I was going to update the original thread I had made on my truck. When I looked I had realized the thread was created almost 10 years ago, when I was a dumbass 16 year old kid that didn't know a damn thing about what I was getting myself into. So let me reintroduce my build. Try and write this thread better than my last attempt, have the thread be more linear. I'll start from the beginning, or at least my beginning. I acquired this truck in about 2013 or 2014, its a bit of a family heirloom if you will. My grandfather had purchased it from my great uncle in the mid 60s and used it as a daily driver until 1971. While he had the truck he had swapped the original flattie 6 for an 8ba and a ford t9 4 speed out of a much larger truck. By the mid 70s he had Given it to my uncle who, for whatever unknown reason, decided to toss the 8ba in favor of a 360 FE and a 3.03 3 speed. he very much butchered it into the truck and left it as an unfinished project to sit in the garage for another 50 years. That's where I come in I always wanted to do something with the truck. I always thought it was cool. I had never seen another truck like it before and made it a goal of mine to figure out what the truck was when I was about 12. All throughout highschool I didn't do much with it other than just unearth the thing from the pile of shit that had accumulated on it after 50 years. I was in highschool I was broke, didn't really have any actual clue how to work on cars, and had lofty goals to make it some badass fast thing. Well as the years kept piling onto me I learned a lot, and that my goals then wouldn't be able to happen on a reasonable timeline. by this point I had it stripped to a bare frame and really understood that the amount of fab work that I would need to do to just get the thing to handle the dead stock 360, and that was really above my skill level and budget. this is where I will actually start this build thread.
Breaking this up into multiple posts to hopefully keep this more orderly. by this point I had stumbled upon an 8ba for sale on Facebook marketplace.. maybe it was one of my buddies who had sent it to me I do not fully recall. I do remember that I had just messaged the man selling it "when can I come look at it?" and nothing more, I was going to get this engine! two days and a couple favors later I did acquire it. This truck is now going back to 8ba power. As luck would have it, I still had most of the frame parts to actually mount a flathead back into it, minus the hacked up transmission crossmember. engine is very clean, but looked like a god damn Christmas tree, not my style. found some carbs at a swap meet for a good price my uncle I would guess had done some funky things to the frame of the truck when he had it so I had to give it a bit of a massage to get some parts to fit again but now I had an engine mounted correctly in this truck for the 1st time in my lifetime. at this point I just had a 2x4 shoved behind it keeping the rear of the engine up as i did not yet have that half bellhousing piece that is needed on an 8ba Then I had blown all of my money on a set of headers and the nicest distributor I could afford to get. finally got a dual carb intake for it too it was around then I actually did get the center bellhousing thing, I was working 2nd shift but got one of my friends to pick it up for me (thanks @Fourdoor64) this transmission is that T9 my grandfather had originally put in the truck, I don't know why but I still have basically everything but the engine from that drivetrain that was in it before the FE, probably has a lot to do with why I went back to a flathead. got tired of looking at the christmas tree I guess. Also got new water pumps for it. in the meantime I found a nice henry steel bed for it, hell yeah tork I also somehow acquired this, guessing its something to letter their trucks with when they still existed another swap meet acquisition, new to me crossmember hell yeah. also the Trans mount was an ebay special.
Looking forward to your progress! I Remember being 16 and broke, and still wanting to fix up my bucket of bolts (as my dad called it). I am also from the "Learn by Doing" school. So get to it!
that actually brings us up to this year, decided instead of going super overboard with doing everything perfectly right I just want the thing to run. so I started doing the rebuild on the engine in my basement this year just simply putting bearings in it and calling it good enough. also this past week I aquired an entire front axle and springs, the ones in my truck didn't match each other so I fixed that. In the process I aquired rear springs for it too to replace the cracked ones in my truck. I also acquired this really cool brush guard for the truck too.
yeah I unfortunately needed to learn a lot the hard way and am now fixing those mistakes lol. my main goal for this year with this truck is to have it moving under its own power, with that said anbody local to MA have a flywheel for an 8ba? I don't want to pay like $350 for a junk Chinese one off speedway
And what year is it, ,42-47. Just curious as I sold my ‘42 years ago. Also I still have the spare tire mount from mine, I swapped bedsides and never put it on. It you want it and not in a hurry, just cover the UPS store fee to get it to you.
