The Stovebolt Site Forums The Parking Lot Tons 'o Fun 1959 Chevy Viking 2 Ton. Restoration by novice with no experience.

Hello, Dave Martin here. A few months ago, I inherited a family heirloom 59 Chevy flatbed. More on the truck in a bit. I found the Stovebolt forum doing a google search about the lugnuts, and have been soaking up the help and information ever since. I had a pretty long thread about freeing up the frozen motor, and it gave me the idea to ask about setting up a project journal. I talked to the moderator, pitched the idea of a novice restore journal, and here we go. The idea is that I can get expert advice as people want to chime in, without a lot of redundant ignorant questions on the forums, and maybe other newbies can get something from my experiences and perspective. I'll spread out posts to bring the project up to real time in the next couple of weeks, and then who knows where it will go from there. Wild and crazy times I am sure.

So, about me. I am turning 40 tomorrow. I grew up in a rural town in Southern Az called Patagonia. The term redneck is often thrown around. Everyone in my family was born with a wrench in hand, and most people I know are of a similar bent. Not me. I am not necessarily as.... "mechanically disinclined" as they like to call me, but I am very very ignorant. Prior to this year, my wrenching claim to fame was a few oil changes and the occasional bad alternator or starter. I have been away from home since I was 18. Tried college, lived back East in MA for a while, came home a few years ago to leave again in an rv full time, and have finally settled for a season in my home town. I parked the rv at my grandfathers, and have been trying to reclaim some of my lost mechanical youth. I helped him swap out a fuel pump on a 80's Chevy van, attempted to bypass a fuel pump on a Dodge with a Cummins, fabricated a new alternator bracket on a Suzuki Samurai, and am restoring an 87 Jeep Cherokee with my girlfriend. We are mostly done with that, but we learned how to install a 3" lift by watching youtube videos. It included replacing all of the suspension, and was a very educational experience for both of us.

So about the truck. My grandfathers yard is pretty typical for the area. There is a vast collection of equipment, vehicles, random pieces of steel, and "yard art" sprawled all over the top of the hill. The collection spans his entire life, and there are some interesting pieces. His may be a bit more unique, because he acquired some mining equipment many years ago when the mine shut down that he worked at, and later he ran an excavating company. I had to use the loader to drag a grader, gooseneck horse trailer, water tank, stock pen, an old 59 Chevy, and some telephone poles out of the way just to fit my fifth wheel into our spot. We got to talking about the truck one day, I was just admiring the lines of the sheet metal, and asked him about it. "Well, it ran when I parked it there. Used to be the water truck from the mine. Had a bit of a rough idle, and I never got around to fixing it. I bought that from your Great Grandfather you know" (I did not know that). He mentioned that he was thinking of selling it, I mentioned that I was thinking of buying it, and somehow I ended up with new project. I pulled some numbers, ran the vin buster, looked up the engine casting, was educated on truck grilles on this forum, and eventually put together the pieces. It is a 59 (not a 58 like my grandfather thought) Chevy Viking 2 ton with the 261 motor. More than likely all original. Was worked hard it's entire life, until it was backed in over the telephone poles somewhere between 15-20 years ago, depending on who you ask.

I also learned a lot of the history of the truck. We are not sure who bought it new. The yellow paint showing through the blue makes most think it was a county or utility company truck. A local ranch picked it up in it's relative youth, painted it blue, and put some cattle racks on it. For a while they were the only ones transporting cattle in the area, and the truck made a lot of runs down the washboard ranch roads we have out here. They decided to upgrade in the late 60's or early 70's, and this is when my Great Grandfather picked it up. The original cattle pen went to the old ranches new truck, so my Great Grandfather hired the grandfather of one of my buddies, to fabricate a new pen and flatbed. They tacked on an extra 3 feet of bed, just because. My dad's cousin tells me about taking the 90 mile drive to Wilcox for a load of grain, about how he could get it up to 55 mph unloaded. Another cousin tells stories about hauling cattle and horses, and backing up to old railroad beds to use as ramps. At some point my Grandfather bought it and an even older 50's stovebolt (yes, it is behind my trailer), and converted it to a water truck for the mine. My dad waxes poetic with a dreamy eye about being a water truck driver. Swimming in the river while the tank filled, resting in the shade waiting for a run, ah, the good old days.

So anyway, now the truck is mine, all chock full of nostalgia and potential. Half a dozen people told me "that old truck? Thing is a tank, she will fire right up, light a fire in her, and lets go to town" I'll leave it at that for now, with a little foreshadowing that she did not "fire right up", but I will talk about the tires and dragging it out of the weeds in my next post. This is what led me to Stovebolt after all.

The project build goals (forgot to mention them in the introduction).

I want to bring this truck back to life, and I want to do it as soon as possible. My intent is to spend all of my free time working on it, but am a bit shocked about how much of my free time, is not actually mine. Life is certainly going to interfere with the project, but I am powering through. I work at least 40 hours a week on a computer from my rv, and can see the truck out my window. Sometimes I sneak out at lunch and do a small project. I am learning to tell people "no" on the weekends. Luckily, I work East Coat hours, so I generally have early evenings to go out and fiddle.

There is lot of research for me as well. I read old threads on the forum, buy mechanic buddies drinks and bug the with dumb questions. The tech tips page here is awesome. I bought Tom Brownell's book on restoring Chevy's, and found some shop manuals on the internet. Still looking for a Motor from that year.

I have no tools. I use a $30 Harbor Freight tool set that I bought to put under the Dually back seat in case of roadside emergency. My grandfather has a shop I can borrow tools form if I can find them, my uncle is down the hill with a better shop, and my father over the hill with even more items. I also have Master Mechanic friend across town who has everything including a block planer. I hate borrowing tools because I tend to break them, so I will probably invest here in there in nicer tools as the project progresses.

I have no shop. None of the above listed people want a torn apart truck in their space, and I cannot really blame them. I offered to clean out my Uncle's second bay that has turned into storage, and hinted to Grandpa about the hay barn slab, but no takers yet. For now, it is outside my trailer with a pressure treated sheet of plywood between the tires, and a thick sheet of cardboard over that. I put a pop up tent over the cab, and have an old table as a work bench. I may drag a swamp cooler over if it gets hotter. Honestly, it is perfect for now. I can talk to my girlfriend while she gardens, and I am not in anybodies way. If I prove that I can get the truck running, perhaps we will re-visit the use of space in other peoples shops.

https://twoheelers.tumblr.com/post/160165797924/i-put-an-addition-on-my-garage

I am not sure of the specifics of the project. Right now, I want the motor to run, and the brakes to work. I have a tentative fantasy about driving in the Fourth Of July Parade. People ask me what I am going to do with the truck, I tell them I will take it to the store for groceries, and ratchet strap them to the bed. In truth, I want it to be a daily around town driver so I can mothball my overpriced Dodge Dually. We may build a house, and I want to pick up lumber in the old truck. I intend to use the truck as often as possible.

With that in mind, according to Tom Brownell's book, I am doing a Rebuild, not a Restore. This could change if the motor needs to be rebuilt. I am going to keep it as original as possible, but not obsessively. I will never sell the truck, it will always be in the family, so I am not too worried about resale value. I am not currently planning on putting a big block, small block, Cummins, or taking the cab off to put on a Kodiak as has been suggested by various people around these parts. I want to drive around in an old original truck. Grandpa wants a split manifold on it, so we will go there.

Originally, I was going to paint and chrome it, and clean up the body. Some people are trying to talk my into just clear coating it as is to preserve the vintage used look. That is too far off to decide now, there are a lot of more important items. I do have to replace the wood on the bed, and a lot of people are suggesting replacing the entire bed. Again, too far off.

The general flow as I see it is: I will get the motor running. Fix the brakes and lights, and put it on the road. Driving it around will be rewarding, and will give me insight into what needs to be fixed in which order. I'll pick something like the power steering, go through it, and them move on to the next. When all of the mechanical systems are up to speed, I will figure out the body. I am seriously considering trying to find an original 4x4 system to put in it.

Of course all this can and will evolve as the project goes on. It is quite possible that I will destroy the motor, or lose my project funds to a house, or who knows. For now though, full steam ahead a described.

Thanks

sounds like a plan! Get it to go, then get it to stop, then drive it a bit! You can look at the pics of my 58 (in my signature at the bottom). It is like yours but a year older.

Beautiful! Just curious, do you plan on painting, or leaving the "petina"

I'll be leaving the patina on that one, going to lengthen the 55 and use that as a tow vehicle, eventually getting rid of the 58 (at least the cab).

