The Stovebolt Site Forums Project Journals Archived Journals 1949 Chevy 4400 Project

Hello all! I thought this would be a good place to document my project. This one started out bumpy. I heard about a truck for sale for $500 from my wife only a few miles from my home. The picture she sent me was a 1955 Chevy 3100 in workable shape for $500. I had been looking for a project truck for a restomod to work with my kids and this looked perfect. Basically, sight unseen I purchased the truck knowing it would not last long. When I went to pick up the truck it was a 1949 Chevy 4400 grain truck.... OOPS!! Initially I was disappointed wondering how this happened. Turned out she sent me the wrong picture and I didn't actually ask the seller any questions other than "is it all there" and "do you have the title" so probably the worse communication failure in history. Anyway, since I was there, I looked the truck over and it looked workable and everything appeared there and he had a title in hand. Cab corners were good and floor felt solid it had a dump bed and the farmer told me it was running when he parked it. With zero knowledge about the 4400's I thought it could make a cool parade truck, so I took it. Attached is a picture of the truck and more information below.

Cab# 5SKB1817 = Built in Kansas City, Mo in Feb 1949, 4400 Series, Unit 817
Block Cast Code 3701481 = 1954 235 High Pressure
Block Date Cast E133 = May 13, 1953
Block Serial Number AGEA128534 = Rebuilt Motor and this serial came from old motor and was re-stamped on this block.
Head Code 3701887 = 1953 235 Low Pressure
Carb Rochester B 7013029 = 1959

Cool! I’ve never seen a muffler coming out of a front fender before!

lol and I hope I never do again..

OK I admit that muffler will go! I did ask the original owner about it and his response was simple, this was a working truck that carried grain from the field and they were always concerned of starting fires. I guess they decided this was a good solution to sparks. I’ve got a few holes that need patched including a hole on the passenger fender that looks like someone backed into a pole or something so I'll be able to sort this.

Update 10/20/2019
I had the weekend to kind of work on this project. Before I started anything, I took a ton of photos to capture the way the vehicle was when I got it and have some reference photos if needed later. This has been invaluable to me on past projects. I also did a quick mechanical evaluation, clutch is frozen, no brakes, motor is not frozen and trans will go into gear, radiator has no fluid I can see, everything appears to be there and hooked up. Sadly, the best condition of any restore I’ve gotten.

Before I decided what direction to take this project I wanted to see if the motor would start. Pretty straight forward stuff here. Checked the oil and looks good with no signs of water. I removed each spark plug, checked it’s condition (All looked good except one that had a little oil residue on it), squirted PB Blaster into each cylinder and let that sit for a few hours. Checked the distributor and cleaned the points and checked I had some gap. Looked over the electrical and noticed some issues. Under the hood the wire from the alternator was completely burned up. The two wires to the plug on the alternator looked fine. I opted to disconnect the alternator completely. Also, all the wires that run the front clip were burned up. I opted to disconnect these also. Behind the dash everything looked good. The previous owner did tell me it was converted to 12v negative ground so I hooked up the battery and didn’t see any smoke. Quick test of the starter and it turned over. I dumped some gas directly into the carb and it started right away. Small victories are still victories!

Next step was to clean the cab and engine bay. I hate working on dirty things. At some point there was mice living in it. I got all the nests and poop out and took out all the floor covering which consisted of a bunch of carpet remnants and thin rubber. I also took the bench seat out and cleaned under it. As far as the engine bay I used 4 cans of engine degreaser and a lot of water. Things are looking better, and the cab is in very good condition. Looks like all the metal is usable. There is no through rust anywhere I can find probably due to the climate in western Nebraska and the fact that all the glass was intact and vehicle closed up. The height of the vehicle I’m sure helped also.

Next steps. I’ve ordered a carb rebuild kit and will be taking the tank out for cleaning both the remainder of the cab and the tank itself. I’ll also flush the fuel lines and see if we can get this thing running. I’m also going to try and unfreeze the clutch by pushing the truck with the tractor in gear with clutch in.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the update. Very soon the weather will change so this project might slow down. I haven’t had a chance to move it into a bay yet and depending on what happens with the engine will decide my plans. I’ve attached some clean photos.

