Last several weeks an increase in 'HELP' posts on various problems. As one
often does with a 10 or 12 year old 'modern' car the replacement bug bites
and usually the problem is still there after a good deal of $$ are spent.
Luckily our old iron is 'fairly simple' (thats a relative term?) to work on
and we have detailed shop manuals to assist in a logical walkthru of trubble
shooting. Many older mopar manuals have a separate section on
troubleshooting, either at end of the manual or each chapter. A GREAT help.
Stage two is an older MoToRs manual, covering a number of years of all cars.
Individual year/makes are covered in detail to assist you in supplementing
the shop manual you have. Sort of like two heads are better than one. AND
AND and remember your public library may well have said Motors or similar
manual for you to copy the pages from....
and
If U have, for example, a 59 Plymouth often a 57 (or 58 or 59) Chrysler or
DeSoto manual can help, all manuals are NOT created equal. My 55 Chrysler
manual is more detailed than my 55/56 Plymouth manual in a number of areas,
in spite of not having my 277 engine. i.e. detailed info on the column shift
linkage and manual tranny for the small Chrysler, said info is not in the
Plymouth manual and those components are nearly identical to the Ply.
I cannot visualize working on either of my beasts without these manuals.
It may take TIME (that 4 letter word) to read em and do the analysis but its
the only way to get your foot in the door in a logical intelligent manner.
Now they dont solve all the problems, like some vibration in my driveline (56
Ply wagon) that I attributed to the old driveshaft and U joints. Had a new
one made up for about $225 or so, helped but some vibration still there.
Later when I pulled the engine and tranny I found it- There were no bolts (
or wuz it nuts?) holding the flat rear motor (trans) mount in place and the
U joints had been running at an oddball angle evidently for years- hence the
vibration and of course wear on the U joints. Unless we rebuild EVERYTHING
gotta remember much of this stuff (and often those swap meet parts) are 35 to
40 yrs old.....and have been thru heaven knows what kind of backroads, heat,
humidity, whatever.
of course, Rotsa Ruck, we need that too!
L.
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