, with a great sense of humor and an addiction to potato chips. I'd borrow dad's car for those special dates, like proms and anything else I could convince him demanded  that I drive something cleaner and classier than my well-used '48 Plymouth to chauffer a young lady wearing a dress with yards of crinoline petty coats and a white sweater. This song was very popular at the time, so it also belongs in those memories, and for what it's worth, I'll put the quality of nearly all the music from my era up against anything ever recorded. The cars and the music were golden and history will remember both long after hip-hop and the generic look-alike cars of today are long gone.

Hot Weather and Other Excuses

Afternoons have just been too hot to work on the body in the non-cooled work bay, and mornings have been taken up by other things, some of which can't be put off or ignored.

My wife entered the hospital for back surgery on Monday and came home Tuesday, so I have to give her recovery priority over my pet projects. Modern surgery techniques are amazing, but she’s limited on what she can do for at least two weeks and I have to keep an eye on her so she doesn't undo what the surgeon did.

I did manage to begin repairing areas that need body filler and the right rear quarter panel is the neediest. There was a small dent that was mostly taken care of when the patch panel was replaced, but I’m not skilled enough...even if I had all the tools...to totally eliminate the damage with metal forming tools, so I hauled out the can of Bondo. Since the right rear is where I eliminated the fuel filler door and welded in a plate, it took a little more work to level the area. However, I hate relying totally on Bondo, so decided to give Eastwood’s lead-free solder product a try.

 

There are a few places with fairly deep pitting in the sheet metal, along with some pinholes, but the surrounding metal is still solid and unbent and the affected areas are too small to require a welded patch. They are mostly located in moisture trapping areas under chrome or stainless trim and they are localized, which makes them the perfect place to attempt repairs with real metal. 

 

Just as required with the Muggy Weld, cleanliness is important to prevent voids. Starting on a small area, I first wire brushed the pitted area, then used a Dremel with a small bur to dig out any remaining contamination. Unlike the mild honey colored flux in the Muggy Weld kit, this kit has a jar of nearly black “tinning butter” to clean the area. It does a better job of preparing the surface, but even it can’t clean well unless visible contamination is physically removed first.  I didn't get a "before" picture of the damage here, but it was similar to the other pictures, just not as much of it. This was my first attempt at tinning.

 

It took some practice, but I managed to get the melted metal fairly smooth with a wooden paddle before it cooled, so there wasn’t a need for a lot of filing and sanding. A small rasp, a file, and a Dremel drum sander were all that was needed to work the soft metal down. There are still a few tiny voids, but I'll fill them with Bondo and try to do better on the next one. I'm sure my tinning skills will be vastly improved by the time I get to the last area needing repair, and then I’ll never need to do it again.

 

 

Got Trim!

Rigidized Metal Corp came through and delivered on schedule the patterned aluminum material I ordered. The stamped pattern is not an exact match for the OEM parts, but it’s close enough as is, and if I make a tool to add an additional line imprint, it would be next to impossible to spot the difference. I’m quite satisfied with what they sent.

I quickly made a rough trim plate for the shifter pod so I could do a quick check of the button alignment and operation before crimping the brass sleeves in place. They all operate smoothly, but I’m not quite satisfied with the alignment of a couple of them. After the modified shifter assembly is finished and the cable is operating properly, I’ll make a couple of new buttons and do some minor realignment in the trim plate.

 

In the last two photos, you can see the latest iteration of the Park lever module in both the park and released positions. The improvements are a rubber pad for the spring to ride on in the released position, and a spring loaded roller to apply a small amount of pressure to the side of the shaft in the engaged position. Both were added to prevent rattles and contribute to smoother movement. The pawl to operate the cable pin has yet to be welded to the shaft, as I want to first verify the correct amount of movement required after I get the bell crank parts attached.

 

 

Not much progress to report on the body work. I did roll it outside so I could grind down the welds and blow a couple weeks of accumulated dust out of the inside and allow me to give the garage floor a thorough cleaning.

I did repair the bullet hole in the roof to test an idea I read somewhere on the Internet. I used a 10p box nail, and it worked very slick! The diameter of the nail head was nearly perfect to fill the hole, and the nail is long enough to easily hold it secure while tacking in place. A quick cut with the grinder and it was ready to go. It sure beats trying to build up a weld or tack in a tiny piece of sheet metal, and now I have learned an easy way to fill all the unused side trim mounting holes.

 

Post Labor Day Update

I’m still waiting for the decorative aluminum I ordered so I can make a trim panel for a functioning mockup of the modified shifter. According to the paperwork they sent, the stamping job was supposed to hit their factory floor by 8-28, so I expect to hear something soon. In the meantime I rebuilt the park lever assembly to closer tolerances, attached it to the shifter pod and made a simple cover for it. No pictures yet.

The body hasn’t been getting much love since before Labor Day, but this morning I did some final welding in areas that had previously been only tacked together. The seams where the ’55 tail panel to the ’56 quarter panels had to be joined needed some backing pieces behind them to make better welds in the old metal and I’m about finished with that. I also installed the final piece of trunk floor that had been held up for quarter panel replacement.

After reassurance from AAJ Brakes that everything was dimensionally correct with the disk brake spindle modifications, I decided to thread the holes to mount the caliper bracket. I should have checked earlier to see if a 37/64^th inch drill bit was available locally, and of course it wasn’t. I might be able to get by with tapping the existing 35/64^th hole, but the last thing I want is a broken or jammed tap trying to remove too much metal, so will wait for the right drill bit to arrive. Amazon says it should be delivered on 9-5, so that part of the project goes back on the shelf for a few more days.

I’ve also been toying with the idea of installing rear disks. I don’t expect to need the added braking capability, but the B-body rear end I installed was missing all the brake parts, so the disk package from AAJ at a bit over $600 wouldn’t be that much more expensive than having to buy a complete drum setup. I thought I had drums in my stash that I could use, but discovered that they are too far gone to be turned one more time. I haven’t checked the drums on the Fury parts car yet, so the decision will likely hinge on their condition.

There was a picture posted from a car show of a '59 Plymouth that had been modified to emulate what a '59 Fury would have looked like if Chrysler had decided to keep the gold trimmed 2-door hardtop as a unique limited model. It was painted '57 Fury Sand Dune white and the result really impressed me. Since my Fury will not be stock, it might look better in the '57 color than in the modern Chrysler Cool Vanilla I had considered. Not that I really care, but it also might be less offensive to purists with perfect restorations if it deviates more clearly from the stock design. Another decision to make!

Here's the '59 with gold grille trim and gold anodized spear insert. I'm anxious to see the interior to see if I can get some ideas there.