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Since the 2 Ton had it's ride on the back of the big Chevy at our clubs show and shine, It's not run quite right, We've done various things to resolve it but it's still not there. I've had a 261 bought for it for a while and the plan has always been to install it, so I'm getting to work on that, so that I can get the old girl back to the farm for the winter. Our farm is about 120 miles from my house in the city which is a trip the old girl has made many times in the past
The 5 mile tow

I got the engine from a fella in our truck club, it was up and running in his 58 truck when he and his son were t-boned a couple years ago, the poor truck was sitting in his garage with the drivers side caved all in. It felt a little weird pulling the engine out of it, but it will live on in the big truck.

Home This is the engine right after I got it home.
I also bought the fentons that were on the engine, and he threw in the exhaust from the manifolds all the way back, the dual 30 inch glass packs. It should sound interesting underneath that big steel flatbed, if I can make that all fit.

The first order of business was to strip most of the bolt on parts off the engine and to start cleaning it up a little, no point putting it in dirty. All the holes that you wouldn't want water in were plugged and then taped over.
Several passes of de-greaser and rinse downs were done till I felt like that grime was cleaned up. Then I did a couple passes of Jet Strip paint stripper to try to clean off the about 3 different layers of paint that were here and there. After another rinse down. I came back and hit some of the more stubborn paint with the wire wheel, rinsed down, and then wiped it all down with prep-sol till my rags came back clean. Pre-Paint

Next I put fresh clean tape over some of the holes and came back with 2-3 coats of paint. I'm putting Massey Ferguson Grey rattle can on it, it's an enamel and was meant to be used on tractors, I've seen it hold up good on tractors outside so figured I'd give it a shot. and to my perception it looks just like the correct gray for that year.
Paint

More to follow later.

Mongo

Nice work!

Nice Work !, I second, that motion.

Wow, it just barely fit on that flat bed. Sorry to hear you had trouble but looks like you are on top of it. Good luck.

Thanks guy's, It was Bill's diligent posting of his progress that reminded me I needed to share.
It's funny a couple members of my club thought I just towed it in as a joke when it cam rolling in. The tow truck driver and I were talking about finding a red half ton to put on the back of my truck next year for a good photo op.

The 235 that's coming out will get a little cleanup and I plan on putting it in one of my smaller trucks that isn't destined to see any road time.

MONGO

:-) Glad I could help!

Next I spent some time looking through my parts collection trying to figure out what route I wanted to go as far as carburation. My friend warned me that the carb that was on the engine was running pretty rich and that he had worked on it several times and was unable to resolve it. After pulling the plugs I could see he was right. On a side note, the engine had between 150 and 170#'s of compression on every cylinder.
I've got several Rochester's here and there and even a couple I tried to rebuild with no success. Really hate to go that route. Then I started looking at the 2 Barrel Carter/Weber that I'm running 3 of on my 1/2 ton trucks engine. I really like these carbs, I bought them brand new, put them all on the engine and they ran like a dream right outta the box. I think one of them would be sufficient and an improvement over the stock carb. (Plus I can buy a brand new one for about $70) Then I started looking through my intake collection hanging on the wall of my garage, I've got an old Offenhauser dual carb intake that I could rig up with a couple 2-1 adapters like on my 3 Carb setup and run two of the Carter/Webers, but that intake is ment for the earlier babbot 216/235 motors and the intake ports are smaller so I'd be looking at making (or buying) some adapter rings to hook it to the 261 or having a machine shop open the holes up to match the later engine, either way not something I want to mess with at this junction on this project.
Then I noticed the polished out Clifford 4 barrel intake I had bought off ebay at some point cheap. It needed some work but I've always wanted to try running one of them with a small 4 barrel, and it would be a good choice with the Fenton headers. From what I've read on Inliners and other sites, they run great if you water heat them and that Clifford intake flows a lot better to get the fuel more evenly distributed out to the #1 and #6 cylinders. So the next question is what carb, I don't have any 4 barrels laying around so I'll have to procure one. It sounds like the Holley 390 is the preferred carb for this setup and it runs great on non cammed up engines, the only down side I can see is the best deal I can find on one is just over 3 bill$ so unless I can find a good used one. (Hint, Hint...) That's gonna have to wait a month or so for me to save up. But It's gonna take that long to get the engine in anyway.
Pic

I really want to maximize the power from this engine the best I can being that the truck is HUGE on it's own and I hope to have enough power to get down the road with something up on the back at some point. It is supposed to be a recovery rig after all.
another

Anyway I started this post about a week ago and never did get it posted, last weekend I got the old engine pulled out so I'm a little closer.
I need to do a quick engine compartment degrease and cleanup.
While pulling the engine I noticed that all the covering on the under hood wiring was hard, and cracked as I moved it. I knew that a lot of the under dash wiring was at or close to that so I think for the sake of not wanting to see the truck on fire at some point, I'm gonna go ahead and put a new harness in it. This is typical for any of these projects as most of you guy's know. they always snowball.

More later..

MONGO

Interesting that "polished out carb" was brought up. With bikes (Harley) some ppl believe that when the heads are polished inside, that cfm is gained which translates into more horsepower. According to "Perry Kime" a coarse surface is best for air/fuel atomization. Atomization won't happen as well in a smooth surface.
Basically his set ups go from rough finish in the intake monifold, then at some point in the heads, the surface gradually gets smoother to the valve seats. Then the valve area & the exhaust ports are highly polished out. He referes to this entire process as a "tool finish".
This leads to the question, how can/ does this get done on different GM engines?

KCMongo said, "Snowball.” When I got started, I had an avalanche...but I know what you mean. :-)

keep up the good work, as always one thing leads to another. just do it right the first time and enjoy