Just getting access to the truck was a project in itself. As it sat for a couple decades, the gravitational pull of an old truck in the weeds caused other items to collect around it, and who can resist a flatbed for old tire and parts storage? I spent a couple of weekends making room elsewhere on the ranch, and dragging things away with the loader.

https://twoheelers.tumblr.com/post/157062521419/relocating-yard-art-on-the-ranch

Eventually she was exposed as she sat, with only my rv in the neighborhood

https://twoheelers.tumblr.com/post/157317555024

Not really knowing how to get a project like this started, I figured tires made good sense. This is how I cam to find the Stovebolt forum. All the tires were flat, and it had been parked over some telephone poles, so the truck was now resting on poles. I could not have dragged it out on the rims if I wanted to. The square lugs were making me nervous, so I did a google search, and found a thread here. Someone was having similar questions about the lugs, and the discussion led me to this link:

http://www.autoamenity.com/images/Stud-Pilot-System.jpg

Pretty helpful, and I also learned about left turning lugs, which was a life saver because I would have probably spun them off trying to turn them in the "correct" direction.

Even after educating myself with the thread, it was not as easy as it sounds to get the truck mobile. 20 years of rust, no power tools, trying to use a floor jack on dirt, and precariously perched on a telephone pole. I am lucky I only sort of injured myself. Using a lot of pb blaster, and a really long cheater bar, I was able to break loose all of the normal lug nuts. At the time, I did not have a square head socket or bar.

One or two tires held air, and I was able to jockey the spare and outer dually tires around to have at least one on each corner.

https://twoheelers.tumblr.com/post/157362858224/found-a-cheater-bar-in-the-yard-nearly-broke-my

I hooked up the Dodge, and we dragged it off of the telephone poles. One tire immediately jumped off the bead, so I did not get far. It was far enough from the trailer to clean out the rats nest in the cab and the motor, and I found the original tire iron in the process.

I had someone re-seat the tire the came off the bead, and bought two new/used metric tires that I put on the front (could not find any used 9-22.5's) I educated myself on the square head lugs, dangerously propped the truck up on undersized jackstands in dirt, and managed to put tires in all the right places including the spare.

All ready to drag over to the mechanic slab, brush of the spark plugs, put in clean fuel, and take it for a test drive.

After the tires were squared away, we pulled the truck over to the mechanic slab. It was not goign to be in the way for long, I was goign to drive it that week.

https://twoheelers.tumblr.com/post/157760237009/she-is-officially-on-the-shade-tree-mechanic-slab

I referenced the hard copy I had printed of the dead engine tech tip on this site http://www.stovebolt.com/techtips/engines/Dead%20Engine%20Start/index.html

and pulled the plugs

https://twoheelers.tumblr.com/post/157821645389/1-6

They all looked pretty good, maybe a little rust on number 2. Motor oil on the dipstick was a healthy shade of black. Poured some Mystery Marvel oil in the cylinder, waited 2 days and tried to spin the motor. No luck. I made sure the fan and power steering pump were not frozen. I crawled under the truck and pried on the flywheel with a pry-bar, not even a budge. Grandpa wanted to drag it around with the loader while in gear. As a compromise, we bypassed all the electrical checks on the tech guide, and tried the starter. It could not spin either. I put in more MMO to soak, and hit up the forum about loader pulling. The general advice I got here was to not do it. I did learn about Kroil, and immediately ordered some. Other tips were interesting, and I also ordered a scope camera per forum advice.

Couple of days passed and this happened:

So, I pens downed at the end of the end of my work day, put on the dirty clothes, and went out to the truck. Pulled all the plugs, checked 5 times that it was not in gear, and crawled back under with the tire iron. Despite the computer job, I am fairly strong, and have been known to break or bend all kinds of leverage tools. I pulled as hard as I could, nothing, like a rock. Moved to the other side, same. Rinse lather repeat for about 15 minutes. Finally, on one heave, the tip of the pry bar snapped off...... but, was it my imagination, or did the flywheel move 1/32 of an inch? NOw my mind was playing tricks with me, it felt like it was moving fractionally, but it could have been the tip of the pry bar bending, and besides, the whole truck was rocking on the frame. Good thing the flywheel teeth are strong. Another 15-30 minutes of that, and I finally had verifiable movement, a good solid 1/4" for sure. Back and forth, bit by bit, the teeth would move. After an hour, I was rotating more than 180 degrees before it would bind up and I would go back the other way. By the time the sun went down, and my muscles flagged out on me, I had nearly 270 degrees of rotation, no skin on my knuckles, a much shorter tire iron, and pretty good movement in the middle of the arc. I put more MMO in the cylinders, because the Kroil is on order, finger screwed the plugs back in, picked up my tools, and proceeded to drink whiskey with Grandpa. Of course the whole time I was under the truck, he is walking by the slab yelling "fire in the hole!, lets light this baby up" Tomorrow I have to skip mechanicing, so I am hoping the extra day of soaking will net me a full engine turn by Thursday sundown.

Lots more good advice on the forum. Few more days then this happened:

Saturday morning I crawled under to rotate the engine some more. Back and forth a few times through the 270 degrees until I wedged it again. Being an impatient bastard, I got a bigger lever. This was a manual tire changing lever for the old torturous tire machine in the front yard, it has a weird 90 on one end. If you turn the tires all the way to one side, and put it over the leaf spring, and invert the 90 up into the flywheel housing. There is just enough arm movement to rotate one tooth. I found this afterwards. Initially, no movement. I strained hard enough to destroy the ligaments in both shoulders, bend the corner of the flywheel tooth, and flex the bell housing enough to move the motor mount around in it's bracket. The motor moved. One tooth. I did this for an arc of about 30 degrees, one tooth at a time, until the chalk mark I put on the flywheel went around the 360 mark. I torqued on the otherside to straighten out the teeth on the flywheel, time will tell if I ruined it or not, but I think it will still line up with the starter. After I laid under the truck, rotating the motor one tooth at a time, for as many rotations as I could before my arms stopped working. It moves nice and smooth in some areas, still tight in others. I re-applied MMO, put the plugs back in, and commenced to drinking.

This morning (Sunday), I was sup before the chickens, under the truck, rotating the motor (yes I pulled the plugs). Still tight in areas, but it will spin with the bar all the way around. I cannot spin it by hand yet. My shoulders made me stop after an hour, so I made up more chores. I drained the oil, and it turns out that the white milky watery oil was blow the dipstick, so I did not see it. A little clump plopped out, but then it was mostly oil. I came in just now to print up the page about the oil filter, so I can change that as well. I am going to pull the valve cover gasket, pour new oil on, disconnect the fuel pump, and maybe see if I can get the starter to turn the engine for me.

The whole project too a new exciting turn when I pulled the valve cover:

https://twoheelers.tumblr.com/post/158169430249/small-setback

Just a little bit of rust. No one can really figure out where it came from. Truck sat with the hood on and plugs in. Condensation is the working theory, although I think the lower radiator hose may have failed from rot, and the gaskets leaked water in. The radiator was down to the block level of water.

Anyway, I cleaned the rocker arms:

https://twoheelers.tumblr.com/post/158170147549/after-i-cleaned-them-they-are-soaking-in-kroil

more good advice on the forum, and I got around to pulling the push rod cover and oil pan.

https://twoheelers.tumblr.com/post/158296855274/the-motor-on-the-59-may-need-more-work-than-i

The motor was full of rust. A bit depressing. General consensus on the forum and around these parts was that it would make nifty boat anchor.

I decided that in spite of that, an attempt to clean it up would help me become more intimately aware of the inner workings of the motor, so I set myself up with some dental hygienist tools, and went to work. I'll post about that in the next journal entry.

Time passed. I cleaned all of the covers and the distributor. Worked on the Jeep and the garden, did some offroading. Scraped rusty truck guts when I had some free time. Found out that some lifters were stuck.

https://twoheelers.tumblr.com/post/158690664114/at-least-one-of-the-lifters-on-the-59-is-stuck-i

Ran some diesel though the motor, did a bad messy job of it. Scraped some more, turned the motor, cleaned some more.

Grandpa started eyeing his mechanic slab, so I bought a pressure treated sheet of plywood, picked up the back of the truck with the loader, and put it over by the rv and garden.

More scraping and cleaning. My uncle came by and tapped the rods lightly with a hammer. The stuck lifter freed up. Helpful, but also irritating. I added tapping rocker arms and rods and valves with a rubber mallet to my scraping and spraying and turning and wiping routine.

After a few weeks of this, I had enough. It was as clean as I could get it. She was either goign to run or not. I had flushed diesel through a few times, and the starter would now turn the motor. The last item of business was pulling the oil pump and cleaning the sludge out of the screen in the parts washer.

I put the oil pan back on tight (on the old gasket) and filled it with new oil. I poured oil all over the top while filling. I put the rod panel back on with a new gasket, and buttoned up all of the dangly things that were laying around. Left the valve cover off so I could watch for oil.

My father randomly came by one day soon after and offered to help me start it. After recovering from shock, I called in to work, and we tinkered all day. Took the carb apart and banged and tapped and blew to try and get all of the moving parts working, without doing a rebuild. I noticed that the gasket had a chunk missing, and had for a while, so I am hoping that was the idle issue the truck had when parked. We took the starter apart, removed the dead scorpion, and my father cleaned it up. Huge difference in power after. Did some tests, and determined that the coil was bad, so we replaced it, and a couple of rat chewed wires.

