1949 plymouth business coupe

sometime around early november? i don't know when, but i dragged home a 1949 plymouth coupe. i made a quick post about it, at which time my wife had no idea there was a car in the garage sitting on the trailer, in a million pieces. she ended up seeing it a few weeks later, and is on board.

Car sat in the garage for a little while. actually, it has been hanging from the rafters for 8 weeks from a lone ratchet strap waiting for me to figure things out. I had figured out the front suspension as most of it came with the car, but the rear had me going back and forth between long ladder bars or leaf springs. i had drawn the chassis several ways, and in the mean time brought home a 24' stick of 2x4x.125 tube to make frame rails from.

fast forward to thanksgiving. my FIL brings me down the trailer i bought over the summer from his farm up in northwest michigan. trailer is the back end of a 1972 C10 chevy truck, which i bought solely because i wanted the long stepside bed for my 68 c20. in the dark, somewhere south of flint at my wife's grandparents place, i pulled into their driveway and saw my trailer. then i looked at the trailing arm suspension and got excited and busted out the tape measure and flashlight. that night i drew up my frame. the trailing arm front mount is right under the seat of the plymouth, right about where old school gassers with longgggggg ladder bars put the ladder bar front eye. factory panhard, coil springs that i could swap to coil overs for adjustability later on if the coils don't work, and best of all it's rolling and ready to go.

press fast forward one more time to dec 27th and it's 50 degrees out, so i got to work.

i torched the tongue off the trailer, unbent the rails, cut off all the extra unnecessary mounts, and slid my 2x4 tube in.

this is everything clamped in place for testing

and here is the frame tacked with a front crossmember out of a roll cage tube scrap. i had it clamped to a 2x3 tube up front to keep the rails in the same plane.

the rails measure out dead square.

ran out of light to take pictures, but the front springs got tacked in place later that night, and the front axle was bolted in very loosely. then i pushed it under the body, dropped it on, and started cutting out the hacked up patched over rotten floor. i do have some pictures on my camera, they will come in the next update.

I just saw one of those on FB last night. A friend is selling it for $5500.

What's the rear trackwidth on that C10 axle... isn't it a bit wider than the Mopar one?

4Msfam wrote: What's the rear trackwidth on that C10 axle... isn't it a bit wider than the Mopar one?

not a ton, but the long term plan is something a few inches narrower and much beefier. will probably blow it sky high launching a big block on slicks. come spring, when it's bearable to hit the pull a parts, i will be searching for a 9"

more.

the trunk pan remnants and some cobbled together crap are holding the rear of the body up off the frame about 3". so when i get that all cut out, the body will drop down to where it belongs, and i can build mounts. I anticipate being able to get some of that done this weekend, maybe even tomorrow. my buddy borrowed my sawzall and has not returned it because of the crappy weather.

so these pics show the body just sitting there, too high in the back, not exactly centered, with one fender propped up on sticks and one strapped on. the front axle, because it is not bolted tight, has slid backwards 2" on the front springs, thus looking too far back. i've actually built the frame to stretch the wheelbase 1" over stock.

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i expect the front end to drop another 2" when it gets however many pounds of big block, plus the sheetmetal and all that stuff. kinda going after the height of the ramchargers' original high and mighty 49 plymouth, but without the insane look of no rear fenders and a roof high intake manifold made with rubber runners.

FYI the blue one above is not the same as mine. mine is a 3 window business coupe - no rear seat or quarter glass.

managed to get the hacked up floor cut out from the middle of the door opening to where the trunk was already cut out. once that garbage was out of the way, the body sat right down where i wanted it. i left the front until i make body mounts.

this morning i got the body lined up front to back and side to side so i can start that phase. the front mounts at the firewall are still in good condition, so i am going to start there and work toward the rear of the body.

sitting down on the chassis:

the nasty floor, much of their patch work was done with lightweight home depot quality galvanized sheet metal for ductwork.

took more pics but they came out fuzzy.

i have a 4'x10' roll of 18 gauge steel sheet left over from a job that will provide lots of pieces. and i get to finally use my beadroller for something productive.

Hey Pat, I know a guy selling a brand $5k. They normally sell for something like $13k, but he won it and has no use for it. Let me know if you are interested.

bravenrace wrote: Hey Pat, I know a guy selling a brand $5k. They normally sell for something like $13k, but he won it and has no use for it. Let me know if you are interested.

i think you left some info out :)

In reply to patgizz:

I don't know how that happened, but since I was typing it on my ipad, it probably did some berkeleying jump and deleted out the part that said "...spanking new Hemi crate engine for..."

while extremely tempting, if i could manage to come up with $, it would defeat the purpose of the car - to use up a bunch of stuff i have laying around.

patgizz wrote:

You know, my first thought here was not "narrow that axle", it was "box flares".

that's an 8" rim with about 3" backspace. there is lots of room to go inward, but not too far. may cut the fenders. bodywork way down the road.

my firewall mounts are built. the garage is warming up so i can go out and figure out the mount that used to be located behind the seat.

some days i wish i had a plasma cutter. today is one of those days.

The more or less planar body-fender interface means you would just have to add a strip of metal to box flare your 49 plymouth.

