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Bought 1960 one ton w/ dually rear end It runs but not easy to steer can steering be rebuilt or convert to Power ? Where to start?

Hy ric2, welcome, First thing to do is check all the front end parts for wear and lubrication. Your truck should have torsion bar front suspension, which means it will have upper and lower ball joints at each front wheel, more parts to grease, more parts to wear, good luck.

How wide are your front tires?These old trucks were not designed for wide tires,I tried some on mine and had to go back to narrow ones.

Thanks for a starting point Will check all those parts .I have nothing to compare with I have never driven a manual steering truck .How "Hard" is too hard? Is it possiable to convert to power assit?

It's been steered for 50 years without power steering. It will be good for your arm muscles.

Like Floyd says, wide tires are not going to cut it and grease is your friend.

It does have newer size tires 235R85/16? What would have been the correct size? Thanks for the help, I have two week Vacation coming up and want to jump into this project.

Ric2,

I looked up the Chevrolet information kit for your truck. The base model had 8-17.5 tires on the front. You can click on the link pasted in and save the pdf for your reference.

I hope this helps.

Big thank you for that link
BUT now after haveing the Rad. record and new 160 degree termistat, new heat sending unit, new gauge,new 50/50coolant It running 240 degrees. What am I missing here ??????? It ran fine when I bought it drove 20miles home no over heat There is no foming in the oil.The heater hoses have water running through them they are both equally hot along with the bottom rad. hose.

when the truck is warmed up the top hose should be "hot", the bottom hose should be noticeably cooler

Bill

Thanks again for any input I will dbl check but as I recall both top and bottom were HOT How long in time can it operate @ 240 with out damage? (If I have to get it to a friends house)

One of the things I've seen more than once is the thermostat being installed upside down, or on ocassion a new thermostat can be bad. You might try removing it and run without it and see how it does. If it doesn't overheat then and it was correctly installed then you got a bad one.

Thx for the thought I did pull out and tested it, in the house stove in pan of boiling water it did open up. As to being installed upside down According to my understanding (which could be wrong) the bottom side goes down closest to the engine., if that wrong please let me know. I did get a digital termo gun warmed up to 220 degree (according to new gauge) all readings where rad hoses ,heater hose top /bottom where under 200. I have the idea either the gauge is defective or I installed it wrong .(do not how it can be wrong for it does record changes in temp. Any more sugg. will be appricated

OK guys I'am I admit I am not to bright but this overheating thing is nuts. I tested the temp. gauage by disconnecting from heat sensor unit and ground the wire the gauage moved just up from zero so gauge works I just purchased a "Preium" 195degre termostate (From Carquest)Under monerate rpm it takes 8-9min. to reach 240degree I reduce to idle Temp drops to 230 and stays . Both heater hoses are hot and top/ bottom rad.hoses are equally are hot. HELP HELP HELP

Some folks have drilled a small hole in the thermostat if there's not one already there. They say that it allows any air to burp out of the head and allows for more efficient t-stat operation. I think they usually drill a 1/8" hole. Hope this helps.

Thx again I know there has to be some "Dumb" thing I've overlooked. I'll give your idea a try and hope.

Is your heat riser stuck closed? Maybe your water pump is bad. Run it with no thermostat to confirm it can run cool, if not your water pump is bad or something is plugged up. Hopefully not your radiator, since that would mean they filled the passages with solder. I've seen it done.

Thanks to NOSbeast for input. Have run it with out therostate , no help.I pulled water pump all is good and thight there, no leaks or slop in the shaft. Radiator flow though checked before install. The fan is NOT backwards either can feel the pull on front of radiator.Still need to try (54TOW) idea about small hole in theromstate. Keep up the thinking guys I can't rebuild this is I can't run it.

What # cap are you running? It's suppose to be 7#,anything higher will cause it to over heat,I found out the hard way.

Floyd you may have hit on to something I'll check it out I ASSUME the counter person gave me the correct cap.

I've been reading your post with interest. You said that the first time you drove it, there were no overheating problems. But then after throwing the proverbial kitchen sink in it, the new gauge consistently reads on the hot side.

While it's always helpful to have the right radiator cap I don't think that is your problem. A small hole in the thermostat is good to "burp" the air out, but since you say it runs hot even without the thermostat installed, then the thermostat isn't your problem either. It seems to me that you may have a bad gauge or sending unit instead. It's difficult to check a gauge or sending unit for accuracy; grounding it only confirms that your gauge reads over the extreme range. Chevrolet used to provide specs for gauges so that a technician could bench test instruments, but I don't know where you would find them. The equipment cost would probably be prohibitive if you don't already have the tools.

If the old units seemed to work ok, and you still have them, you might try swapping out the sender first and see what it reads. If it's normal you know it was the sender. If not, then you could use jumpers to hook up the old gauge and see how it reads, likewise if it reads normal, you've found your culprit, or at least verified them as much as possible.