Put some fuel in the bowl, squirted the tube, tried to start, nothing. Blew up a battery in my fathers face, but the truck would not start. After hosing him off, we tried more fiddling, turned the distibutor, choked the carb, nothing. Took all the plugs out and cleaned them, cleaned the points, put it all back together. Nothing. My father said that it wanted to start, but the motor was not spinning fast enough, and we would have to tow it. We spent the rest of the day trying to prime the brakes. The master cylinder cap was cross threaded and I almost could not get it off, and there was dust blowing around in the reservoir. Luckily for my life, the sun went down before we built enough pressure.

https://twoheelers.tumblr.com/post/159693518019/found-a-dead-scorpion-in-the-starter-from-the-59

So this weekend, I went back to the original dead motor paper and read through it a couple more times, to sort of re calibrate. In my ignorance I assumed that when I pulled the distributor out, it could only go back in one way because of the slot on the oil pump, but I decided to test that out. With some private message help from forum members, I found the bb on the flywheel (I had been looking on the harmonic balancer), painted a white stripe on it, shined a light through the hole by the starter, and turned the motor by hand from underneath until they lined up. I could just see the shadow by squinting and looking up through the the bell housing while rotating the flywheel. Got out, checked, read some things, got some more PM advice, decided that I was 180 degrees off. Spun the motor one more time. Piston was high on number one, both rods were loose to spin, valves looked like they were supposed to...distributor was pointing at #5.

So, talked to various people in real life and on the forums. That involved drinking, so my mechanic day ended. Sunday, I took the distributor out again, and spun the oil pump by drill. Oil came out of the holes on some rocker arms, leaked a bit where the the feeder tube comes out of the block, but the drill never tried to jerk out of my hands as described on the tech paper. I lined the distributor back up properly to #1, turned it clockwise until the points closed, turned it counter clockwise until they started to open, and tightened the clamp (per this forums advice on another thread). I then spent eh rest of the day hunting for a sparkplug to replace the one I cracked, and rigging up the temporary gas tank. I was also killing time hoping for my father to come by. That day ended.

Yesterday, my cousin/uncle with the shop down the hill where I did the lift kit on the Jeep stopped by. I conned him into helping me start it. I brought him up to speed on my timing adventures, he agreed it looked correct. We put the plugs back in, checked the firing order, abandoned my leaky gas tank setup, siphoned directly out of a gas can, choked the carb by hand, and.... it started. The most beautiful sound ever. She died once, and we fired again, this is the video I posted. No oil pressure built, so I killed it and ended the firing for now. I pulled the oil filter, which looks to never have been changed before, and put the reservoir back in without a filter. His advice was to see if oil flowed, then drain everything after verifying pressure, or seepage at the rocker arms. That is todays adventure if I am not rescuing cows from a forest fire.

Here are the running motor video links:

https://twoheelers.tumblr.com/post/159961811449/she-lives

https://twoheelers.tumblr.com/post/160015475436

Turns out, the distributor was not set in the oil pump slot. Grandpa suggested turning the motor while pushing down on the distributor, which would have worked awesome, but when I loosened the clamp, it fell down into place. Oil pressure abounds.

I drained the oil and dropped the pan again. Lots of sludge still. I made an autoparts run, and bought all of the tuneup stuff I could need. Plugs, wires, new fuel pump, things like that.

I put new hoses on the truck a few days ago. Had a birthday party interrupt my work, and yesterday put the new fuel pump on with the new filter. Even that was harder than I though it would be. The fittings would not come off of the old pump, so I had to scrounge for new fittings. The fuel filter inlet/outlet lines were too long, so I had to cut it down with with a pipe cutter. The idea is to test the pump from a gas can on the ground. I popped a patch off of the gas tank, and shone a light in there. Minor rust on the sidewalls, but some sediment on the bottom. I am goign to have to drop the tank, and will investigate further with the scope (batteries were dead last night)

I buttoned up the pan and oil filter housing last night, borrowed some diesel from my uncle, and hope to find time to flush the motor in the near future. Birthday dinners and a camping trip are going to wreck this week, but I might steal an afternoon. Still need put in all of the electrical parts, but will wait until after the flushing so as not to foul the new plugs.

Tonight after work, I am goign to look at a bench seat for sale off a 58 that is in better shape than mine.

So, now this journal is up to speed and in real time. Sorry that I dumped all the posts today, but work was slow, and I wanted to get caught up. I'll post random updates at a lesser rate from here on out, as exciting things unfold. Barring blowing up the motor, I am hoping to move to brakes my next weekend at the latest. Of course that is Mother's Day, but I will sneak my wrench time when I can get it.

Thanks to all that have helped so far. Feel free to comment or advise either on the thread, or through PM's, I really do appreciate the help, even when I go against medical advice and ignore some of it.

I bought a new seat for the truck. A guy had taken it out of his 58 to put luxury bucket seats in. It was in surprisingly good shape for being outside all these years. I will probably have it re-covered if I decide to paint the truck. He said he had doors, and though that there was an extra truck in a junkyard I had forgotten about. Maybe there is a motor I can borrow.

https://twoheelers.tumblr.com/post/160244369609/picked-up-a-new-seat-for-the-59

Kudos to the worker on the right side of the assembly line in Kansas City in 1958. They very diligently put the inside rear bolt in the seat bracket. Took me a while to get it off, I considered borrowing the jaws of life from the fire department for a bit. The left side seat installer was not on their A game, so there were only three bolts on that side. Thinking of removing the fuel tank from behind the seat. I have the saddles, and can't imagine ever needing that much fuel. It would add some space for throwing things. I also want to see if I can find the gun rack that used to be mounted above the seat. The holes are still there, but it was probably relocated to a newer truck.

Yesterday I also shot diesel down the rocker arm oil holes with a horse syringe. Doubt it did anything, but it made me feel better. For those that don't know, I have been advised that 261's are rare, and I should not run mine without a re-build. The plan would be to find another motor to plug in while this one is being built, so I could also work on the other truck moving parts. I am seriously considering it, if I could find a motor.

Turns out there is a motor about 100 feet away from me. There is another flatbed. Not sure of the year, but it is an older body style than mine, and has a split front window. It was actually purchased in the same deal as mine from my Great Grandfather.

I waded through the weeds doing my anti rattle snack chant, popped the hood, and sure enough, there is a motor that looks very similar to mine. I have no idea of the condition, although I am sure that "it ran when I parked it there" I just closed the hood without investigating more, I need to think it through. Grandpa was recently talking about restoring that truck for himself. I may try pitching the idea of him letting me fix his motor, then borrow it while mine is getting built. It will go a long way to getting the older truck on the road, but I also don't want to spread myself thin on projects. There was a line in the movie "Contact" about why build one billion dollar space transporter when you can build two for twice as much. Or something like that.

Installing the new seat was a lot easier with the seat slide working, than taking the old one out was with it not.

I have the truck to the point where I can start it and run it off of a hose connected to the fuel pump on one end, and in a gas can on the other. I worked the diesel purge all afternoon.

The first time, I ran it with a mix of 1 quart oil, 5 diesel. Ran the motor until I started to get a nice anxiety attack going, killed it, and drained the fluids. Then, I put in 5 quarts of oil, and a gallon of diesel for the splash effect. Ran it some more. I don't think the temperature gauge is working.

https://twoheelers.tumblr.com/post/160318864790/test-run-2

After draining that fluid, I dropped the pan. Diesel mixed with hot oil is especially delicious. What a mess I made under there. The pan still has fine rust, a bit like beach sand, accumulating around the plug. Maybe a teaspoon worth, there was a table spoon after the first run.

I put 4 pan bolts back in, added a gallon of diesel only, and flushed one more time while running. Dropped the pan. Still getting beach sand, but it is even less than it was an hour before.

At this point, the sun was going down. I put tools away, hosed the diesel off of me, and ran to the local burger place before it closed. I am climbing a mountain this weekend, and probably won't have time to work on the truck before then, so I have a few days to meditate. Do I keep flushing? Fill it with oil and start it every day for a couple weeks? The truck is not goign anywhere soon. At the least I have to figure out the gas tank and the brakes before driving it. Do I yank the motor now and do the re-build? A lot to think about while perched on top of the Mountain this weekend, I'll check back in next week. Thanks all

My list of excuses for getting very little work done on the truck the past two weekends. A 20 mile hike over a mountain, Snake training the dogs (totally unnecessary), another birthday bbq, Mothers Day brunch, a flute quartet concert, feeding cows, moving a horse trailer with a gannon, and bleeding the fuel system on a Dodge Diesel. That and my normal work schedule.

All that aside, I still managed to sneak some 59 time in. I ran another diesel purge, and there was almost no rust particle residue in the pan. I decided it would live or die on the filter, and put the truck back together. I used the old oil pan gasket because I am going to drop it one more time in a couple of weeks. Filled it with just good old fashioned oil (and some seafoam) installed a new filter, and let her run for about an hour. Seemed ok to me.

