'59 Plymouth Forum

Roger, I did use the 60 TF PB cable and that ended up connecting up to the 59 PB controls fine, but I ended up about 6 inchs short on the speedometer cable for some reason. I was using the old 59 Plymouth cable so I have located a 60 Chrysler speedometer cable that is longer and will allow me to hook up.

I am still confused about Tom's answer about the final gear ratio of the 8 3/4 being the reason for the different MPH indicated on the speedometer. Being that the Tranny should not care what ratio is back there only the size and height of the tires. The speedometer measures the output speed of the tailshaft and that should not care about ratio. Again, I am using my Cuda/Challenger mentality.

Tom is well versed and his opinions is good as gold for me. I just need to find out why its different on the Cast Iron TF compared to the Aluminum TF 727's.

Somehow mother Mopar had some adjustment for 15 inch Chrysler tires/wheels versus 14 inch tires/wheels. I need to know where they made this calibration at the factory so I can re-train my thinking on thse FL cars. This car I have is the only Cast Iron TF I have.
Maybe it was done at the speedometer head gears and that would be news to me. But then again, a lot is new to me on these cars.

Re-learning car stuff as I get older, is tough!

John Q.

Hey, i can't figure ot which e-brake bracket I used...confusion is easy to come by.

If you put Monster truck tires on your car, the trans would turn very slowly, yet
the car would go very fast. The speedo =driven by transmission, would read low.
Same thing whether you enlarge the tires or lower the rear end ratio...the tranny will slow down, and so will the speedo.
The tires are connected to the rims. The rims are connected to the axle. The axle is connected to the driveshaft, trans, and the arm bone is connected to the shoulder bone!

tomf wrote:The in line adaptor is the best way to correct a speedometer. They are available from most speedo shops. If you give them the speed difference numbers, like what what your speedo actually reads when you are driving 60mph (a mile a minute) They will load the proper gears in a little housing than goes in line right at the transmission between the drive gear and the cable. Very easy install and cost me about $60 ten years ago. If you don't find a local supplier let me know and I will check today's price here in Portland.
Tom

Thanks for the info Tom! We will get back at you when we know the exact reading at 60mph, right now the roads are full of salt and we haven't got the car registered yet. We hope that we can do that early January if the weather will cooperate a little bit, ever since we got home from our trip it has been bad here with freezing temperatures and snow, hail, black ice Chances of finding someone in The Netherlands who can make an in line adaptor are close to zero, they don't know about miles, don't know about automatic transmissions and they don't know anything about classic US iron.

Ron

Now that I think about it, you probably don't have measured miles anywhere. Probably will have to follow your driver car to measure 60mph, hopefully it is dual labled with Kilo/mph.

Tom

Ron - Weather report from "PARADISE". Day before yesterday low was 34 a new record low, yesterday was 42, today is 55 and raining. Had to wear a jacket all three days, looks to be colder next week. All I want to know is did you do this when you were here.
Dick.

rogerh wrote:Hey, i can't figure ot which e-brake bracket I used...confusion is easy to come by.

If you put Monster truck tires on your car, the trans would turn very slowly, yet
the car would go very fast. The speedo =driven by transmission, would read low.
Same thing whether you enlarge the tires or lower the rear end ratio...the tranny will slow down, and so will the speedo.
The tires are connected to the rims. The rims are connected to the axle. The axle is connected to the driveshaft, trans, and the arm bone is connected to the shoulder bone!

Roger, On the E-brake I switched out the backing plate of the 60 TF to the 59 TF e-brake backing plate since it had the longer cable support (goose neck?) coming out the back side of the E brake rear housing. I was using my old 59 cable and it had a slightly different atttaching point on this support then the 60 backing plate version. It was easy to do the swap since I was degreasing everything at that point to make the switch. I could have found a 60 cable and it would have worked the same and kept the original backing plate but I had all the parts from my old trans so no additional expense was incurred.

I have a call in with Mopar Ricky on the gear ration/tire wheel size questions on our cars. Being a 30 plus year mechanic for a living he has rebuilt axles and 8 3/4 inch Mopar 3rd members for a long time. I have a vague working knowledge and don't want to attempt a statement any further ("Without expressed written consent of the NFL..." etc.)

John Q.

tomf wrote:Now that I think about it, you probably don't have measured miles anywhere. Probably will have to follow your driver car to measure 60mph, hopefully it is dual labled with Kilo/mph.

Tom

Everthing is measured in kilometers here but I can set my TomTom to miles and it is pretty accurate. My daily driver is a Chrysler Sebring that was build in the US and it is dual labled so once we can get her on the road we will be able to get a good reading.

Ron

Dick Koch wrote:Ron - Weather report from "PARADISE". Day before yesterday low was 34 a new record low, yesterday was 42, today is 55 and raining. Had to wear a jacket all three days, looks to be colder next week. All I want to know is did you do this when you were here.
Dick.

Dick, I forgot all about jackets the day way arrived! But then we didn't see it drop below 55 and that was at night, daytime was at least in the high 70's every day Today we will have 42 degrees qith a lot of rain and tomorrow we will go back to freezing again. And we are on the coast about 1 mile from the water so it is a lot warmer here than in other parts of the country.

I feel for you guys, living in PARADISE should not include freezing! If this global warming keeps going on in a few years people will use the expression "when paradise freezes over"

Ron

Ron - The way it looks to me is everbody in the colder climes is knee deep in Global Warming???
Dick

I have to agree with Tom F. that at this time it would be easier to have a ratio adapter made for correction, MoPar did this on many models with high numeric gear ratios being the limited area in the speedo drive. Yes there are different gears but I do not know where to find any of these. The service manuals have information on these. I purchased several of the adapter build kits from Kar products a few years back. I should still have a unit I can photograph. I use my GPS To find my actual speed and build my adapter to correct the error. I also really like the metric speedo faces,0 to 200.

Trying to find the actuarl side case gears that the factory used is "un-obtainium" for the Cast Iron TF's. Modern (mid 60's thru 70's aluminum TF speedo gears are plentiful but not the Cast Iron ones.

I have never seen them on E-bay, So Tom's way of the speedo head adapter is the way to go to fix erroneous readouts.

I will have to see one of the old Cast Iron TF speedo case factory units . So I know what to watch for at Swap meets.


John Q.

Here is some information on the inline ratio adaptor to correct a speedometer error. If you give the speedo reading when the car is going 60mph and the year and make of the car, that is all they need to build one. In Portland OR their price is $97.50 plus shipping.
I would be happy to order one and pick it up and ship it to those across the pond. You can reimburse me and I would accept a personal check. Might make the paying for it easier. If you want to deal direct this is the contact:

Speedometer Service & Instrument Co.
530 NW 11th Ave.
Portland, OR 97209
503 227 5567

Tom

Thanks Tom for posting the picture of one! Neat to actually see one of the adapters. It is smaller then I thought it would be and the price is very reasonable too. (cheaper then a speeding ticket!)

Can't wait to actually drive my car to see if there is a need for it. ( I am sure there will be...)

John Q.

Problem 1 is solved now. 1 more to go!
Instrument cluster is out, was pretty easy to do. Got me a headache because i bumped my head into everything.

Now number 2, the autronic eye. Anyone got a good pic of the location?
The installation sheet doesn't show the exact location, i want it perfect. I only know of 2 59 Plymouth's that has the eye.

Here is a photo of my SF eye. It is mounted at the center of the instrument cluster, about i/2 inch back of a line across the fromt of the ribs (see photo) With the unit having a curve in the mount and the dash being curved, it would appear the sensor would be mounted to be level.

John Q, please notice the Mopar yardstick!

Tom