1958 Plymouth Suburban, 2 door wagon

[70DartMike]

Figured I'd start a thread on my '58 Plymouth Suburban wagon, it's a rare 2 door model.

I got the car from a friend, the first 2 pictures are how it sat for years. With it came a parts car, also a 2 door wagon, a '57 Dodge Custom Suburban, sitting in the same field.
The Plymouth had a 301, with a 3 speed Torqueflite, and about 5 different sets of holes in the roof from previous roof racks. The trunk was full of roofing nails, and the car had been painted with a brush at some point.
I was missing a lot of the Plymouth front sheet metal so I put a '57 Dodge one on, as it's what I had. The drivers side was extremely rusty, due to the angle it was sitting and all the moisture after snowmelt running to that side. It had absolutely zero drivers rocker, no floor pans. The drivers quarter flopped around when you'd close the door, and the window tracks were all rusted out. The body mounts were rotted, the rear tailgate rotted, etc etc. I did a ton of metal fab to get it to be somewhat solid again, and did a quick crappy paint job.
I'm not a body man by any means, or a painter, but I enjoy putting time in and saving these old things.

I wasn't sure where to go with drivetrain, at first I had put together a 383 for it and a cable shifted 727. But then I got a '58 Dodge Custom Royal for free, with a 354 Poly. Turns out the 354 was rebuilt, punched out .060" and the crank turned .010" under. It would turn halfway so I pulled it apart and confirmed, new Clevite bearings, lots of cross hatching in the cylinders. The pistons still had writing on them... The guy I got the car from had paperwork for the rebuild, it was done in the mid 90s.
The parts car is in primer, so my theory is they had the engine rebuilt, broke it in, and then started on the bodywork. Things happen, it sat for years, then I got it.

I just cleaned up the two cylinders, re gasketed it, and sprayed it silver. Plan is to get it back in the car with a cast iron Torqueflite over the next week or so here.

 

[70DartMike]

Some more..

 

[70DartMike]

The engine didn't have Spitfire font on the valve covers, I just happened to have a set hanging on the wall, so I used those.

 

[mrfury68]

Very cool looking wagon. Keep us posted on your progress.

 

[70DartMike]

Got the engine & trans in the car this morning. Interesting detail between the welded brackets on the frame. The '58 Dodge ones were basically straight in the middle, and the '58 Plymouth ones turn back toward the firewall. So I had to swap the motor mounts on the engine, drivers side to passenger, as well as move them to the backside of the block. The drivers fits, the passenger side doesn't, so I will have to cut the welded mount and modify it. No big deal, just strange that they did that, even though both cars are '58s.

 

[MAXWEDGECHAR]

Probably a 6 cylinder frame. When they built the cars 6s and V8s had different frames. My parents had a '57 Plymouth 2 door wagon with a 6 and 3 speed column shifter. The best thing for my brother and I were the sliding side windows! Then in 1964 they bought the '59 Sport Suburban Golden Commando! But that's another story. There were odd issues with the '57. Horn would stick, the wiper and shifter linkage would bind up. We took it to a repair shop and when we picked it up the guy said it ran like a herd of turtles! The same guy tuned the '59 and mom followed dad out onto the Pa Turnpike. Dad punched it and disappeared and mom and I and my brother were left in the dust, literally and figuratively. The '57 realized it was being replaced and near died there on the 'Pike. We barely made it home! Never saw mom so pissed at dad!

 

[70DartMike]

Probably a 6 cylinder frame. When they built the cars 6s and V8s had different frames. My parents had a '57 Plymouth 2 door wagon with a 6 and 3 speed column shifter. The best thing for my brother and I were the sliding side windows! Then in 1964 they bought the '59 Sport Suburban Golden Commando! But that's another story. There were odd issues with the '57. Horn would stick, the wiper and shifter linkage would bind up. We took it to a repair shop and when we picked it up the guy said it ran like a herd of turtles! The same guy tuned the '59 and mom followed dad out onto the Pa Turnpike. Dad punched it and disappeared and mom and I and my brother were left in the dust, literally and figuratively. The '57 realized it was being replaced and near died there on the 'Pike. We barely made it home! Never saw mom so pissed at dad!

Not sure if you read above, but the car had a 301 in it when I drug it home, and from what I can tell it's an original V8 car, it had the V badging on the side, etc.
I had a car here with a flathead 6 and yes those engine mounts were different. But the 301 was sitting in there like normal, with the normal engine mounts. But the 301 is also a lot shorter than this 354, my guess is to make the transmission sit in the same spot they used different engine mounts.

 

[70DartMike]

I pulled apart the fuel pump, the diaphragm looked good so I bench tested it and it works fine.
The distributor .. I was changing the points and noticed as I spun the shaft, the lobes were only opening the contacts on one half, I'm thinking the shaft was bent. I dug through my distributor pile, found one from a 354 Hemi. It had dual points but I don't need that so I swapped the guts into that one and installed.
I'm waiting on some gaskets and a water pump to show up from eBay so I decided to pull out the rusty inner fender and swap it. I have 4 more parts cars so one of them should hopefully be better.