I figured that the loose groundwire was probably attached to the starter bolt, and I forgot to put it back on when we cleaned the starter, so I remedied that. I put a new clip on the temperature gauge wire, but I am still not sure if the gauge is working. The old timers tell me the truck takes a while to heat up, and that I probably need to replace the thermostat. We will see.

I put the valve cover back on with a new gasket and everything. I figured there was nothing left for me to see in there, and it is only 4 screws anyway. I did the cap and rotor and plugs and wires. Still have the points and condenser(?) to add. I ran another test fire, and she popped right off, did not even need the battery charger.

I was sitting there pretty proud of myself, basking in my accomplishments, and then my father wandered over. He twisted the cap around a bit, revved the motor a bit, and pronounced "you are missing on a cylinder" He started popping wires off of the distributor cap one at a time, and decided it was the 3 cylinder. I was late for the flute concert, so we left it that. I am going to run compression tests today after work. One theory is that a bit of rust is holding a valve open.

I have also been spraying the bolts that hold the saddle gas tank on the side of the truck with penetrating oil whenever I walk by. I demolished the rotting wood planks at the front of the bed, and plan to work on the gas tank as my next project.

https://twoheelers.tumblr.com/post/160629106679/the-engine-is-what-it-is-at-this-point-on-to-the

We popped a plate off the top, and shone a light in. It does not look that bad all things considered. Some light rust at a highwater mark. I'll pop the endoscope in to get a better view. More concerning is that someone rotatated the tank slightly for better fill tube access, and the petcock drain is no longer centered. There is a swamp of sludge at the bottom. At the least I need to loosen the straps enough to rotate it plumb, and drain the tank fully. We will see what the scope says. My cousin that I hiked the mountain with thinks he may have some newer aluminum saddle tanks laying around. I may go that route.

The current plan is, no more plans. Our social lives are interfering with our truck and garden and goose hobbies, so we are not making any plans. I will still help grandpa with whatever he needs around the ranch, and I will help my uncle/cousin try to figure out why the ranch truck Cummins will not fire. Beyond that, I am all Chevy all the time. The general thought process is that today, I will run a compression test on all cylinders. Assuming I am not pulling the motor out of the truck after that, I will move on to the other items. I'll run the truck once a day while playing with fuel tanks and the brake system. Then the lights. If all is still functioning when that is done in a week or so, I will drop the oil pan one more time. Change the oil and filter, and go for a test drive.

Still enjoying these posts, Dave.

Not that doing a compression test is any "trouble." But before you go that far, are you certain that #3 has spark? A quick grounding of the plug and spinning the motor might save you some "trouble" and lead to a simpler solution. Might have bad plug wire or even a bad plug.

Can't remember if you ever talked about checking/setting valve lash. That might be another easy check worth doing.

Well, I was slating compression tests anyway to see if the rust had done any serious damage to parts I could not see from the bottom. The plugs and wires were all new and just installed when my father walked over. There was visible spark at the distributor wire, but since I was running out the door, we never tested at the plug. Heck, it is possible that I did not seat the wire properly when I put it on.

Someone did mention valve lash, possibly you. I did read up on it, but never got around to it. More than likely, they need to be adjusted. Thank you for the reminder, I will add that to my short term project list and cycle back to it. I also need to do a real carb rebuild in the near future. I think I just needed the psychological win of having the motor running and the truck moving under it's own power, which is why I diverted mentally to fuel and brakes.

Compression test results:

1-72
2-60
3-0
4-0
5-55
6-65

My shop manual says that they should be at 130. I have no idea if the gauge is accurate or calibrated, I borrowed it from my uncle/cousin. However, if I remember correctly from math class 0x anything still equals 0. The manual also said that this is a sign of a head gasket leaking between the cylinders. I have a theory on how to test this, but have not run it past a real mechanic. If I put one of the plugs in a dead cylinder, and the one next to it builds some pressure, this would indicate a leak? Considering the rust problems, I guess it is safe to assume a bad head gasket. I went back to look at pictures, those were the dirtier plugs:

https://twoheelers.tumblr.com/post/157821645389/1-6

and there was a little waterfall cascading down the block there.

https://68.media.tumblr.com/75ba199aa4fe016f06b1b50d7bcd0a39/tumblr_omorcnd8di1tf758jo3_540.jpg

https://68.media.tumblr.com/9c1fcdd25daf55a95af9fbd1f399781e/tumblr_omorcnd8di1tf758jo4_1280.jpg

No one has any memory of head gasket related symptoms, but that was also 20 years ago. I am going to ask the local experts their opinions, but I am guessing I need to yank the motor and do a re-build. If I go that route, I may pull all the sheet metal for a real paint job. Not sure yet.

For now, I am goign to see if the motor will limp along enough for me to work on the brakes and other non motor moving parts. To that end, I took off the gas thank that was primarily used, and took it to a radiator shop for cleaning. Had some trouble finding someone with a big enough tank, but it is being cleaned as I type. With that back in place, I can at least back the truck over to the slab to have a stable jack stand base. I'll pull all of the wheel cylinders this weekend. Hopefully.

Sounds like at a bare minimum a head gasket. You might get a little compression bump putting a plug in the other cylinder but, depending on valve opening, it may or may not help at all. At the point you are at, I don't know if I would bother checking that though. At a bare minimum, you need to replace the head gasket.

That is what I am thinking. The thing is, and feel free to correct my ignorance, if you replace the head gasket,
are you not supposed to re-surface the head? And if I am doing that, the odds are pretty good I am goign to want to do rings at the least and the odds are good that the cylinders need to be honed or bored. And at that point, I may as well do the entire motor? Or am I being dramatic, and can I just plop a new gasket in and buy some more engine life until the time comes to do the full re-build?

As my friend phrased it, the "might as wells" have started, and they are expensive.

I jacked the truck up and removed the tires with the offending wheel cylinder.

https://twoheelers.tumblr.com/post/160924610729

My father proceeded to destroy the flat head screws holding the drum on, but we were able to chisel the last one off. It turns out this tendency to force and destroy mechanical items is genetic, and passed on to the males in our family. I went against that genetic urge and patiently coaxed the brake lines into breaking free without rounding off the heads. Line wrench, lubricant, tapping back and forth, and now I do not have to learn to make flared fittings. This works out. The wheel cylinder was pretty offensive:

https://twoheelers.tumblr.com/post/160924624744

Dad looks, says "your seal is leaking" then wanders off. This ended the day, but started the "might as wells". If I am going to replace the wheel cylinders, I might as well fix the seal. If I am going to fix the seal, I might as well replace the bearings, they are showing signs of wear and some are pitted. The seal leaked on the brake pads, might as well replace those. Ok, might as well do the springs since the brakes will be apart. If this side is bad, might as well do all this on both sides....... I almost fainted at the parts store. I now have more money in bearings and brakes than I do in my Jeep, but I am getting ahead of the story.

As usual, this was my first time doing what I was doing. As my dad was wandering away earlier, he said over his shoulder, "just pull the axle, it is all right there". Oook. I dug out my shop manual and went to reading. My shop manual is starting to annoy me. I think it is a reproduction, and all of the images are black and blurry. Every procedure says "use special tool J-####", and seems to think that is self explanatory. I called a buddy to ask if he had the special axle pulling tool, "thread a long bolt in the end, it should pull out" He was right, it did. More faded images in the shop manual, more special tools. This time I went to my fathers. "do you have the tool for the hub nuts?" "Use this brass punch, it is soft and will not damage the nut". He was right, it worked, although I could see where he or my uncle mashed it on with a steel punch 30 years ago the last time it was serviced. (I ordered the tool at the parts store). I pulled the hub off and the bearing fell out in the dirt. I started mentally drawing plans for my new shop, and that ended that day.

Back to the shop manual. I found an exploded assembly drawing for the 1/2 ton truck hubs, I am guessing it is similar to mine. Not sure how the bearing fell out, and the slotted washer did not, but now I am mildly paranoid that I will put them in backwards. Anyway, more special tools required. This time I hit up my Uncle/Cousin. I am trying to spread out my annoying questions so that people don't get tired of helping me. He came up the hill to asses the situation. It was dark, so we were working with flashlights on the bed of the truck. We determined that the bearing needed to be replaced (before I knew how much they cost), and he forced the seal out with a screw driver. The bearing just fell apart after that, so I really don't have a choice now.

Between pictures and parts, I felt like I had enough information to go to the parts store. The gas tank was ready at the radiator shop, so I made the hour drive to the city. The gas tank is beautiful, but now I am going to have to paint everything from the cab back to match. Might as well, I was thinking about doing it anyway. Time to strip the rest of the wood off the truck. We had a hard time at the parts store finding what I needed. The number on the bearing did not cross reference in the computer with anything. There were these cool book things though, with this paper stuff, and lots of pictures. We had about 6 faded catalogs spread out over the counter, and after an hour, we were able to track down all of the bearings, seals, and brake parts. I would like to put a plug in for http://www.merlesauto.com/ in Tucson. Great store, and he provided psychological counseling to me when the total rang up.

