(first posted 8/28/2017) This beauty is a 1948 Chrysler New Yorker. The only reason I know it is a ’48 model is because the owner said so. The 1946-1948 Chryslers were carryovers of the 1942s and all look identical to me. The owners bought the car with very low mileage in 1960 and drove it regularly until 1972 when something happened to the differential. They parked it in a garage until recently when they decided to get it running. The guys at our neighborhood shop where it is being worked on tell me it is almost impossible to find parts. I’ll bet that’s true because the cars were fairly rare when new and are not all that valuable restored, so many have just been scrapped. (Personal note: I have heard of procrastination but have never gotten around to trying it myself.)
When new, the four door sold for $2500-2600. Competitors included the Buick Roadmaster, Packard Deluxe, and Lincoln Sedan (not the Continental). Base model Fords and Chevys could be bought for about half this price. Chrysler Imperials, some Cadillacs, and the Lincoln Continental were roughly double. Here is brochure for the 1947 Chryslers. And here is a brochure for 1946.
Your carriage awaits. Up until the disasters of the 1950s, Chrysler had a reputation for superb quality. Our featured car is 18 feet long, rides on a 127.5 inch wheelbase, and weighs in at 4100 pounds. All this promised a very smooth ride.
Paul wrote up a 1946 Town & Country. It is very similar to the featured car but much more expensive due to all of the wood body parts.
This was a luxurious interior in 1948. To my way of thinking, it still is. I’ll bet that more than a few New Yorker owners had drivers and mostly rode in the back seat.
Nice feature.
Even if the owner drove it himself, this was a very nice place to be.
Possibly the best Art Deco radio ever.
Pure luxury. The mileage is thought to be original.
Fluid Drive was Chrysler’s semi automatic offering, and it was quite the novelty. It seems that owners needed a lot of training in how to use it. Here is a brochure that explains it all.
The grill is sometimes referred to as a harmonica grill.
Plenty of room to work.
The flathead straight eight was a masterpiece in 1934 but it was getting to be a bit out of date by 1948. This 323.5 cubic incher was advertised as making 135 horsepower and 270 foot-pounds of torque. Chrysler knew they had to catch up. While this engine was being made, the Chrysler engineering department was busy getting the FirePower V-8 ready for a 1950 introduction in the 1951 models. The FirePower was a hemi but was not called that in the beginning. Here is a bunch of info on all Chrysler flathead engines.
The problem with the straight eight is that it is plenty thirsty. Just look at the size of that carburetor.
Chrysler was serious about quality engineering. You may rest assured that this air cleaner really did the job.
In 1948 a windshield washer was a real luxury.
Just to be sure the purchaser knew he had a Chrysler. Here is the 1946 Owner’s Manual, 52 pages, our recent car had over 400 pages!
One more trim detail.
“The owners bought the car with very low mileage in 1960 and drove it regularly until 1972 when something happened to the differential. They parked it in a garage until recently when they decided to get it running. The guys at our neighborhood shop where it is being worked on tell me it is almost impossible to find parts.”
I’m all for originality (especially on a beast as rare as this) but would it simply not be more practical at this point to simply have something made custom? Lots of shops will take say a Ford 9 in and put just about any ratio you please in it, cut it down to the correct width etc. It is greasy part that no one is going to notice unless you are doing a concurs level restoration.
Agreed, Dan. I’d happily adapt to keep something running and on the road.
Fix it, take it to a few car shows, keep looking for the correct differential or parts to fix it. Make sure the shop doing the conversion understands that you want to be able to bolt the original back in.
These are never going to have the interest that a pre-war Chrysler or Packard will attract, so do a functional resto and drive it.
