Hey, Scotty. Your videos have helped me gain confidence and ability as an aspiring tinkerer. I recently bought a 1950 Plymouth Special Deluxe sedan that I am using as a daily driver. Do you have any helpful tips for those who use antiques as daily drivers to increase reliability to help us get from point A to point B other than selling it and buying a Toyota Corolla?
Thanks!
Eli
There is no such thing as a reliable antique.
Those old cars are VERY cool cruisers and projects, but you are talking about a car that is 71 years old. Things will go wrong and need repair. And parts are likely going to be hard to find and potentially expensive. If you want to daily drive it, you'll have to just expect that things will go wrong. Keeping up on maintenance is all you can do.
In the 1950s people drove these every day without a second thought. They do require more maintenance than newer cars, more frequent oil changes, lead additives, etc.
Improvements you can make include converting it to 12 volts, converting from a generator to an alternator, using radial tires, converting the brakes to use a dual chamber master cylinder, and adding an oil filtration system if none is present already.
If your car was a Chevrolet many of those things could be done with kits, but I don't know that much is available for the Plymouth. I would baby it as much as I could. But those flathead sixes are pretty tough, Chrysler sold them as industrial motors for years after ceasing use of them in cars. So parts might not be as bad to find as you would expect.
While nice, these are not particularly valuable so you may as well drive it and enjoy it.
and if it does blow up, there's always the LS swap route.
Although it will require much more maintenance than a modern car a big plus is that there is little that can go wrong with it that can't be fixed with simple hand tools. No complex web of sensors and computers to deal with, no fancy scan tools needed.
it's more suited to being a weekend toy