Aside from that, you might consider purchasing a new gauge like used on generic applicatons to use for test purposes.

Thank you "The Ned" I do have the orginal in dash gauge and run the wires but it will not tell me the temp.of the fluid.Do not have old sending unit.I don't mind buying a new gauge for test purposes or/and a new sending unit, at this point. Are all gauge/sending units created equally? Can you recomend a manufacture?

back up .... you said you used a digi-thermo on it and found the gauge was reading higher than the digi, and that top and bottom of the rad were the same temps
1 - your gauge is inaccurate, but you know that it's reading high so there really isn't an overheating problem
2 - if the temp into the top of the rad is the same as the temp out of the bottom then the rad is not doing it's job, it should drop at least 15-30 degrees thru the rad - either your 'recored' rad was a rip off or something is preventing circulation
if you check more carefully with the digital you should be able to find out just what's happening, the cooling system should be cooling the water

I also don't see what engine this is, and wonder if you got an incorrect new sender

Bill

I missed the line where you said you used a thermal gun for checking temps. While you weren't specific about temps at various places, it's hard to say if you have a problem with the radiator. In my experience a partially clogged radiator doesn’t usually cause problems until you run at speed or otherwise under load.

As squeeze said it’s possible you got the wrong sender, or as I said you got a bad one; it happens. I took a quick look at an online catalogue for sending units and for your year they only list one. A sending unit is about 7-15 bucks, so that might be the cheapest approach.

I would hate for you to spend a bunch more money without being certain about the cause. In your case you don't really have a benchmark to compare things against; except that it ran ok before you started. But if you do have a good radiator, as you seem to think, there are no leaks anywhere then that only further my thoughts that it’s a inaccurate gauging issue. I'm curious about your new gauge, perhaps I'm reading too much into this, but I am guessing you are not using a factory style replacement. Some of the gauge sets offered at your FLAPS or other stores aren't that good. Like most things, you only get what you pay for and not all gauges are created equal. Stewart Warner has a very good, long standing reputation, as do some others. Perhaps a post in the electrical forum might yield results of more good gauges.

or boil some water, put a thermometer in it, run out to the truck, put the sending unit in the pot of hot water, and compare the gauge to the thermometer. If it is an electric gauge, check for a good engine to body ground. resistance to ground will mess up a lot of things, and cause all kinds of phantom and errant behavior on everything depending on that ground.

Likewise make sure all of your wiring connections are good.

Sometimes disturbing old wiring wakes the gremlins.

I will first replace the sending unit( thats cheap ) Then I'll check wiring connection. The engin is 235cu.in 6cyn thriftmaster Series 36 I also will recheck my thermo reading and wright down the temps at each location. Thanks again for all the help.

Hello The Ned, or any one else who can help. Is it with in the realm of reason that by putting "Teflon" tape on the threads of the sending unit cound interfer with the grounding of the sending unit? and there by show higher then actul temp readings?
I did the pull the asending unit grounded the body with a jumper wire attached the gauge wire, sumerged in pot of 120 degree water (per my digital thomo gun turned on key gauge read 150 degree. SO is the sending unit "sending the wrong temp" OR is the gauge reading the signal wrong? I will button it back up and take some more readings with thromo gun.

you definitely do not want any tape or sealing compound on the sender threads, it is an electrical circuit .... and don't expect your dash gauge to be 100% accurate compared to a real thermometer, just compare what it says to an accurate reading so you know what it's telling you in terms of what's normal and what indicates a problem

Bill

yes, the teflon tape would mess it up for sure.

ONE more time I removed the tape from the sending unit, grounded the sending unit to engine ,put sending unit in hot water (termo gun) reads @ 150 the gauge reads 180 , fine then. Is it the sending unit OR the gauge that's reading high? I will gladly replace either at this point.

Not sure how exactly to present this, but do you need to replace anything? You know that the gauge reads 180 when the engine is at 150 so you are safe. If it isn't actually overheating I wouldn't worry about the gauge reading being wrong as long as you know what is really going on. To answer your question though I would suspect the gauge is the culprit.

like Vern sez, ric2, no point fixing something that isn't a problem - the gauges on these ol trucks are not precision instruments, they're indicators of change from normal - find what normal is and get'er down the road

Bill

OK, OK, I get the point sometimes I do get anal about this truck I will enjoy it and continue to rebuild items that need it. Thanks to all you guys that shared your input.

Without the chart that shows what the resistance should be in the sender at a given temperature the cheapest thing to do is get another sender. Did you check all your grounds? How many volts is the charging system operating at? A change in voltage would mess the gauge up too.

Thx NOSbeast for the idea . I really thick the gauge is at fault reporting 25-30 degree high . I took the truck out on the road drove at 235degree (per the gauge ) for 2miles nothing happenewd ie. no smell of overheating , no steam , no overflow into holding tank. So I really think it is OK.
Next thing is to sell it. I will post in the swap area and see what I can get, Thinking I paid $2,000. and put in $500.00 so we will see.