The problem is doing a custom axle and getting it in the vehicle can get expensive real quick. The best bet would be to find a Ranger rear axle, assuming that Chrysler was already using the 4 1/2″ bolt pattern and hope is it narrow enough to work or work with wheel spacers. Then attach the right width spring pads in the right places. They came with a wide range of gear ratios depending on the engine and trans combo as well as whether it is 2wd or 4wd. Plus they are very common in the wrecking yards and cheap. The Explorer is similar but those had disc brakes and fewer ratio choices, though they were all 8.8″ while some Rangers got the 7.5″ which still be strong enough to stand up to this application.
Yeah, a nice 318, a modern transmission and upgraded brakes and a/c would be cool. Put 3 point seat belts in this tank, and you could drive through a brick wall without a scratch, on either you or the car!
Just be sure and engineer a new emergency brake system if you go that route. And a rear end swap requires some engineering to be right. And all of this it isn’t as cheap and easy as some people would have you believe.
That Chrysler emergency brake is on the back of the transmission; it operates on the driveshaft.
@Jon, Nah, just do what needs to be done to make it drive again.
@ Old Car Guy, definetly hook up a parking brake which shouldn’t be that involved. It shouldn’t be that expensive if you start with a axle that is close enough in width that you can make up the difference with spacers or different wheel offset, and has drum brakes. So the only real fabrication is removing the old spring pads, placing the new ones in the right location, sorting out the driveshaft and hooking up the brake cables and line. Then maybe play with wheel cyl diameter to get the brake balance right. Definitely cheaper than building a new axle either from scratch or narrowing a used housing.
Do you still have your 1948 Chrysler New Yorker restored, running or you are now selling parts of it?
I love these, and the 8 cylinder New Yorker is a rare bird.
I really wonder if parts is as big of a problem as the garage thinks. These old Mopars have been fairly widely collected/preserved and have some decent club support. You certainly can’t order most stuff from your dealership parts counter or from NAPA, but there is a lot of stuff out there for those with a little patience.
The Town & Country models have been collectible since about 1950, so I’d think there would be some specialist support.
Had a 1953 Dodge b4b Pickup, in 1998. Needed front suspension parts to make it drivable. To NAPA’s surprise as well as mine, they actually had the part! But, had major trouble finding brake drums. Only solution was subframing.
When I look at late 1940s and early 1950s Mopars, I’m reminded of how Chrysler Corporation vehicles once had a reputation for quality construction and reliability. A reputation the corporation threw away in the late 1950s.
And then reclaimed with the Dart/Valiant, and then threw away again, jumped on to get it all in the trash can, and spat on for good measure in recent years.
I left out a phrase. Meant to say – reasonably priced parts are difficult…. The guys at the shop have a big reputation for working on older cars. They have gotten a bunch running that were quite difficult. they also do paint and body work that has won awards at car shows here in Houston.
What is the name of the shop? I am in Houston too.
People talk about how long the hood on a Chevy Monte Carlo was when it was RWD, but the front shot of this car makes it look like half the length of the car is hood.
You mentioned that the straight 8 was a thirsty engine….I’m guessing that the huge carburetor feeding all 8 cylinders is a 1 barrel? You might as well have had a straight pipe from the gas tank to the intake manifold with a few holes for admitting air. I would guess that a single barrel carburetor is a very inefficient fuel distributor.
Having learned to drive in a 49 Plymouth, I can’t imagine this much longer car was any kind of fun to drive in anything other than a straight line. Parallel parking this beast, with manual steering, tiny rear windows, and in anything less than the space usually reserved for an 18 wheeler might have been quite daunting.
Chrysler was supposed to be an “engineering” company back in those days. I wonder if it would have been more efficient to have 2 single barrels and a manifold where each carb fed gas to only 4 cyl.
The Buick OHV straight eight of similar vintage had compound carburetors. This was essentially two carbs that worked in a phased system. The second one coming on at higher rpms. Large displacement inline motors all suffer from this inherent problem. It wasn’t until fuel injection was available that the problem was solved.
