I'm diggin it should look awesome when its done. Got to love the late 40's mopars. Can't beat the lines.
How did you get the ribs in the floors? My floors are rotted in my plymouth and your floors look great.
What else can you tell me about the Durango/Dakota exhaust manifolds? My first old Plymouth was a '48 coupe, then a "51 3 passenger business coupe, now a '50 3 passenger business coupe. Seems I got REAL lucky in the rust department on all 3 of 'em.
What do you want to know about the manifolds? Yeah rotten floors and rockers seem to be the norm on these 40's/50's era Mopars.
Wow its been a while since I've updated this thread, had to do some work on my truck plus it's been a little cold around here so the '46 got put on the back burner. Anyway here's a little progress, got the "new" trunk floor burned in, fit the new gas tank and rebuilt the sub structure under the trunk latch area. Still have more work to do around the latch area though. Here's the pics:
With the radiator move, have you just swapped it from the back of the support to the front plus lowered it down? will the front clip fit OK?
The fenders fit fine and the hood latch clears, the horns will need to be relocated and I'm assuming the sheetmetal "ductwork" between the grill and the radiator will need to be trimmed, I haven't fit those pieces yet.
Little update: Corner getting patched up Inner quarter panel all prepped to be welded in (sorry it's a little blurry) Finally something solid to hang the rear fender on Had to modify the bottom of the fender to fit the modified body
We all like bare metal pics right? Even blurry ones (I'm a car guy not a photographer) It doesn't look all that bad with the bottom cut off does it?
Still needs some work though, mainly paint on the lower half of the body but at least now I can take it for a little spin around the block Haven't touched the trunk yet, the lower 2" are rotten on both sides inside and out Gotta tidy up the wiring still and get rid of the silver paint on the air cleaner
Thanks guys The radius'd fenders were a product of necessity, I'm running an 8 3/4 out of a truck so it's about 2" wider than stock on each side which didn't leave enough clearance for the tires without trimming the opening. Normally I'm not a fan of radius'd fenders but on this car I like the look. The original fenders that were on the car when I got it were radius'd but the edges weren't rolled over so they flopped around a little, on the replacement fenders I rolled the edges which stiffened them right up. The air cleaner cost me 20 bucks and does a good job at making the 318 look a little less out of place. Need to paint it black though.
I like what you've done so far, nice job. At least you get to drive it around the block......keep up the good work!
Thanks farmer After a little spin around the neighborhood and some tuning I did the obligatory nice long smokey burn out with it, I was grinning for hours after that.
Here it is with some paint on it, haven't painted the rear fenders yet planning on some bigger tires (pie crust slicks) in the back so I might have to open the fenders up a bit more. Got rid of that nasty silver paint on the air cleaner and wrapped up the wiring harness. If all goes well this winter I'll be dropping a nice 360 into it and building a set of fenderwell headers for it. stay tuned.....
Most of these late 40's/early 50's Mopars I've seen with the smallblock in them have moved the motor off to one side for steering box clearance, but I see you've recessed the box in the frame an inch? Have you got any new pics of how that looks? Were you able to center the motor or is it still offset to the right? I was going to suggest black wrinkle finish for the air cleaner, but I see you've already painted it. Looks good too!
Don't have any recent pics, camera needs batteries. The engine is offset to the right by about 1 1/2" which is typical on these cars with a small block mopar engine and stock chassis/steering box. I wasn't too concerned about the engine not being centered, every mopar built during the muscle car era has the engine offset to the right for steering box clearance, it's not really noticeable unless your looking for it. By moving the steering box over it just made more room between the exhaust ports on the head and the steering column. I eventually want to build a set of headers for this car and I wanted as much room as possible for the tubes, especially the rear port on the drivers side which points right at the steering column.
I guess when there's that little left of the rockers, it's no sin to bob 'em off. LOL Man that was a rusty ol' buggy there. I wouldn't have had the guts to take that one on. Regarding the wheel wells, I can see the necessity of hogging them out with the wider rear end. Personally I feel these cars handle better with the rear end slightly more narrow than stock though & I feel the front suspension should be wider. Rather than just notch the frame for steering clearance, I'm considering widening the front of the stock frame. I think a wider front stance with skinny front tires would look good too. Since I gotta bend or re-make the steering arms anyhow I'm not worried about the Akerman changes. I intend to stretch the wheelbase slightly too, so that'll affect the wheel openings in the rear, but also allow more radiator clearance up front. Also I'll either put rack & pinion on it or add an idler arm and relay rod. The stock unequal length tie rod setup is scary. Finally I hate kingpins and will be looking to put ball joint spindles on. I'm not sure if I can get the right setup, but if it can be done, I suspect that someone else has already done it. I don't want to change the a-arms, as I like the directness of the metal bushing pivots. Ya gotta grease them, and they're not cushy, but they won't mush out under pressure like rubber suspension bushings.
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