Plymouth Owners Club

You can check out my ride here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4d5QDH1mi58  (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4d5QDH1mi58)

I haven't done much to it yet. The only thing I have done is removed the gas tank, pound out a massive dent and grind off the coating.

I picked up a 71 360 and a 4 bbl intake , but i'm thinking of going with 3 2's setup. $$.

Looks like a real fun project!

I agree that your dash is gorgeous.  I also think your front bumber, 6 cylinder engine and 17 inch wheels are equally gorgeous.  You have a beautiful and rare car there.  Good luck with your endeavor.

Doran

Thank you for the comments.  Are most of you into restoring?

List of projects:  By the way my goal is to keep it all mopar...well except for maybe the rearend.

Front End-fat man or other..anyone have any suggestions?

12v wiring system.

Brakes

Fuel lines

Weels and tires  (the gentleman who liked the wheels, yes I agree)  I'd like to put on a similar looking rim, with the same 'artillery' look.

Fix the roof. Anyone done a roof on a 35,or 36?  I'm thinking a pt cruiser might donate the sheetmetal.

Those are just some ideas.

Hi, 36,

Fair warning........if  you invest the time and money in doing all those alterations to your '36, you'll turn it into, well, basically an unusable/impractical display car, if not just scrap.

Think for a moment, about the position of the extisting steering box, relative to the space occupied by any large modern V8 engine.......to fit the V8, yoiu have to re-position the steering........and that gets into quite a tin of worms, generally resulting in a car which can accelerate very rapidly in a straight line, but is dangerously unstable in cornering.

If you really must have V8 performance, sell the '36 and work with a mid to late '50's car, which was originally set up for a V8.

If you must have the looks of a '30's mopar, then keep the basic 6, just build up a high performance '57-'59 230 in. flat 6  If you absolutely must have a high performance engine in a '36, consider fitting a Ford 300 inch six......those can be built up for a pretty fair performance leve, or so I've read.......

The important think is that you don't cut up the chassis frame........unless you are a millionaire with the services of a high-grade racing shop at your disposal........and don't care what it costs to have a quality suspension system built. (hint.....you could probably buy a nice Corvette for that kind of money)

If you cut up the frame, thinking you can fit independent front suspension parts from a later model car, you are literally gambling with your life......should you choose to run faster than the sort of leisurely slow cruise to a display car event which seems to be the common pastime these days.

You can improve the '36's handling to some extent, with new road springs and shocks, and you can fit a disc brake conversion......but you're just kidding yourself if you think you can make any sort of performance car of a common '36 sedan......

Do yourself, and the next owner of your '36, a real favour......sell your '36 to someone who will keep it basically original (escept for minor performance mods which don't involve cutting the frame) and find yourself something like a mid to late '50''s Chrysler 300,. or a late '50's Plymouth Fury......those were designed to go fast, and, with a bit of tinkering-up, will both run much faster than you could ever get that '36 to do, plus they will give you a reasonable chance to stay alive cos they were designed to handle moderately well at speed.

If nothing will do  but that you must have a cut up and grossly modified '30's car, buy one which someone else has already spent all his money on........it'll be the same variety of mechanical joke you'd make of your '36, but, with a bit of looking around and asking, you could buy one for a tiny fraction of the cost of building one......paint it your choice of colour, and take it to the car display events......if nothing else, that would save your '36, which appears eminently restorable.

cheers

Carla

Further to Carla's comments, rather than go with an (ugh) Ford 300 (I know, it is a decent engine) find a long block Chryco and up it to 265 + cu. in. by overboring and adding the 4.75" crank & rod assembly. Then fit a stock twin carb manifold with stock twin-outlet (not split) exhaust manifold. We Canadians were/are lucky as all our Plymouths & Dodges from 37/38 on had the big block engine and we could make a 265 from any one of them by utilising the stock block. Also, quite a number of our heavier Dodge/Fargo trucks came with the dual intake/exhaust setup. I put this combination in a 50 Dodge station wagon many years ago and it made a very nice ride, and safe also after I added the Chrysler/DeSoto 11" brakes.