It is not that a single carb is a ineffcient fuel distributor it is that a single carb straight 8 or straight 6 intake is poor at getting an equal amount of fuel to each cylinder. The problem is fuel dropping out of suspension before it makes it to the end cylinders, particularly when cold or low load/idle conditions. That means in general the carb is tuned on the richer side so that the end cyls don’t end up too lean, meanwhile those center cylinders are running rich and wasting fuel in the process.
Yes, that is one of the reasons this car was not an economy king. Flathead engines did not have optimum combustion chamber shape and needed to be low compression, which hurts thermal efficiency. The weight of the car and fluid coupling slippage didn’t help it pass gas stations. Lets face it, a New Yorker buyer back then couldn’t care less.
Wow, what an automobile!
You mention plenty of room to work on the engine, but getting yourself to that room must be a chore. You either have to reach (or climb) over the huge fenders or perhaps stand in between the grille and the rad?
Note the numbers for the water temperature gauge, with a mid way number of 160.
Cars ran a LOT cooler back then!
My Grandfather used a 180 degree thermostat for “Winter heat output” and went back to a 160 for the Summer in his 1940’s and 1950’s Packards and Buicks.
The radiator features a three-inch core and a 26-quart capacity.
No, I’ll bet that’s because they don’t know where to look. The parts aren’t going to come from their usual lines of supply along with Taurus head gaskets and Camry serpentine belts (or Rancho stuff for those silly lifted trucks). Their first stops ought to be Andy Bernbaum’s and Old Car Parts Northwest and Wildcat Auto, and I’d also send them to Bob Schwartz in Denver, whose basements and garages are crammed with parts for this era of Mopar, but he’s not got a website, only a phone number, and I won’t publish it without his permission.
I doubt OCPNW will have the parts needed for a diff rebuild for something like that, but you never know. He has shelves of really strange old stuff and you never know what he got from some long closed parts store. But that is the thing most of his inventory comes from small town parts stores that he bought out, so the stock is things that would have been on the shelf, like distributor caps, rotors, gaskets, brake parts. Though he has also picked up, cylinder heads, short and long blocks that had become dead inventory for the big rebuilder companies. Last time was there several years ago he had stacks and stacks of reman Pinto 2.3 heads.
…such as Svigel’s Auto Parts in Denver, which had been the Svigel family business since nineteen-polio and had mountains of NOS and NORS parts which are now property of OCPNW.
Oh? Where does this pronouncement of “the problem with the straight eight” come from? It sounds like a guess or an assumption.
Uh…yeah? It’s small (1bbl) and tall (old 1bbl). What do you imagine the height of the carburetor has to do with the engine’s fuel consumption? The actual answer is “nothing”. This is a Carter BB one-barrel. The other type of carburetor available on that engine that year was a Bendix Stromberg AAVS-2 two-barrel. Neither could be accurately described as “large” in functional terms of airflow capacity; these are both much smaller carburetors than would come to be standard fitment on engines of about this same piston displacement by the mid-late 1950s.
It’s an ordinary oil-bath air cleaner, very much the same as most others of its day, with a silencing chamber just upstream of the carburetor. Not unusual or especially seriously engineered.
I appreciate (and share) your appreciation of this awesome car, but I would wish for fewer guess-and-assumption-based assertions about it. Please learn or ask, instead.
Mine (1948 Imperial sedan) traveling from Texas to Northern California averaged 12, 15 mpg at steady 65-70 mph. For rear end parts try Andy Bernbaum at 800-457-1250, my son got parts from him, plus there are 4,000 parts cars listed in Hemming’s motor news If the car is in Houston there may be a much worse problem, like being underwater. Hope not
Luxurious, comfortable, staid, respectable, unstressed transport was what the K.T. Keller Chryslers were all about, the eight cylinder New Yorkers the finest next to the lwb Crown Imperials. Engineering was totally dominant, styling subordinate to their directives, so none their cars will “knock your eyes out, neither will they knock your hat off as you enter or exit”. Tailored, plush, chair-height seats with wood-grained and chrome-accented appointments were the order of the day.
