Monday, July 25, 2022
I haven’t been buying too many parts for the Plymouth on eBay, though there are some I would love to have but don’t want to pay the asking price (think tail lights). But today, the USPS man brought me an item I snagged on eBay just as soon as I saw it — a parking light housing and lens.
I’ve messed with a great many parking lights in my day from different makes, models and years. Its a colored lens with a light bulb, nothing to get too excited about — unless you’re messing with the parking light fixtures on a 1956 Plymouth.
The housings, per the photo, are rectangular. The lens is NOT secured by screws — the edge of the lens slips in a rubber gasket around the outer edge of the parking light housing. The gasket hold the lens in place. Well, on my passenger side parking light, when I removed the lens, what little bit of the rubber gasket — not hard and very brittle — disintegrated. I was left with a parking light housing with NOTHING to hold the lens in place. WTF??
It took me a while to figure out what the hell was wrong. The shop manual doesn’t really give you a clear picture of how the lens stays in place. So I looked at the driver’s side parking light and found the original rubber gasket partly in place — in place enough to hold the lens. The remaining gasket is hard and brittle too, and yeah, I’m thinking if I had to pull the lens to replace the bulb, that gasket would turn to dust too.
So last week, I’m looking for 56 Plymouth parts and see this parking light. On closer inspection, the gasket looked great — complete and flexible. The description makes note of this as well. The Buy It Now of $40 was CHEAP, and I hope I can find a second one.
I think I’m going to remove the passenger side parking light housing and swap it out for the new one. And then I’m going to set out trying to find a way to retrofit the housing with some sort of clamp or device that can secure the lens in place. I have some ideas, but wish me luck anyway.
OTHER PARTS. My wife gave me a hard way to go recently when I picked up a second complete 56 Plymouth horn ring at a great price on eBay. Well, there’s one listed now that’s complete but one end of the top half loop is broken — and they have it listed with a Buy It Not of something like $125.
SPEAKING OF 56 BELVEDERES …. I was looking at the recently published roster of the Plymouth Owners Club, and I was surprised by several things. The first was the popularity of 1930s Plymouths. Very, very popular in the club. The second was how few 56 Belvederes are owned by POC members. Only a handful of members list owning one. Of course, that may just mean the club’s focus has been on the older cars and the 50s and 60s cars aren’t as plentiful among members. I’m only guessing at this point.