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Hopefully I'll be in your time zone pretty soon Mike.
I am looking at moving back home to Vegas.
Actually Pahrump near the the line south of Vegas.
Then when I need a good old part I can take a little trip
over the line to one of those great rust free junk yards
you guys have down there.
Kurt
Kurt made a comment in Rolands thread about videos, so rather than hijack that one I figured I throw this link up for inspiration for Don. Sorry about the sound.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5VEbByTEUc
I really want to get it in the 37, but I’m waiting till the new shop is up. ;)
Well I slept in as I was awake during the night because of all night long severe t-storms going over----
I guess I'll get started on my 392 as I just have 2 sets of ss headers to build for Robins 33 and a friends camaro before i can work on MY stuff. I'm building a 8:71 392 AND a 53 flathead, planning on ar random periods to switch back and forth with one chassis, which at this time will be a Downs roadster.
We build a lot of engines here and except for some full on competition engines for class racers(not dial it brackets) I don't think the hemis are much more expensive than the ford or chevs---every body is doing stroker cranks, forged I or H beam rods(mostly chev sizes) and by the time they do roller hyd cams and a set of roller rockers, fancy valve covers etc they are up there with what the hemi will cost---it already has rocker arms that are good, valve covers that are the envy of every body at a show--
Modern clutches are same price range, custom pistons same, rings same---
Now if the guy that beat me out of the Enderle barndoor injector a couple years ago on ebay( think it was one of ours)----
Nice Mike I like hearing them old Hemi's run.
Kurt
Mike P,I know what you mean,just at the moment,my work load has dropped off,and with it,obviously the money,so I cant plow any into Lyndas Customline,or the house...:(,so the thought of anything else just has to be pushed far into the background...
Don,a hemi is the ultimate for me,for a hotrod,anyway..they can transform anything into a desirable rod..I hope you guys can get that hemi sitting where it belongs...maybe in the r/p??Looks kool.
Anyway,here I am,sitting on my butt,better go and do some work..
Have a good day tomorrow guys...Its FRIDAYYY...well,down here anyway...:D
Made a little road trip up to the Tampa area today to pickup the 8 inch rear from Vara4. Kurt and his Wife Denise are about as nice of people as you could meet, and I'm sorry to see them leaving Florida in a few months to go to Nevada. I think we could have gotten them to go to Billetproof next October if they were still here.:D
Couldn't convince Kurt to take any money for the rear end, but he drew the line when I tried to score his built 351 Cleveland. I was just trying to save him from having to move it way out West. :LOL:
Thanks to both of you for the hospitality. Take care of those 10 Boxer pups, they're real cuties.
Don
Hey Don .... your always trying to help out (LOL). I like your style!!
Working on my crew cab so I can drive down & get bizzy on the '46 this weekend.
Paul
Were your ears burning today Paul? We were talking about you, I was telling Kurt and Denise about how well you treated me on the 46 stuff and Denise said they used to haul out of Atlanta and all the people they knew were great people too. :D
Glad to see you are finally going to get some work done, pictures, we want pictures. (Bet your camera is dusty, it's been so long. :p)
Don
Don your 3 hour tour turned in to a 6 or 7 hour tour.HE! HE! HE!
Did we remind you of Gilligan's Island, Here look at this, oh look at this.
You've just gotta see the Puppies, HE! HE! HE! Poor Don.
He didn't know what he was letting himself in for.
You'll have to come back Don, I forgot to show you the pool!!! HE! HE! HE!
Kurt
Nah, I loved spending the time. Thanks again.
Don
Just a little followup on Don's hemi acquisition. This morning he and I tore it down to see what he had to work with. All in all it is in very good condition. Block looks good, rings were frozen in the pistons from sitting, but will be replaced anyway. Heads had some burned valves, and the timing chain was very sloppy. But with some machining and new parts it will make him a good engine for whatever project he decides. Probably will send at least the heads to Hot Heads for reworking. He has to find out if a local shop is capable of machining the block or if it will have to go to Hot Heads too.
