First of all let me say, Overall I've always liked the body lines of the 36 Plymouths, but they do appear to be somewhat top heavy.   I think people realized it back then too.  Look at the sales literature from 1936, the cars in the colored, hand drawn, dealer handouts always appeared to be slightly chopped (see sample here).  They knew they could make the car look better in pictures, by shaving a little off the top.

This is what I started with.   Now a 2 1/2 - 2 3/4" chop seems like it should give the car a little more attitude.

I'm not a metal fabricator and I wouldn't let just anyone start cutting on the 36 my family has owned since the early 1970's

So I had been talking to Craig, owner of Hershey's Hot Rod Shop for over a year about getting my car scheduled in for the work.   We finally got together, so here we go.

I will keep posting a few of my latest chop progress pictures here.

To see all of my chop pictures start to present 09/06/05  click here!

The body is painted now 

Flush mount LED brake and tail light

And... the third brake light

Another view of my new chop, 2 3/4" out of the window area and a little off the top!

Another angle

One more!

Color sanding the deck lid

Getting ready to color sand the passenger door

To see all the pictures of my chop project Click here!

Stay tuned!   More coming.

Pictures of my 36, a long time work in progress start below.

 But if you want to see pictures  of other 36 Plymouths I've collected

over the years, (coupes, sedans, convertibles, sedan deliveries, trucks, originals, hot rods, mild to

extreme in various stages of the  restoration,  preservation, modification process)

 pick one of the five slide shows below: 

1) To see a short slide show of some cool 36's,  go Here. 

Allow at least 15 seconds for the following slide shows to load, longer if you have a slow internet connection

2) For more Hot Rod 36 Coupes, Here.  Okay there may be a 35 or two in the bunch.

3) For Sedan and Truck pictures  HERE.

4) Only Original  Here.

5) Old ads, parts and memorabilia  Here.

In 25 years I've driven less than 2,000 mile in this car as an original, 

so now I've decided it's time to Street Rod my

1936 Plymouth Coupe

Ready to Rumble!

I did make it to the Frog Follies August 24-26 2001 with out being stranded--although, I was beginning to wonder.  The 350 seems to have developed a miss, that I'm guessing is injector related. 

In it's original state with the original 20" rims, tires, flat head six, 3 speed tranny and that heavy straight axle,  I ran the car across the scales at the local Co-op.  It weighed in at 2,840 lbs.   As soon as I got it running I went back to the same scale to weigh again with the Fatman front, Ford rear end, V8, 700R4, power brakes, steering, and air unit it had only gained 40 lbs for a total of 2,880 lbs.

Click on thumbnails to enlarge.

I can polish your plenum and runners!  Please email for details!

It runs!  The initial fire up happened July 6, 2001.  I haven't figured all the sensors and computer stuff out yet.  But I had to crank it once just to keep motivated.   The Ron Francis TPI harness took a little time, but I liked the idea of having the TPI Telorvek panel and computer out of the way in the trunk.

There is all kinds of room in the trunk, that is normally wasted space.  We had upholstered the trunk area years ago and it left plenty of room between the passenger compartment, fender wells and the upholstery.   So this made an excellent location for the battery, TPI panel and the ECM.

With the TPI harness installed it's time to start wiring the chassis.   I opted for the Haywire 14 circuit kit.   About all I've done so far is open the box--and I have read the instructions a couple of times.

I have a few bugs to work out yet before I get into the body wiring: 

 1)  positioning of the steering column (done)

2)  a leaky brake caliper (fixed)

3)  making sure I've cured a transmission line leak (cured)

4)  getting residual valves to cut down brake pedal travel

and... (now this makes a world of difference--I went from about 4 inches of travel down to 1 inch)

5)  Though I've started the motor I had to do it by running a gas line from the frame mounted pump to a five gallon gas can.  I haven't figured out yet why it won't pull gas from my new "Tanks" fuel cell.   Hmmm... maybe I was suppose to use those other pieces!  Oh well nothing minor.   I'll be on the road in no time.  (This one is almost embarrassing... after tracing back from the fuel pump to the tank, I found an obstruction in the last piece of  braided fuel line we had to check.  I didn't get to see what it was-- just glad we advised my buddy Jim who was looking into the end of the hose, as I was getting ready to shoot 120lbs of air through it, to point the end out the door.  When it came out the end it sounded like a 22 went off! )

6) After fixing all the above problems I discovered I had a bad transmission.  The motor and transmission came from a salvaged 1991 Corvette and were guaranteed to be good. The tranny was actually fried and had internal damage.  I swapped with the dealer for another core and took it straight to the transmission shop for a rebuild prior to reassembly. 

7) Now that I can actually shift gears and drive the car I've discovered another problem.   We should've routed the return fuel line all the way to the tank.  (I thought it would save material, drilling another hole in my new tank and time by running the return from the injectors right into a "T" I placed between the frame mounted fuel pump and the gas tank...Don't make that mistake.  I should've known if you could've saved time and a few bucks the GM wizards would've discovered that cost saving step years ago.  It appears the hot fuel I was dumping right back into my supply line was causing cavitation and starving the TPI when I pushed it.  Now (08/20/01) I've discovered a miss, that probably is from a dirty injector.  Number six and eight (at 190 degrees) seem to be running much cooler than all the other cylinders (around 260 degrees) It looks like now I need to run a compression check if all is well there I guess I will be removing the plenum, runners and rail to get the injectors tested and possibly cleaned again.  (Now I know what embarrassing is--who would've thought a 350 with TPI could run that good with the # 6 and 8 plug wires backwards???

Every thing I've done so far seems to be working really well--I've just been driving the car a little.  I bought one of the Vintage Air air/heat/defrost units, but I haven't tackled mounting it yet.  Mainly because I can't decide what kind of gauges I want to use and I need to lay all the dash out at the same time.   Errr...that and the fact, I've gotten a little tired of spending $500 bucks every time I turn around on this car.

So for now I just want to drive it a little.   

I made another purchase the Ford 8" seems to be fine but the 2.77 gears have got to go.  Since the rear end is an open unit (not posi)  I can do a heck of a smoke show with one wheel but at 55 I'm only turning about 1200 rpms.   According to GM the most efficient operating range for the 350 is 1800 - 2800 rpm at 60 mph.  So I found another rear end with a posi unit and have bought a new set of Richmond 4.11's.   That may be a little steep if I decide to go cross country but, for while I'm getting the car the way I want it, it's going to be a HOT ROD!

For a cool calculator to figure out tire size, gear ratio and rpm check out this link to Randy's Rear Ends