I was showing my wife the pictures of your truck, she was more interested in your dog

It's funny you mentioned that. The day I brought the truck home my wife said she wanted a new dog. We've found the Mini Aussies to be the best farm dogs.

Please keep us posted. I have a 1949 3800 I am wanting to work on. Interested to see how you handle the rear axle gear ratio.

ok guys thinking about some ideas for the bed. Clearly Chevy didn't make a 161 wheelbase bed or for a dually for that matter. I've attached a mock-up of what it could look like if I built it. I would keep the dump functionality so some modification to the geometry of the thing would be in order to not hit the cab on the way up and the fenders would need to be widened, bed tubbed or both to accommodate the wheels. Has anyone built one of these? Fenders and tailgate I would have to source or chop up a good bed and lengthen it.

New bedsides ends and tailgates are available from Mar-K. You would buy 4 sides and cut them to graft the pieces into the length you need. Expensive, but you wouldn’t be cutting up the old stuff. The geometry of the dump function would not be hard to figure out. Skills, time and money is all it takes. 👍🏻

Cool truck. Where about in Nebraska are you located?

John

30 miles north of Sidney in the middle of a wheat field!

Eckroll,

Check your Private Messages, the flashing red icon in the upper right hand corner.

Thanks,

That bed is going to be sweet. Keep the progress going and the pics as well.

Eckroll,
Search up fellow Bolter Plowboy. He has a big bolt similar to yours and he has a pretty cool dually box built.

Eckroll,
Thanks for sharing your project. Cool concept, keeping original wheel base and
just stretching the bed.

I took a look at that truck of 1Plowboy and it is exactly what I was thinking. The best part is it gave me some more ideas so more to come on that.

UPDATE 10/24/2019

My carb kit came in today. I had a little time tonight to get he carb off the truck. I thought originally the carb was all bound up but after removing the linkages to the gas pedal it was clear the gas pedal is binding somewhere. All the little arms move freely on the carb. I also took apart the glass filter deal to see what was at the bottom of the bowl to get an idea of what the inside of the carb, fuel lines and tank might look like. There was a lot of goop down there so I'm guessing it's been sitting a good while. The last registration was from 2001. I know this isn't a big update and the pictures aren't fancy but everyone likes pictures so I've included a couple. I'm trying to get ahead of the weather as we are expecting a good winter storm this weekend.

Update 10/28/2019

Hello again! I got the carb rebuilt and installed over the last couple of days. I ran into one small issue breaking off a brass screw holding the flap in the throttle body. I drilled and tapped it one size larger to 4-40. I also had some play on the throttle lever that attaches to the rod so I lightly brazed it on. I also cleaned the Carter fuel filter and installed a paper filter from Napa. I plan to paint the top of that red but it's too cold currently. Some other items completed was to clean all the fuel lines with carb cleaner and cycled gas through them with a pump for a few hours. I also drained the fuel tank and removed the petcock from below to get me setup to be able to pull the fuel tank and work on cleaning and sealing it. We hit some nasty weather today so wanted to get all the "under the truck" stuff done before snow was on the ground. Next steps is to use my 12v fuel pump connected to a red fuel jug and see how she runs. While she is running I'll circulate some fresh gas through the mechanical fuel pump to clean it out a little before hooking that back up. I still need to clean and see if the air filter housing needs repainted or if a compounding and polish will work. The worse part about the carb looking so nice is I'm already thinking about everything in the engine bay that needs cleaned, painted, or replaced.

Here is the process I used for the carb for those interested

Disassemble Carb
Spray all parts with Carb Cleaner
Blast all parts with Soda in blast cabinet
Clean all parts in Ultrasonic cleaner with Dawn, Lemi Shine and Water
Rinse everything and dry with compressed air
Use 0000 steel wool on exterior surfaces to brighten
Assemble with carb kit

Thanks again for the update!

Really nice finish on the carb. No winter storm here in the South, 80's with a chance of rain. Some very nice work on your truck.

Update 11/3/2019

Hi all! So I got a lot done on the truck this weekend and thought I’d post an update.

