1948 Plymouth Special Deluxe can we rescue this old girl we call the Busy Bee

[@lalul11164]

I bought a 1948 Plymouth 2 door sedan back around 1997. It's the special deluxe model, a complete original car with around 67,000 miles that had been refurbished many years ago and it was showing its age. It ran but was not road worthy as the brakes were there, but barely functional. The paint was mediocre at best and the upholstery was failing , but the car was practically rust free with only a couple small rough spots on the lower ends of the rear fenders -- very rare to find anything that old in Canada that had survived in basically rust-free condition! The car was regularly driven around in the yard and was always garaged and out of the weather but I'm not a mechanic and have only a bare minimum of experience doing body work so I just about sold it as the prospect of ever getting it restored was looking impossible. However I had a visit from a young guy who told me his father restored these kinds of vehicles, especially Chrysler products. The father had a 1937 Dodge that was beautifully restored. Anyway, long story short, the old guy came by one day to look at the car and said he could restore it, the only caveat being that he didn't want to have to rush it. That was fine with me. The car had been sitting around here for over a decade so I said take all the time you need. That was back in 2010. Two and a half years later, I had the car back and what a wonderful result. The car had been totally dismantled but for the body which remained on the chassis, but everything else, doors, hood, trunk lid, etc., had been removed. All chrome and stainless was redone and polished, the interior was done to original specs by a professional. The only thing I did was the wood graining on the dash and window mouldings. The old man did all the rest. We kept what was functional and in good working condition but the list of replacement items was pretty long -- back leaf springs (with an extra leaf added), king pins, water pump and starter and a number of smaller things. The new paint job is Carribean blue, a colour that suits this car fine. The restoration is holding up well and the car gets some use in the summer months and is garaged over the winter. I had no problem finding any of the parts. The toughest things to find were the running board rubber mats and the clips to remount the stainless trim, but we did get them in the end. Also, the bottom stainless trim for the rockers is difficult to locate. The originals on my car were a bit rough and screws had been used to hold them in place, The company that did the chrome and stainless work said it would be more economical to remake new parts for these as restoring the originals would be labour intensive. I had been very fortunate to have a man who knew these cars inside and out and who kept costs to a reasonable minimum.......which I now realize would be impossible to duplicate today. Imagine, back in the day the cost of owning one of these cars would be less than what most lawn mowers costs these days! So good luck with your 'new' Plymouth. This one looks like it will need a lot of TLC.

[@donaldperrotta8514]

Spend Deluxe… Plymouths top model at the time .

[@THROTTLEPOWER]

Cool car great vid!!

[@huskiesgarage]

Hey thank you for watching and thanks for the great comment

[@THROTTLEPOWER]

@@huskiesgarage 👍👍

[@brianandglendaharkin9457]

Start it on 2 stroke fuel ⛽️ to help lube it . Put a heater under the sump to heat the oil before you try to start it ⛽️

[@huskiesgarage]

Hey thanks for the advice, and for watching, she is still stuck at the moment but we are working on that problem. If you haven’t already then please subscribe it really helps the channel and us out plus you will know when we get her running. GodBless

[@brianandglendaharkin9457]

My dad had one in 1963 in Newcastle 🇦🇺also black 👍🏻💯🇦🇺⛽️

[@donaldperrotta8514]

Acetone soak might help ..

[@CooperDrums]

Nice car. When was it last on the road?

[@huskiesgarage]

From what I can tell but not sure. We found an old tag in the trunk with the last sticker saying 1984, but I can’t be sure the tag was for this car.

[@CooperDrums]

@huskiesgarage Oh I see.

[@huskiesgarage]

Thanks for the comment we really appreciate them. Please consider liking and subscribing it’s free for you and does very much help us grow the channel. We are planning on doing more videos on that Plymouth and getting it to fire and drive again. We have some big plans for that car. Please just bear with us, as you can see we have a lot of projects going on kind of at the same time and it’s just my wife and I doing them right now. Have a good one and GodBless you