I finally got an hour to work on the '55 after finishing a rear main seal on a Jeep sooner than expected. So I slapped new points and a condenser in there, hooked up a temporary can of fresh gas, purged the fuel lines and pump, poured some gas down the carb, and she lit right up! I even eyeballed the points, and had the coil hooked up with jumpers.
When it fired up I was sitting in the seat with my neighbor by the front bumper. He hollered at me to shut it down, and pointed behind me. The bed was 1/2 raised, and I was about to dump a load of rotten wood on my Pathfinder! I didn't even know it was engaged.
I think my clutch may be dragging a bit too, cause once disengaged, we can't engage the PTO without grinding it. I'm guessing the tranny gears may do the same thing. Perhaps I need to adjust a linkage?
Either way, I'm pretty stoked. I was hearing some clunking, but I think it may be the fact that the harmonic balancer has some play in it. It just rotates back and forth on the crank. So I won't be getting the timing dialed in any time soon...
I've got some short video clips. I'm pretty sure the motor sounds smoother in the second video, even though the truck only ran for about four minutes.
Walk-around with truck idling
Bed being exercised 
