Hi everyone, new guy here. I come from the world of motorcycles, but finally gave in to the need for four wheels so here's my new project, a '52 Coronet more-door. It sat inside for around 25 years before I got it so it's in overall pretty dece condition apart from a little rust on the chassis and engine and some small rust spots on the body. The engine turns free so I'm going to clean and flush the fuel system and radiator and replace filters, fluids, etc and get her running. New master cylinder and brake shoes too. Going to try to keep it 6v, and definitely going to keep the flatty. Any tips for cleaning up the engine bay? Photo Dec 16, 12 58 38 PM (1) by The Brown Sound posted Jan 25, 2015 at 9:00 PM Visually, I think I'm shooting for a mild taildragger type thing. Repaint, add visor and fender skirts, WWWs, lowering blocks in the rear and cut a coil out in the front. Maybe lake pipes too? Any suggestions, give a shout. I need some ideas.
I use one of these cheap sprayers all the time. http://www.harborfreight.com/engine-cleaning-gun-68290.html The secret is to use the hottest water you can get out of the hot water tap. I use a 2 liter pop bottle and remove the filter off the hose for more flow. Scrape off thick deposits with a putty knife and screwdriver. Get some Gunk degreaser and brush it into the motor. Put an old piece of carpet on a sheet of cardboard under the motor. Steam clean with the sprayer. You can do this in the garage, hardly any water goes on the floor. When you get done you can throw the carpet away. Or use it next time.
Great, that should do the trick! Thanks. Of course the good news is that the thick grease on some of the components should have preserved them well. Still trying to formulate a game plan as to what to paint.
Stock look was silver with black accessories. I did one silver with red accessories, looked pretty good. You might go silver and blue to match your car.
Yes, I think I'll keep it mostly stock looking under the hood. I've had good luck with the Duplicolor Engine enamel on bike heads so will probably use that unless anybody suggests to stay away from it. Think I'm going to do a two-tone job with the white roof and rear quarters, and try to take it back to the original color. Looks like Gypsy Green maybe? Interior is in great shape, the mice apparently didn't make it past the trunk. Cleaned that up today too since I'm waiting on my shop manual in the mail. Before cleaning: I'll get some better interior photos tomorrow. It's pretty nice. Rusty, if you have any photos of your build I'd love to see that too.
Ok, some interior shots. Cleaned up the dash with Pledge and Nevr Dull on the trim. Back seats have a pretty grody cover on them but looks nice underneath, going to tackle that later. Also have been cleaning the surface rust/dirt/dust off the engine and components with a toothbrush, which works surprisingly well. I'm pretty surprised, I thought the cast parts were goners but they cleaned up pretty nicely so far. Here you can see all the residue that was coming off. Pulled the plugs to drop in some Mystery Oil and let that soak in. I don't think the top end was correctly prepared for storage, looks like some rust on the Pistons. Is this a big deal? Couldn't get a better shot of this.
what you see in plug hole is the top of a valve. Plugs are over valves not pistons. I have a 50 like yours, see by wire block on carb you have a gyromatic. Its ok but I wish mine was 3 speed behind fluid drive.
You're in for a learning experience driving that Gyromatic! Amaze your friends and frighten young kids!Haha. By the way, you could try some oven cleaner on the tough baked-on grease.
Great looking project, TBS. So glad to see some of these elegant old sleds being rescued. A guy at work has a similar car. Will have to show him this one. The dashboard is really nice. Love the green and white 2 tone. Chrysler got it right back then, so don't mess with perfection. Two colors seem to do wonders for helping the body lines. This is gonna be a super nice cruiser. BTW...helped my Bro', several years ago, try and salvage a 6cylinder, in his '53 more door Cranbrook. Soak the cylinders with oil, then do a good compression test. These 6 volt engines WILL NOT START, without good solid compression. We had to tow start that car, to make enough cylinder pressure to ignite the mix. Would never start properly, especially cold. Sold it and bought a '55 Ranch Wagon, more worthy of a complete engine overhaul. Keep us posted. JT
This kind of thing is what I love about the HAMB! Oddball cars, old warhorses saved and hitting the streets again. I actually like cars like this more than 32 roadsters! My dream car is a 50 Plymouth Super DeLuxe like my Grandfather had and my family inherited when I was a kid.What a great car, in, I don't know how many years that car never failed, it was indestructible. Fast? uh, nope! Cool, not in the traditional sense, but to me...YEAH!
If you are not familiar with Fluid Drive trans let me know. They require a special technique, not hard to learn but hard to figure out for yourself. They are sort of a cross between a manual trans and automatic with features of both.
Be careful of the heater duct, they are made of cardboard and get trashed easily. Not many survive as well as yours has.
