(49122 mi to present) Stupid, stinking electrical short...It MUST be gremlins...

I've been replacing all the electrical motors, solenoids, wiring, and gauges in a slow and expensive attempt to locate a short in the system.  The car will start fine for multiple starts, long drives, and short hops under any weather conditions.  Then, without apparent cause, the whole system will go down, no lights, no starting, nothing.  The solution is an easy disconnect from the battery, and usually the car starts again.  Occasionally, I have to do it twice, but what a bother it can be!

There are other symptoms.  Driving down the road, we'll get a concerned citizen flagging us down from their vehicle to inform us about the right rear brake light not functioning.  We have stopped and verified it.  As soon as I return to fix the problem, it is working again.  I've also noticed that the gas gauge goes wonky once in awhile too.  It appears to be showing the proper fuel level, but I may just be receiving the appearance of a full tank without it actually being full.

I'm running out of things to replace and will have to commit to an entire body long search, following every wire and testing every component.  Before I do that, however, I intend to have the starter rebuilt.  It can't hurt anything more than my pocket book, which already strains for many other reasons.   The upside to the car trouble is the fuel savings.  The car is not running, and the exorbitantly expensive fuel is not being consumed ($4.07/gallon).

The Windsor Newport

CHRYSLER INTRODUCED the Newport body style shortly after the war and it has since become a very popular body type among the old and young alike.  The CLEARBAC rear window, the roll-down side windows, and the wide windshield give open car vision and freedom with the safety of the Sedan.

The Windsor Convertible Coupe

As THE YOUNGSTERS would say . . .  "What a dream-boat," and we follow with "What a dream to drive"!  The Windsor DeLuxe Convertible Coupe . . . one of the smartest and most beautiful cars you ever laid your eyes on . . . with performance that will open your eyes and make you say "that's the car for me"!

(51305 mi) "Poor Adjustment" - The Squeak Revealed

Poor adjustment refers to the clearance of the pad from the brake drum; in the case of the C-51 Chrysler Windsor, it is 0.006 inches.  Six thousandths of an inch requires a particularly exacting tool to ensure that the heal and toe of the pads hit the brake drum equally.  What is the heal and the toe of the brake pad?

The only effective way to illustrate is offering a page out of the 1951 Chrysler Shop Manual, page 56. (see below).  The toe of the brake pad is closest to the wheel cylinder.  The method for using the MT-19H tool requires repetition.  First you adjust the toe then the heel and repeat.   You can spend some time going back and forth between adjusting the heal and toe until the pad appears to be reasonably even and round.

Once you have the whole thing adjusted, it may still need final adjustment on the car.  It becomes especially apparent when the brakes pull to one side or the other.  

I had another particular problem with the adjusting cam - the bolt and pin turned but the cam did not.  It was an interesting problem.

Someone had originally tack welded the cam to the pin, which worked fine until the weld broke.  I tried the same technique but used epoxy to secure the pin to the cam.  That worked like the tack weld.  My most recent attempt included a torch and a hammer.  There is no assurance that it'll work any better.  However, I plan to replace the drum brakes with disc brakes soon.  It is a large expense, but well worth the trouble if I plan to keep the car.  

After twenty years, I plan to keep the car until I can't see the road anymore.

(51305 mi) Adjusting the brakes OR How to take the SQUEAK out

One of the most identifying feature of an poorly maintained car is brake squeal, in my opinion.  It is a matter of utmost concern when I hear my car reach a stoplight with a strong announcement and wary pedestrians pass quickly to avoid the possibility of being a run-over victim.

Leaking brake fluid can be a factor in noisy brakes, but a poor brake adjustment can produce both noisy and a car pulling to one side.  As it happens, I had both leaking and poor adjustment.  Naturally, I turn to TECH and the Master Technicians Service Conference for an answer.

Tech provides the answer with his usual brevity and recommends the proper order to check.

I already checked the second one first because I had a leak and rubber troubles.  Everything was torqued properly and tight as can be,  leaving the first and the third recommendation.

The third recommendation called "poor alignment" actually refers to how the brake pad hits the drum.  The perfect alignment is perpendicular to the surface of the brake drum.  Unfortunately, the position of the guide spring and the cam pin in the "support assembly" can affect how the pad interacts with the drum.  We are ignoring other small problems like a drum which is out-of-round (solved by a lathe.)

If there is cam pin which is too long, it means some grinding and adjusting, otherwise you get an irritating brake shudder.  If the cam pin is too short, you can live with it because the pad will right itself, but the pad will wear unevenly and shorten its useful life.  If you want to fix a short pin, you have to pound the pin from the backside, bending the support assembly well enough to push the pin towards the outside.

The second recommendation, "Poor Adjustment" is matter of using the right tool and having patience in producing the best result. It's worth a whole new blog entry.

(51297 mi) Leaks and a spongy brake (or don't reuse old rubber, stupid)

Hydraulic action is a pretty simple way to transfer force from a source to a destination, if you don't have any leaks or bubbles.  I had both.

The leaks came first and were caused by two factors: old rubber and stupid me.  "Stupid me" re-used the old boots on the wheel cylinders after I re-conditioned them.  They really did look supple and new when I decide to reuse them.  Unfortunately, after a trip across the country from Chicago to Los Angeles , they degraded.  "Stupid me" also didn't double-check all the hydraulic linkages for tightness.

"Cups-Old cups should always be thrown away when you're overhauling a system."p. 19, Master Technicians Service Conference,"The ABC's of Hydraulic Brakes", Vol 1, No. 8, 1948.







Replacing the rubbers was not a problem.  The brake pad adjustments are another story.

(51295 mi) I should have known...Generator-Regulator

I often wonder why I wait for something to go wrong before I act.  I suppose that it's human nature.

Generator Regulator is a vital link to all things electrical in the engine of a 1951 Chrysler.  In fact, it can appear that everything is breaking down, electrically speaking, when it's only one nasty gremlin.  He was hiding in the Generator Regulator.

Looking back, I should have known.  The symptoms were clear:  (1) The Ammeter was showing constant charging at a constant rate; (3) a variety of electrical items would work and then not; and (3) light bulbs were being burned out.  My reaction to these occurrences showed a concentration on the symptoms.   I had supposed that the car waited too long a time in storage, and things were going awry from neglect.  Not so!  It was just one device.  Fortunately, the car received a complete re-wiring, brand new generator, new plugs, and new coil, as a result.  Hopefully we can consider this to be the end of the electrical breakdown, maybe.