I just saw a '34 Ply 'art deco ship' mascot, in allegedly perfect condition, listed on ebay for.......believe this or don't,,,,,,,,,$750...!!
Now, I rather strongly doubt that it will sell for such a price, or anywhere near that, for that matter, it appears that some people must consider that cute little art deco mascot widget to be really, really, desirable.
I would be willing to believe that unbroken ones are rather uncommon, considering just how delicate a die-casting that part is.....
As chance would have it, the one on our '34 has come down through the years without being damaged........ I'm thinking seriously about taking it off the car and putting it away in safe storage. Maybe I'm being just a little bit paranoid, but it would be so very easy for some little vandal to swat it with his hand and break it, if we have the '34 parked anywhere down in San Jose, that I'd really rather put the part away safely......who knows but what, years from now, some new owner of our '34 will be just over-joyed at having that part, with it having been carefully preserved. (a vandal already broke one of the horn 'trumpet' parts off the '34, so I've put the remaining one in storage)
So, on to the question.........does anyone here have a broken '34 mascot with the base area intact, which they'd sell us, or any lead on someone who might have one?
It looks like I could simply smooth down a broken one into a neat curve, have it plated, and have it fill the area neatly.
cheers
Carla
Carla - the prices for '34 parts on eBay continues to amaze me -- if the pieces are worth that much, how much is the car worth??? O.K. - we know the parts are worth more than a whole car. I met a guy a couple of years ago who said he had three dash (glovebox lid) clocks for the 34s. He wanted $750 EACH. That was more than the car sold for new. As for the sailing ship emblem, I do have a couple of different castings I've gotten over the years. Think I have an aluminum and a brass one - someplace. I know one of them (don't remember which one, now) was missing the front sail but the fellow that had them made didn't know it wasn't complete when he had them done. If you don't find anything else, give me a shout and I'll go digging. I never did put them on....JB
Ellis Baron of Victoria Australia makes a gorgeous reproduction triple plated bronze for about $ 225. Look for his ad in the Plymouth Bulletin.
I have one on my 35, ( he lists one for the 34, the base is different.) I liked it so much, I bought a second one for a spare.
Hi, Jim,
Well, I was hoping that someone might have a broken original one on a spare radiator shell, or some such. (it would just seem reasonable that someone, somewhere, has a 'too far gone to restore' '34 sitting in a back yard as a 'parts car', with a broken mascot on the shell, and might be willing to sell me the broken part reasonably.
Oh, well, so much for trying to 'get lucky'.....
Jim, if you can find the incorrectly made one, I'd like to buy it from you.
We'll be having the engine out of our '34 one of these days, cos I'll have to go through it as I've done Bob's engine.......our '34 engine, like Bob's '41, was worked on by someone, and not done up correctly.......ours runs, shows good oil pressure, doesn't overheat.......but it has a bit of a 'rap' noise, possibly a mis-fit gudgeon-pin, or a bit of piston-slap, or......well, I suppose I won't know til I have the engine dissected out, will I? (whatever it is, it isn't just tappets......this '34 engine has some tappet noise 'in the background' so to speak, but the 'rap' is a bit sharper than a tappet sound)
With the engine out, we'll have the radiator out, of course, so that provides access to the screws securing the mascot.....hence I'd like to get the replacement mascot ready.........there is a chance, however remote, that I'll have the engine out, dissect it, find the cause of the noise and be able to mend it easily, and drop the engine back in all in the same few days time.
There is an alternative that I've been considering. Awhile back, we got a new-old-stock unused military Dodge 230 engine, of approx 1942-44 vintage. This one is a replacement engine, with a totally blank serial number pad. I think I've read somewhere that a car fitted with a 'blank number pad' replacement engine is considered nearly enough correct for originality, on the theory that a period replacement engine is a 'normal maintenence repair'.......or some such thing.
Now, as we know, the 230 would be quite an improvement on the road, at least for pulling power on hills (the road we live on goes from 400 ft elevation to just over 4000 ft. in twenty-odd miles run), and, obviously, we'd carefully cosmolene and crate up the original engine to preserve it, lest some future owner of our '34 want to go back to perfect originality.
Years agok, I remember, it was common to fit later engines to the '34 cars, but there was an issue with starter clearance. I remember someone finding a slightly different version of starter.....possibly from some model of tractor or industrial engine application.....which used a smaller diameter of main housing, and was otherwise dimensionally interchangeable with the '34 starter. Does anyone have the info on this?
cheers
Carla
As the later engines have a full water jacket, the 34 bellhousing places the starter too tight to the engine. I have heard it is possible to cut enough material from the starter housing to allow it to fit.
Another option is to use the bellhousing fron a 35 to 37 which may require a rework of the rear mounts.