More from Down Under (the car)

Once the car was off the jack stands and all the weight sitting on the suspension, I re-measured the driveshaft space and decided I needed to shorten the shaft 1-3/4". I found a local truck repair shop that will do the work, and was told it wouldn't take more than a day or two once the Spicer U-joints I specified arrive. Should be sometime next week.

The transmission was next. I installed the speed sensor and made up a cable for it and the neutral start switch. However, the transmission shop didn't replace the neutral switch and I discovered that the  nut won't come off. It just spins, so apparently the threads are stripped at the terminal base and I can't see if the bad threads are on the terminal or the nut. Even grabbing the nut and pulling as I try to re-engage the threads doesn't work, so I guess I'll have to order a new switch..
As usual, nothing is as simple as you might expect. Apparently Chrysler changed switch designs in '67, and my transmission is a '66 so I have to order the $65 single terminal version instead of the $13 three terminal part used on later transmissions. Oh well!

The rod connecting the console shifter to the transmission shift arm is my next opportunity. I dug through a box of shift and throttle rods and found a combination of parts that should work, but I'll have to cut and weld two rods together and that looks doable.

I got the neoprene flaps pop-riveted to the shields and mounted to the inner fenders. Not sure they will be needed on blacktop roads in fair weather, but they are installed anyway.

Still playing around with the emergency brake cables, and discovered another problem to resolve if I can find the patience to work on it! I think I'll play around with my wheel alignment tool first and forget the damn e-brakes for a while!

Beneath the Belly of the Beast!

While waiting for parts to arrive, and the car is still sitting on jack stands, I’ve been working on some tasks that require crawling under the car. My age and arthritis really show up when I work on my back!
First thing I did was search through my driveshaft collection to find the closest to my needs. The one from the ’66 B-body that donated the engine and transmission looked like the best option. I removed the old U-joints and after a couple hours of scraping off decades of mud and grease it looked quite nice.

The way the car sits, it appears I’ll have to shorten the shaft by 1” to 1-1/2”, but to get an accurate dimension I’ll have to set the car on the floor so the suspension is loaded when I measure.  I haven’t found a nearby shop to cut the shaft yet, as the one we had locally moved or went out of business. I hope I don't have to send it out.

The small splash shields that fit at the bottom of the inner fenders were next. One side was missing on the project car and one on the Fury donor, but fortunately I ended up with a matched pair. The donor car part was badly rusted, but it served as a pattern to make a new one. Today I finished cleaning and painting both and now they need to dry before I can make new neoprene flaps to replace the damaged and missing rubberized-fabric originals.

I’m still working on the intermediate e-brake cable and really want to finish that pain-in-the ass job! Maybe next weekend.

Here’s a blurry picture of the fans and shroud installed. Once again, my crappy camera went out of focus by itself so I’ll have to play with settings until I can get some better-quality shots.

Ooops!

Finally got a chance to troubleshoot the parking brakes problem of the lever in the wheel not moving enough to apply the brakes. I was the dummy and should have caught it while putting the parts together. Since I didn't have the cables at the time, I failed to check the lever movement to see if it moved the shoe. It seems that the park brake struts were for 10" brakes, not the 11" ones I needed. New struts on order. Shame on me!

Got the radiator and fans installed and the transmission lines attached. Pictures later.

Back-burner News

The car has indeed been on the back burner for a couple of weeks. Between weather, visitors, dog-sitting, home repairs and honey-do’s, I’ve not accomplished much restoring.

It’s funny how the smallest things can be the most annoying and time consuming to resolve. I wanted to terminate the transmission cooler lines at the radiator and needed two tubing nuts since the Champion aluminum radiator has male connections. I had the male version and thought it would be simple to find the others at any auto parts store, but no one locally stocked any for 5/16” tubing.

O’Reilly found four in one of their stores in Oklahoma City, and the counter guy here said he would order them and that it would take two days. Two days later, I went to pick them up, and though the request had been sent, the parts were never packed for shipment, so the local store re-ordered them for overnight shipment. Two days later, their computer showed them on a truck that was due in a couple of hours.  They didn’t show up on that truck, so the store located four more in a different city and ordered from them. Two days later, the parts from both sources arrived.

It took over a week to get my parts, and I made four twenty-mile round trips! If I had ordered online, they would have cost half the price O’Reilly charged, plus they would have arrived on about the same day and I wouldn’t have had to drive eighty miles. The result is that the local store knows I’m not happy with them and they now have a twenty-year supply of Mopar-only 5/16” tube nuts!

