New build thread; 48 Plymouth

[falconvan]

One issue I hadn't addressed yet was door locks. The original door latches were junk so I put in some bear claws which worked great but lock mechanism wouldn't work the way the door was constructed. The original locks were in the door but I needed a locking handle. I found these early Ford locking handles on Ebay years ago and just got around to figuring out how to make them work. The lock mechanism is in the handle itself so I just ground down the handle mount so it would fit inside the Plymouth handle trim and pinned in. Seems to work great; next is to get the glass for the one piece front windows made and the power windows in.

[falconvan]

Decided to do the back windows first. The window regulators were complete junk and future plans call for A/C so we decided just to make these fixed windows. The almost 70 year old glass cleaned up good; just ran them through the dishwasher a couple of times. I made some new steel glass channels and permanently mounted them with an adjustable bracket to hold the glass snug against the window fuzzy and in the new rubber channel.

[123pugsy]

I just finished the floor in my 41 New Yorker. Similar body style. Well, not just finished, but the last thing I did on it.
I was thinking to myself, where does water that leaks past the fuzzies go?

.

[falconvan]

Hmmm.....yeah, a couple of drain holes in the bottom of the quarter might be a good idea. The door already has a couple.

[chopt50wgn]

I removed the wing windows in my 50 Ply wagon. There is a structural part of the door and hinge inside the doors on mine. I had the glass guy come to my shop and they had to cut the one piece glass with a cut out shaped like a hook at the front of the glass. It had to be cut that way to not come into contact with that piece of structure part of the door. I also got a wing window replacement piece from Julianos. It comes with a new piece of channel to help guide the glass. Hope all goes well for your car.

[falconvan]

Good info; I may have to do that. I'm doing power windows so I made a glass template with some 1/4" plywood underlayment for mock up a few years ago. I had them working back then but I need to pull all that stuff back out and recheck it before I get the glass cut.

[falconvan]

When I first put the frame together several years ago I decide to use an 87 Dakota 8.25 rear end. The backing plate measurement was good but I had neglected to measure the wheel mounting surface. Stock 6" wide wheels fit great on it but I've struggled finding an aftermarket wheel offset to fit with wider tires that wouldn't rub the inner fender because of the wide drums. I finally gave up and decided to switch to an Explorer rear end. This one came from an Eddie Bauer Edition Explorer so it's got a 4:10 limited slip and disc brakes. This fits much better; just need to pull it back out for final welding on the spring pads and some paint. After later doing this swap in my 51 and my 49; I wished I had done this car in the first place, anyway.

[stovens]

Those are becoming popular rear ends for hot rodders!
The rear discs are nice too!

[40FordDeluxe]

Very nice! They sure seem to take some abuse too!

[falconvan]

Yeah, they're a great budget setup. $160 at the boneyard and another $20 for a set of 1 3/4" wide spring perches.

Finished welding the perches on today and shot a quickie coat of black on it; putting it back in for good this weekend.

[falconvan]

Got the rear end back in today; just need to get one brake line, bleed the brakes, and hook up the driveshaft. I've also decided to do something different with the front brakes. I bought a used disc brake kit years ago that a guy had on his 48 when he totaled it. They fit good but the used a stamped bearing spacer for the GM rotors that changed the track width, plus I was always concerned that if that spacer would start turning, it would ruin the spindle. Now that I did the Explorer conversion on my 51; I'm going to change this one over, too. Then the whole braking system will be Explorer with all off the shelf parts.

[firebird77clone]

That's what rodding originated as: keeping vintage steel on the road with new components.

Kudos.

[falconvan]

The last time I did this brake swap, people asked for some more detail so basically here it is. I took the original front drums and cut the rivets to separate the drum from the hub. The rotor is from a 2000 Ford Explorer and it slides perfectly over the hub after you grind about 1/32" off the outer hub edge. Then I got some 2 1/8" x 7/16" x 20 wheel studs for the hub to use in place of the original lug bolts. You don't have to do this, you can use the original lug bolts if you want. I had an aftermarket disc setup with a bracket for GM calipers already; I just trimmed it and redrilled holes in the right place for the 2000 Ford Explorer brake caliper bracket. A couple of 1/2" spacers between the bracket and the caliper bracket, and it bolts right up. I used some 1/2" nuts and just drilled out the threads. I'm also using the Ford Explorer brake hose. This is about as cheap and easy as it gets; The calipers, caliper bracket, and hoses came from the boneyard and I bought a couple new rotors and pads from O'Rielys for less than $100.

[34_40]

That is so cool. How did you ever figure out that those parts would go together?

[flathead4848]

hey falconvan; I understand most of your setup. if you don't have the adapter plate as you did from another job what can be used to mount the caliper bracket to? please show some pictures of the bracket you modified. flathead4848