Gastrick, were you able to have your hemi machined locally. If we have to toss it into the trunk and take it to your end of the State that would be ok. From everything you said your machining came out right.
Don
a good machine shop can do that engine it not that hard to do .no way close to this thing .i am so happy to be done with all the hard work on this one :)
Looks tricky and very good work Pat. :) What exactly is that?
Don
it is a 1937 caddy block i put 3 sleeves in.some crack repair all 16 seats and guids and made the ex valves out of some bbc inconel ex valves that i cut the O.D down on for the stock size and use a bbc 1880 ex for the intake
You really do some fantastic work Pat. I bet you've forgotten more about building engines than most of us will ever learn. :)
Don
Don Pat is right on the money about any machine shop being able to handle the machine work to include the heads on you Hemi. Machining a Hemi is no different than doing a SBC and should cost no more (the cost of the parts is where the difference is).
As far as the timing set, Mother MOPAR had 2 styles of snouts on the early HEMIs. The early one used thru 1955 and the later style. The late style uses the same timing set as the used in the later small block Mopar’s (318/340/360) which gives you a pretty good range of options for different sets. I see Hot Heads offers the service to convert the snout so it might be something to look into (they also indicate that you need the late timing set to be able to use their water pump conversion.
This post shows the difference in the 2 cam snouts.
http://www.clubhotrod.com/forums/showthread.php?t=27050
While I’m thinking about it I might also suggest that while Don has the crank out he checks to see if it has been drilled for a pilot bearing, and if it hasn’t have it done. The cost shouldn’t be too bad, and it will always give him the option of running a manual transmission down the road.
don you may want to hold on to the lifters .mike may know more about this as some blocks did have over size lifters to fix the block . not sure what year they did this but you can not find them and you would need the old one re faced .or lifter bore s bushed back and that gets $$
thats a nice write up Mike---I remember the days late 60s early 70s on all my road trips of driving with my eyes split wide looking for Chryslers sitting in fields, behind barns----
I've probably killed off more of them than any body on here
Got a 392 about 8 years ago that I'm going to use in a roadster with a hemi/flathead swap back and forth so it seems like I have 2 cars painted/upholstered alike--you know kind of like a animal with 2 heads---(4heads?)
Good point Pat---there was years that Chrysler used different sizes in different holes from the factory and the blocks were stamped with codes along the pan rail (wonder if thats where Honda got that idea?)
I'm a bit late jumping into this thread, Uncle Bob, but as is always the case, your contribution is a good one.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bob Parmenter
Regarding the "parrots" among us, they gripe the devil out of me, too, and they are particularly annoying when the subject of oil (or any other form of energy, for that matter) comes up.
A couple of current "parrotisms" are "Drill, Baby, Drill!" and "Drill Here, Drill Now!". I hate the fact that these particular parrots are of the same political inclination that I am.
A few politicians, of course, have knowledge about oil production but most don't, and they, like the general public, seem to think that if restraints were lifted, the oil companies would rush right out and start poking holes tomorrow.
Whoopee! Immediate energy independence! 50 cent gas is right around the corner!
It ain't that easy.
In a recent Ed Wallace column (and I don't have it handy) he explains that if somebody wanted to put a platform in the Gulf he would be put on a wait-list for a drill ship for at least four years. Then he'd wait for the platform to be constructed and put in place, and that's not an overnight procedure either. Ed says that oil companies have to look years into the future for a well to go into production.
The present administration wants to rid the world of the curse of coal.
Nuclear, of course, will make us all glow in the dark, so that's out.
Comparatively, solar cells and wind are ineffectual.
We're in deep doo doo.
