The Big Story.Well, we've already progressed faster and farther than expected, so I better start this now or I'll never remember it all!
The truck: 1949 Chev 1420. (Canadian 3600) 3/4 Ton. Appears all original, unmolested. Was clearly a farm truck.
The buy: Purchased from a local in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada. Truck came in from Manitoba, Ontario
The Plan: Fix up with a working man's budget just enough so it's legal and rolling. Then Drive it and see what it needs, and plan future modifications from there.
The truck was purchased by myself and my Father, with the intent to be a father/son project. I also have 2 kids, a Son (8) and daughter (2) who I hope to be involved. That said, the most important 'plan' for this truck is to build memories, regardless of what ends up of the truck!
Our Beginning:Truck was delivered to our house (just south of Woodstock, Ontario) January 2nd, 2019. Almost the dead of winter, to be sure, not much work was going to happen outdoors this time of year. Despite that, my son and I went out to tinker all the same. The motor was seized up, so we pulled spark plugs and started with Diesel oil, a little at a time and let it creep in. We also put some ATF, and some WD40 (he loved spraying this in!). After about a week on/off of spraying the top end and in the cylinders, on the COLDEST day of the year (silly me), I decided to reorganize the shop and pull it inside.
Warm inside, snow melted, we were able to really get a good look at the truck. As you guys know, and I as I soon learned, there's not really any great way to turn these motors over. I tried making a hand crank tool, but the motor was too tight, it bent the tool!
I jacked it up in the air and pulled the flywheel cover off. With a brass drift against the flywheel I tapped it back and forth until I got movement. Drained the old junk out of the crankcase and then filled with some used oil for testing.
When my son got home from school I said let's take the gloves off, and let him hop inside and try the starter! To our surprise, not only did it turn over, IT STARTED!
It was knocking/ticking pretty good, a quick look under hood (valve cover was off) and could see that #2 exhaust valve and rocker was not moving, so we shut it down, but great success, never the less we were excited. The look on his face was priceless!
Next off came the pushrod cover. Bent rods on #2 Whoot!
Haha. Ordered parts, swapped out, cleaned up a whole lot of stuff, pulled rockers and freed up the valves.
Put it back together enough to run it and tried again. Not only did it run, it ran really good all things considered!
Now for some pictures! I'll reserve a few posts under this one as well to continue the story and get up to date when I get a shot to get back. Kid's are calling now!
