Rutledge Wood Plymouth Suburban Wagon Update: The Parts Arrive

The friendly deliveryman made it Christmas at Kenwood Rod Shop. One gift was a crate full of fuel injected, 408-cubic-inch Mopar goodness from BluePrint Engines. This fully assembled crate engine is based on a seasoned 360 block with a new cast crank, H-beam connecting rods, and 10:1 hypereutectic pistons. Add in a .545-inch lift flat tappet cam, aluminum cylinder heads, and a FAST EZ-EFI system and you get 445 horsepower and 500 ft.-lbs. of torque—covered by a 30 month/50,000 mile warranty, no less.

The Heidts front and rear suspensions probably took up a whole delivery truck. This box contains some of the parts for the parallel four-link rear suspension kit. The kits use one inch diameter stainless steel bars with ¾-inch adjusters and urethane bushings. You also get chassis mounting brackets, multi-position coil-over axle brackets, and hardware.

This crossmember, part of the Heidt’s front suspension kit, came in another box. Designed for street rods, the kit is as complete as they come—tubular upper and lower control arms, rack and pinion steering, 11-inch disc brakes, shocks, and all necessary bearings, seals, and hardware.

This plastic box is a mockup version of the evaporator core for a Vintage Air Gen-IV climate control system. It’s basically a shell with mounting brackets—invaluable when you’re trying to mock up a Vintage Air system in a non-traditional car like a Plymouth Suburban wagon. Vintage Air also makes mockup cores for its Gen-II Compact and Gen-II Mini systems.

This pile of greasy junk is the Suburban’s OE front suspension. Revised for the ’53 Plymouths, the suspension was praised at the time for a soft, comfortable ride, but handling was less than stellar. Those 10 inch front drum brakes would be hard-pressed to slow down 445 horsepower’s worth of small block Mopar, too. The Heidts front suspension package will take care of both handling and braking quite well.

The stock front frame stub was hacked off to make room for a proper rectangular tube frame that will accommodate the Heidts front crossmember.

Randy Allgood and his crew leveled the Plymouth and welded in the new front stub frame. The frame is made from 3 x 4-inch, 3/16-inch wall steel. “We normally use 2 x 4- inch tubing on our projects, but the Plymouth’s frame is beefy and the larger size tubing worked out better,” Allgood explained.

With the front sheetmetal mocked up on the new frame, Randy turned his attention to the bumpers. He removed the bumper guards and began the tedious process of grinding and smoothing the bumpers for replating.