Jim
Thanks a lot guys for that info. We'll have to check the back of the crank, we just assumed it would have a hole for the pilot bearing but now you have me wondering. Good news about any machine shop being able to do the work. Down here in "Mayberry" we don't have a lot of speciality shops to choose from, but this new guy I ran across who did my pulley seems to know his stuff. At least if his 8 second S10 drag car means anything about his skill level. :)
Also good info about the odd sized lifters. They and the cam seemed to be in very good condition. The lifters popped right out of their bores with no mushrooming or anything evident. I have some old motor manuals and dug out one that covers this year motor and it said if there is a maltese cross stamped near the serial number it means the bearings are undersize stock from the factory............we have no cross on our block and there were no markings on the back of the bearings indicating size, so it looks like a standard sized block.
Don probably hasn't seen this thread yet as he works 2 jobs a day and doesn't get on here much, but I'll alert him to all the good info all of you have provided and also to your build threads Mike. Those were VERY detailed and useful.
Jerry, you mention the hemi and the flathead. What struck us as odd was that once we got those big heads off of this engine how similar in appearance and size the bare block is to a flathead. The 291 is really a compact engine, but man is it beefy.:eek: No wonder they held up to the abuses you racers put on them.
Don
They were also used a lot for industrial, military, pumps, street sweepers, ground generators at airports, stationery pumps/gens etc
On our race cars the pilot bearing fit in the flywheel hole and didn't go into the crank , I don't remember if that was stock or top fuel clutch thingie, but you might check that out before you have the crank drilled/machined.
Yes the size of the flathead and hemi take up about the same room except the hemi has a rear distributor --will be a less than one hour swap--have done them in the dragster in less, but was younger then
We talk about that all the time, how you race guys change or rebuild an engine between rounds. It takes me a week to pull one out and replace it, guess I wouldn't make the next round, huh? :o:LOL:
Don
Back THEN, in the OLD DAYS, there was 3 of us---Me, Keeling, the driver, and sometimes maybe a couple of people hanging around ---
We generally had 45 minutes, now they have 75 minutes plus a platoon of troops and several built up engines.
We also had 32 car fields--5 rounds of racing vs the 4 rounds now between TWO teams
Driver packed chute, mixed fuel
We checked plugs, changed oil--if need be a piston or two(later maybe even a sleeve) and replace valves if cylinder had burnt.
After we had gotten enough stuff for two complete engines, we built the funny car--then we would go to a race and take the other cars engine for the spare
Was a lot of very exciting fun----today they got to worry about lawyers, contracts,sponser guests and hospitility areas, teams, hotel rooms for hundreds of people, etc,etc,etc
You know Don; I would have give you that 351 Cleveland but after you told me how they blow up I started thinking. I just wouldn't be able to live with my self if it blew up on you and you had to have your car towed home, and then if it got oil all over your your car. OMG, I'm sorry I just couldn't do that to a nice guy like you.
HE! HE! HE!
Kurt
I'll take the chance! :LOL::LOL: Mine probably blew from 4:88 gears and too many R's one or two times. :D Yours is a lot better built than mine was, and a lot prettier Kurt.
Don
Hello All,
Thanks to everyone for all the great information. Special thanks to mike P for all the great Hemi Info. As pops stated, we got the engine totally torn down in about two hours on Saturday. I think all in all the engine is in good shape for a rebuild. I love tearing an engine down. Its like a mystery what you will find (hopefully a good mystery) I just could not help but to keep staring at this engine when it was sittting on the floor of the shop. So cool looking.
One question, all desoto valve cover pics that I have seen had a threaded nutplate welded to the valve cover for the plug wire covers to bolt to. Mine do not. Were there desoto covers without plug wire covers?
