So a few months ago I lost my engine to an oil line failure. I had the truck running on its new motor for about 6 months. I had to pull the motor for a second time and had it rebuilt again. A few weeks ago Jive-Bomber was incredibly nice enough to drive 2.5 hours with me to get my motor. We got it back to my house at Midnight. The neighbors loved the fact that we were dealing with an engine hoist at that hour. Here are some pics of the fresh rebuild and some things I accomplished. The fresh block. Looking so good! The valves and springs only had a couple thousand miles on them, so they were reused. I needed to fab two adaptors to get my 46 trans in the 41 frame rear trans holes. Here, I show off my remedial welding skills. Some pics of the in-progress build and the trans mounts.
This past weekend I got my truck running! But it wasn't always such a rosy picture. Read on. Here are a few pix with explanations. The motor finally in the truck! My pals Derek, Sammy, and John check out our initial placement: My buddy Eric (~E~ on the HAMB) is on the left, Derek never takes time to goof around. That's Eric's chevy in the background. Derek is a Datsun 510 guy. He has an amazing right hand drive Bluebird he recently imported from Japan. It's weird driving a RHD car in the US, I tried. Ok, the big let down of the day. After we get the motor in, and all the electrical hooked up, and the radiator, and the mounts, etc. We go to do initial fire up. But wait..... The car won't go into neutral... What the hell??? I'M AN IDIOT!! When I rebuit the trans, I put the primary gear selector in BACKWARDS!!!! Check the pic, the bevelled side should be facing FORWARDS! Oh the pain!!! Needless to say I felt like a complete looser. Half the neighborhood was standing around waiting for my initial fire up. So we tried it with the clutch in, turns out the distributor was off. Frustrated and embarrassed I apologized to my buddys who spent their whole day working with me and we shut the operations down till the next day... Oh, its also nice having such a large access panel in the floor. The previous owner cut it out with shears and made a fiberglass access panel that fits around the trans perfectly. The acces panel screws into the floor with metal screws.
The next morning Derek shows up at 10 as he promised. No arguments, no guilt trips. He's a great friend. I had the truck up on jacks when he arrived and we pulled the trans. Here he is making new gaskets. I figured he'd want this "full head of hair" pic when he gets older. So we pulled the trans apart, flipped that damned selector around, and put the trans back in. While I was fiddling with the trans, Derek set up the timing properly and we fired it up. My smile was so big it felt like my face was about to split in half just to keep up. Here's the pic of the Aeroquip lines running to my remote filter. Man, 4 fittings and 6 feet of line (3000 psi capable) was $120. Well worth it to keep me from rebuilding my motor yet again, though. And, finally, the finished product. I can't tell you how happy I am. Mike
What a good story...with a happy ending. The color scheme on the motor is amazing...and the truck's just leaves me speechless.
Yeah I agree...very nice truck Baron. Looks like a nice piece.....let us know how the fire up goes. I have a Hildebrandt full flow oil filter setup and have high pressure rubber lines with flared fittings to prevent them from blowing off....hmmm, maybe need Aeroquip fittings? Nahh....I think Ill be OK !! Hey FWIW, I had to go thru the same shit because I screwed up the measurement of my trans's input shaft and ended up trashin the thrust flange on my crank....ended up griding another crank, installing the spigot bearing in the end of the crank instead of the flywheel for clearance and assembled the short on Sat nite. I could blame the machinist but I SHOULD HAVE CHECKED !! Anyways....So far so good.... Love that theuck....keep us in the loop... Rat
the truck looks great. glad to see another flatty in the bay area. I'll tell you what if it wasn't for the little things that go wrong you wouldn't feel like you earned it. a little adversity shows you who will really go through the shit to have these cars, and that is a good freind to help and not give you shit for making a mistake. hope to see that truck soon.
Mike- thanks so much for the use of the MIG, the brew and the food. If you need more than one hand to install the hood lemme know. But then again- why cover up that beauty!!!!!! Can't wait to see it runnin.
Thanks for the props everyone. ~E~, don't worry, I'm sure we'll be tooling on things in the future. Thanks for the help!
Good for you Mike! The engine looks great in there. Hows it running on the road? I love the truck. PJ
Purrs like a kitten. The lumpity-lump of the 3/4 cam is fun to hear again. The rebuilder is quite an accomplished flathead guy and it shows. No leaks anywhere, water, oil, or gas. My first flathead of 3 that I can say this with. Maybe I'm learning???? During the down time I replaced all my brake slaves to go along with my new master, new shoes, and turned drums. I also have a new front and rear pan hard in there. Also installed new door latches, etc. Installed shocks on all corners, it came stock with none. The rebuilt trans feels great. The truck ride is very solid. I'm not used to this with old cars.
The Jalopy Journal