The engine is very long-stroke: 3 1/4 X 4 7/8, producing 270 ft/lb @ 1,600 rpm. Its stroke is longer than the Packard 356 (4 5/8) and Buick 320 (4 5/16), allowing the car to be slowed to a walking pace, then accelerate smoothly, almost like an automatic transmission in daily use. The typical compression ratios in the 6.60/6.80/7.0 accommodated fuel octane in the 70’s range, which would change in the 1950’s.
If this garage is having trouble finding parts, he isn’t looking very diligently. Hemmings on-line has dozens of sources, as well as multiple MoPar clubs can point him in the right direction. Please inform him of the resources available, so this fine old New Yorker can again transport its fortunate occupants in 1940’s luxury.
“almost like an automatic transmission in daily use” – The massive low end torque on this engine was perfect with the PrestoMatic semi-automatic coupled to the Fluid Drive. With that engine’s torque characteristics, this setup really was about 96% of the way to a full automatic. And for some scale, this car’s 323.5 cid engine displaced significantly more than Lincoln’s V-12 which displaced only 292 cid.
You also raise a great point on the styling. I re-learned recently that before Virgil Exner came along, Chrysler’s styling department was part of body engineering. Virgil Exner considered Henry King a talented stylist, but one who was completely dominated by body engineering which had final say on every single detail. Exner said that he took the Chrysler gig because it was the last automaker without a modern styling department at the time – even Studebaker maintained an in-house staff separate from Raymond Loewy.
Long-stroke, low rpm “torque-y” engines were de rigueur for upper medium and luxury makes up until the Olds and Cadillac OHV V8’s arrived. Unfortunately for Lincoln, the H-Series V-12 was a relatively short-stroke (3 ¾”) which required higher rpm’s to develop enough torque, similar to the Ford V8: 1942-‘46 305 ci rated at 235 ft/lbs @ 1800, the 1947-’48 292 ci at 214 ft/lbs @ 1600.
Drivers of higher-priced makes tended to be accustomed to lugging those long-strokers for ease of operation: minimal shifting. When that driving style was applied to Lincolns, the V12 developed multiple problems, the worst was blow-by the rings. It was unusual to see V12 Lincolns without curls of blue exhaust smoke. Many used Lincoln Continental V12’s were replaced with Mercury flatheads or Olds or Cadillac OHV engines in the 1950’s. The Lincoln H-Series V12 was not a great engine.
I had a couple of ’41 Zephyr’s that had engines rebuilt before I got them, they were smooth, but not terribly powerful I had 47 and 48 Continentals, one had a Cad engine and one crowded a hemi in. So true about the torque on the Chrysler, on flat ground if the car was moving you could leave it in high, acceleration was slower, but smooth.
Last year I bought All original 14,700 original miles 1980 Chrysler New Yorker Fifth Avenue cream/ beige colour combo. Its an R body which is essentially a slightly modified Chrysler B body of the 70s. Its 360 V8 2 Barrel of course power everything. I am Not particularly a Chrysler fan but my 80 New Yorker is Not bad at all !
The reality is that the owner needs to do the leg work on finding the parts, if he wants to see it fixed. A shop like this one appears to be does not have the time or desire to go looking past their local auto parts suppliers or dealers. They are there to fix cars not spend hours chasing down all the pieces to rebuild a 70 year old differential, let alone trying to find the torque and other specs.
While most don’t want you to bring your own parts, I’m sure in this case they would prefer the owner to do so, though hopefully a complete axle in usable condition.
What a great survivor .
I hope they take the time to find the correct final drive and get this beauty back on the road ere long .
I’m polish and wax that original paint, I know it’s chipped but this car is nice as is .
-Nate
I love this car. It makes my old 1953 6 cylinder Chrysler Windsor convertible look like a compact!