Well in response to Carla, I do appreciate your sentiments on restoring it.  I know when I comes to virgin tin like this a lot of people get very emotional about keeping cars original.  :)

With all due respect I would have disagree about having to be a millionaire to do the simple modifications I've listed.  In fact I found most of your email was entirely off base and insulting.   I'll forgive you and assume you were just being passionate about restoring the car.

I grew up around the hot rod scene, and have seen countless safe classic cars with updated chassis and suspensions. Regular guys with regular garages, not millionares with "high-grade racing shop's".  In fact, most of the 30's cars I've seen all have succesful v8 transplants.  Sure there are the occasional restored old timey cars. Usually those are trailered in or sitting in some museum.  Around here, if you want to safely enter or exit a freeway, you'd better be able to get up to speed. 

I picked up the v8 with the intention of changing the front end. The stock setup would never handle the weight. I realize that you would need to relocate the steering column, that goes with the territory.   I have personally seen many well done cars of the same era and I would argue that changing the chassis only makes it safer (if done correctly of course).   I'm coming from a hot rod perspective, it seems that you are about restoring vehicles (which is fine I love restored cars too).

I do realize the car is almost too good to cut the frame. Mostly because it's all original.  But, let's be real - It's a 4 door plymouth sedan.  Not exactly top on the list of restored vehicle wish lists.  (you even refered to it as a 'common sedan')  I really dont think too many people are going to cry if I update the drivetrain and suspension.

I'm not looking for a performance car per say, but I'm not looking for a resto either. I'd like to be able to take my car on the freeway, maybe even a power tour. 

Here is a nicely done 36 coupe http://home.insightbb.com/~36plyguy/index.htm  (http://home.insightbb.com/~36plyguy/index.htm) I would hardly refer to this vehicle as 'the same variety of mechanical joke' 

In the end, i'll be doing what makes me happy and i'll be sure to care about doing the 'next owner a real favor'.

Cheers,

36

I can buy some of your arguments about modernising the drive train, but I support that route only if the person either has the technical knowledge required to do it properly, or can afford to buy the expertise. Otherwise, Carla is dead right.

I viewed the pictures of the 36 coupe modifications, and as far as I am concerned, a perfectly decent looking car of its era that was very user friendly, at least for tall people, has been turned into a ride for virtual midgets. Either that, or the seat is dropped too close to the floor and a tall drive ends up framing the steering wheel with his knees while all hie weight is one his tail bone and his head is bent to see below the windshield top. A driving position often referred to as being "all humped up like a dog making love to a football".

In addition, the finished job, while demonstrating excellent metal working skills, has produced a rather unlovely end product that demonstrates a discordant mix of the old and the new.

I wanted to add a bit more, if I may......regarding the '35 and later Dodge/Ply cars.

One reason I tend to be a bit cynical about the 'display car' mania in which potentially useful old cars are turned into seldom-used display toys is that the '35 cars are pretty much the beginning of 'modern cars' in terms of being useful road cars, assuming they are put into sound and reliable functional condition.

There are more and more people, every day now, rebuilding these older cars for their everyday transportation use.......to get away from the effective equivalent of economic slavery involved in running late model cars which cannot be maintained and rebuilt by their owners.....cars which are built as 'Dixie Cup' technology, so to speak.......use it, they throw it away.

For those who enjoy the comfort and style of new cars, and are willing to pay for them......and replace them with another new car  every two or three years before they malfunction.....well, alright, thats a personal choice, and I certainly can't say anything against that choice.......except that it necessarily involves a rather expensive transportation budget.

Then, there are people like myself, who use older vehicles as my everyday transport, maintain them to be safe and reliable, and enjoy the savings of all those thousands and thousands of dollars which could otherwise have gone to buying a new car every two or three years.

Now, I put in some rather sharp comments on the subject of wasting that '36 sedan, by making a display toy of it.......certainly, it owner is free to do as he pleases with it......but it would really be a shame.....in my personal opinion......to make a toy of a car which could be brought into serviceable condition, and serve as a useful regular transportation car for years and years, running thousands and thousands of miles.

