Tuesday, Dec. 7, 2021
The local car group had an impromptu cruise-in on Sunday due to the unseasonably good weather, so I took the Plymouth to town for the afternoon. Before i got far from home, I decided I better top off the gas.
As usually, when I started filling the tank, fuel leaked from under the car. I have found that if I slow the flow of fuel, it won’t leak until its full. So I did that, and then headed to town. When I arrived at the parking lot, I ended up parking the car with the rear end on the “downhill” side of the parking lot, and having just topped it off, the tank started leaking … a LOT. It attracted the attention of several of the guys, two of whom got on the ground and looked at it.
I had never really looked at the fuel filler tube, but its much longer than the one for my 55 Chevy or my 76 Plymouth Duster. the filler tube goes down inside the quarter panel, and then over to about the halfway point in the car, then connects with a rubber section of hose to the fuel tank. The tank’s vent tube runs parallel with the filler tube, and it also connects to the tank with a short rubber hose connector. Given the fact that the rubber connector only leaks at full flow of gasoline, I suspect the top side of it is dry rotted. If you put fuel in slowly, it doesn’t leak.
Anyway, my next job is to loosen the filler tube and vent, and then replace that short section of rubber hose on both. It “shouldn’t” be too tough to do, but we all know how that goes, lol!
NEW HEADLIGHT DOORS. Tonight on eBay a seller listed a set of New Old Stock (NOS) headlight doors for the Plymouth. I mean these are mint! The price wasn’t cheap– $325 — but parts like this don’t show up every day. Mine aren’t horrible, but I figured I would grab them before someone else does.
OTHER NEEDED TRIM. I need a new trunk lock trim insignia; mine is terribly pitted and looks pretty shabby. My tail light housings arent’ so hot either, they have lots of pits. I have seen NOS ones on eBay, but they’re like $250 each. I also need a “Powerflite” logo for the trunk lid. Mine is pitted and actually broken. I may end up gluing it back together and then making a resin copy, smoothing out all the pits and then casting resin replacements that I can paint like chrome. There’s some really good looking chrome paint systems that look nearly as good as the real thing. I think it would work ok for a small script logo like that.