Most everything had to be ordered, so I have a rear end respite for a week or so. In the mean time, I will blow out the fuel lines, mount the tank, and see if that is all working. I will disconnect the line from the carburetor, and let the fuel pump cycle some new gas through the lines before hooking it up. My jack stand in the dirt makes me a bit nervous to run the truck, but I think it is stable enough. I will put a secondary stand under it just in case, but I really want to run the motor off the new tank. I also have some minor Jeep projects to catch up on while the parts are on order. Next weekend I am going to Reno to pick up an old Suburban for a friend, so it could be a few weeks before the truck is back on the ground and ready for that first test drive. This is assuming I don't have to replace the master cylinder, lines, booster, or front brakes.

I'm enjoying the ride as you sort out the issues 20 years of sitting in weeds can cause. It does sound like the parade truck is well on it's way to being a driver. For some reason I'm also reminded of the "Whole Earth Catalog" from my misspent youth.

added in edit: It occurs to me you're at the edge of the WIIT (While I'm In There) rabbit hole. It does sound like a head gasket is called for. Not a big deal usually. But then with the head off it's fairly easy to drop the pan... pull the rod caps... push the piston/rod assembly out the top of the block (after knocking the ring ridge out of the top of the cylinders)... replace rings, deglaze the cylinder walls with a hone or just sandpaper... reinstall with new rod bearings and do a cheap inframe ring job.

But wait, WIIT why not just go ahead and pull the main caps and work new main bearings in over the crank, replacing in the cap.

But wait, might as well just pull the engine and since it's only a 6 cylinder have it bored, new pistons, hot tank the block, get the head rebuilt, new cam bearings, new water pump and oil pump.....WIIT

Good Luck!

Ron

What you just described is exactly what I am worried about, so I am going to put off the head gasket as long as possible. For one thing, the project cash aquifer took a big hit on the bearings, and needs time to recharge. For another, my Father and Uncle/Cousin, who are both mechanics who used to drive this truck, think it is stuck valves from all the rust. If procrastination mechanics causes the compression to magically heal, all the better for me. Hopefully the motor will limp along well enough for me to fix the rest of the systems, if not, we have flagged a backup motor that is in a 60's boom truck.

People keep trying to talk me into a big motor. There are 454's all over this county, and there is a CAT diesel with an Allison in the hay barn. Not sure it would fit, but.... I have no intention of ever selling the truck, so there is no potential future value in keeping it original, but I am romantically attached to the idea of keeping the original motor running. For one, I have a LOT of rust scraping, knuckles bleeding, eyes watering hours into it. For another, Grandpa wants to go for a drive in it as is, and talks often about how they used to braise a baffle in the manifold for a cool sound. What may end up happening is that when I do pull the motor for a rebuild, I will "hot rod" it. Who knows, all pie in the sky fantasy at this point. For now I have races to bang out of the hub and a gas tank to mount. We will see what the next week brings.

Dave,

I have enjoyed reading your truck story...interesting read if nothing else. You most certainly have the determination to make this happen and that is a huge plus. From my experience; will, determination, and dogged perseverance are a must when working with old obsolete iron. The one problem I see with your situation is that if you "cuss" poorly implemented previous mechanical repairs on your project, you may make a relative mad at you...tread carefully!

Your compression readings are all real low, so low that I would question the accuracy of the guage. Did you check compression with all of the spark plugs removed using a freshly charged (good) battery?

Also, have you gotten a parts manual for your truck? Finding parts by part number is a great way to locate parts that no longer show up on modern computer systems. Google is your friend.

Keep up the effort!

Paul

On the contrary, I look forward to finding the little rigged fixes and giving them a hard time about it. Payback for decades of ribbing me for not being mechanically inclined. There was speaker wire connected to the starter, I accused everyone of doing it.

I did have the plugs out, and had the charger on the battery. Of course my starter is old and tired, and the motor is still recovering from being frozen solid. My dad is of the opinion that those readings are normal for an old 6, I have no idea. I did run across another compression tester in the shop, so I will take a new set of readings in the near future.

Dogged determination served me well last night, it was a massive pain to put the 50 gallon side saddle gas tank back on the truck. Big, awkward, and heavy, I had to draft my girlfriend into the project. Part of the problems was that I wanted something between the straps and the tank. I did not have actual gas tank strap gaskets, so I cut strips off an old conveyor belt. The added 1/8" thickness really made things complicated. I was able to thread the back strap, but after an hour of wrestling, and prying, and jacking on the front, I about lost it. Instead, I cut some strips from an old fire hose that was only 1/16" thick, and it strapped right on. Today we see if it will run off the tank.

Well if that is the case, I suppose hunting for various "bubbafications" will be all the more fun!

Hey. I have really enjoyed reading about your project. As some one who is not too mechanically inclined I can relate. The shop manual and discussion boards have been a life safer. Looking forward to keeping up with your progress.

https://www.chiltondiymanuals.com/repairmanuals/dodge/neon

I find good youtube videos to be extremely helpful, although I stress the "good" When my girlfriend and I decided to put the lift kit on the Jeep, neither one of us had any experience wit hit. We found a site called

https://www.youtube.com/user/bleepinjeep

Good editing, camera work does not cause motion sickness, and a little humor tied in. I often find myself wishing there was a bleepin stovebolt youtube page.

I did not work on my truck this week/weekend. There were two good reasons for this. The solid gold bearings and other parts I ordered have not arrived yet, and I am leery at this stage of having multiple truck projects torn apart. For now my plan is to finish one item fully, before tearing into the next. I also have this fantasy that I will take a small test drive after I put the rear end back together.

The other reason is that I drove 2009 miles to pick up a 66 4x4 Suburban for a friend of mine. He is on a 60's Stovebolt restoration kick, and this truck will probably end up being the showpiece. Very original, down to the smog pump, and relatively clean. I hope that I can spend some time with him on his trucks, and a smidge of the knowledge will rub off on me. He is also willing to teach me body work and painting in his paint shop. Anyway, here are some pics of the Suburban trip, and a couple of random shots of my truck thrown in for good measure:

https://twoheelers.tumblr.com/post/161515351849/reno
https://twoheelers.tumblr.com/post/161514758689/took-a-2009-mile-solo-road-trip-last-weekend-to
https://twoheelers.tumblr.com/post/161115580664/she-wants-to-go

https://twoheelers.tumblr.com/post/161115408763/this-is-the-sound-of-my-59-truck-running-off-of

Well, my parts came in, at least most of them. There were no brakes to be found, these ones have to be re-shoed. The short term plan is to clean them in some de-greaser, and have the pads re-done in the near future. We put the first hub together Friday after work. It was definitely due, there was some serious wear on the bearings and races. In fact, there was so much wear that my friend was concerned the truck had been run without gear oil in the rear end and told me to yank the "pig". More on that fun later. Anyway, we tore the races out and put the hub back together. By we of course I mean my friend. He gathered up a pile of hammers and punches and special tools and went to wailing on the hub. Races fell out, new races bearings and seals went in. I tried to follow along, but am glad I was not the one responsible. As it was, one new bearing decided to fall apart, and we very carefully had to clean all the rollers and put them back in place. My job was the cleaning of parts, and the greasing of bearings. After it was all put back together, he looked at it, and said "I don't like this setup, I wonder why GM built them this way, it is going to leak" I shrugged my shoulders, that is way out of my paygrade.

Saturday morning, I had non Chevy items to attend to, so did not get back to the truck until peak sun blasting time. I put a little umbrella in a table up over the side of the rear end I was working on, and it helped a little. The idea was to put the hub back together enough that I could get a tire on for stability, while I worked on the rear end and the other hub, so only one side of the truck was on a jack stand on a board, over dirt. Safety first. I slid my shop floor out from under the truck, pulled it over to the hub for when I dropped the outer bearing later, and prepped my self to install the hub. But wait, what is this? The most inner race on the axle was still there, it had stayed on the truck when I pulled it earlier, so I worked it off. Low and behold, a little rubber seal was behind it. I looked through all of my boxes, and parts inventory, no little rubber ring. I checked the shop manual, no reference. I took the old race and seal to my father, and he was of the opinion that I just use the old one. I went back to my friends shop where we pressed the bearings in to see if he had one in stock. He did not, but said the old one was fine to use, and now he loved the Chevy seal setup. The outer seal puts wear on the bearing instead of the spindle, and the little inner seal keeps the oil and dirt from going through that connection, or something like that. I really have not quite got it all in my head yet. If they were happy, I was happy. He even offered to come up and show me how to properly set the bearings on the truck. I slid the hub on, added the outer bearing and washer, and torques the inner lock nut down with my new very expensive special tool. He had me crank as hard as I could to pre-load the bearings, then back off a bit, then tighten to a certain "feel" that he showed me. This was pretty similar to the shop manual negative 45 degree turn. Then he told me that I should have popped the brake springs before the hub was put back on because it was blocking them now. Then we drank beer.

