Chrysler Books

I got some interesting Chrysler books through interlibrary loan.  I'll list them here and try to give short reviews as they become due.  They are:

Chrysler Engines: 1922-1998 by Willem L. Weertman, SAE International (October 26, 2007).

Chrysler Corporation Classics, Publications International (January 2008).

Chrysler & Imperial 1946-1975: The Classic Postwar Years by Richard M. Langworth, Motorbooks Intl (June 1993).

A Chrysler Chronicle: One Man's Story of Restoring a Classic 1948 New Yorker by Dave Floyd, McFarland (September 1, 2000).

Chrysler Engines is due in three days so I'll start with it.  It is an exhaustive 400 page study of every Chrysler production engine and many experimental engines.  It is very interesting and very informative but not much of a page turner.  I wish I owned it for use as a reference manual.  Besides the details of the engines, it also describes the formation and history of Chrysler Corporation and many of the key personalities such as the design team of Zeder, Skelton, and Breer.  I did not know about the relationship between Willys and Maxwell and the formation of Chrysler in 1924. 

Regarding the Traveler, I learned that its 6-cylinder is a four-main-bearing, shallow-skirt, L-head engine.  The book constantly uses the term "L-head" but never really explains what it means.  "Short-skirt" refers to the height of the crankcase walls measured from the centerline of the crankshaft to the bottom of the block where the oil pan attaches.  This distance is only 0.125 inches, considerably shorter than the skirt on the earlier 6-cylinders, reducing the weight and cost of the engine.  The engine premiered in 1933 Dodge and Plymouth vehicles and was adapted to Chrysler and DeSoto in 1937.  They look very similar and the key method for telling them apart is by the length of the block at the cylinder head surface.  The Dodge and Plymouths use a short-block of 23.4 inches and the Chrysler and DeSoto use a long-block of 25.7 inches.  The Dodge/Plymouth version remained in production for passenger cars through 1959 and the Chrysler/DeSoto version through 1954.

It's a great book.  I wish it were at the local libary or in my own library.  I didn't even have time to read about the hemis.