In reply to patgizz:

Pat, I have a plasma cutter if you want to borrow it. You'll need 220V to power it.

bravenrace wrote: In reply to patgizz: Pat, I have a plasma cutter if you want to borrow it. You'll need 220V to power it.

i may need to take you up on that once i get all my metal to do the tinwork. would make for much quicker cuts than my angle grinder with a cutoff wheel. i have 220 in my garage. i almost ordered one last week but decided guaranteeing i have my truck paid for the next 2 months was more important.

so the PO and PPO did a number on the shell. mostly the latter as the PO didn't do much except store it.

they cut out the trunk floor from the front wall to the tail panel, wheelwell to wheelwell. the only reinforcing done was a 3/4" square tube side to side at the wheelwell to trunk hinge supports, attached with one #6 machine screw and nut on each side. the rear of the car had drooped about 3/4" and there were buckles in the quarters at the front of the trunk opening to show for it. when i picked it up, it was sitting on a cart that only supported the car under the floor.

for that reason, i started my body mounting front to rear. the frontmost mounts are simple as the factory mounts at the firewall are solid, so i just built some tube outriggers off the frame with a hole in them and dropped a solid bushing in place and bolted it down.

once i did that i was able to measure the car at the rear of the door openings and square it to the frame, then lift the body until the rockers and frame were parallel and i had the same measurement off the frame rail to the top of the package tray. once i got there i had to figure out how to mount the body, with half the floor cut out and the other half to be cut out to fix the botched up repair work

i took 2 of the original bed mounts from the truck that donated the rear chassis, located and tacked them in place, then cut a 2x4 tube to go on them between the body behind the doors. then i had to figure out how to attach it. dug through my pile and cut up some 3/16 plate from some discarded store displays. i put that between the b pillar and whatever you call the vertical bracing at the trunk wall.

with all that in place, the body was solidly mounted at 4 points. i turned my attention to the rear. i figured i needed a real solid structure to beef things up, so i took some 1/8" 1.5x1.5 tube i had scavenged from a 14 foot long retractable awning i picked up from someone's treelawn. i used a big ratchet strap from the taillight holes up and over the truss in my garage and pulled until the creases on the quarters popped out and the trunklid fit right. ran one tube along the rear of the car, welded to what was left of the trunk pan by the latch. then i ran one tube front to rear just inside each wheelwell as structure and the basis for my trunk floorpan. off each of those i made the rear body mounts. i had just enough 2x3 tube left from a mangled trailer tongue to cut a 10" straight section then miter cut it to give me a pair of outriggers to weld to the frame. more solid bushings and 1/2" bolts and the rear of the body is mounted. released tension on the strap and everything stayed put.

the white tubes will give me a point to attach the repaired wheelwells and the trunk floor. the floor can continue straight through to the 2x4 tube then go down from there to the main floor. my rear firewall can go vertical right where the original trunk wall went from the floor up to the package tray. now i just need to find a cheap source of sheetmetal for all that stuff. it's very ambitious of me to try and stick to a $2000 budget, but i think i can do it provided i can off some of the expensive race parts that came with the car that i do not intend to use.

once i cut out the rest of the floor, another pair of mounts will be added under the seat area to build the floor off of. i'll be cutting it out rocker to rocker as some hack along the way put some plate and angle in there instead of building proper inner rocker repair panels, so the rockers are floating and it's generally scary under there. lots of cancer was just patched over if it wasn't going to be painted, and i'm doing my best to eliminate all of it. this is the perfect car to do this to as the exterior body is pretty good, but the rest of it certainly does not call for a nut and bolt restoration.

patgizz wrote:

bravenrace wrote: In reply to patgizz: Pat, I have a plasma cutter if you want to borrow it. You'll need 220V to power it.

i may need to take you up on that once i get all my metal to do the tinwork. would make for much quicker cuts than my angle grinder with a cutoff wheel. i have 220 in my garage. i almost ordered one last week but decided guaranteeing i have my truck paid for the next 2 months was more important.

Well it's yours to use if you want it. Just come pick it up and return it when you're done. I don't use it very often, so it shouldn't be a problem for me.

sounds like you need to go hunting for discarded appliances! they're a great source for cheap sheetmetal.

you know. i'm a genius. i forgot i have a pile of 3'x5' 18 gauge panels stacked up behind the garage. there are probably 10 of them that my mom's friend gave me. they made up a spray booth at her sign shop. free floors!

they have 2" lip around all 4 edges so if i can use it, it makes for less time bending stuff with the brake.

the trunk floor of my belair is made out of the 2 sides of my parents old dryer. so far in this plymouth i've recycled a trailer that used to be a truck, tube off a retractable awning, and tubes from a roll cage that was cut out of an old circle track camaro.

This is getting interesting. I may have to stop by sometime to check it out.

my sister showed up all excited while i was working on our project rental house(she lives around the corner from it). my christmas present came - a new set of air nibblers. i forgot about them, and am now excited as well. they shall come in handy for sure.

update, sans pictures until tomorrow.

I have procured a new roll bar hoop. I test fit one for a camaro that was chopped out of my old car. width and profile was perfect but too short as I had just cut it out of the car. I went to summit and knew I needed 38.5" tall to fit, so they brought me one out for the camaro to measure. 39" tall from the factory, and perfect price at $49 since i've got most of the other tubes.

I'm also going saturday to pick up the engine, a 1995 454 from a suburban that I almost bought last year. New owner of the truck wants to put a 6.5 TD in it, and i got to hear it run last week and gave him a deposit. Between selling the computer, harness, throttle body, intake, valve covers, and serpentine system with accessories i should have $0 in the engine.

today on the way home from the store we found 2 8' sections of 3/16"x3" steel plate. all my brackets and frame plating material just got free.

and i cut the firewall out, and the whole floor rocker to rocker. my new plasma cutter is fun.

454 procured. easier than pulling the one out of my old truck right now.

Can I call dibs on the tbi? I've beenllooking for one for my 64 el Camino

the beginnings of an engine mount crossmember.