I have a great story surrounding my old 1947 2-ton
I bought it about a year ago now, not running mind you. It hadn't been run in probably 15-20 years sitting in some barn in Minnesota. When it came home my first goal was to see it if would run. After some inspection, and fluid checking I found it had been converted over to 12V. So I cleaned the points, hook up a battery and checked for spark, and made sure the engine would turn by hand.
We then proceeded to start it. Our plan was to drag it down the road and around the block put it in gear and drop the clutch, let it turn for a while then turn on the ignition and see what happens.
So we did, but the best part of it was how. I pulled it with my 1995 Honda civic. The funny part is there was a perfectly good 1985 K-30 Custom Deluxe sitting in the driveway, but I wanted to prove my civic could do it. And it did but let me tell ya, a civic doesn’t like towing a nearly 10000lb truck. The worst part was starting. Every time I started out the chain would tighten and the civic would come to a dead halt, it regained traction and just jerked and jump around till it got it going. I found out the best way to handle it was rev it up to about 2000rpms and drop the clutch just letting it spin. Once moving I had to keep it at about 2000 otherwise the whole car would start vibrating from the load. And beings we took it around the block we went around two corners. My brother didn’t keep the chain tight with the truck so on each turn the civic’s rear-end got jerked about a foot over.
Anyway back to the truck. WE pulled it about 100yards to the corner just spinning the engine. Then after making the two turns on the short part of the block my brother turned on the ignition. Within 50 feet I heard it start backfiring and watched it blow black dirt out of the exhaust. The farther we went the better it was running and more excited I got . After about another 100 yards it sound like it was running on its own and I stopped my car, taking it out of gear like I normally do. I then looked up and saw my 2-ton truck still barreling at me through the rearview mirror. My thought was all crap and I went to move the car but the engine revved way up. It was still out of gear. I let it settle down and dropped it in gear and started to take off. About that time I looked up again and saw my panicked brother spinning the steering wheel and the truck veer off to my left side and finally come to a halt just inches away from my car and from running into an old garage just a few feet from the ally. I jumped out of the car. And ran back to find out what happened.
“That was close; the E-brake didn’t work.” MY brother said. (We tested it before pulling it mind you. The regular breaks weren’t working but we pulled on E brake and four guys couldn’t push the truck so we though it worked.) I didn’t mind though, no harm no foul. I was just excited my truck was running and it sounded as good as it did. We then unhooked it I told my brother to pull the truck around and I sprinted my car back home and got out and started walking in the direction my truck would be coming. It was such a nice feeling seeing my old truck round the corner back to the house. He parked it in the drive and I inspected it, it was missing about every fourth or fifth fire and my brother revealed the choke was still out. I thought maybe the carb was out of adjustment and made an attempt to adjust it but winded up killing it. So I cleaned the carb, it was half full of water. I cleaned it up and put it back together dumping gas in the bowl. I jumped the starter and it fired right up ran for a few seconds and died. I tried to start it again but no luck it would only run if I poured gas down the carb. By now it was getting dark and time to call it a day so my brother fired up his truck and pulled mine back to where it belonged. The next day I pulled the carb again and found it completely full of water, time to drain the tank. We did and it had about a gallon of water in it, made me wonder how it ever made it back around the block. I guess old Chevy’s can run on water if you pull start em. But after cleaning it up and cleaning the tank of rust twice it is one heck of a good running truck. Will fire right up in 18 deg weather and every time you stop. Couldn’t get a better truck.
And for anyone who thinks I killed my car doing that, it actually fixed my clutch. Before I pulled the truck I had a problem of the clutch jumping when I’d take off from stop, it don’t do that anymore… And for the record after I pulled that stunt it was getting 48mpg going back and forth to work this past summer.