CCFan writes: “… Fluid Drive was Chrysler’s semi automatic offering, and it was quite the novelty. It seems that owners needed a lot of training in how to use it.”
I am quite familiar with this semi automatic (called the M6 Prestomatic in Chryslers) and have many 100s (perhaps 1,000s) of hours driving one in high school and as a commuting college student.
If you knew nothing about driving at all you might need to read the manual or have someone explain it to you for a few minutes. However your biggest worry would not be the transmission, but rather the sheer bulk of this two ton plus monster you were responsible for controlling with no power steering, no power brakes, and drum brakes all around.
If you knew how to drive an automatic you would need a few minutes to read the manual or have someone explain it to you. As most of the early M6 models had no shift quadrant, there was no temptation to look for the P-R-N-D-L stuff. And then, there was that odd “safety clutch”.
If you knew how to drive stick shift, well then, no problemo. But of course, a minute or two with the manual might help you avoid the embarrassment of trying (unsuccessfully) to put it into “first gear” and unnecessarily flooring the “safety clutch” at each stop.
These are rare sights, and I bet one at a car show in any driving condition would gather a lot more attention than tri-five Chevies or any Corvette. The only down side would be the old geezers standing around this Chrysler lecturing everyone about how real men and real women drove real cars back in the real old days.
True, they were bulky, especially the Imperial, but the slow steering ratio made it easy enough to turn (of course I was 22 years old and into body building then), and people knew to use the proper gear on hills then to not over use the brakes. These cars are going up in price, saw a original, like new ’48 Windsor coupe at an auction recently pull $21,000, it was a time warp car.
That’s a beauty. Quality and style built into every part and – notwithstanding that stunning radio – not just gingerbread stuck on to an everyday vehicle.
The front bumper looks like a 1973 5-mph version, it sticks out as such.
The bumpers on the older cars were pretty stout. Unfortunately, they didn’t absorb much energy in an impact and that energy invariably ended up being transmitted through the stiff BoF structure to the occupants. It was the basis for the old ‘safer to be thrown from the vehicle’ theory.
BTW, since no one else mentioned it, one reason why the owner’s manual for this car is 56 pages while that of a “typical” new car is several hundred is because cars are so much more complex (obviously), and PROBABLY the need to include detailed instructions/warnings in an attempt to satisfy corporate lawyers.
Nowadays, I would imagine that it takes nearly 56 pages just to explain how to operate the radio.
When I bought my 94 Ranger in 95 it came with 3 seperate manuals. The largest included instructions on how to operate every possible optional extra a Ranger could be equipped with.
Another manual, with slightly fewer pages, had the maintenance interval for every single possible feature of a Ranger.
Finally, all new cars have to have a manual outlining the warranty.
Nearly half the glovebox was taken up by the different manuals.
Not to mention the factory service manual. The one for my 1998 Sable and 2004 Focus is three times the thickness of my 1968 Mercury all inclusive FSM.
friend with a Mercedes ask me to look in the manual of his new car, he couldn’t remember how to use the radio. the owner’s manual was over 300 pages
It’s always sad to read about the well-built reputation these old Chrysler products had earned over decades, then pissed it all away overnight with the ‘Forward Look’ cars.
There were a whole lot of great successes and pathetic failures from Chrysler between the ’48 Chrysler and the “Forward Look” cars.
The 55-56 Forward Look cars were solid as a rock, I also love the ’57 up but they were engineered well, but trying to build the demand, quality got lost I have my Dad’s ’56 DeSoto Fireflite, and two ’57 Belvedere’s a convertible and a sportscoupe.. One advantage I live in California.
Re the radio close-up: I remember manual-set pushbutton on a car or three, but have no idea when that was first available on a car radio (or high end factory radio, before becoming a regular feature). Anyone know?
Our 1950 Buick has buttons (each button spelled the name BUICK) and so did out 1953 Packard.
