Lunatic Platitudes

This page is my bookmark site for information I collect while working on my vintage Mopar vehicles. This started out being just for my 1969 Dodge D100 pickup truck. Recently I ran across my first car and couldn’t help picking it back up. It’s a 1959 Dodge Coronet, so I reorganized these pages to handle my notes and scribblings for both. I consolidated my vendor list from both vehicles though. This seemed appropriate.

1969 Dodge D100	1959 Dodge Coronet

Things to Look For

• nfury8 at sweptline.org mentioned Evapo Rust. He used it to clean the rust out of a galvanized side marker or turn signal bucket and said it worked really well.

Vendors

• Lares Corp – Supplies power steering stuff.
• Rare Parts – Suspension and steering components like tie rod ends, spring shackles, center links and kits. I have never ordered from here yet but I found the site in the forums on forwardlook.net.
• Carburetor Specialist – These guys actually really do know what they are doing with respect to carburetors. Not many places are left that can provide competent advice in this area.
• Herb’s Parts – Recommended by a friend for their high quality door handles for my truck. The door handles arrived finally. I believe Herb’s had to order them and then reship them which made it take a lot longer. It is also likely that the Thanksgiving holiday slowed things down too. The handles are absolutely fantastic though. I am extremely happy with the end results. It also gave me good motivation to clean up the door mechanisms and get everything moving smoothly again. Very much recommend.
• Firestone Collectibles – Found on eBay. They have lots of NOS stuff including an A/C vacuum switch I just ordered. They also appear to possibly have all the door rubber/seals I will eventually need. Responds to email pretty quickly even on a Sunday (maybe especially). I got a shipment notification from this person this morning about 10am. I am pretty happy so far. This is fantastic. My heater works like brand new. I strongly recommend this person.
• Mopar Manuals – Ordered a CD with the service manuals for my truck and received it in the mail in about 3-5 days. It is great information which is incomplete in other service manuals. These are factory reprints. It seems like some of the illustrations could be better though I would bet they were not great in the originals. VERY good transmission information though including COLOR hydraulic diagrams. Highly recommended.
• Summit Racing – Gonna order my electronic ignition from these guys. I see their ECU box mounted on a whole bunch of restored Sweptline trucks. I ordered on the 25th and received the UPS box about 5:30 on the 26th. I made short work of installing it and am very happy. Notes: be sure to ground the ECU box (scratch paint, run ground wire or it won’t do crap).
• Dante’s Parts – They list glove boxes for my truck. I’ll need one when I am done with the dash work.
• Imperial Services – These guys make reproduction transmission and engine mounts as well as shifter and speedometer cables. I don’t know anything about them yet and the parts are massively expensive so this is one of those I have if nothing else comes through.
• Walter P. Chrysler museum archives – You supposedly can get build sheets and other information from these guys based on your serial number. I’ve emailed them to get an idea of cost for whatever is available for my particular car.
• Big M Auto – A southwestern salvage yard. This guy has gotten a lot of compliments and recommendations from members of “theforwardlook.net” forum site. I have ordered a couple of things from him. We’ll see how my experience goes. Update: I sent money for this purchase via paypal on January 30th, 2009. I’ve been told at least 3 times without asking directly that my items would be shipped. I have not yet received anything and so I sent an email Friday night asking directly if there is a problem and if so, for a refund. These parts cost a premium price and it makes me nervous that maybe I’ve made a mistake.
• Rods, Customs and Restorations – This site was referenced on the Forward Look forums. They list a wide array of replacement sheet metal including trunk floors, floor pans, fender patches and rocker panels.

Online Sites / Forums / Information

• Imperial Club Master Technician Docs – Lots of great illustrated procedural documents and information. Probably listed elsewhere on this page, but damn worth the reprint.
• Polyspherical Engine Association – The early Dodge 318 V8 engines are the next evolution after the early hemi engines. My ‘59 Dodge has an A block 326 which is referred to as a 325 in the factory literature. It is basically a poly head 318 that was factory bored over. The engine in my ‘69 D100 pickup truck is the LA block 318. The 318 poly is often referred to as a wide block or big block 318. It was certainly a small block engine but was called “wide” because of the shape of the heads. This site has a great deal of information about the poly engine in general.
• Tuning Made Easy – This is a site with general information about how to tune carburetors and their associated engine assemblies. Reading this site will help provide more of a basis for how things work in general.
• Imperial Club Parts Sources List – This list is maintained by the imperial club folks. Their members write reviews which get posted for each listed vendor. This is a great way to see who provides good experiences and who doesn’t.
• Torqueflite Pics – Cool page with a bunch of torqueflite pictures. Shows the entire breakdown. There is an html in that same directory that has a few notes. No good for a teardown but good pictures. My car was originally equipped with a Powerflite, but I may decide to locate a good torqueflite core and rebuild it. That would give me a 3-speed as opposed to a 2-speed.

This page has the following sub pages.

• 1959 Dodge Coronet
• 1969 Dodge D100

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