Projects 1951 Chevy 3600 , update: found a 261

I’ve never seen them side by side to compare, but they sure look the same when coming across them. Going out on a limb, I’d bet Chevy used the same stuff they had, and made a wider axle for the TF trucks.
Are you close enough to both axles to measure the kingpin bosses for fit?

 

I´m not exactly close to the 49 I- beam, but the 55-up axle is already at my place, so I can measure that one. I think I read somewhere they both have .866 diameter kin pins and 2 1/8" king pin bosses. I was hoping I could make the 55 and up axle fit, but it is about 5" wider from spring pad center to center and is 3 1/2" wider from kingpin to king pin... I guess that won´t work...

 

Once again I dared to abuse Dani´s Beamer for a parts run. I heard of a guy in Babenhausen who was building a 61 Apache and doing an LS swap. He wanted to get rid of his inline six along with the 4 speed transmission and the photos he sent me were promising. To me the engine just looked too clean to not have been rebuilt yet ( hope this makes sense) so I had high hopes I could a least salvage the crank from this 235 to rebuild my other 235 that has the toast rod bearings.


Removing the valve and side covers showed that the engine is pretty clean inside. Now is a good time to get excited, time to get a beer and let´s pull the head and pan to see what we have!!!!

 

Not looking bad at first glance...

Drum roll.....taadaaaaa! Bingo! Mains are .020 under , rods .010. Couldn´t be happier! Time for another beer and turn up the tunes!

Bores and piston skirts are pretty fresh and nice, a few scratches supposedly cause by dirt ( engine has the bypass oilfilter canister but was run without a filter in it, hahahaaahaa)

SL could be Slivolite, I guess?

 

I spent today on degreasing, cleaning and powerwashing the "new" 235 and salvaging the dampner and timing cover from the "bad rod bearing" 235. Someone tried to remove the timing gear by cutting the dampner off, bending the timing cover and prying the gear of the camshaft ( breaking the gear while trying). I ordered a new gear, gasket set and new bearings, the rest of this parts engine I hoped to get a usable crank out of is almost new. I couldn´t be happier. I´d say, we need more people doing LS swaps so we guys can have all the cool parts, hahahha

The block after it´s shower. I cleaned the water jackets as well as I could but did not pull the freeze plugs as they are already brass. Water jackets were pretty clean to begin with, so I think I´ll be ok.

 

Yesterday the first parcel from Rockauto came in. It contained a gasket set, bearings and shims , spark plugs, a replacement vacuum canister for the distributor ( which doesn´t fit, not even universally), a set of plug wires and lot of little stuff, so I could start to setup the crankshaft and check bearing clearences. All mains showed .002", the rods are little tighter but not as tight as .0015, so somewhere in between .002 and .0015.

 

Later on a buddy showed up to pick up a brake switch, he is just finishing his beautiful 60 Ford Station and ran out of parts , so we had beer but no good excuse to not button up the lower end. As you see I also got the cab back from my painter buddy Tobi , because he needed his space back... Hahaa.

 

Today the last missing parts came in so I could press the cam gear on and button up the valve train. Next thing to do is paint, the blue flame six needs to be blue of course.

 

Today I painted the engine, for tomorrow the weather forecast predicted a carb rebuild and some final assembly. I think stovebolts look better in blue...

 

the 235 is pretty much done for the moment, so I started to work on the cab and restored some switches and the dash.

Got the firewall insulator mounted and the cab laid out with Armaflex and Alubutyl. Wiring harness and instrument clusters went in aswell...I also put in the rear glass and windshields, but I must have done something wrong because the pass side glass had a crack after it went in ( easily). I called the glass guy and he said it may have had a little crack from cutting . Anyway, I´ll get another glass. It´s about 40 bucks, so nothing to write home about. I have already ruined more expensive stuff, hahhaha

I use a lot of second hand stuff on my builds, anything I don´t have to order from the US obviously helps the budget . So I´m getting notifications , when someone puts up an ad regarding old american car parts locally- ....