I did finish fabricating a shroud for the two SPAL fans, and here’s a picture of the parts getting a fit check. They clear, but not by much. The info I found said a shroud was probably necessary with two nine -inch fans and suggested at least a half-inch spacing from the fins to permit drawing from a larger area. I still have to do  little trimming and then paint it.

Still having a problem with the parking brake. For some unknown reason, the park brake levers inside the wheels will not move the required distance to apply the shoe. They make a click when they get to a certain point, so apparently they are hitting something inside and not visible. All the brake parts in the wheels were obtained and installed individually, so something is installed incorrectly, or I have a wrong part. I'll have to disassemble and check everything. Oh well, one step forward and two steps back!

Cooling and Braking

Yesterday I rebuilt the emergency brake cables and the crimping operation went reasonably well. The hardest part was removing the stainless-steel stops without damaging the wire cable while saving enough length to re-crimp. I used a Dremel with a narrow cutting wheel, but I’m getting to the point where I don’t trust my hands for precise work anymore. Lucky I guess...everything survived.

This crimper did the job, but it's not top quality by any means. The manufacturer included several seals and gaskets with the kit, so they must expect problems  and are covering their butts.

The cable rebuilds required removing the longer, heavier return spring from the long cable, and installing it in place of the lighter spring on the short cable used on the left side. The long donor cable will now being used as the front cable attached to the e-brake foot pedal. Once I secure the front and rear cables into their mounting brackets, I can determine what size intermediate cable I’ll have to buy.

The lower shock bolt I ordered from Mancini arrived today and I got the hole in the shock plate re-sized for the new bolt. If I can avoid distractions tomorrow, I might be able to finish the shock installation as well as install the brake cable mounting bracket, attach the gas tank wire and hoses and touch up the bottom side paint scrapes. It would be nice to complete all the mechanical and electrical tasks on the rear-half of the car so I can get back to the front and try out my wheel alignment tool.

Now that all the belts and pulleys are in place, I ordered two high performance Spal 9” curved blade fans for cooling.  I had hoped to use a single large diameter fan, either electric or stock 7-blade with a clutch.
Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough clearance between the 4-core radiator and the water pump pulley for either option, despite the numerous low-profile fans on the market. The combined CFM rating of the two nines is about the same as a single 14”.

Designing and fabricating a fan shroud might prove to be interesting!

1956 Plymouth Fury-Great YouTube Video

What a beautiful restoration! I can't begin to imagine the patience, the labor, and the cost of his car. It makes my project look so crude and imperfect, but it also looks like a car I'd be terrified to drive on the highway for fear of it being damaged in any way.

My shock absorber project has both good and bad news to report. The extensions fit fine and the left side shock is installed. The right is attached at the top, but the stud on the shock plate is too short! If I recall correctly, the pair came from the same car, but the right stud measures 1/4" shorter than the left and will not work with the shock. Fortunately, the stud is not welded in place, so I can bolt on a new one. Mancini has new replacements in stock for a little over eighteen dollars plus shipping, and that sure beats buying used parts that now cost over a hundred dollars a pair!

Thanks to my lack of forethought when I placed the gas tank, installing the upper bolt on the right side was a real pain. Had I installed the tank an inch more to the left it would have been simple, but the nut was close enough to touch the tank strap and in the cramped area it was nearly impossible to get started. Once the nut engaged, everything went well.

It was also difficult to find a good position to take a clear picture of the installed extensions.

When it Rains it Pours

Lots of things underway, but nothing of importance finished. The daily rains continue unabated, and my gauge has registered over Five inches in the past week! The yard has standing water everywhere and the grass is growing like jungle bamboo. The ten-day forecast predicts that intermittent storms will continue through the middle of May, so if it ever does dry out, it will take days to catch up with delayed yard work.

Here’s all that’s happening with the car.

The metal for the homemade shock extensions arrived and I’ve been trying to determine the best bracket design to use. I would have preferred switching to a longer shock that would bolt in, but I had to give up the search. The closest length I could find were those for a Toyota 4-wheel drive truck, but they were too heavy duty for my use, and still two inches short at full extension. I don’t like the five-inch brackets but will use them for now. After the car hits the road I may decide to create a different mounting method.

This is the best extension design I've tried so far and will paint and install them this weekend. Both sides will be identical, so they are easy to make. Angles will be installed and welded after parts are fitted to the frame.

I've also changed my mind about modifying the e-brake cables. I was leery of having the mechanic experiment attaching a barrel stop on my parts, so I invested in a tool that will crimp the aluminum barrel-stops I found in Lowe’s fencing department. Not sure if it will do the job but will give it a try after I finish mounting the rear shocks. At least I’ll be the one to blame if it goes wrong.