Sunday, I discovered that he was correct. The springs were a huge pain to take off, but I worked them off with a curly q tool someone left me. I removed the brake shoes, boxed all that up, put the drum and one tire on, and moved my operation under the truck (in the blessed shade). I figured that it was safest to work on the rear end with tires on the truck, I was pretty sure I could not lift the truck off of me if a jack-stand dropped the truck on me. First I pulled the left axle out with my special axle pulling bolt, then disconnected the vacuum lines, marking which line went where with tape. The driveshaft came off relatively easily, but I had to get a breaker bar for the rear end bolts. I was encouraged by the amount of oil that came out of the bolt holes, and yes, I did have a pan to catch it. I am slowly learning. The wind blew a good deal of it over my arm and face, but what can you do? The rear end in a 2 ton truck is HEAVY. It was all I could do to not drop it on my plywood shop floor. I was able to more or less gently get it to the ground, put it on a board, and drag it out from under the truck. Had a pretty bad strain headache from the sun and weight of the pig, so I just threw a towel over it and went back to the hub. I did look at the gears before that, and it seemed to be all shiny and new, not that I knew what to look for.

Put the truck up on a jack stand, pulled the tires, and went to hub removing. I am now an expert, so it should go quickly right? Ha ha. There is a line in the shop manual about the little flathead screws that hold the brake drum on. It says something to the effect of "they should be easily removable with a screw driver" It is a cruel lie by the authors of that book used to torture mechanics. I tapped and oiled and prodded, and finally got a power tool (which is the only time I have used power tools on this project). I borrowed my dads impact driver and worked the screws out. Even with that, I almost could not get them out, and destroyed them in the process. I backed the brakes off with the brake spoon tool, and went to pull the brake drum off. Nothing. I tapped around with a hammer to loosen things up. Nothing. More tapping, some light prying, a bit of cussing, nothing. After about an hour of this, my father says "just pull the whole hub off and then remove it". It sounds so easy when you put it that way, but I listened, and it all came off as one unit, which I threw in the back of my truck with the axles and various jars of bolts. The brake springs come off so much easier when the hub is not on, and you have the special tool. I whipped through stripping the brake parts off, and loaded everything in the truck.

Did I mention the rear end? I backed the truck up to where it was resting on the ground, and went to pick it up. I am still pretty strong despite the advancing years, but it was as if it was bolted to the ground. Of course anyone that could have helped me was gone, and by that time I was partially demented from sunstroke, so I decided I could load it on my own. I closed my eyes, channeled my younger self, bent at the knees, and slowly muscled it up until a lip was over the tailgate. Worked it around, spilled gear oil down my front, and got to where I could close the tailgate. I was seeing spots, but don't think that I did any permanent damage to my body. https://twoheelers.tumblr.com/post/161726854559/in-case-anyone-is-curious-this-is-what-the-2

Back to the shop I went, and by this time it was dark. The brake shoe pad thingies and little parts went into a vat of commercial grade concentrated purple power de-greaser. It took three hard swings with a 16 pound sledge to to break the brake drum from the hub (yes I used blocks). The old bearings and races were removed, and everything was cleaned including bolts. We even douched the rear end out with pressurized gasoline, no smoking please. The hub went back together same as the day before, minus the exploding bearing trick. We cleaned off the brake adjusters with a wire wheel, and coated them with graphite. We also cleaned up the pumpkin bolts, and made a couple of special studs to slide the pig over to align holes. Basically a couple of bolts with the correct thread, cut the heads off, add a taper with the grinder, and cut a slot in the end for a screwdriver. That and the transmission jack should make the reinstall a lot easier. We checked the vacume on the two speed, and it seems to be working properly. I left teh rear end in his shop because there is less dust there, loaded the rest of the stuff in the truck, and then we celebrated.

The plan today after work is to dry out the brakes that have been soaking in degreaser all night, clean off the area where the brakes go, paint everything, and put the brakes back together. If I get all of that done before days end, I will put the hub back on, but that will probably end up being tomorrow. After it is all put back together enough to have tires on the ground, I will go back for the rear end and tranny jack. Hopefully by the end of the week I can have the rear end and brakes all put together with all the fluids they need. The plan for the weekend is to move up the brake chain to master cylinders and front brakes, and to drain the transmission. Best laid plans, we will see how it all goes.

It seems there is a general conspiracy afoot to keep me away from working on my truck, but I am patiently powering through the distractions. I also seem to be pretty bad at estimating how long the actual work will take.

During the work week, I squeezed time in to cleaning up the backer plate on the left side, and all of the associated parts. I scraped and sprayed and cleaned and wiped and sanded it all down. Then I painted most parts with a high temp black spray paint, because, why not. I am sure it did not hurt anything, and will probably help with future wear and rust, and it looks pretty. Somehow this took me all week in the afternoons. It has been hot, so I waited till the end of the days to start projects.

https://twoheelers.tumblr.com/post/161905955279/shop-with-a-view

Saturday, I put the brake components back on the left side. This is my first time doing brakes of any sort, so it pretty much took all day. Did I mention it was hot? At least 100 degrees, my Crocs melted. I spent a lot of time reading the shop manual to figure out what brakes I had, looking at the pictures I took before taking it apart, and solicited advice from the family. This week it was a younger cousin who grew up working on heavy machinery. The dust covers on the wheel cylinders was tricky, I had to take one off because I originally installed it backwards. This was nothing compared to the agony of re-installing the connecting brake line between the cylinders. I spent an hour trying to get the threads to line up without cross threading. The new cylinders were microscopically different from the originals, but it was enough to thwart the install. I could get either side started on it's own, but the second would never give in. Finally found the correct angle to bend the hose, and wala, on to the shoes. They were actually a lot easier, probably because I had been staring at diagrams and photos all day. The replacement spring kit I ordered was for a different system, so I had to install the old ones. The J-whatever special brake tool I borrowed made it a snap, although it will be harder on the other side with the hub installed. I did not have a feeler gauge for the .010 clearance at the backing plate, but made my best educated guess. When the truck is ready for serious road driving, I will pull the pads off to be replaced, add new springs, and someone can show me the exact spacing then.

https://twoheelers.tumblr.com/post/162017801504/plugging-away-at-the-project

Next was the hub. It was already pressed all together, and hiding under a dust wrap, so it was pretty straightforward. Besides, I am an expert now, after installing the other side. I cleaned up the shaft, added some silicone gasket maker to the inner seal, and slid it on. Pushed in the outer bearing, and pressed it down with my handy special tool and a cheater bar. Cranked as hard as I could, Backed it off, tightened it down roughly to what we did on the other side, and then put the lock washer thing, and exterior nut on. Brushed off my hands, patted myself on the back, and then some foggy part of my brain said "you forgot the interior washer between the nut and the bearing". I looked int eh box everything else was in for safe keeping, nothing. Poked around the work space, no sign. I had a nice panic attack because I had thrown away the old bearings and races at my buddies shop, and wondered if that had been in the mix. Jumped in the truck, sped across town, and started digging through the trash. The good news was that the trash had not been emptied, and still had the bearings. The bad news was that after pulling every piece if trash out one at a time, the washer was not in there. I dug around the parts washer, the buckets we had used, and looked under all the tables. Not to be found. We diced that it had been put in the wrong box of parts, so I drove back across town to the Chevy to look. Not where I thought it could be. I pulled my phone out to look up a place to buy a new one, then saw it sitting in the dirt under my work stool. Crisis averted. I pulled the nuts off, slid the washer down the kerf, pressed it all back on, and called it a day. I had been up early that morning mixing wheel barrow loads of mortar for a friend for four hours, and I had baby ducks coming out of the incubator, so I was tired and distracted, and did I mention it was hot?

Sunday. The good news, the goose that was sitting on a nest of rotten eggs accepted the baby ducks as her own, and they all survived the night. Bad news, I did not get to truck projects until 10:00 or so, and it was already hotter than yesterday. My cousin and I drove back to my buddies shop to get the rear end and a tranny jack. I took a low trailer with a ramp this time, no lifting that monster in and out of my truck. I am learning. Back at the Chevy, we had to clean the housing out first. My cousin did a chimney sweep impression from the outside, while I sopped up the mess on the inside. In hindsight, I should have borrowed one of those round wire brush drill things, but I made do with some gasoline, a scraper, and a toilet brush. I was shoulder deep in both axle housings cleaning 50 years of gunk out. We got it as clean as we could, sopped up the mess with towels, and picked the last bits of crud out. My buddy had made me two studs out of bolts as a starter guides. Basically a long bolt with the same threads as the pumpkin bolts, tapered on the end using a grinder, and he cut a slot in for screwdriver removal later. I did not have a gasket, so we used silicone gasket maker. Just enough, not too much that will squeeze into the chamber when we tighten. The tranny jack must have been for a dump truck, and did not fit under my truck, so we used a normal floor jack instead. I set the rear end on one side of a 2x12, and drug it under the truck. We both somehow squeezed under the truck, rolled the rear end up on the floor jack, and rolled it roughly in place. Some finagling with the jack, some brute force, and we slid it on the starter studs.Even then it bound up, so he pried on the bottom with a bar, whole I laid on the plywood and pushed as hard as I could with my feet. Eventually, it decided to go home, slid down the studs, and cinched up into place. I put all the other bolts in snug, worked the started studs out with pliers and a screw driver, and then tightened them all down as hard as I could with a short ratchet. The book said 55-60 lbs of torque, and it felt about right. I will re-check later, but my arms and legs were starting to cramp from the heat, and I was seeing spots. I decided that was enough work, and we went to find fathers day celebrations.

