1960 300F

[saforwardlook]

View attachment 398610

Very nice Nick. I found your site a while back, long before I acquired my F last Thanksgiving. Nice work, keep it up. My car has largely been in the shop since January for a whole lot of little things including new brake lines and twin circuit front disks and a color sand/buff bow to stern, new exhaust front to back, resealing of the valley pan, replating of certain under-hood hardware, new radiator, tuneup, tires and now a leak from the bottom of a modified master cylinder. If I can get that licked I may be able to drive it to Don Verity in RI so he can look at my steering column. Out of 9 cars this one has most seriously kicked my *** in aggravation and expense. But it is so damn beautiful, so alluring you just can't help spending money on it.
Good luck with yours.

And to the fella who says he can't afford one I say look carefully. I have seen two of these in driver condition go for the cost of a fancy Hyundai.

Dan

Could you give us an overview of what system you used for the front disc brake conversion and which master cylinder/reservoir etc? My car is very original and very low miles but total contact brakes are a pain and I have been toying with the idea of doing such a conversion as well, but for originality reasons I am on the fence. But safety matters too........

I still have the original total contact brakes on my 1957 300C and 1962 300H and they have been fine but the ones on the F have been more problematic and frustrating. I think it primarily is the availability of good parts for these systems. All my cars with such brakes have silicone fluid and if the parts do not deteriorate with that fluid, the systems seem to last forever. But when I replaced the brake parts on my F more recently and continued to use the same fluid, I think that is the source of the issue with the F.

I talked with Jeff at Karp's Brake service who lives near by me and is one of the foremost old car brakes specialists anywhere, and he advised me to use parts that he sources from U.S. older nos and go back to using regular brake fluid and the issues will go away since silicone fluid seems to react with the materials in newer brake parts sourced from who knows where. Such an issue has been the case with the old brake fluid type brake switches on these old cars, which is why I have converted mine to a mechanical brake light switches.

You have a stunning 300F!

Mine is also white......................

Thanks!

 

[dplotkin]

Tell U what...if the car had come to me with its original brakes I'd have left them alone. However a prior owner put an AAJ Brake kit (Volare 11" disks & GM single piston calipers on his bracket) but retained the single pot drum master with its built in residual valve. So when we couldn't push the car in neutral and saw the disks were bluing we realized why the car had such a nice pedal. The brakes were on all the time. So I replaced everything with the same stuff new and added a master cylinder for a 1970 Chrysler Imperial that I had .700 milled off its top and its cover reattached with two threaded bolts. This is the only way to get a proper disk brake master under the nutty brake booster. This was all done in consultation with AAJ brake and after a lot of trial and error we got a decent pedal and very good braking.
I am using Dot 5 and a Harley Davidson brake light switch which is specified for Dot 5.

I have a 1961 Savoy with a RAM inducted 440 and the same GM calipers up front, Mopar B body drums in the back, and the stock silly brake booster above a drum/drum bolt in the middle Mopar double master cylinder. It fits nicely but you have to be careful with checking fluid level. I've had this setup since 2007 using Dot 5 with no issues. So when I got the F I tried using the same master but we could never get a pedal, as there was way too much travel. That is when I went to the 70 Imperial master as it is short enough to clear the right carb. This master has an inch and an eighth bore whereas the one on my Savoy is one inch. Our F's have one and one eighth inch bore rear cylinders, pretty damn big, and I think this is where my problem was. As is was even using the 70 Chrysler master required slight adjustment of the pushrod to put a tad of preload on the master. On a non Ram inducted car you can use a 1976 Dart master without having to machine the top, it will bolt right in. Now the car is fine and stops well, pedal travels farther than I would like but it stops nice and straight with two circuit safety. But I would have left it alone if it came to me stock. Unless it gets a lot of use on busy roads I'd sooner put up with the crappy drums, I have 8 other old cars most with original drum stoppers. Too bad Chrysler didn't have the brakes of my 60 Buick, 12" finned aluminum drums and they are powerful. Yeah I know, Chrysler had a better transmission. Much better!

So I would suggest you spend your energy making your stock and imperfect brakes work at least as designed rather than spend triple the time, expense and aggravation it takes to make a bunch of unrelated parts work together on a 60 year old car with its stock rear axle.