The hydraulic crimper is Chinese made, so I might regret doing the job myself, but we’ll see.

The e-brake cable bracket is done and will be bolted to the left spring shackle support.

I did finish reconfiguring the belt drives and everything fits much better now. Belt adjustment has improved and the entire mounting method is significantly sturdier. I’ll need to buy different belts, but overall the design should be much better than my first idea.  

Sleep Walk

In the summer of 1966 and I was a young man working in Seattle for the generous wage of two dollars, forty-nine and-a-half cents an hour. It was twice what I had been earning in my most recent construction job, and ten times that of my Air Force pay before that. One Friday, with the big check in my pocket I joined a few friends at a local honky-tonk. I don’t recall the name of the band, but as the evening wore on, I became more and more in awe of the guy playing lead guitar. He looked to be only a few years older than me, maybe thirty, but he played like a master.


I finally consumed enough beer to approach and talk to him during one of their breaks. I told him how much I enjoyed his skills with the guitar. He thanked me politely and we visited until it was time to play the next set. He was a friendly and pleasant conversationalist. During our short conversation he told me his name, though it meant nothing to me at the time, and he didn’t elaborate. I also learned he was a local guy from the town of Puyallup, a half-hour down the valley.


Later the next week, I was telling a friend about this fantastic guitarist playing at the tavern across the street from the airplane factory. He laughed when I told him the guy’s name, and he informed me that Nokie Edwards was the lead guitarist for the Ventures. Of course, I had heard of the group and loved their music, but the names of individual band members never really interested me enough to follow them, and the band he was playing with that night was not the Ventures. Nevertheless, the fact that I had spent a short time conversing with such a talented musician helped me appreciate his performances even more as the years passed.


Thirty-some years later I saw Nokie Edwards again…his name was embroidered on his somewhat gaudy Ventures jacket…but this time we were both having dinner at a Puyallup eatery and he didn’t have a guitar...and we didn't get to talk.


Yesterday, I read on the Internet that last fall he had died of complications following hip surgery in Yuma. He was 82, and the world lost yet another rare talent. It seems like only yesterday that we were both young men sharing long forgotten thoughts in a dumpy beer hall, by the airplane factory in Seattle.

RIP, Nokie. I’m just glad your music will live on.

Still Here...

...but progress is negligible again.


I had to lay vinyl floor tiles and finish shelving in my wife’s art studio, so nothing much happened on the car in the past week or so. One evening storm with cat-1 hurricane winds and heavy rain didn’t help my disposition either! No serious damage, but lots of cleanup.


 I spent most of the weekend getting some of my wife's art supplies moved in and put away. I did sneak away for a couple of hours on Saturday  to order more e-brake parts, heavier metal stock for shock absorber extenders, plus a few odds and ends parts from on-line suppliers.


 Everything I ordered is scheduled to arrive by the end of the week, so hopefully I’ll get back to the car by next weekend…unless the puppy takes up all my time. Some friends left their two Pomeranians with us to dog-sit for two weeks while they take a business trip to Australia, and the ten-weeks-old puppy has chosen me as his interim guardian. Unless he is in my lap or underfoot, he cries constantly, so he may demand more of my time than the Plymouth!


I’ve been studying my accessory drive belt configuration, and I’m tempted to modify it for increased reliability. I picked up a heavy cast iron alternator bracket and I’d like to use it as the base to reconfigure the layout…or maybe not. It depends on how much the existing configuration keeps nagging at me whenever I stop to look! The constant desire to improve something already finished is one of my major failings, and often it is not needed. The car is not intended to be driven hard, so it should be fine as-is, but I know I can do better!


I also dug through my driveshaft collection and found one that looks like it can be modified rather easily. It only needs to be shortened about two inches, so I’ll drag it out and clean it up so I can take it to the driveline specialists the next time I’m headed that direction.

Rear Shock Mount Plan

I'm still playing around with the rear shock absorber issue, but I'm leaning toward resolving it with what you see in these sketches.
I can't find shocks long enough to use without moving the mount locations, so the lower sketch would be the easiest to accomplish, and probably the least expensive. If I purchased aftermarket mounts that fit on top of the axle housing, I could use the KYB shocks I already have, but I would have to weld the mounts in place, and the mounts barely fit between the U-bolts. That means the bolts would have to be removed to allow room to weld, and I'm not at all comfortable welding heavy materials.

The position of the shocks with the revised upper mount location changes the center of gravity  somewhat, but I don't think it would make a noticeable handling or ride difference unless driven hard. That said, I'd like to hear your comments.