Monday. It is still hot, and either I sunstroked myself a bit yesterday, or maybe celebrated with Dad too much. Maybe both. Anyway, I am not sure much will happen on the truck today. My first afternoon project this week will be to get the driveshaft and vacuum lines hooked back up to the rear end. Then I will drag my shop floor out, and move it to the right side of the truck, I will move the shade structure as well. I have to jack it back up, pull the tire, clean the backing plate, and install the brakes on that side. Should go faster because I have done one, but the hub is on and in the way, so who knows. Then axles get slid in, the hub covers bolted on, and the rear end filled up with gear oil. I have been told to lift each side with the loader so the oil will travel down into the bearings. Good thing there is a loader laying around. After that, we move to the brakes. I have to adjust them with the brake spoon, and see if the system will pressurize. There are some old wrecked trucks over the hill, I think I will go see if there is an intact master cylinder cap where the threads are not chewed up from cross threading. Not sure how long any of this will take, but I am getting closer to the first test drive.

The sunstroke turned out to be some sort of Zika Avian Zombie flu, and I was laid up all week. The bad news on this, was that I did no afternoon truck projects. The good news is that I binge watched 3 seasons of "Marvels Agents Of Shield" in my sick bed. That and it was really really hot in AZ this week, so my open air shop would not have been fun. Saturday morning I patched the roof on my Uncle's fifth wheel, and Saturday afternoon was the annual volunteer fire department steak fry fund raiser, so I only had limited truck project time. This consisted of moving my pop up shade to the left side of the truck, and re-attaching the drive shaft and vacuum lines to the rear end. Even that was without incident. One of the caps fell off the U-joint, so I had to pick roller bearings out of the dirt, wipe them off, and re-line the joint. I added new grease, and for good measure, pulled the cap off of the other side to add grease there. I was now all prepped for the right side brakes, but it was time for the Steak Fry.

Sunday morning, I helped the fire department clean up the mess from the night before, and hauled tables and chairs back to storage with my truck and trailer. My wonderful life partner then firmly advised me that it was all well and good to do good deeds for the fire department, and have a fun 59 restoration project, but not at the expense of our daily drivers. I wisely agreed, and we drove the Jeep and Dually down to my Uncle/Cousins shop. She pulled the inner fender plastic lining off of my Dodge Dually to track down a leaking windshield washer tank. I yanked a leaky fuel line off of her Jeep, cut the end, and added a second hose clamp. I also cleaned the outside of the rear end, and checked the fluid, because the gas line was making the caked on oil around the differential look like it was leaking. I think my job was easier, that fender was a PITA.

After mechanicing, there was a family cookout, and then the first thunderstorm of the year arrived. I loved the rain, but it ended any chance of 59 work, so I am now way behind schedule. I am over my illness, and hopefully the rains continue to keep the temps down, so technically I could put in a long week to get the truck ready for the parade. Realistically though, the only way it is going to be in the Fourth of July festivities is if it is on a trailer behind the Dually. I am fine with this though, I don't like rushing through projects, so I will keep plugging away at it, and hopefully soon, take that test drive.

Dave,

Things always seem to take longer to do when dealing with obsolete rusty and crusty trucks. Its not just you. I think you are making respectable progress, just keep up the forward momentum.

Paul

Thanks Paul. I think the size and weight of the 2-ton components are slowing me down a bit as well.

What a delightful read Dave. Thank you for this great running commentary, I am thoroughly enjoying your adventure though I am a little jealous of how much wrench time you are getting in. When you did your compression test my thought was 3 and 4 seem a little low ;-) . It's a fact of aging that things get heavier and the ground gets further away. Keep it uip brother, you're doing great.
Chuck

Happy Fourth Of July All!

Lets see, since my last check in, I moved my garage to the right side of the truck. During the week, I would putter with the brakes, cleaning and painting and installing parts. It went a lot faster having already done the left side. Still had to go back and look at pictures, but I think I have the hang of it. One trick that made it easier was to not cinch the wheel cylinders down until after attaching the cross connecting brake line. It was easier to line up the threads. I think the only other issue I bumped into was the brake she sneaking under the lip of the backing plate when I was not looking, so I had to take it off again after the drum would not slide on. It has been a long weekend, and my memory is fuzzy, but I think I adjusted the brakes after that. Turned the clicky thing with a brake spoon until it started rubbing, then backed off three clicks. I need some brake spoon hole plugs to keep the dust out. I am guessing none of the trucks around here still have them, but I will go looking.

Saturday morning (or maybe it was Sunday), I greased up the ends of the axles, inserted my special tool (a fine threaded long carriage bolt), and slid the axles into place. There was a frustrating moment when I could not get the first one to seat, but the shop manual told me to bang on it, so I found a rubber mallet and knocked it into place. The other side did not want to align at first, but as I rotated it around, it found it's home with no help from the mallet. I used rtv silicone gasket maker for the hubs, stole a lock washer from grandpa, and all of a sudden, my truck was back together. I used my fathers 5 gallon pail gear oil pump to fill up the rear end, and I also replaced the oil in the transmission.

Brake fluid was next on the list, and I was feeling pretty good about myself. Started pumping up pressure on the master cylinder, and if I let it off just so, the air bubbles would back pressure out. I worked it for a few minutes, then crawled under to check on the system. I could have cried, both wheel cylinders were leaking like crazy. I am sure there was cursing. I crawled under in the dirt to try to understand, they were leaking at the back of the cylinders, so I cranked down harder on the bolt. Apparently there is a small part of my brain that works on mechanical problems while my conscious is acting the fool. It came and tapped me on the shoulder and said "see that shiny round thing on the brake line side? You probably need one on the other" Sure enough, I went over to the trash, pulled out the old wheel cylinder, and there was a copper compression washer still stuck to the back. I pried it off with a screwdriver. The problem is, I had tossed the other cylinder a week before, and it was in the trash trailer at someone else's house. I grabbed some rubber gloves, and jumped in the Jeep. The plan was to stop at a couple mechanicky peoples shops to see if they had one laying around, and if not, dig through the trash trailer. Luckily, my second stop at my Uncle/Cousin's place turned up a washer. I cleaned them both up, installed them in their correct locations, no more leaks. The funny thing is, I would never had known to even think about it, except I had to do brake lines on the Jeep when we put the lift kit on.

I put a new thermostat on the truck, mostly as an excuse to make sure the water was flowing properly, who knew how old and corroded the old one was. As I was finishing it up, my other cousin showed up with some tire tools. Two of my rims were leaking air at the beads, and he had worked at a big rig tire shop in college, so he was going to teach me tires. To date, this was the least fun thing I have done on this truck. What a torturous hell it is to bust down big tires by hand. We pried and banged and sweated and swore, and about died in the heat, and that was just on the easy one. He went to get a grinder to clean up the rusty rims while I attempted the hard one by myself. I did it to build character, but I am all full of character now. I will pay a shop to do future tires. Horrible.

https://68.media.tumblr.com/396a94b29c207955f82a50905adf2311/tumblr_oshqrkD37I1tf758jo1_1280.jpg

While he ground the second rim, I went and got the special tool for getting gear oil in the new hubs, I believe it is referenced as a JD644. Also handy for putting the newly inflated tire back on the truck.

https://68.media.tumblr.com/569a4c15171e9381bd758108a95248d0/tumblr_oshqtaYrwJ1tf758jo1_1280.jpg

While the first tire seated itself without too much work, the second was not having it, not even with gobs of tire soap. So my cousin goes over to his truck, and pulls out something that looks like it is off the set of a Mad Max movie. It is an air tank with a rebar handle welded to it, and a 2" pipe coming off one end, that flares out to a wide narrow tip. There is a valve halfway down the pipe. Basically, you pressurize the air tank, stick the flared end between the tire and rim, and pull the lever. BAM tire soap everywhere, but the rubber seated to the rim. Pretty darn cool if you ask me.

https://68.media.tumblr.com/19b172b9aca123aa99cab03c739a4dbd/tumblr_oshqufiONI1tf758jo1_1280.jpg

We were both dying by this point, because sledgehammers are not fun in hot humid weather, but we powered on. I crawled under to bleed the rear brakes. Hard to tell if I was doing it correctly, because I have never done it before, but I got it so that no air was coming out. I think. Snapped this photo right before moving to the front brakes:

https://68.media.tumblr.com/26e6c7ed3a2c754f21b15b0099cecacc/tumblr_oshqw1txNC1tf758jo1_1280.jpg

As I crawled under to find the front bleeders, a micro burst hit full on with shear winds, hail, and just buckets of rain. It was a good thing we were there, because we kept the pop up shade from going through the Dually window by about 6 inches and 10 seconds. If you have never tried to take down a pop up shade in a hurricane, I very much recommend the experience. It builds character. My cousin bailed after that, and I spent an hour after walking around in the pounding rain picking up wrenches that had blown away, and trying to clean up the mess. My tool boxes all had an inch of water in them, and everything has a fine patina of rust now. W really needed the rain though, so I am not complaining too much.