Mistakes are the best teachers. But I'll bet you never cut up a 1970 T/A Challenger, 340 six pack, four speed car to make tube framed drag car.....just because the truck floor was rusted out. After all, it'll never be worth anything....right? I still kick my own ass everything I think about it.
Thank you! Yessir, I think if I look the vin on mine up it's technically a 46. I actually have a 2nd set of bedsides that have the spare carrier on them, thanks for the offer! Can't say I've done anything quite like that.. yet lol. This is very true!
I'll be watching. Nice to see something...anything on these heaps. I've messed with two of them and can say with confidence, they are unique enough to be a challenge. Keep up the good work!
I like the rebuilding of the flatty in the basement but keep in mind that piece by piece that things is going to get heavy! I hope is a walk-out and not a flight of stairs. Enjoying your progress and enthusiasm.
Thank you! I like that they're unique. Love that I don't see them at every show I've gone to. Oh trust me I know, me and a buddy carried it down the stairs into my basement, that's how I learned it's a lot heavier than an FE block lol. My father's got a tractor though so I'm not too worried about getting it back out.
You could try tying about 14,000,000 helium balloons to it and floating it out. Make sure you use light weight oil at least.
Soooo, now you're a...smartass?? Looks like you are making steady progress-- always a good thing to see, so please keep updating your topic as things move forward.
Good thread, Glad to see that you are working on it. I'd have to say that more old trucks (pre mid 50's) got hacked up something terrible when someone went to stick an FE in them and butchered the frame in the process. A student of mine had a 53 Chevy 3100 with a 390 in it that his uncle had put in it and there was a big section of the top of the right hand frame rail torched away to clear.
Cool build. Sadly the '42-'47 Fords are the forgotten (ignored) pickups. Back in the early 2000's I picked up this "farmer restoration" '46. it had a smooth running 59ab but smoked like a sonofabitch. A quick hone, new rings and bearings...a few cosmetics and drove the wheels of it.
I think that I've progressed from dumbass to stupid ass, I got a long ways to go before I become a smartass I try to make good progress when I can afford to ( wouldn't be as difficult if I didn't decide to pay 4k for a snap on box at work if I'm honest) I'd really like to see this thing make noise at least this year so I'm trying to keep myself focused. Yeah I've seen some true hackwork on some of these old things, I hate going on marketplace and seeing these old trucks and cars hacked up with really cheap shit, especially when it's just to put some junk ifs kit in them. If I wanted this thing to perform like a 1980s car or truck I would have bought one from then Hey now, mine seems to be pretty crack free maybe I'd be lucky! I love these trucks so much, love to see any other ones out there, nice truck man!
Minor update from the weekend, I have the bottom end fully built in my 8ba now and I am now onto building the valvetrain, while looking for the timing marks on the gears I have noticed that my oil slinger is junk, like complete junk. I've probably only made it a whole lot worse by using my pure genius to try and remove it without removing the spacer or the key 1st, so that's fun. Do I really NEED the oil slinger? I see they do not make them new. is this thing just going to hemorrhage oil out the front of the engine without it? Hopefully I won't have to pull the crank back out of the engine. I also noticed my timing gear, the factory nylon one does not seem to have any timing mark on it? either I am blind (probably) or maybe its just old and worn out... I will take photos of that tonight. also as you will see I have copper gaskets for the engine from back when I had lofty goals for this turd. I am thinking they aren't exactly going to seal very well considering I haven't gotten anything decked in this engine so I just ordered a set of felpro head gaskets. hopefully those will seal better
Super minor update. More of a question really I got my new fail pro head gaskets and got those in, threads all sealed on the headbolts and all torqued down to 65 ftlbs. I am now at removing the oil slinger. I know I need to remove the spacer and the key. How do I remove the key? I don't want to ruin things when I am this close to starting the engine.
The Jalopy Journal
