The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area General Truck Talk On the road again

I drove the '56 this evening with the new Goodwrench 350. It took about 3 weeks to change it due to this, that and the other but.......It lives!

Why did I pull a good running 350 and install a new one? Here's the story.

I installed AC before the trip to Kansas City. When installing the compressor brackets I discovered the PO had stripped the threads in the head for one of the intake manifold bolts. Then he stuck a larger bolt with fine threads in the hole. It worked fine until I put a bracket there. It developed an ever so slight coolant leak there. It wasn't more than a seep and I drove it to KC that way.

When I got back, I tried to fix it with a longer bolt. That stripped it out good and I had a major leak.

I debated what to do. Fix this head with an insert? It already has 2 inserts in exhaust manifold bolt holes. The guy must not have owned a torque wrench. Find a set of replacement heads? Either way I'd want to do a valve job while I had them off. But the last time I did that to an old engine it started smoking soon after. So I'd want to do a ring job too.

Then it hit me. I have a boat I let freeze up and bust the block a few years ago. Why not put this engine in it with the boat engine heads and get a new engine for the '56?

And so it went. For the most part a direct bolt in swap. But they forgot to drill and tap a hole for one of the exhaust shields. I drilled a hole for it and broke a tap off in it. I couldn't find a tap extractor locally so I ordered one off the Internet and had to wait for it. Tuesday night I had it all together and filled it with coolant to fire it up. Uh-oh. I put the heater hose fitting in the water pump too tight and busted the casting. So Wednesday I got another new pump and painted it. Installed today and fired it up. It ran a few minutes then died. WTH? The terminal broke on the ignition wire to the distributor. I soldered up a longer wire and she fired right up again. Then the test drive.

I still have some finishing up to do but that's the easy part. I'm happy to have this thing drivable again.

whew, make me tired just reading that cletis. But thats the way it goes at times. Glad to see you up and running. Now you can take the little lady for a spin!
Now that you are all caught up you can come out and help me get the panel going

Congratulations--I have to admit that everything that I try to fix turns into an "adventure" like you described-- but that is part of the fun.
Really like your truck.
Glenn

Great Cletis! Now have some fun.

glad you got the baby on the road, is it any quicker then the old one or about the same?

I am going to put my rod in the shop next month and get the interior finished,,suspose to be in in nov 26th, the guy said he would probably keep it a max of 2 weeks....ever thing but the seats and carpet, they are in good shape, the rest is all insulation..

see ya
Fred

Joker, it ran too fast for the old truck suspension before. I'm sure it can still scare me.

Glad to see you are getting yours prettied up.

Just goes to show,if you want something Bad enough,you have to Go for it,,don't let anything get you down,in the end,it all pays off...Way to go Cletis,you're an inspiration to Us all!

yeah he is.

Ah shucks guys. You're embarrassing me.

cletis, its only about that same distance to S.C. as it is to K.C. and if you will come help me on the old panel I'll brag on you even more and Victoria can take June shopping while we play!!

cletis, how about that boat project now? That was sure a good excuse to get a new engine for the '56, and June can't be requesting some quid pro quo since you've got to get the boat running. Clever!

Man, don't you hate breaking off a tap? It's never a good thing and you were lucky to get it out with the extractor. I've had to resort more than once to taking a pin punch and slowly breaking it into little pieces until it was loose enough to get out.

Congratulations on the engine change,

Don