Good idea to get the shop manual, but don't forget that your Mopar is 6 volt Negative ground. Also, Rustoleum is a good engine paint & you can brush it on and it will not show much if any brush marks...easier than trying to spray the engine in place
Thanks for all the kind words. From what I understand the guy who I bought this from got it from an estate, and the car was pretty much headed for the crusher/ scrapyard before he saved it, and flipped it to me. I'm very happy to have the car, but I'm even more happy that it didn't go to waste. All old cars deserve to be saved and preserved so even though this isn't the most valuable car I'd like to fix it up in a respectful way and then have fun cruising the pants off it. I did forget that the plug holes on flathead motors are over the valves. You can see why I ordered the factory manual. Speaking of manuals, it did come with the original owner's manual, although the explanation of the Gyromatic in there is more than a little hazy... although I think it goes into better detail on the mechanics and maintenance than most modern car manuals do... Also have a box full of OG Mopar parts (points, condensers, horn ring, trim). The packaging is in great condition mostly so I'll post some shots if anybody wants to see what all the OEM parts came in back in the day. I do have a few more questions. Bear with me since this is the first car I've ever owned actually, so there will probably be quite a few stupid/obvious questions. Am I approaching this restoration the right way by disassembling and cleaning things right off the bat in the name of preventative maintenance? Or should I be more concerned about getting it running and then clean everything up? Are there any preferred brands of filters? Is Fram still good? And, are there any components that are acceptable to replace right off the bat? Some of the "vintage" wiring under the hood has me a little nervous, and I really don't want an electrical problem of all things when I'm on a road trip for example. What should I do with the chassis? It's in good shape overall and obviously I'm not going to do a body-off on this car, but it could use a good cleaning and a couple patches. I'd also like to give it a coat of POR15 to prevent any further rust, but I realize this may not be possible. Thanks for the tip also on the Rustoleum. I was assuming I'd be pulling the engine at some point to clean it up and paint it, now I may not have to.
Positive ground, 6v electrics and left hand bolts on the left side wheels. If it was mine I would go over it carefully, and clean it up. Do not throw away any odd bits of metal or plastic, they always turn out to be some irreplaceable part. You can throw away the dried up ballpoint pens and empty cig packs lol. Make a list of things that need to be fixed. I would start by getting it running, while changing or replacing as little as possible. I assume it ran when put away and go from there. Get it turning over, get a spark happening, then gas and away she goes.
OOOOPPPPSSSS, I can't believe I said Negative ground....it IS Positive ground... time to step away from the keyboard, for more coffee!
I will be following this project as it sounds just like my very own project! My wife and I bought a 52 coronet 4dr a little over a year ago , in pretty close to the same condition as yours. I was having a lot of fuel delivery issues, so I ended up replacing the gas tank (they aren't cheap) , fuel pump, cleaning out the metal lines, replacing the rubber ones and I even found that a previous owner replaced the hardline that runs down the frame, with a line that was smaller diameter than what it should have had. I put 3" dropped blocks in the back and we cut 1 coil from the front springs. I found a Visor for it at Iola and some cool headlight trim rings. Next thing I'm doing is replacing the radiator (car kept over heating last year) and then I'm going to have new exhaust installed, going with lake pipes. Here's some pics taken at the Iron Invasion show last October.
Also, I'm sure the Gyromatic trans sounds confusing now, but once you drive it around a little bit, its real easy to get used to. Good luck to you!
For driving a Gyromatic or semi auto Chrysler product. Follow the instructions in the owner's manual above. With a few additions. Start the car with the gearshift in neutral and the handbrake on. Warm up the motor, when it will idle down shift into gear and release the clutch. Don't worry it won't stall. Now release the hand brake and drive away like an automatic. When you get going 14MPH or more, lift off the gas. You should hear a soft *click-clack* from under the floorboards. Now you are in high, step on the gas and go someplace. Come to a stop like an automatic just step on the brake. The trans will shift down automatically. Take off as before, lift off to shift, and go. Tramp the gas pedal to the floor and it will kick down at any speed up to 50. You only need the clutch to shift into Low range, High range or Reverse. Do not slip the clutch. You don't need to. Let the Fluid Drive do the work. They came with a small clutch and if you try to drive it like a standard you can wear it out or burn it out. It drives like an automatic except you need the clutch just to get in gear.
Nice! That's pretty much the stance I'm going for. The visor makes a big difference and the trim rings around the headlights really change the look of the front end. If you can find a source for lake pipes for these let me know, otherwise I think I might just end up making my own, which probably wouldn't be optimal... Ok, that makes much more sense. That's an unusual system but that's what's cool about the '50s. Discovered a couple spots to patch on the floors, nothing big though. Somebody gets an A for effort though:
Really nice to see another mordoor being brought back to life. Its funny how many once ignored fifties mordoors are being restored right now on the hamb. And rightly so, even stock these old cars help maintain the spirit of the times.
Still waiting for the shop manual but I pulled the carpets and rear seats to fix the floors. Pretty straightforward aside from the drivers side. Are there any special considerations I need to pay attention to when I make the replacement panels for that area? As you can see the rust extends pretty far up into the firewall pad and the associated bolts, etc. Would it be better to stop short of there instead of cutting that rusted metal out and just wire wheel it and use a rust converter or something similar on that one specific spot? Sorry if this seems basic, I've never done this before.
Wow that's bad. Start by fixing the sills rocker panels and body mounts. You will have to cut away the rusty metal until you get to sound metal in order to weld on the new parts. This is a pretty big job for a beginner, do you have some experienced help? The big thing to look out for is body sag, with that much strength rotted away there is a chance the body will sag out of shape, if you do not correct the sag before you start welding the car will be permanently warped out of shape. You may need to tack some braces in the door openings before you cut out the sills.
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