I do recall that these big tube radios could easily overwhelm the car’s little 6 volt battery, even if the engine was running. Generators did not charge batteries at idle. Hence my use of a pencil under the brake (eraser end) pushing down on the gas pedal to make a fast idle as I warmed the Chrysler up on cold winter mornings.
Cool; thanx. All my childhood was spent in cars from the 60s and up, so all pushbutton there. Well the 64 Dodge truck didn’t have a radio, but you could rinse the interior with a hose.
Don’t remember for sure, it was so long ago but think my 40 Zephyrs had pushbutton, feel sure the ’41 Cadillac I had did.
Glorious. I just love the details. No doubt you were in a prestige automobile with this one!
The exterior does nothing for me, as with most cars styled right before WWII. However, that interior is heaven. The radio/clock is the best detail of all.
Quite a beast, isn’t it. I don’t think “beauty” is just the right word — though beauty means different things to different folks. But “wonderful” should work, as a substitute ? I love the engine room — literally: you could store two extra spare tires ahead of the radiator, it looks like, as long as they were removed when it was time to take a drive.
Here’s the Imperial: http://momentcar.com/chrysler/1946/chrysler-imperial/
Why not go for broke ? I see the rear door has been shaped so that a station wagon version could use the same part. (Someday we’ll talk about the many years in which Volvo assaulted the eye with their sedan-door-in-a-wagon-body . . .)
I had two ’52 Dodge sedans in a row (one cost me $60, the other $100 — long ago). Great drivers: sit up tall, big wheel, comfortable and dependable, fastest window winder in the east. You’d have to tell me if there was a clutch pedal in the car — I just don’t remember that at all.
My dad, who worked for Goodyear in Akron during the war, told me about Chrysler engineering. Mopar cars then — and for how long ? — had reverse threads on the left-hand (or was it the right) lug nuts. Now that’s obsessive . . .
My ’58 Cadillac also has left-hand threaded lug nuts on one side. My former ’62 Imperial was this way also. It confuses modern-day mechanics (I always have to make a point of informing them of this, and they don’t always pay attention). I never understood the advantage of this design…
Picture shown is a 1967 Dodge van in a junkyard:
My 66 Fury III had backwards threads on the drivers side as well.
My Buicks through 63 are left thread, 64 is right on the left side of the car, it was supposed to help keep them from coming loose. A tire changer once tried a five foot breaker bar to loosen my 64 Imperial left front I pointed out his mistake, was amazed it didn’t shear off, my ’59 Dodge did under similar circumstances
The featured Chrysler probably used lug bolts instead of studs. IIRC, my dad’s ’48 DeSoto was that way. (…and the left side ones were left-hand thread.)
My brother’s ’70 Plymouth Fury III used left-hand thread studs on the left side wheels.
My 59 Fury used those bolts. Those things made getting that first one in when trying to mount a wheel *hard*!
A small herd of these were ordered by the Irish government who backed out of the deal, The New Zealand government picked up the whole fleet at a good price and imported them as ministerial transport, one finished it career in a wrecking yard I worked in fitted with mudgrip tyres and used for towing while it lasted cool cars for their time.
The theory is the same reason that bicycles have left hand thread on the left pedal spindle.
You just gotta love the Tex Avery style/design of these old Ny`ers!
A drive in a Fluid Drive Mopar is on my bucket list. My favorite would be a ’46 – ’48 DeSoto for sentimental reasons. My dad had a ’48 when I was about 5 and that car made quite the impression on my young mind.
Second favorite would be a ’48 Chrysler. A neighbor owned a Windsor 4-door from about 1950 until he died in the mid 1980s. It was always garaged and he kept it in “as new” condition. Beautiful black paint and spotless chrome on the exterior! It always smoked a little. Rumor was that he mixed in some automatic transmission fluid with each tank of gasoline to protect the valves.