The car made it to Don Verity in RI where its steering column was pulled and the rubber isolator and horn ground were replaced. This corrected a chuck in the steering wheel and an intermittent horn as well as to eliminate entirely the previous wander that I believed meant a steering box. Now she drives as new.

Here are a few more shots, if they don't show its because I'm not so good at it.

Dan

 

[dplotkin]

A few more

Dan

 

[saforwardlook]

Thanks for all the explanation Dan - it is very helpful for me. Given what you are saying, I think I will just go for a revised dual master cylinder to at least give me a back up should either the front or rear go out and not lose all braking (we both know that the parking brake mounted at the rear of the transmission is so small it is worthless as any backup except for parking on a hill.

Given how buried the master cylinder is directly under the ram manifold where the left side carburetor is mounted, one can hardly see it anyway to complain about it not being all original. I really don't have a big problem with the Total Contact brakes on my other vehicles as long as they are kept inside my garage, which is always the case and California has a pretty dry climate compared to anywhere else in the country except for Arizona and most of Nevada (when one of these cars is stored under humid conditions over a long period of time, some surface rust builds up on the shoes and then when you try to drive them the total contact "self applying" feature gives a lot of trouble with wheels locking up when you just touch the brake pedal). They have been pretty trouble free when stored under dry conditions.

And I don't drive the cars so hard that I would need to stop hard from 70 mph since I leave plenty of room between myself and any car ahead of me - they do fade significantly under "surprise" conditions. Yes, the Buick finned aluminum 12" drum brakes would have been so much better!

Your car looks like it has been restored or refreshed to as new condition - it looks fantastic! Mine has only 29K miles on it and has not been touched hardly at all and has some patina to it. All the paint, chrome and interior are all original and untouched. It still looks just the same as in the photos above.

Best wishes!
Steve

 

[dplotkin]

Wait a minute. You must be Steve with the photo set of your car I used while working on mine. You have a beautiful and important car and I would implore you to leave the brakes as is. Your photos are very important to the hobby. I bought my F last November after looking for 20 years. I wanted the best air conditioned car I could find, and when I did, it was owned by an elderly car dealer who had it for 7 years. Previous to his ownership the car belonged to long time 300 club member John Lazenby who took good care of it. A California car all its life except for the pat 7 years I have been all through it. It is an original car that was painted in the 1990's, had a new interior installed and the engine and transmission rebuilt. But the car was not taken apart for which I am thankful. It certainly is not the beautiful original piece of reference material and history your car is, but it suits me as I believe it is now easily among the best coupes in the country. It drives like new and behaves just as the period magazine test reports say. I have a crush on the car. You have likely been far more help to me than I can be for you but if you do go with the master cylinder setup I'm using let me know. I will get you the part number for the best one as more than one is available, all made in China. These have a piston stop bolt on the bottom. The unit I bought from O'Reilly used a brass washer under this bolt head that seeped Dot 5. When we pulled the bolt we found it had been cross threaded at the factory in China! I ordered another unit which came from a different factory and used a copper washer under that bolt. I bought two and cut both down.700. One is on the car and the other on the shelf in case... You will need to take the lid and put it in a press to push the front bubble down to fit under the booster.

Here are some photos to show what I did. I can email you the part numbers and directions from AAJ if you want to pursue.

Again, thanks Steve! The 300 people appreciate you and your car.

Danny Plotkin

 

[saforwardlook]

Ultimately Dan, knowing myself as I do, I agree with you and will likely leave it original but I will use Jeff's advice at Karp's Brake Service and use his brake components and just go with the regular brake fluid and change it out every few years or so. As he also said, one almost always has some warning when a brake issue is emerging before it becomes serious. My car is likely to remain low miles anyway and is destined to become a museum piece that is all original with all the patina of a 60 year old 300F with 29K miles. That would be a rare site for generations to come after me when I am gone.

Enjoy your beauty!! It is probably the best one I have seen in a very long time and well sorted out.

Steve

 

[Robert Saigh]

Dan & Steve: You're killing me with those '60F pixs's!

