[Chrysler300] Fw: Update on Mopsy

["rob kern" <robkern@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: rob kern 
To: cherysler300@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ; George/Meg Hagerty 
Sent: Sunday, August 31, 2008 10:50 PM
Subject: Update on Mopsy


Hello 300'ly to all!
    It's been a very intense 4 months for Mopsy activity.  Just finished this past Wednesday afternoon. The seats arrived from Legendary the first week of June.  They are perfect.  I propped them up in the family room to install the seat skirts correctly and carefully have the fixation screw holes lined up straight. On the morning of Father's Day, June 15th, Marnie told me to get Mopsy out of the storage garage and she would help me install the seats.  Never in the past 5 years has she volunteered to assist me in any restoration activity on this car, so I felt that this was a blessing for sure. I get to the storage garage and try to start her and she is running like crap, barely able to keep the engine running with it skipping and only then with the gas all the way to the floor. Put the car on a trailer 2 days later and take it to my mechanic in Duncan, OK and he fires it up and hears a pop in the distributor cap and the Pertronics Ignitor is shot. So I get a new one overnighted from John Lazenby and then he also put in a new coil with a ballast resistor since the one I had didn't. He then fires the car up again with the rear air cleaner off and the thing still runs rough and is skipping and then backfires and blows the driver's muffler!  Driver's side head is removed and lo & behold!  Three stuck exhaust valves. They are corroded. Probably from not driving her for the time the seats were out.  Big mistake to just start the car and let her idle for a few minutes and then shut her down. Passenger side valves fine. Many phone calls to George Riehl, John Lazenby, and Jeff Carter and the heads are off to the machine shop to be rebuilt with new triple springs and NO rubber valve seals (these were placed 5 years ago when engine was rebuilt). Of course new Felpro gaskets are procured and 3 weeks later (my mechanic went on vacation after he removed the heads) it all goes back together. July 22nd I'm reunited with Mopsy and trailer her back home since I still didn't have the seats installed and they were in the family room for greater than a month. (fortunately Marnie was away for her summer sojourn to the northeast and didn't have to endure all these shananigans).
    The seats go in swell and look great! The next evening I installed a newly replated rear bumper and filler which I procured from the Chromeguy in Whittier, CA (5 month evolution but worth the wait).  My neighbor and I spent 6 hours getting the bumper installed and the following evening I made new gaskets to fit between the bumper ends and the bottom of the tail light towers.
    After the Wisconsin Meet I obtained from Desert Valley Auto Parts 25" fender to firewall braces that were installed on the '58 Chrysler products.  After having them painted Regimental Red I took them over to Pamplin's Body Shop for installation. It only took 20 minutes to install them with a nutsert system to the cowl area and using the side fender nuts already in place.  What a difference in structural rigidity this upgrade made! No creaking at all from the cowl area especially going over dips or turning into my inclined driveway. Noticed on the way back from the body shop that the A/C wasn't cooling. So the next day drove the C back to Duncan to have this remedied.
 Receive a call from my mechanic that too much oil had accumulated at the expansion valve and he corrected this and the A/C cools, however, the front blower motor seized!After 3 days of calling around I get a replacement blower motor from Antique Motor Parts in Bronxville, New York. Numbers for the motor match....piece of cake. Stay tuned, not so.
    I drive Mopsy for about 50 miles and take her to our local Wheels&Coffee on a Saturday morning. Coming home from the event I'm doing dueling banjos from stop light to stop light with a colleague in his '60 Impala convertible and under hard acceleration noticed that the car would hiccup.Did the same under full throttle kick-down from 3rd to 2nd gear. Thinking that the transmission linkage may need to be adjusted the following week I take it to Ray Brown of Allied transmissions and he rides with me and wasn't impressed with a linkage adjustment being the culprit, but feels that there is a fuel delivery problem.  So I drive her back to Duncan and my mechanic there thinks the fuel pump is on its way out. I drive back to Lawton because during this time I notice a lot of transmission fluid leaking and splattering my newly installed rear bumper! I beeline it to Allied transmissions and Ray Brown jacks the car up using a floor jack on the rear axle differential housing.  Gas starts pouring out from under the gas tank when the car is raised! Up on the lift she goes.  The rubber hose coming from the sending unit to the auxiliary electric fuel pump has a whole in it.  Simple fix and maybe we were sucking air at full throttle and causing the hiccup?  So simple but plausible!  No fluid leaks from transmission noted up on lift.  Take car for drive after fuel hose replaced and still hiccups.  