I suppose I could “settle” for a drive in a straight 8 New Yorker if you twisted my arm enough. 😉
Come to a DeSoto Club or WPC meet, ask nice and you should get a ride.
I have an original 48 new Yorker that was in storage for 50 years and it’s available 5 10 3 9 6 5 3 3 9 9 talk
What a wonderful survivor! While it would be hard to call this car beautiful, the design drips character and period detail. And that interior is, legitimately, gorgeous, with that work of art radio the piece de resistance. Hopefully the owners will have better luck in the future finding parts to get this amazing machine back on the road.
I recently acquired a 1942 Newyorker Highlander 6 person. The previous owner hoarded parts. I have five or six large boxes full of NOS parts from Mopar New on their boxes. I may have what you need.
I’m dropping in on this thread years later, but just wanted to respond to your note about getting a 42 Highlander. To me, that would be one of the most desirable cars on the planet. I love the 42s and I love all the Highlanders. Very few 42s made, as you well know.
I had a chuckle at the incongruity of a late 1940’s Chrysler sitting next to a monster truck.
In 1963 we had a 1948 Chrysler New Yorker Limo !!! It had 2 jump seats that came out of the floor !!! By the time we made it to Arizona I could drive the car just by watching my stepdad !!! Proved it when me and one of my brothers took it joy riding one night !!! NO problems and no scratches !!! Not bad for a 15 year old !!! The last I heard it was sitting in a junk yard in Arizona !!! Would LOVE to restore it but living of off SSI and disability no money and my MS keeps me from wrenching anymore !!!
I bought a 48 New Yorker for $800.00 back in 1983 what a fun car to drive,I take off in 3rd,wind it out alittle,leave up on the gas & it shifted to 4th,if I wanted a faster takeoff or on a hill I’d put it in 1st.
Seems like Kanter has all/almost all of the engine parts and many other parts available.
https://www.kanter.com/p-35864-search.html?fitment=1948%7CChrysler&orientation=vertical&page=4
Rear Axle and pinion seals, but didn’t see differential gears. There are folks around who will make new ones for $$.
Looks like these guys have the axle bearings along with many other parts
https://www.oldmoparts.com/autos/1948-chrysler-8/?your-car=1&pa_year-made=1948&pa_make=chrysler&pa_model=all-models&pa_engine=flat-head-8-cylinder&pa_odid=3734&product_cat=f_rear_axle
Unless the rear end needs a new ring & pinion gear set, it should be relatively easy to repair. New bearings can probably be found at a well-stocked industrial supply house, as well as all the necessary seals. All you will need to do is to bring the old bearings & seals with you and the supply house guys can match you up with bearings & seals that will work using the numbers stamped into the old part. Most automakers used “off-the-shelf” National, BCA or SKF parts for things like bearings and seals which have a widespread application in more than just autos. Few automakers designed custom sized bearings and seals. Forget about trying to find such parts at the local auto supply or a national auto supply chain store; they just don’t have the parts catalogs to cover such an old car.
Much talk of procuring unobtainium parts for this wonderful old New Yorker and much good advice. This is sort of related , sort of not, but here goes. I recently rebuilt an old Rockwell band saw. Replacement thrust bearings for this saw are now listed as obsolete on any parts list. Years ago, replacement bearings for this saw were sold as a bearing mounted on a mounting shaft. Fast forward to today the ASSEMBLED bearing on the shaft is unavailable, but the bearings are available. Pressing the old bearings off of the old shafts and pressing new bearings on makes a new bearing assembly. New life for an old saw!!!
This is the kind of vehicle you see in a dream, and wake up wondering ‘What was that? Could it be real?’
Count me as another that appreciates these post-war Chryslers. I saw one in the metal several years ago in DeSoto flavor – these cars carry themselves with dignity.
Great video on a very nice 1948.
There is room in front fender for two sets of tandem axles just like some concrete mixers trucks
I’m looking for a car like this. If you like to sell it call me up. 409-896-6716. …. Clayton