 

[nicksgarage]

Ultimately Dan, knowing myself as I do, I agree with you and will likely leave it original but I will use Jeff's advice at Karp's Brake Service and use his brake components and just go with the regular brake fluid and change it out every few years or so. As he also said, one almost always has some warning when a brake issue is emerging before it becomes serious. My car is likely to remain low miles anyway and is destined to become a museum piece that is all original with all the patina of a 60 year old 300F with 29K miles. That would be a rare site for generations to come after me when I am gone.

Enjoy your beauty!! It is probably the best one I have seen in a very long time and well sorted out.

Steve

Steve, can you tell me if one wing nut on your air cleaners is gold? Someone told me recently that they were painted assembled with the one wing nut and that they got the gold paint on the wingnut.

Thanks, Nick

 

[saforwardlook]

Steve, can you tell me if one wing nut on your air cleaners is gold? Someone told me recently that they were painted assembled with the one wing nut and that they got the gold paint on the wingnut.

Thanks, Nick

Hi Nick,

While my 300F is likely the most original and lowest mile example in existence it is still not all original. I am the second owner of the car and I knew the first owner very well over a number of years.
The original owner's name was Roland Funk and he bought the one I own along with 2 others brand new from a dealership in Burbank. He was a body/paint guy that worked for a Buick dealership. He told me he worked on Buicks for a living because he would lose his shirt working on Chryslers because he would have to make them really nice and would take more time than a dealership would allow.

How he bought 3 new ones at the same time I never really understood, but he bought a red, black and my white one. Mine is the one that spent most of its life under a cloth cover in his garage and only went out on special occasions such as yearly trips to the Harrah's swap meets that were held in Las Vegas each year back in those days.

At least on mine, he said he didn't like a few things about the car and so made the following changes: He chromed the air cleaners and valve cover oil breather and the power steering pump cap. He also blacked out the front side of the radiator support because he thought being able to see white behind the grille was just wrong and distracting. He also said a luxury high performance car like the F deserved a carpeted trunk so he did that as well. But other than those changes, he left everything else as original he told me.

To answer your question, no one has ever asked me that question before so I had to go out and look at the wing nuts. On the outside of two of them, they appeared to be regular steel color but on the other two, they seemed a little dirty on the outside but they could have been painted. So I took all of them off and on the inside of them all, they were definitely a gold color and also on the underside of the nuts where the threads end was also gold. I took some of the finish off on one of them from the top side and on a Q-tip, one can see the gold color but I could not get a better photo with my camera - (it definitely looked like a gold color when shining a bright light on the tip and viewing it with the naked eye). I think my cell phone might be able to take a better photo of the Q-tip end and if so I will post that later. The paint also came off easily on the inner top side of one of the wing nuts with a little acetone drop on the area and brushing with the Q-tip). It was not dirt.

So your source is definitely correct that all the wing nuts were painted gold, matching the finish on the air cleaners themselves.

Thanks for asking!!

Steve

 

[nicksgarage]

Only one of my wingnuts looks like it has gold down inside the top of it. Nothing on the bottom. My car was owned mostly by one family but they converted to a 4-barrell at one time but still had all of the original parts to put it back when they got it back on the road. I know that they repainted the air cleaners though. I have another pair of air cleaners from the car I parted out in 1986. I'll have to dig them out and check.

 

[300C]

You have a very nice car....real nice. However, I bought THAT car from John and sold it later to the gent from whom you purchased it. I can tell you about what I did to the car after I bought it from JL. Message me and I'd be happy to inform you. And BTW, I regretted selling it. Fabulous vehicle! I have since bought a G to "replace" it. I did sell it withe California black plate. Hope to hear from you!