Now the million dollar question. What do I put this engine in? So many choices. Brother dan has a beautiful 30-31 model A 2 door sedan body that he will sell me. BUT Pops and dan have a different vision for the body than me. I would want it channeled over the frame with a heavily chopped top. Super low. dan and dad see it on a 32 frame hiboy style. Every time I talk about my vision I get a strange look from them both. So perhaps I would be better finding another body that they dont care about so much. Thanks again for all the great advice! Don Jr. P.S. Here is how I see that model a :toocool:
Heres how dan and dad see it (I think)
You're right Don, the guys have provided some very good info about hemis on here. I especially like the part about any good machine shop being able to do them.
As for the way you want to build your car, you are missing the points that Dan and I were trying to make. It is your car and has to reflect what you want and your personality (and it is your money :D) All we were trying to say is that with your very limiited time off from work (Monday evenings) it would be so much easier on you to build this one on a prefabbed 32 frame instead of having to build an entirely new one from scratch.
Also, the 30 body Dan has offered to sell you is so mint that they don't come along like this very often. To do a severe channel it would have to be cut up so much (especially for rear axle clearance) that it might be better to do a less clean body instead.
But we have nothing against a channeled one, and in fact think they look really cool. Here are a couple of my favorites:
Dad
Don and Mike -Quote:
Originally Posted by Itoldyouso
I'm in one of those positions where I'm not running my big mouth for fear of making a fool of myself, but, doggone it, I'm almost ..... I said "almost" ...... positive that one of the Dodge D500 engines could be had with a factory dual point distributor. It would be '56 or '57 with the 315 ci engine. I'll say the '57 and I'll stick my neck out still farther and guess it was the dual quad version of the fifty seven.
I bought a '56 D500 new. It was a single four-barrel version with the one-shift automatic. Despite being "transmission challenged" I won the big share of my races in the "something/stock-automatic" class (I'm not sure about that, either).
If I'm all wet on this please don't embarrass me by telling everybody!
Jim
Jim, in the case of the Dodge D500 engines they were all Hemi's until the introduction of the "B" (wedge) engines in 1958. As such chances are that it would have been a dual point.
As the distributors would interchange between the Hemi's that had a Poly counterpart who knows how much swapping occurred.
Believe me I don't know everything about these engines (hell there were 12 different displacements divided between Chrysler, Desoto and Dodge with all three having versions in both tall and short decks) and nothing was written in stone with Ma Mopar.
Don Jr as far as I know all the first Gen Hemi's had the studs for the wire covers. It was/is pretty popular to have these removed to eliminate the covers and use 426 style dust covers (it's a mod I had done on the pair that’s on the 331 that will be going in my 37). I suspect if you look real close you will find the places the studs were spot welded.
I like the observation Don made about the size of the Hemi Block after you got the heads off....... it's almost a let down isn't it? It's really a testament to the original design and quality that they were able to make them go so fast with what is by todays standards would be considered minimal prep work.
As for the spark plug DUST COVERS we used some off of I believe Chevy Corvair--they fit into the tubes a little better and didn't blow around at high speeds as bad. You can see them pretty well in a couple of the pics in my photo gallery.
Good tips on the boots for the valve covers. I suspected too that someone had modified these to eliminate the studs but there is absolutely no evidence of any work on them, either inside or out. These appear to be bone stock. Is it possible some DeSotos came off the assembly line with booted ones? I have read that no other hemi valve covers will fit the DeSotos except for DeSotos, and if that is true these had to be some variation of those.
Everything else on this motor is unchanged from stock, so I can't see that anyone did any mods, this was just a 2 barrel car engine from all appearances.
I'll shoot some close up pix tomorrow of the covers.
Don
You're right about that, Mike. When I bought my '56 the available engine options were hemi V8's or the old flathead six that Chrysler used forever.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mike P
I think it would be cool to have one of the little 240 ci hemis sitting in my shop alongside one of the little sixty horsepower Ford V8's to keep it company.
I sat around last night trying to remember a few things about my '56 D500. I recall that some Chrysler propaganda referred to it as a "fast, roadable, production line hot rod" with 260 advertised horsepower, 9.25:1 compression ratio, and a "walloping" --- foot pounds of torque developed at a low ---- rpm.
