vintage mopars

Frame troubles

2010-03-25T11:18:00.000-07:00

After stripping the body off the chassis we then pulled the engine, suspension and axles from the frame. The frame looked ugly on the front end. There was a bunch of Frankenstein like patches around the front end. I sent the frame to be media blasted and when it came back it was worse than I expected. The chassis looked like it had been in a collision and some fool who had never used a welder before had welded patches all over it thinking that they were doing a good job. The rest of the frame was better but not much. The rest of the frame was held together by very poor tack welds. The tack welds were very far spaced and were done very cool so they had poor penetration. An "old guy" came and saw it and taught me a history lesson. He said he remembered watching his older brother trying to weld after he had come back from the war. The women had been welding for the duration of the war and had been doing an amazing job. Any welding on a military vehicle would have been perfect. The women though had gone back to the homes and the trade jobs were given back to men who had no clue what they were doing. Thus the poor welding on the '47 Chrysler.

I was planning on putting in a different engine, axles, suspension etc. but I was hoping to use the original chassis (after boxing it in) but It now looked like it wasn't worth it. In keeping with my concept of a salvaged hotrod I decided to find another chassis to put it on. I came across a few candidates that I could have for little money, a case of beer, or even free.

A mossy rat

2010-02-25T21:29:00.000-08:00

I brought the Windsor into the shop and it was covered in moss. My wife scraped it off and saved it for terrariums. I thought it would be super cool for a rat rod or something to have moss growing on it but that is not the car I pictured building in my mind. Besides I like doing the paint.

Old Mopar Article

2010-02-24T22:47:00.000-08:00

Here is an old Mopar article that I came across. I thought some of you might like to look at it (and for you literate types possibly read it).

Old pics from Reynolds Museum

2010-02-24T22:14:00.000-08:00

I love the Reynolds Alberta Museum. If you are a car, motorcycle, airplane or tractor guy you must go. Here are some pics I took a while ago of an old dodge they have there.

This is the hood/radiator emblem off of a 1928 Dodge car. This car is in the first room you enter upon ariving at the museum. The museum mechanics and body men restored one side of the car and left the other how it was found. They do some amazing work. These guys don't use bondo either. There are courses you can take there from these guys that teach you howto do it right with puttyless repair.

47 Chrysler Windsor

2010-02-24T21:24:00.000-08:00

This is the car where it was found. That pile of wood right in front of it is the collapsed house it was parked in front of. There is an abandoned town whee it was found. We figured the clear patch right where the car is sitting is the driveway to the house. there is a strip of grass right beside it through the trees where the road used to be. The back end is propped up with boards, logs, and tires. When I first got to it the rear axle was buried all the way into the ground. I used the logs to lift it up.

The car is in very rough shape. I thought this would be a cool car if it was fixed up, but what I was really excited about was the challenge. You can see in this photo that a chunk of metal was cut from the right rear fender at some point. This is going to require me to fabricate a piece to patch in. I plan on building a soft tape pattern from the opposite fender.

As you can see there was a ton of junk in the car. I was excited thinking that the car was full of the parts. Unfortunately it was mostly junk.

Almost all of the trim is missing. The bumpers were both inside the car and I have the grille. I plan on picking up a few trim pieces but I also plan on smoothing out parts of the body where some of the trim was found.

This is the back of the car. You can see the grass clearing beside the car where the road was. I am almost as fascinated with the idea of the abandoned town as I am with rebuilding the car. There are a few more houses there with other streets that have grown over with grass. There are also other vehicles out there too. They are also in very rough shape. There is an Austin truck from the 40's that I was also looking at.

In the shop

2010-02-11T21:10:00.000-08:00

I now have the '47 Chrysler Windsor in the shop. I have the body pulled off the frame and the front clip removed. If things were ideal it would have been nice to cross brace the body from the inside prior to pullin the body off the frame. the entire floor of the chrysler had rotted away and as a result the body was no longer square (it had flexed out at a number of points.) After we pulled the body off the frame we laid it on the floor and went about pulling and stretching it to get it close to where we felt it was straight. This probably was not the best way to do this but it was what we came up with. we then welded bracing all over the inside so as to keep it in that shape while we cut out the floors, rockers, trunk floor and original under floor bracing. We also began fabricating the new rockers and floor pans. I will post the pics as soon as I find the cord for the camera.

old mopar images that I have found

2009-09-20T10:18:00.000-07:00

Here is a bunch of old mopar ads and pics that I have come across. I just thought I would share them.