Why?......the '35 and later cars are 'modern' in the sense of being suitable for regular road use by a prudent and careful operator, given the engine interchange up to '59, the Lockheed hydraulic brakes, and the roller-sector steering. They are not a 'performance' car, and cannot be made to be one, as any practical matter, but they can be a very reliable 'commute to work' or 'grocery getter' class of car, for the class of operator who knows enough to avoid the psychotically dangerous conditions on some freeways.

The big advantage of the '35 to, say, '46 or so cars, is that they are so nicely simple and easy to work on......sure, they 'perform' like asthmatic snails.....they were never meant to run past 60-ish mph, or thereabouts, but were intended to survive the rough dirt and gravel roads of the time. For those of us who dont need to run faster than 55-60-ish, they are useful and reliable transport.......with none of the maniacal widgety-gadgety electronics, smog widgetry, etc., of late model cars to go wrong, and without the toxic smell of the plastic interiors

(some people, like myself, are actually quite sensitive to the toxic materials out-gassed by the plastics in late model cars......I suspect that there will be, sooner or later, a major scandal when more people find that they are being subtly poisoned by those 'new car smell' fumes)

It is just a d-amn shame to waste a basically sound pre-war car, which could be reconditioned, if not restored, to give good service on the road for many years to come, by cutting it up to follow the fads of the moment.

Have a look at 'Craig's list" on the internet, to see dozens of highly modified early cars offered for sale when the owners tire of them......often, they go begging at some pittance, as they are too far modified to be repairable into serviceable road cars, in any cost-effective manner.

There are, to be sure, some '50's and '60's high performance cars which are elegantly refinished, and offered for 'big dollars'......these were high performance V8 cars from new, and have their own 'sub-culture' of high performance fanatics. I've seen other '50's and '60's high performance cars offered pretty reasonably, when they needed some paint and upholstery work.

Now, there's nothing wrong with wanting to have a high performance car......but one needs be realistic.....any '30's chassis simply cannot be realistically modified to even come close to matching the inbuilt characteristics of, say, a '50's or '60's Chrysler 300.......a '57-'59 Plymouth Fury isn't exactly 'slow' for that matter......

Seriously......if you want a performance car, check out the older Chrysler 300's.......one of those, well maintained and in a good state of tune, would likely run circles around the generality of 'hot rods'......in anything other than a straight 1/4 mile, anyway. The older Chrysler 300's are a truly excellent road car.......I can testify to that from quite a few miles of personal experience.

cheers

Carla

I just went back and looked at the video of the '36 sedan again........y'know, that one is in a really nice state of preservation, and it really would  be a shame to just waste it by cutting it up.

Now, we don't 'need' it......we have a '34 sedan already......but I'm going to offer to 'put my money where my mouth is' about this car......we'd offer to buy it, with the idea in mind that we'd get it running, do brake work, etc., as needed to make it safe to run, then make arrangements with the president of the local Chrysler club to put it in safe storage. Someone......I don't know who, yet, is likely to 'fall in love' with that car, do the necessary work to put it in good serviceable 'road car' condition, and have it back in service as a good useful car for many years to come.

There is a real advantage to its present owner in this offer........for what that car is worth, as it now is, he could buy an already modified car, get out of doing a lot of torch, crow-bar, and hammer work, and have quite a few $$$ left over.

Plenty of cars which have already been through all that modification work come up on the market for surprisingly cheaply, when the owners tire of them.....granted, it may take a little while to find the 'right one' but they are out there, and in surprising quantities.....I've seen literally dozens of them on Craig's List, often listed again and again over a few months time, with the asking price steadily dropping.

I'd think that a useful way to proceed would be to discuss a realistic market value for that '36 as it now is.......and then keep watch on 'Craig's List' on the internet for a similar, but modified car.........that black chopped coupe, for example, will be worth almost nothing in a few years, (fad cars built to the fad of a particular year will no longer be desirable when the fad changes) and there will doubtless be quite a few like it coming up for sale, and rather cheaply.