Wait a minute. You must be Steve with the photo set of your car I used while working on mine. You have a beautiful and important car and I would implore you to leave the brakes as is. Your photos are very important to the hobby. I bought my F last November after looking for 20 years. I wanted the best air conditioned car I could find, and when I did, it was owned by an elderly car dealer who had it for 7 years. Previous to his ownership the car belonged to long time 300 club member John Lazenby who took good care of it. A California car all its life except for the pat 7 years I have been all through it. It is an original car that was painted in the 1990's, had a new interior installed and the engine and transmission rebuilt. But the car was not taken apart for which I am thankful. It certainly is not the beautiful original piece of reference material and history your car is, but it suits me as I believe it is now easily among the best coupes in the country. It drives like new and behaves just as the period magazine test reports say. I have a crush on the car. You have likely been far more help to me than I can be for you but if you do go with the master cylinder setup I'm using let me know. I will get you the part number for the best one as more than one is available, all made in China. These have a piston stop bolt on the bottom. The unit I bought from O'Reilly used a brass washer under this bolt head that seeped Dot 5. When we pulled the bolt we found it had been cross threaded at the factory in China! I ordered another unit which came from a different factory and used a copper washer under that bolt. I bought two and cut both down.700. One is on the car and the other on the shelf in case... You will need to take the lid and put it in a press to push the front bubble down to fit under the booster.

Here are some photos to show what I did. I can email you the part numbers and directions from AAJ if you want to pursue.

Again, thanks Steve! The 300 people appreciate you and your car.

Danny Plotkin

View attachment 406229

View attachment 406230

 

[QQE]

Let me know what you need for detail parts. We own Gary goers business.
Thx
Dave

 

[PH27L7]

Awesome 300F's, great eye candy! Please don't disparage the G, this is the one I want-

 

[nicksgarage]

Awesome 300F's, great eye candy! Please don't disparage the G, this is the one I want-

Big bucks right there!

 

[300C]

Big bucks right there!

A 300G stick.....Isn't that a one of one car? The interior is exceptionally gorgeous!! I have a 300G, used to have a 300F. Both drive the same...fast! I do think the F might have the edge on looks but then again, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

 

[PH27L7]

A 300G stick.....Isn't that a one of one car? The interior is exceptionally gorgeous!! I have a 300G, used to have a 300F. Both drive the same...fast! I do think the F might have the edge on looks but then again, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Agree, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I don't own either but in my eye the F & G are about equal. I like the F front end better, the rear more or less a wash & don't care for the superfluous toilet seat on the F. Supposedly somewhere around 48 built, 5 known left? This G is spectacular, last sold for $200k in 2015.
https://www.hemmings.com/stories/20...ion-code-281-chrysler-300g-to-cross-the-block

 

[300C]

Spectacular restoration, indeed. Having done and F and G, they're difficult on parts without the benefit of the two 300 Clubs, this site, and a handful of others. I prefer the F tail lights to the G and never minded the "toilet seat" deck lid. But few cosmetics aside, both the F and G are special cars. To that, we can all agree!

 

[BIGBARNEYCARS]

True 300C. That's why I chose the '61 New Yorker Wagon to re-do 25 years after that grand showing. The wagon was the only one in the '61 fleet to carry over the Boomerang Tail Lite. (and they are not interchangeable with the rest of the 1960 fleet 'cept for the Wagons) I saw my 1st one in the fall if 1960 in a Dealership in Whittier, Ca. and the window sticker on that beauty was ah tad over 5K back then. More then my gross annual at the time? lol, Jer

 

[dplotkin]

The 300G is a beautiful car and the red one in the above photos comes from a Hemmings blog of 2015 in which many folks who know these cars have weighed in. Among them are Andy V, who is an accomplished student of the letter cars (actually a teacher). You may want to read the comments there.

So now I know that 300C had my car, loved it as I do and parted with it only due to a well above market offer he couldn't refuse. He and I have been in touch - like finding an previously unknown relative.

So 300C and I can take credit for what you see here...more photos.

Dan

 

[Ram Fury]

Several parts ie. Hubcaps, are wrapped up in paper and in boxes in the trunk.
Hate that toilet seat trunk lid!

robndi43 --
It's also called a "bird bath" continental kit in more gentile company, but you're not the only one who doesn't like it. "Uncle" Tom McCahill, who was the dean of automotive writers back then, agreed with you, so much so that he special ordered his with the plain New Yorker trunk. I believe two other F's were built the same way. While I personally prefer the exterior of my smaller C, the bucket seats of your F are head and shoulders above the benches in the earlier letter cars. Incidently, the "toilet seat" was called the "Sport Deck Tire Cover" and was a $28 option on the '60 Plymouth. Back in those days, I thought they were pretty cool, but I've since found out they were terribly susceptible to rust. I don't know how they held up on F's.
Joe Godec