Mopars at Lethbridge Street Machine Weekend

2009-07-13T13:43:00.000-07:00

There were a lot of classic Mopar vehicles at this years Street Machine Weekend. I was sitting near my usual spot (someone else got there earlier). I neglected to charge up my battery on my camera before I went so I missed a lot of the late evening cars. This is just a sample of the cars on the street.

Dodge Dart Swinger

Dodge Polara

Plymouth Fury2

Fargo

Plymouth Deluxe Sedan

Coronet

1970? Challenger

Dodge Monaco

An early 50's Plymouth Deluxe

AMC Javelin

I think that this Barracuda is a 1970

I think that this Dodge Warlock is a 1977

I think this Dodge Coronet is a 1968

I think that this Plymouth Fury would be a 1957

1950 Dodge Deluxe

2009-07-08T01:03:00.000-07:00

I also have a 1950 Dodge Deluxe that I am working on. Trying to find parts for antique Mopar vehicles is pretty tricky. I am trying to track down tail lights for this car. The tail lights I believe are the same as the Plymouth p19 Deluxe and p20 Deluxe. Vintage Mopar parts are not as difficult to track down though as European parts. I am building an Austin A40 Somerset as well. (I'll probably discuss this on an alternate blog at a later time.)

Some Windsor Stuff

2009-07-08T00:53:00.000-07:00

This is just a bunch of stuff I came across.

This is a 52 Windsor. It is similar to my 47 but a little different.

Some Chrysler Windsor History

2009-06-23T10:18:00.000-07:00

I recently was given a 1947 Chrysler Windsor by a friend and so I decided to do a little research on it. This is a little of what I came up with.

C22 Series (1939) - The first Chrysler Windsor rested on a chassis with 3,023 mm wheelbase. It was originally a variation of the Royal and was marketed as the Royal Windsor. The grille consisted of narrow vertical chrome bars known as the "waterfall grill". The four bodies that were available were the coupe, club coupe, Victoria coupe, and a four door sedan.

C25 and C28 Series (1940-1941) - In 1941 the Windsor was produced as its own model separate from Royal. The wheel base was extended to 3112 mm. The vehicles were powered by the Chrysler flat six engine. A new variant of the Windsor, the Highlander, was now available. the only real difference was that it was upholstered with an unknown Scottish Tartan. There were now more vehicle body styles to choose from including a three seat convertible, a two door sedan and an eight seat limousine (which rested on a larger 3543 mm wheelbase). The grille changed in 1940 to a set of nine horizontal bars.

In 1941 the variations were minimal. The bars which formed the grill became slightly broader and there were new body variations introduced. The city sedan with a retractable glass partition for the driver and the Town & Country vans. The Town & Country had immitation wood on the outside and a choice of either six or nine seats.

C34 Series (1942) - Once again very little changed for 1942. The engines now produced a huge 120bhp at 3800rpm. The grille now extended around the corners of the fenders to the wheels. Production of the Windsor then halted to make way for Chrysler's war efforts.

C38W Series (1946 - 1948) - After the war the grille on the Windsor, as with all other Chrysler models, was filled with a grid of horizontal and vertical bars laid between three larger horizontal bars. This gave it the image and the nickname of the "Harmonica Grill". The Flathead six now produced a slightly less impressive 114bhp.

My hunt for Canadian antique mopar information

2009-06-22T07:26:00.000-07:00

I have recently become the owner of a Canadian antique Mopar. It is a 1947 Chrysler Windsor Coupe. I have quickly discovered that information on these vehicles is not easy to come by. I have been trying to decipher the serial number from the drivers side door post. The serial numbers back then were only seven digits long. So far this is all I have come up with:

The serial numbers for 1947 in Canada started at 9246262 and went to 9431840. That is all i know other than the 9 is the give away that it is Canadian (Canada also used Miles back then).