(that said, I'd still rather try to talk the owner of that nice '36 into checking out a real performance car of the '50's......as some background for the reason why, I'd like to talk him into actually driving some of the 'hot-rod' cars which are primarily display pieces.......just try to power one of those around a corner, and see just how unstable they actually are, compared to a real performance car......more than once, I'd d-mn near killed myself trying just that 'from curiosity' or as 'learning experience', so I've 'learned my lesson' so to speak)

Now, I will say this......in the last little bit of that video, he shows a couple of '30's sedans which are in basically 'unrestorable' condition......as a 'real world' economic issue, no one is likely to try to rebuild and use one of those cars.....they are the ones which could be stripped down and sand-blasted, then turned into display cars, as opposed to cutting up a nicely preserved car.

What think you, folks?

cheers

Carla

Hey....before you toss that "piece of junk flat head 6" engine have a look here at what Blueskies Pete did to his flattie.
http://www.50plymouth.com/04-eng/eng.html

Hey 36, it's your car and you can do what you like.  This forum is mostly full of restorers.  I like the car as it is with the patina.  I would get it running and safe (which means restore the suspension and brakes) and not restore the car at all. 

In the end, it is YOUR CAR.  If you want a street rod, then build a street rod.  If you want a restoration (which will be much harder) then restore it. 

Point is, most users here are restorers.  I hate that you are being jumped on, because you have a nice car.  My car is a restoration (sorta) but I would really like to build a car similar to Tuskee's car:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwMY0RShe58  which is a restored 57 body with a GM LS motor.

Of course it's your car and you have the right to do anything you wish with it, however ill-advised.? Every time a good restorable car is removed from the marketplace, mine becomse a little bit more rare & valuable.

In my (not so) humble opinion, Carla is right and you are wrong. The idea that you need to rod it to drive the freeways is silly. A few weeks ago I had my '37 4-door up to 65 mph on I-95 and it was not even breathing hard.? This is with a Dodge 230cid six but otherwise pure bone stock. If the car had some of Blue Sky's tasteful bolt-on modifications it would FLY!

So do as you choose, have fun and be safe. Find a nice street rod message board to post on and please don't stir up our blood pressure too often here until you are ready to sell your take-off parts......? ? ;)

36, I sent you an e-mail.

Everyone else;  leave this man alone.  It's his car and he can do what he wants to.  I know that this club is based on restoration instead of modification, but enough lambasting and insulting.  He deserves a little common courtesey.  Mocking and ridiculing him while hiding behind the annonymity of the internet is wrong.  Let the man build his car the way he wants to EVEN IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT!!

Would you rather see the car crushed?

Dear Duane 36,
my P23    217  engine has been rebuilt to stock specs with very perfect bearings and clearances.
This June, going back 470 mls from Innsbruck to D?sseldorf on mostly Autobahn, he made 130 km/h = 81 mls/h all the time at 4/5 throttle.
Without hesitating he even ran over 140 km/h = 85 mls/h while passing long truck convoys. On long grades he maintained 74 mls/h with full throttle.
These sixes aren?t so weak!
Greetings! Go

Greetings and thank you all for your comments. 

Well in my haste and excitement to share, I should have previewed these boards a bit more before posting my video.

To the gentleman who said post to a hot rod board, yes I've done that as well. I'm sorry I thought this was the Plymouth owners club.  Not the 'Plymouth Owners Club Consisting of Those Who Only Restore Their Plymouths to Factory Original Specifcations Club"  Sorry to 'raise your blood pressure'.

In all seriousness I apologize when I reffered to the 4 banger as a peice of junk in my video.  I only meant the state of disrepair that the engine is in.  Not that all 4 and 6cylinders are 'junk' And to reg, thank you that link, yes they do dress up nicely.

I understand those who wish to keep it original.  There are many car clubs out there with members who do things to cars I would never understand. Take the import tuner scene.  I dont understand it at all.  I still I respect the passion of those car owners.  And I admire them for being different.

Would I take a 30's Rolls and make it into a hot rod? never.  Would I take an average 30's sedan which has a top restored value of maybe 15k and turn it into something that I like???  possibly.

