Although your car may have been the 2,393rd V8 Plymouth off the LosAngeles
line, Plymouths were also built in Detroit (Lynch Road), Evansville, Indiana
and the former tank plant in Newark, Delaware. Bodies for LA production
were shipped in the white from Detroit, I believe. In the pre-unibody era
Chrysler had body plants in Detroit, Michigan, Evansville, Indiana and
Youngstown, Ohio.
Engines for all assembly plants were built at either Detroit or Trenton,
Michigan, and they all used the same engine numbers. There were no special
prefixes for engines used in LA-built cars.
Thus your engine was 32,305th V8 engine built. The previous 32,304
engines would have been shipped to the other Plymouth assembly plants.
"P31" was for the 301-cid V8, while the 277 was "LP31" and the Fury 318 was
"FP31".
Engine number "MP8-251021" is a 1959 engine, as the model year is "M". 1958
would have been "L". It is the 250,021st 1959 V8 built. The "P8" means
it is a Plymouth 318. The 361 V8 used engine number prefix "ML361" in 1959
regardless of whether it was used in a Dodge, DeSoto or Plymouth.
Transmission part number "1638530" is a 1956 Powerflite used in
Canadian-built Plymouth and 115" wheelbase Dodge V8 models and
American-built Dodge Coronet V8 models.
Bill
Vancouver, BC
----- Original Message -----
From: Mark J. Hash
To: L-FORWARDLOOK@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Thursday, May 15, 2003 11:04 PM
Subject: [FWDLK] '57 Plymouth facts & Q's
I need more help in putting together my '57 Plymouth Savoy 2 door club coupe
(2 door post). For those that don't remember my previous posting, it is a
very early production '57, with the early lower grille (no vertical slats in
the holes) and the '56 style steering wheel. The cardboard inserts on the
door panels were dated Aug 10, 1956.
I wrote down the engine number today, and it's P31-033305. The P31 tells me
it's an authentic '57 V8 (I'm pretty certain it's the engine this car came
with new). The VIN # is 26597393, so I know it's the 2,393rd V8 car made in
the Los Angeles plant that year. Even though the engine number is the
lowest P31 engine number I can recall ever seeing, I wonder why it's so much
higher than the VIN?
I have a '59 Savoy that was originally a stick shift that I was going to use
the clutch, bellhousing, flywheel, etc off of to convert my '57's current
Powerflite to stick w/ overdrive (The actual O/D trans came off a different
car). Unfortunately, when we went underneath the '59 to start unbolting
things, it became apparent that someone in the past had started to convert
it to an automatic, complete with engine and transmission already loosely
put in, but not set up, and with all the automatic parts (steering column,
linkages, pedals) stashed in the trunk. Now I don't know what drivetrain is
resting in the '59. The engine block number is MP8-251021 (I suspect '58
Plymouth? 350?), and the tranny has part number 1638530. Can anyone tell
me for certain what these are?
Finally, my original '57 V8 has power steering. The steering column I found
for the manual, OD trans does not have a power steering gearbox. Obviously,
to switch to the manual trans, I have to swap out steering columns. Has
anyone ever seen a '57 power steering/manual trans steering column? It
looks pretty much impossible to graft the power steering gearbox onto the
manual steering column. . .can this be done?
Mark mjh
'57 Savoy, '57 Fury, in green sunny Oregon, where spring has sprung and the
old cars are out of hibernation!
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