...... And that should satisfy people's daily need for useless information.
Jim
I was curious to find out if Don's crank was drilled for a pilot bearing, as Mike P suggested, and it is. :D I took some pictures but the flange is hidden behind my engine stand plate so it was hard to photograph, but it looks just like the one Mike pictured in his excellent hemi thread.
I also wanted to get one more look at the valve covers to figure out what I could see relative to the studs for the spark plug covers. I put the covers under a bright light and used a magnifying glass but I really can see no evidence that there were 3 studs ever on these covers. Yes, there are clean sections between the plug holes where they might have been, but no real impressions or any grinding to indicate someone had removed them for some reason.
I realize a lot happens to a car in 55 years, but this motor just seems to be out of a bone stock DeSoto with zero speed modifications. Why would someone go to the trouble of carefully removing and smoothing those areas? Could it be that some DeSotos were just set up for boots? Doesn't really matter, Don is planning on running just boots anyway, so this worked out well regardless.
Here are some pictures. The first one is Mikes picture showing the pilot bearing hole, and the second one is the picture of mine I took.......hard to see anything, but I could see it with my eyes and feel it too.
The other pictures are of the valve covers.
Don
Don, I have two of these Desoto Hemi's. The one I am installing in my 49 F-1 its a 330 inch motor and the other is a 291 out of a 55 Desoto. In all of the research I have done I have always found that information to say that "ALL" Desotos came stock with the spark plug covers. Interesting enough that you have the second one with no provisions for those covers that I have seen. The valve covers on my 291 also had no lugs to recieve the covers, this motor I took out of the car myself and I am as sure as anyone can be that the motor was just as it came from the factory. The car had plates on it from 1961 and the odometer showed 36,021 miles. I dont usually hold a lot of stock into those things but it seems reasonable that a car built in 1955 and only driven for 6 years could have that small amount of milege. The valve covers themselves looked like they had never been off of the car, but who knows?
Another interesting thing about those covers is the fact that they had dimples like the Chyrsler engines used in "Industrial" applications. These dimples were to clear adjustable rockers, that were only available on Industrial and Marine engines. No place in my research shows any industrial or Marine Desoto engines.
These covers were in such good shape and also a little unusal so I am going to run them on the 330 inch motor, heres a pic.....
Roland
Mr Blue,,sir,,while I can see your problem,I do like your fathers choice of A tudor...The only other way around the issue of finding something for that wee hemi,is this...Try a crate,and address it to me...Pleeeze...:LOL::LOL:
I am sure I could whip up a roadster pickup to house it ...:D
Enjoy,Don Jr,enjoy..
Robin.
I checked out the crankshaft too and it does indeed have provisions for the pilot bearing. Good news if I want to put a stick set up behind it.
Like pops I looked those valve covers up and down for evidence of some "bodywork" to remove the spark plug wire holder retainers. I saw none either. I am sure some models ended up as abnormal (or "ABBY NORMAL" as they said in Young Frankenstein) :LOL: and had no plug wire covers. Very interesting with the adjustable valvetrain Hombre259. Neat looking covers.
Lamin8r....... thank you for the wonderful solution to our dilema!!! The crate is on its way (I shipped it "pony express"):3dSMILE:
Don jr.
Yeah Roland, it's good to hear someone else has covers that have no provision for spark plug covers. It had me wondering for a while what we had here. Those ones with the clearance bumps are very cool, and I bet rare.
Don, the cleaning job you did on your side of the shop looks great. Now I can find your tools much easier when I "borrow" them. :D:D
Don
Pops,
Ha! I found most of my tools in your area:LOL:
My pitbull should be delivered this week, he will be tied to my toolbox:3dSMILE:
Another one will be tied to the battery charger on the tbucket so you guys leave it plugged into the wall!!!!!!!!!!!!!:rolleyes:
Don Jr.