I worked a half day on Monday the third. The plan was to finish bleeding the brakes after work, but I could not make it through a full day, and it looked like another storm was building. I did a few more little items on the truck. Tried cinching up the loose exhaust pipe (and noticed the crack in the manifold). Put the patch back on the fuel tank that had been previously duct taped, put the spare in it's rack, used the plywood shop floor to cover the hole in the bed, put the license plate on, cleaned the air filter, then, I was out of excuses. I got in the truck, fired it up, put her in reverse, stalled out because that was 4th. Started it again found reverse, and backed up under power. What a rush that was after all the work have been doing. I over-road my genetic instinct to drive to town without insurance, and spent the next hour on the phone with the insurance company and the dmv. Good timing, because the monsoon hit, and I am sure the wipers on the truck don't work. After the storm passed, and my paperwork was in order, I hit the road. The brakes are on a 5 pump pressure build right now, but the truck is pretty low geared, so I was not too worried about it. I inched down the hill, put on the blinker that works, and hit the open road with my dogs at my side, and the wind blowing through my hair. Completely made all the work worth it. Sorry for teh bad videos, it is hard to drive that truck and film with the phone:

https://twoheelers.tumblr.com/post/162574855614

https://twoheelers.tumblr.com/post/162574953433

I drove over to my master mechanic buddies house, the one who helped me with the bearings. The ear to ear grin and double thumbs up as he saw me pulling up the driveway was pretty contagious. Almost forgot to pump the brakes. We celebrated with a toast, and I stole some new mirrors from his inventory, and then headed to my cousin's place. We were able to sort of bleed the power booster, but the front brake bleeders were snapped off, and rusted into place. Hopefully I can just buy new bleeders to replace the old ones. We will see, but it was time for a sunset cruise with my girlfriend. She has a bunch of gorgeous videos and photos, but I only have access to this one for now:

https://68.media.tumblr.com/551d095d36d2b8e09af52caa3308b645/tumblr_osjqbmbCM61tf758jo1_1280.jpg

Tuesday was parade day. I drove the truck around town all morning, just to make sure I had a handle on it and there would be no surprises. I even tested the 2 speed rear end out on the highway. There are some creaks and groans, and the power steering pump will not hold fluid. Only one front blinker works, but it was so fun to drive around. I lined up in the parade behind the other old cars, and away we went. It is nerve wracking watching kids dart around for candy when you are in a large truck with sketchy brakes, but it all ended well. In the last photo, you can see my grandfather looking on as I drove past their parade watching spot. Brought it all full circle.

https://68.media.tumblr.com/6e6aa467f21edcebe71740562ac6ff23/tumblr_osmhp3wHdH1tf758jo1_1280.jpg

https://68.media.tumblr.com/06a1260ce6ec1a8c88a0c356950b89a3/tumblr_osmhmeULpC1tf758jo1_1280.jpg


There is still obviously a ton of work to do on this truck, 2 tons actually, but it felt good to hit my deadline and drive the truck in the parade. Now I have a self imposed deadline to have it all wrapped up for next years parade. Thanks to all who helped get it this far, and I will try to continue to post weekly updates. Not sure what I am goign to tackle after I line the brakes up. Little systems like the power booster and power steering? Wiring? Take the bed off and paint the frame? We will see. I know the motor needs to come apart, but I want to drive it around a bit before I do that. At the least the valves need to be adjusted and I need a new exhaust manifold and intake manifold gasket. It is probably goign to be a lot more than that, but it is all building character.

Great to see you met your project goal. First drives are always the best...a little bit scary at times but fun to finally make the yard art move under its own power. Subsequent shake down runs are fun too. Its awesome that your grandfather was at the parade to see it all happen.

It felt so good to finally drive! Now I keep making up excuses to go to the gas station or local market. Just little 2 mile jaunts, but I figure if I drive around the truck will tell me what should be fixed next. My dad thinks he may have some new wheel cylinders for the front brakes, so I guess I have no excuse to not do those next.

Test runs are always great but they steal time from actually doing something productive...I know this from experience. But a hobby is supposed to be fun right?

Brakes are good, I am all for them. Have you replaced your brake hard lines and rubber hoses? I would encourage doing so as they corrode from the inside even in your arid climate.

Have fun!

I have been soaking up the test runs, driving it all I could this week. You are right too, I never did any actual work on it. I do have a better mental picture of how to move forward though. Brakes are obviously first, the 5 pump stop is just dangerous, even at low speeds. My father claimed that he might have a set of front wheel cylinders, but he could not remember what he bought it for. That is one of the reasons I never did any work on it, I could not track him down this weekend. I know I should replace the hoses as well, but there are about 2 miles of line under there, it is intimidating, I have to work my way up to it.

After the brakes are up to speed, the truck has informed me what the next items are. The transmission leaks at the driveshaft, the steering is a little loose, and there is a grinding sheet metal noise up on the front right that squeaks on uneven road flexing.

At a family reunion, one of my uncles told me he bought a 6 cylinder Chevy motor that someone had sent out to be milled for a re-build, plus all new parts, but never put it back together. My Uncle is sick of looking at the boxes of parts in his shop, so will sell it to me for a song. I am going to go look this week and pull the casting number. I may switch gears, put that together on a stand, slip it in my truck, and then have mine rebuilt. We will see.

On another side note, I have started drawing up plans for a shop, and talking to some General Contractors. I need a real work space, and we are coming into a piece of land, so a 3 bay garage with an apartment seems to be the first logical build.

"On another side note, I have started drawing up plans for a shop, and talking to some General Contractors. I need a real work space, and we are coming into a piece of land, so a 3 bay garage with an apartment seems to be the first logical build."

Man after my own heart. Almost 40 years ago we bought 10 acres of unimproved woodland. I along with the Wife and my family's help stick built a 30x40 metal skinned shop. I insulated it, installed a drop ceiling of 4x8 sheets of white Styrofoam and nailed sheet-rock to the studs. We put up a wall in the back to separate the bedroom area and semi finished bath also had a minimal but compete kitchen. Add a big circulating wood heater and a big window ac unit and you have a country boy castle in the woods.

I was able with the wifes blessing to open the double swing doors two times for serious engine work. 1st time was to do a quick inframe ring/bearing job on a 75 or 6 fleetside Chevy truck with a 250 6 I bought from the local natural gas company (that I worked for). Second time was to pull and rebuild the engine on a 75 Volvo 164e I bought from a salvage yard, her car. That made a great, safe, comfortable car for us for many years.

Nothing like working in a shop with AC in the heat of a Southern summer. The plan was to live in the shop while we built a house. Wound up selling and buying a "almost"finished house and 20 acres in the woods near by.

Good luck, RonR

Not much to report on my truck this week. I have been driving it around as much as possible. I even used it in a real life work scenario, it just happened to be the best way to transport some culvert for my brother.

https://68.media.tumblr.com/94b3e3fc69384041c89cb63b760ff6ae/tumblr_ot6y5lRNei1tf758jo1_1280.jpg

I also found some old photos of it in the field. Had to be over 20 years ago. They were capping a mine, and it was the on site water truck. Probably my grandfather on the loader, and my father driving my truck. Still hunting around with locals for some even older footage.

https://twoheelers.tumblr.com/post/162875448784/found-some-old-photos-of-my-truck-earning-its

I had lots of plans this week, but no time. In fact, I spent most of my free time drawing garage plans, talking to contractors, and getting numbers on structure. We staked out my original design on the lot, which was 80 feet long, and 30 feet wide, with a 30 foot three story tower on one end, and the remaining 60' feet of space an open 16' tall garage. My girlfriend was a little overwhelmed seeing the footprint on the lot, so we went back to the drawing board.

I bought new oil because it is time to drop the pan one more time to check on the rust particles, but I never had the time. The "new" wheel cylinders my dad had, were old enough that the rubber had sun rotted off in the bag. I am going to pull the ones off the truck, and try to combine good parts, even if it is just the bleeders. Never made it to my uncles to look at his boxes of rebuilt motor parts, but hopefully this week.

The weather has not really been cooperating for afternoon truck projects, but there are no complaints here. We really need the monsoons, so I am happy to sit in the rv and draw up plans for the garage while there is a gale force monsoon pounding down outside.

Great to have those pics....and I've always said, "a truck will pay its way" while a car is "an abcess on a mans pocketbook". thanks for keeping us updated.