Which brings me to Carla.  I'm sorry sir, but currently the car is not for sale.  Believe it or not the car has sentimental value. It belonged to my late grandfather. And if you're asking yourself would he want me to cut the car?  I say yes.  The man owned many classic cars from that era and earlier.  Many of his cars were restored, however many of them were also highly modified 'hot rods'. 

To Chris in Jax.  You are right. You don't need to mod the car to drive it on the freeway.  In my (not so) humble opinion it is actually safer to go with the flow of traffic, and this would be easier (not so humble opinion) to do with an updated drivetrain. 

I'm not here to argue the saftey points, economy reprecussions, performance issues, etc about moding cars. I was just here to share with other plymouth owners.

to "Go Fleiter" -very cool! Always dreamt of driving on the Autobahn. Yes I believe 217 and other smaller engines can put out very nice performance. I just prefer the look and sound of a V-8 (blame my hot rod roots)

And to 57, thank you. 

In closing, I thought you might like an update.  I've dissasembled the front end and tossed all the parts in a trash bin.    ... Just kidding  ;D  The car sits for now. I'm working on rebuilding my mopar engine.  I think what I may do is get the car running and have some fun with it in it's current state.

Don't give yourselves too much credit. My father actually advised me to do this awhile ago.  He is an avid rodder and has quite a few cars. His advice was to get it running since a lot of people who build cars spend years with the car up on jack stands not having any fun with it.   I'm not making you die hard restorers any promises, but for now it's safe from the torch. lol

I actually had special ordered a carb rebuild kit some time ago.  I will probably get the carb back on her and see if she will fire up.  She did turn over about 2 years ago.  And to you restorers... what's the best route to go on getting my gas tank back to life?  As you've seen in the video, It is removed and I had ground all the coating off.  Mostly because there was a huge dent in the bottom and it needed a serious cleaning.  I've cleaned the inside with a chain and some solvent? (something It was a while ago)

Cheers!
-Duane

Duane-

Have fun with your car no matter how it ends up (restored, hot rod, whatever). After reading your post just below, I know I don't even have to tell you that.

My '36 Plymouth convertible will never be restored for several reasons while I am the owner. These are, in no particular order:

1. money (actually, lack of money)

2. lack of talent and ambition on my part

3. I used to own a '36? Plymouth 4 door. A local shop rebuilt the engine (beyond my ability) after I rounded up the valves, pistons, etc. The car ended up sitting for a year.

I'm 63 years old; I wouldn't willingly let my present '36 sit for a year even if it were restored at the end of that year. As long as I can nurse it along, it is a decent driver, mostly stock, and I plan to be giving my 3 grandkids rides in it very soon. I bought it 17 years ago to have fun with, just as I bought the '36 4 door in 1969 (and owned it until 1990) to have fun with.

I live in Illinois, and the 4 door has been to Niagra Falls, Georgia and Kansas while I owned it. The convertible has been to Oklahoma.

I like the motto on the cover of the magazine Ol' Skool Rodz. It is "no trailer queens."

I do all the normal maintenance on my '36 (oil changes, tuneups, etc.) and I have also installed the current electric fuel pump, run new rubber fuel lines, replaced the water pump,? right front wheel bearing/brake drum assembly and both front leaf springs by myself. Nothing earthshaking, but I don't farm out what I can do myself.

Regards,

Pat O'Connor

Eastwood sells a gas tank repair kit.  It has a solvent to clean it out, but it sounds like you don't need that.  The kit also has a sealant to prevent rust from returning inside the tank.  Have you pulled the dent out?  If you have not, you may want to contact a paintless dent repair company.  I have had very good luck with that in the past. 

Quote from: 57plymouth on August 28, 2007, 10:47:16 AM
Eastwood sells a gas tank repair kit.  It has a solvent to clean it out, but it sounds like you don't need that.  The kit also has a sealant to prevent rust from returning inside the tank.  Have you pulled the dent out?  If you have not, you may want to contact a paintless dent repair company.  I have had very good luck with that in the past. 

I'll check it out. Yeah I built a peice of curved strap iron that would fit through the sender hole and essentially pushed it out from the inside. It's not perfect, but it's a lot better than before.