Back in 1971 I briefly had a 1954 3100 truck in running & driving condition. The truck was painted a bright metallic blue and had been upholstered in white naugahyde. It also had an after market air conditioner. It had been owned our local scout master and I spent many happy hours riding in the cab or even in the bed enroute to camping trips when I was a kid. I ended up loosing the truck due to reasons not too rare to a kid just out of high school. I needed the money and it had to go.
The truck was gone but I never forgot it and started looking for another one. As I became more familiar with them I found I actually preferred the earlier models with the slat grill. I walked past one parked on a neighbor's property every afternoon and one day it had a FOR SALE sign. I called and arranged to go look at it. It was a 1951 3600 model without the little quarter windows, a feature I much admired. The truck was one of those "ran when parked" jobs but didn't look too bad. It was complete and did not have any rust I could see. It had a camper on it. We agreed on a price & a pal towed it home behind his big dually diesel.
He wanted the camper and I was happy to let him have it. When we jacked the camper up it literally fell apart. It had been eaten by termites right around the top of the bed railing. No matter, off it came and my pal got a couple of years of use out of it before he retired it to scrap.
The termites had also eaten into the bed wood and I put a foot right through it while washing & polishing the paint. It will need a new bed sometime down the road. Until then it will just get a sheet of plywood.
My plan was to do a bit of fixing up and just drive it as it was. I did the gas tank ReNew, overhauled the carb & installed new points, plugs, cap & rotor. A compression test showed huge variations and it was going to need a valve job but it did fire & run with a HUGE racket. After listening to the motor with a stethoscope. I thought the problem was a bad timing gear. That and the bad compression had me looking for a used 235 which I found with a fellow who had just taken it out of his AD truck which was to receive a V8. I did briefly drive the truck, just up & down the alley in first gear. The only brakes were the hand brake and it didn't seem wise to push things.
I was working on the truck hammer & tong until a motor became available in Canada for a long delayed 1926 Hudson project. That was ten years ago and the old Chevy just sat patiently waited for me while I turned my attention to other long neglected projects including a 1923 Model T Runabout and several motorcycles. Last summer I even determined to sell it still as a project. I need to thin the herd and had just sold an MGA that I never got around to so the truck looked like it was destined for a new home.
A pal suggested getting it running and then either keeping it or selling it. That made sense and I started in by trying to figure out where I left off a decade ago. What parts were bought? What more was needed to get it running? Somewhere in the process I fell in love with the project again and have decided to keep it.
Now I'm working on a complete rewire & 12v conversion. Some previous owner had done some "hippy" wiring with things like TV antenna wire and miles of spaghetti like blue tail light wire. That's were we are right now. I have a conversion harness bought ten years ago from Jim carter, he EL 170C. It came with a single sheet listing of wires, incomplete and riddled with errors. There was NO wiring diagram!!!
The alternator is not even mentioned even though it has a separate 3 wire harness for it. Where do the wires go? I know it must be simple, but I'm electrically simple too . . .
Last edited by Paul O'Neil; 11/08/2017 4:51 PM.