 

... so somebodybut this up for sale as a ´50 235...I´m still a newbie to Stovebolts but while I was rebuilding my 235 I was always reading about those famed 261s and their Captain´s Bars above the starter and also on the other side of the block.... uhhhhhh wait???

Jim @squirrel was helpful as ever and verified that this was probably a 56 261
We were a little concerned about the funny marks just above the front driver´s side freeze plug, but the seller told me that he was trying to scrape the block clean with a knife and that this was not a crack... He was asking 300€ and we agreed to 200 , so I hooked up my trailer and loaded my cherry picker and so we went for a little roadtrip.

 

Arriving at the seller´s place he asked me if I could help him put his 235 into his truck, since he didn´t have a cherry picker. Ok, no problem, later on he deducted another 50 bucks from the price, so I paid 150€ for one of those 261s that are pretty much non existant over here... this one is the first I´ve ever seen or heard about. He didn´t want it because it had so many parts missing and it was easier for him to buy a complete running engine than to fix up that 261. I´m very ok with that


A few minutes later we had the 261 loaded and it really started snowing. I figured while I was in the area I could aswell drop by my friend´s place, and have a cup of coffee at his shop...
He was just working on his 32 Roadster, a beautiful car with a healthy sounding 59AB . It´s a glass car, but very nicely done I think.

 

It was snowing like crazy, about 10 inches within 2 hrs, my friend had trouble pushing his shop door open to let me out. It was a fun drive home... here it was just strting to snow

Back home I couldn´t wait to unload, defrost the engine and pull the head to see what we have...this is AFTER I shoveled and brushed the snow off the rockershaft, hahahaha


The engine turns freely, there´s no feelable ridge, just a little discoloration where the rings have been sitting for who knows how long... I roughly wirebrushed one piston top and it showed the pistons are .030 over. I suppose a hone and a set of new rings will be all these bores are in need of. I couldn´t be happier of course... It´s not like I found something special like a 409 or early Hemi, but this thing makes me at least as happy


Thank you all and especially Jim for sharing your help and knowledge , you guys are the best!

 

I thought I´d post an update on my truck (re)build.. Not much happened since I last posted, I got the cab finished so far it could be called plug and play. All the wiring is in, the doors still need the new glass put in, but other than that the cab is pretty much done.


The late 235 I rebuilt for this truck is ready to go back in, but I´m still on the fence if I shouldn´t use the 261 in the truck. The 261 had severly worn main journals due to a broken pressure relief spring in the oil pump, so I had it ground to .040 under on the mains and .030 on the rod journals.
In the meantime I gave the 261 block a good bath using a vinegar based toilet cleaner . This stuff really helped remove the rust from inside the water jackets and took the block down to almost bare iron. There are still some areas where the gunk was pretty hard and thick on it, that´ll have to be wire brushed . I already got the oil gallerys clean .

 

I also testfitted my mish-mash of front end parts to the frame. The frame had one shorter and stiffer spring on the driver´s side, and the other one was the correct size, but also almost worn through. I got a set of new 3100 springs, used a up to 54 3100 dropped axle usinge 55-up king pin kit, spindles and brakes. This gives me common Bendix style self energizing brakes and 6 lug hubs instead of the 8 lugs and Huck brakes. Seems to fit like a glove ( til now)
I still need t paint the frame, so the axle and springs will need to come back out .

 

While I was waiting for the machine shop to fix my crank I searched the web for chevy inline parts and came across this gem that was advertised as a 218 cui Chevy six...ok, never heard of them, hahaha but it sure looked like a later 235 with a 848 head and the seller stated it ran well but could not hold water, because he had tried to repair freeze cracks with is own buzzbox...He also had the head rebuilt, because he thought this would help the excessive oil consumption. To me the head and the supposedly good crank was worth the asking price easily, so 100€ bought this engine from carb to pan.
A quick tear down showed the crank is very nice with 010/010 undersize journals , the pistonsare .030 over with no ridges in the bores . But the engine must have been pumping oil as I have never seen that much carbon build up on an exhaust valve. Now my plan is to rebuild this 848 head and use it on my 261 block to raise the CR a bit, the good crank from this 235 will go in another 235 I bought from a friend who messed up and ruined his brand new motor by using the wrong size rod bearings... all six have been knocked out within the time he broke in the cam.

