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I'd like to tell you a story and then let you decide whether it applies to this discussion or not. When I was a kid (I'm a really old guy) there was a well-known automotive journalist named Tom McCahill who for years had a monthly column in Mechanix Illustrated magazine. He was one of the...

Re-stating what MidnightSwinger said, just remember that if your engine is still covered under the manufacturer's warranty, you've got to use the grade and weight of oil specified by that manufacturer or your warranty will be void. If you have a newer engine that is supposed to use 0W-20 oil...

Lee lives about 15 miles away from me, and I've met him a couple of times. He's been over to my house and I've been to his. He has been extremely helpful to me in correcting problems on my '62 Valiant resto-rod. Super great guy! And his dad Carl is a Mopar freak, too.

/facetious mode on Those aren't early A's!! THIS is an early A!

I've always felt they were very high-quality punches. I've got quite a few of them, but they're old, and I used to use them to punch holes in steel car bumpers(!) to mount CB antennas and trailer electrical connectors, so unfortunately most of them have become dull. I'm wondering if a DIY'er...

In Britain, Australia and New Zealand they call the part of a car's frame where it narrows in the front, and where it kicks up at the rear, the "dumb irons". That never ceases to crack me up every time I hear it. We really ought to adopt the phrase here in 'Murica! Imagine how great it would...

I'm getting ready to lower the body of my '22 Dodge Bros. touring car onto the chassis, but I experienced a major brain fart: I forgot whether the longitudinal splash pans have to be installed first or not. Even worse, I forgot how to install the splash pans. I am going to have to make inquiry...

Good suggestion, MoparMike1974! Thanks very much.

Good point, Tooljunkie. I didn't happen to have the right size hose clamp at the time. I'd better pick one up the next time I go to the auto parts store.

Wow, ACME SS, great answer! Thanks for all the effort. I was able to lower the cylinders over the piston rings by carefully pushing the rings into their lands with a tiny screwdriver, but was just wondering how to do it next time. Thanks again!

On a reciprocating air compressor, since you can't install the pistons from the top of the cylinders because the connecting rod bolts face upward (i.e., you have to install the rod bolts, pistons and rings first and then lower the cylinders over the pistons) and therefore can't use a normal ring...

Thank you very much, FABO people! Your replies contain so much valuable information. I really appreciate it, and will be referring to your replies in the future.

I'm painting antique cars (on which a base/clear would be incorrect), farm implements and shop equipment with single-stage urethane. I sure wish I knew of someplace that offered good prices on decent-quality paint. Probably this would be an online store rather than a bricks and mortar one(?)...

I've been spraying quite a bit of epoxy primer, and I had thought that spraying lacquer thinner or acetone between uses would suffice to keep it clean inside. That was wrong. The epoxy paint did build up inside the passages of the gun, despite spraying lacquer thinner each time after I used...

Try scratching a test piece of bare metal deeply with 80 grit and then see if one coat of primer will level it out so it looks nice.

I don't want to argue with anything you've said, chrisf, because you know more about it than I do. However, we need to bear in mind that you are working on rare and/or valuable cars. So, in defense of sandblasting with 30 mesh sand: although it does leave the bare metal surface a tiny bit...

Have you ever tried a 4-1/2" or a 9" angle grinder with a non-woven paint stripping pad? They work quite well. The 9" grinder is much faster than the small one, but it is quite heavy and will tire your arms out.

Have you eliminated the possibility that it is just worn belts? The drive friction is delivered by the sides of the belt, and if the sides are too worn down the belt will bottom out in the pulley groove. When this happens, no amount of tightening it will make the sides of the belt contact the...

So did the engine have other problems besides the internal water pump? I was thinking it looked fairly nicely made, but I have been wrong once or twice before. Insofar as bulletproofing a POS is concerned, why for example do so many people go to such trouble and expense in order to bulletproof...

Hyper_pak wrote: "...the 60-62 A Body is the smallest engine compartment." Indeed, it is not a trivial task to stuff a small block V8 into a Toad.

Thanks, guys, for correcting me on the 3.2 liter motor, and for the good information on the 2.7. Too bad, though, that there's no way to bulletproof it. What could the Chrysler engineers have been thinking when they designed the engine that way? Certainly they could have found the room for an...

A friend of mine has one of these engines sitting disassembled in his shop for the usual reason: the internal water pump failed, coolant got in the oil and ruined it. Looking at the block, crank, rods and pistons carefully, this looks like it was basically a nicely-manufactured engine. The...

In Concord, California, where I grew up, during the 1950s the Western Auto store was located in the Foskett & Elworthy building, which was the first brick and masonry building in town: 25. Foskett & Elworthy Building | ConcordHistory.Com For many years before that the building housed the only...

Yes, chrisf, thanks for all the good information on sandblasting. I'll be following your advice when I modify my HF blast cabinet.

A 9-inch, 6,000 RPM angle grinder like this one, with a non-woven abrasive pad, is good for removing paint and rust from large surfaces in lieu of sandblasting. However, when using this large angle grinder I always try to position the work so I don't have to be lifting the durned thing...

4spd, I have been using Ospho, which is mostly phosphoric acid, to treat rust and am pretty happy with it. However, Ospho doesn't strip paint. Does Krud Kutter? For cleaning up rusty nuts and bolts, and parts that have rust and paint, I first dip them in my parts washer, then remove most of...

I wanted to strip the firewall of my car, but didn't want to carry the body over to the outside sandblasting area, so I tried some non-woven paint stripping discs that mount in the common type of 4-1/2" angle grinder that has a 7/8" arbor, like in this picture. I had never tried this kind of...

Here's a picture of the Dodge Brothers breaking ground for their new factory in, I think, 1910. Look at those tummies! I am told that people back then thought a fat stomach was attractive because it showed that the person had plenty to eat and was therefore financially successful. I have...

YY1 wrote: 904's also don't seem to be as sensitive to that kickdown pressure issue, which can burn up a 727 2-3 shift real fast. YY1, do you mean if the kickdown is adjusted to shift into third way too soon? Or something else?

So the alternator on my '62 Valiant stopped charging the battery. The alternator was producing charging voltage but the ammeter never showed a charge, only a discharge. I traced this to loose connections at the ammeter, which now reads correctly and the alternator is now charging the battery...