No more in-line engines--in fact no facilities for making any--a center mounted glove box and the need for space to hang air behind the dash, and a reworked cowl to acommodate the new wraparound windshield. That is why there is no indent in the firewall.

Any 49-54 non gear-start converter will fit your car. The later ones are actually better as they are more efficient than the earlier ones, and have greater torque multiplication for better performance.

You won't be able to use any Ultramatic with your six as the pilot in the back of the crank is not big enough to accept the nose of the torque converter. You are stuck with stick.

No way close. Look carefully at the pictures I sent you. We are talking a 57 year old greatly neglected convertible here. Plan on redoing every square inch of the interior.

On those rims, fine steel wool is your best friend. 00 or 000 grade. Quick, easy, cheap, and won't scratch the chrome.

I think I can state as a fact that any of the v-8 cars that had either vinyl or leather trim on the seats also got a leatherette headliner; plain in 55, perforated in 56. For example, if you got the "flame cloth" option on your 55 Custom, it was trimmed with white vinyl, and got a white vinyl headliner. Cloth trimmed cars got a cloth headliner.

Every 56 Patty I've seen with the white leather/black cloth combo had a vinyl headliner.

Here's an oddment: I have seen many 55 Patties with all cloth in green, grey, and brown pairings. I have never seen a blue interior in one except that it was pale blue leather with the dark blue brocade. No all blue cloth? What's up?

Just to mention, pay close attention to the condition of the fit of the exhaust valves in their guides. These are often worn and will lead to premature burning. New guides are relatively cheap and not too hard to install. The intakes are usually OK.

If I lived in Germany and wanted to cruise the Autobahn at an easy 140 kph, save the engine and save some fuel, I would look for an overdrive transmission. A thought.

On your present transmission: the wear on your bronze shifting dogs and the jumping out of gear is related: There are preloaded bearings on the mainshaft, and they have lost their preload. You can check this by grabbing the gear just to the rear of the front shifting collar. You should not be able to rock it at all. Let us know what you find and I will try to take a picture of how to regain the preload.

I fully agree with the theory about the convertor lockup contributing to early bearing failure. In stock trim a 56 will lock up long before I would consider putting a stick shift into high--as low as 25, and that with a 3.07 rear. That would be about 950 rpm.

Food for thought; I'll pass along what a couple of oldtimers told me: 320 owners didn't know what bearing trouble was. Whether that was reduced loading, or another harmonic, can't say.

I'm way too cheap to build up an engine as described and took another route: the Stripper Clipper 55 Deluxe I just got was probably one of the fastest cars delivered by the factory that year--lightest weight, stick shift, and 3.9 rear. She's a lot of fun.

You are correct, John; the first adjustment sets the height of the accelerator pedal.

This is not such a critical issue on the v8 cars in my experience. It is however on the s8 cars: if the pedal is not set pretty darn high off the floor the tranny will not kick down.

Flipping through Consumer Reports at the Walmart I was stunned to see how many of the new cars will do 0-60 in way less than 9 seconds. That's where some of the gas goes. I am still wondering why they seem incapable of merging onto the 4-lane or maintaining a steady speed up a hill.