Quick call to Mike at JC Auto and the first question asked was what type of fuel pump did I have? Did I have the high performance model with the notch at the 1:30 position? NO. Mike explained that the engine is performing better since the proper head job, new low restriction Raptor mufflers being installed and better ignition that the limits of the existing fuel pump are being tested and they are not up to the job of maximum fuel delivery when needed.  He has a NOS correct high performance 392 fuel pump that has been built with a diaphragm designed to hold up to additives in today's fuels.  SOLD!  Ray notices after my test drive after replacing the fuel hose that the transmission is burping out transmission fluid to an amount that he is very concerned about.  He feels that the front pump seal is leaking and probably the shaft seal. OK. Another call to Mike at JC Auto (15 minutes after buying the fuel pump) and JC Auto has a new seal made of silicon and whatever else materials that can withstand high temperatures without cracking that JC Auto has made by National Seals. He also has a Vyton shaft seal.  SEND THEM BOTH!  I'm going on vacation for 10 days later that week and arrange for Ray Brown to install the seals and the new fuel pump along with new ceramic fuel filters I obtained from Gary Nelson. The blower motor is enroute which I will install along with a replacement blower moter housing I bought from Desert Valley along with a Model 900 heater box cover a few years ago (knowing that this area will have to be visited in the future). The blower motor arrives, not a 3 speed but a single speed motor incorrectly boxed and numbered! I manage to locate an exact replacement for the aftermarket motor I had in place from Auto Air of Oklahoma in Oklahoma City and promptly return the single speed job. Just before going on vacation my two neighbors assist me to install newly replated front bumper with filler (which had to be sent out twice to get right...a long story in itself) which took 7 hours to get perfectly adjusted. Also I replaced the brake vent grill surrounds with newly replated ones obtained from Ken Smith.   
     August 11th I get the C over to Ray Brown. He replaces the seals and puts everything back together and there still is massive leaking!  Out comes the torque converter and there is a leak from the welds securing the front plate around the shaft. Also Ray notices a vibration in the driveline and he inspects the front universal joint and it is shot. We get a newly rebuilt torque convertor from Dacco and a rebuild kit from Andy Bernbaum for the front universal joint.  Fortunately the universal joint housing was not galled and could be reused.  These universal joint housings are as rare as hen's teeth to replace. Ray gets everything back together and sealed up and after many adjustments to the front universal joint he has it perfectly balanced and the car is done.  We thought. I install the new blower motor and refurbished Model 900 fan housing without much fanfare and the A/C cools fine.  After finishing the blower motor installation I wash Mopsy and take her for a dry-off drive and the transmission dosn't want to initially shift from 1st to 2nd and when it does, doesn't shift back to first upon stopping.  This goes on for about 3 miles of driving and then shifts fine?? The following Monday (last week ) she goes back to Ray Brown and he readjusts the linkage and keeps her overnight to recheck in the am.  Not shifting again. 2 stuck valves diagnosed, cleaned and resealed.  Ray keeps car overnight and calls me the next morning stating that she never drove better.
    So, starting out to replace seat covers I end  up not only redoing the whole seat frames, padding, and fitting of covers, but had to have the heads rebuilt correctly this time to 300 standards, replace the distributor vacuum advance, manifold vacuum safety switch, new vacuum hoses,new mufflers, new coil, new Pertronics Ignitor system, new Felpro gaskets, new fuel filters, new fuel pump, new segment of fuel line, new front universal joint, replace the torque convertor, new blower motor, replaced the blower motor housing and insulation, new hot water shut-off valve, changed transmission fluid twice, changed oil twice, new oil filter, new spark plugs, recharged A/C twice, new heater core and installed refurbished Model 900 cover, new front and rear bumpers, newly replated brake vent grill surrounds, and new front transmission pump seal and shaft seal.
    I must say that this initially appeared to be a major step backward in the restoration of my C.  However, the car has never driven better or smoother, there is no twitch in the speedometer needle at any speed, the A/C cools much better, the seats are very comfortable and give much better support, and the engine performs much stronger and only on 91 octane fuel! Many nagging little things went away. Also, the bumpers line up perfectly and sparkle especially with the reflection off the newly replated brake vent grill surrounds.
    Heartfelt thanks go to John Lazenby, Jeff Carter and MIke of JC Auto, George McKovich, Gregg Leggatt, Gary Nelson, and George Riehl. Without their understanding, patience, knowledge, and attention to detail I would not have gotten through this saga.  It just confirms what I have stated in past communications about Mopsy that THERE IS NOTHING EASY ABOUT WORKING ON A 1957 CHRYSLER 300C!!  Sorry to be so loquacious and yes this does appear to be rediculous, but it is true.  ROB KERN

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