First thing was to get the bed off the truck. It was completely rotted out and without it I would have much better access to everything underneath for restoring the frame and hydraulics for the dump bed. All the bolts underneath were rusted hard so I ended up cutting them all off with a grinder. I used my tractor to remove the bed from the truck.
With the bed off the truck I turned my attention to the brakes. I plan on replacing all of it but I really want to know what kind of shape the truck is in mechanically before committing to that work. The master cylinder was frozen with the plunger completely compressed. When I say frozen it was also literally frozen. After removing the cap, I tried to use a turkey baster to get whatever fluid was in there out and it was all ice. Pretty bad sign right off the bat. I went ahead and removed the master cylinder and took it apart. It was completely full of rust and all the parts were in bad shape. I will be replacing it but wanted to see if I could at least get it working enough to get the truck rolling. I cleaned the heck out of it and removed all the rust and cleaned up the bore the best I could by soda blasting it and ultrasonic cleaning. The bore is beat up so, I used some 1000, 1500 and 2000 grit sandpaper to get it the best I could. I cleaned all the original parts in the same manner and lucky the rubber parts looked serviceable. I reassembled it and put it back on the truck and went about bleeding the system. Bleeding was straight forward from that point on and to my surprise it held pressure even a day later, so I think I’m ok for now.

Next up was the clutch not disengaging which I figured was surface rust on the flywheel and pressure plates keeping it stuck like an Oreo cookie. Using the tractor, we put it in gear, pushed down the clutch and pushed it. It only took a few feet and it freed itself.

With the clutch and brakes sorted I went on to the motor to get it fired up. Last week I rebuilt the carb and figured this would be the easiest part. I cleaned and reinstalled the fuel lines, installed an electric pump and went to start it. Immediately I ran into problems with fuel coming out of the throttle linkages. From what I understand that is where the overflow hole is. I turned the pump off and back on and never experienced that issue again. I validated the pump is a 3-6psi pump so should be close to within range. Long story short I never did get it running. I’m sure I have a fuel issue as I have spark. I basically ran out of time and will have to revisit this again next weekend. I think I am very close here and just need a minute to think about it. I’ll be traveling for work all next week, so it’ll be a long week waiting to figure this out.
Anyway, sorry for the long update. I’ve posted a couple of pictures with the bed off.

Update 11/9/2019

Success!

Ok guys back from my work trip and was able to work on the truck today. I decided something had be be wrong with the float, needle or seat. I took the carb back off and compared the floats and noticed the new float I installed was bent wider and I think it was catching the bowl or the gasket. So i bent it to line perfectly in the center of the gasket. I also removed the needle and float seat and flushed everything just in case there was debris in there. I put it all back together and holding the carb upside down I blew through the fuel line input and it was blocked off. Turning the carb right side up and blew through and air was moving. I could hear the float moving up and down so that was good. The other issue I found is the gasket that I installed between the carb and the riser had blocked off the vacuum port. After some research it appears that it is recommended not to use a gasket here so I deleted it. I also hooked the mechanical fuel pump back up and flushed the line back to the tank and hooked up a temporary fuel can and hose here. I used a little starting fluid as there was no gas in the lines or filter bowl to get things moving and it fired right up! Once fuel made it to the bowl it was under it's own power at that point. I sprayed some starting fluid around the base of the carb to make sure I didn't have a leak where the gasket was removed and all was good.

It was running a bit rough so I pulled out my timing light and checked timing. It appears it had been set to the triangle so I started trying to get the timing set and ran into issues getting the distributor to move. So I removed the vacuum advance line and plugged it and took all the plugs out and rotated the engine till I saw the ball bearing and painted it white. I also was able to loosen up the distributor so it would be easy to turn. At this point I'm feeling good and fire it back up and my timing light refused to work! Not sure if I dropped it or what but it's dead. Looks like I'm going to have to order a new one. I adjusted it the best I could and adjusted the mixture screw and it was good enough to take for a spin.

The alternator is still disconnected so I made sure the battery was fully charged and took it for a quick little spin around my property. So far everything looks good and I even worked the dump bed with no issues. I removed all the plugs and cylinder 5 is oily so I'll need to dig into that. My next steps are to do a compression check, rewire the alternator and make sure it is good, then start making some decisions about where to go from here. My guess it will be to do a major tune up (plugs, cap, rotor, points, wires, replace all fluids and hoses, and adjust valves) and rebuild the brakes. Past this the wiring is incredibly sketchy so I need to decide if I'm going to rewire the entire thing now or just patch it with new wiring where needed until I'm ready to restore the cab.

