Bob Severin drove his '41 Plymouth home today......it seems to run rather nicely, if I do say so myself.
It took very nearly a years's time to go through it, un-do all the bad work/missing/wrong parts, etc., and get it together correctly......most of that time, of course, was waiting for parts to be correctly re-machined by outside vendors, waiting for correct parts to be shipped by suppliers after sending back the wrong ones, and suchlike amusements.....down to details like being able to find a set of extremely rare new-old-stock .012 undersize main bearings, so that I didn't have to use feathered shim stock under .010 shells.
(amongst other errors, the alleged rebuilder who first worked on the '41 engine ground the mains .002 farther down than the correct .010. At one time, the bearing shells were available as a factory servuce part in .001, .002, and .012 under, as well as the usual .010 and .020 which were the common rebuild parts, and supplied by Federal Mogul, Johnson Bronze, and suchlike suppliers.)
Some of the other interesting aspects of this '41 project involved having to make up a set of throttle linkage from three partial sets, one which had been on the '41 but had parts lost, one bought on ebay, and one from a salvaged '41 Dodge engine........and having to make a bit of clutch linkage 'from scratch' so to speak, as the original had been lost.
It really does take a good bit of time to go through an engine correctly and ensure that all of its little details are fitted up exactly per the works manual.......
cheers
Carla
Congrats for getting the car back together. It's always more difficult when following bad work. The owner should be very pleased!
Good work, Carla. There is a definite satisfaction in making a job right, and this automobile will run as well as it was originally intended to. I realize that I would probably have shimmed the bearings and sent it on its way, which, after learning of your patience, causes me to review past practice and maybe do better in future. Patience is indeed a virtue.
Carla:
Like David, I'm glad you took the trouble to do it correctly. Tapered shims are, at the best, a Walt Disney (Mickey Mouse) solution. To my knowledge, their use has never been approved by any OEM or by any reputable reman operation.