So here I am using up the stuff other people throw away, hahaha
In my younger days I was building hot small and big blocks,using the best parts I could afford, now I seem to have gone down so far that I repair bad stuff with halfgoodish stuffoh well

 

I looked for a 261 for years and just when I got the new 235 ready for the 37 a 261 shows up for cheap so yes I grabbed it.

 

Jeff, glad you finally found yours! I could not believe my eyes when I saw the captain´s bars in the add. Never thought these things exited over here....

 

I have a 261 in my '50 coupe. Probably one of my favorite engines of all time. It's a keeper.

 

I wish I knew of the 261 when I was building my 37,I think I seen a couple but thought they were a 235.

 

Go with the 261 and a better carb then the Rochester B. Mine uses a little oil but it's good still .

 

Baumi
I see that old black car of yours has a strange black sticker on the windshield with a blue stripe through it. Is it some sort of parking lot pass?
Does the car have a Chevy engine in it so it can go up and over the mountains over there? Just wondering.

 

Jay, I bought it from an ex-cop and I think it´s his old parking pass sticker for the police parking lot,.... you might even have heard of him.... Jake Barrow if I remember correctly... he is from your area!

 

PS, and no, the 40 still has it´s original 59AB with the numbers matching transmission case. At least the seller told me this, I never had a reason to question him... oh well, I did have a burnt out tailight bulb once, maybe I should call him up on this flaw and ask if the car is still under warranty

 

No problem. Just bring it back and I'll change that bulb. You'll have to make an appointment
first.
There is no way that you can be driving that car over the Alps and on the Autobahn with that old
flathead. Ask Fred, he will tell you the same thing.
Do you really believe that it is a matching number car? Who told you that lie? Ha Ha.
Ray

 

Last night my neighbor got talked into dropping my steering arms by somebody, and they came out great. Ackermann and clearence to the springs are both pretty perfect . I grabbed an e32 7 series BMW tierod assembly for free ( ok,almost, couple Beers and a haircut is our currency)from my other neighbors parts stash and voila, it’s the perfect lenght to replace the worn and bent factory one. I reamed the holes for a 1:10 cone.
In the meantime all the parts have been rattle canned and installed finally.

 

I also had the stock radiator rebuilt, I‘ll not eat or drink for a couple months now but the rad sure came out nice… I could have used one of these cheap aluminum ones made in youknowwhere but I just can’t stand their looks and how they spring a leak every two months or years . If this lasts another 70 years that‘ll be fine for me,and after that I‘ll figure out something else …

 

Getting harder and harder to find any shop to rebuild old radiators here in the States any more. My 50 has the old Harrison radiator in it. No telling how many times it has been tanked and repaired in it's lifetime.

 

Dave, I´m glad we still have a radiator guy not far away that cares to do work for guy like us. He recently did a 1940 Plymouth radiator for a friend, and while he is still charging the same amount for his work, the cost for the copper cores surely has skyrocketed.

 

In the meantime I managed to put the 261 back together, paint it and put it back in the frame along with the sm420 transmission. All the trans needed was a good cleaning, fresh oil and new gaskets. It looks brandnew inside …

I also removed the rear fenders and bed . I´m just going topowerwash and wire brush the rear of frame just like I did up front. There is no serious rust, just a little dirt and dust on it.After the new rearend is in I´m going to brushpaint it just like the front . The rear will be a later Chevy 10 bolt with posi and 3.36 gears that I already have, I hope the 261 will find the 3.36s highway friendly.