Sorry no pictures today as really there was nothing that has changed on the truck. I did take some videos but don't really know how to get those here so maybe I'll try to figure that out.

Ok guys I'm going to try something. I have no idea if it will work. I've uploaded some videos to YouTube from this thing running. Let me know if this works for you.

First Run of the Engine

Dump Bed Test

First drive with both my helpers

I also wanted to update the issue on the timing light. Believe it or not finding a timing light to borrow these days is much harder than finding a code reader for a modern car. After checking with everyone I know I did find a guy that had an old school one that was non inductive and slipped between the cap and plug. After hooking that up it blinked twice and no more. I decided to hook it up to my daily driver and it worked perfectly as does my timing light I thought was broken. I think the issue is with voltage. Because I don't have the alternator hooked up I think weak battery voltage is to blame. Next step will be to run that new wire to the battery from the alternator and try again. So in case anyone runs into the same issue I've noted it here.

The timing light could care less where it gets its power from. You can pull another car, truck, lawn mower, tractor, up next to the truck and hook the timing light power leads to it. As long as the pick up lead is in line with the #1 plug wire on the truck you will read the timing on the 4400. 🛠

Update 11/21/2019

Electrocution!!

OK maybe that was a little excessive but this is how the conversation went. The family was busy last weekend so I opted to remove the alternator off the truck and see if I could figure out why it didn't work. It smelled like a 1970 VW Bug I had once after a friend thought it would be funny to turn the ignition on while I was tucked up in the trunk area rewiring the dash. I've since learned to always disconnect the battery when working on electrics. To say that memory is burned into my head is an understatement. Anyway, I took it all apart and found it was completely fried. Only the stator and rotor tested fine and everything else was melted or failed testing. I think there must have been a small fire in there but who knows. It was a working truck that spent it's entire life working wheat fields and it was full of dirt and debris. At dinner that night we are sitting around the table talking about the day and I'm telling my son about the alternator and jokingly said "maybe I'll rebuild it". I say jokingly because I'm a realist and honestly a new alternator is cheaper than rebuilding one after all the time is spent bead-blasting, cleaning, prep for paint, painting, checking components, and rebuilding it. Plus it wasn't original to the truck. Any other day I would have just bought a new one as this was a 10si and readily available. Anyway my son says "Dad you are going to Electrocute yourself!" and everyone got a really good laugh out of it. I thought about that and decided that this entire project was about passing on some knowledge and filling up the dump with more alternators that are serviceable didn't feel like a good lesson. So I told him "Son you are absolutely right. Why should I risk my life for an alternator? I think you should rebuild it" and so starts the project.

We took it down to bare bones, bead blasted it, painted it, replaced the bearings and all the internals, I showed him how to use a meter and test all the components, and we put it back together upgrading it to a one wire at the same time. He learned why it's impossible to get electrocuted from a alternator sitting on a counter and how the entire deal worked. We even saved a little space in the landfill. Was it worth it? Financially no, but I've got a memory with my kid I would not be able to buy otherwise. Anyway all that is left is to install it and build the wire to the battery terminal on the starter. and I'll include a ground strap for good measure as the thing is now painted. I've included some pics.

For sure a moment in the family history that both son and father won’t forget.

LOL Yep. Lot's of good fun. This morning he comes rolling in and shows me a picture of a new truck Tesla debuted yesterday and knew all the specs off the top of his head. He tells me it's bullet proof and I'm thinking I've never had a car shot at. I hope internal combustion isn't dying.

The Tesla pickup roll out didn’t go as planned. During the demo video both driver side windows were easily broken. Not bulletproof by any means.

eckrol, your a good dad!

after 25 years my daughter, 12-15 at the time, still talks about helping me on the 37 pickup.....and you'll never forget it ether.

Awesome Stuff! Keep up the posts

Hey guys it's been a few months since I posted last. With winter everything came to a standstill on this truck. I've posted a new video and will keep updates coming here. Hope you enjoy.

Steve

1949 Chevy 4400 Update