I thought I would give a brief rundown of what I had to do to get my dad's 1946 1/2 ton Chevy up and going again.
First, a little background, my dad learned how to drive on this truck and for a long time it was his only pickup. Of course during that time he had to keep it in decent shape. It wasn't a daily driver because he had a company vehicle but it was at least a weekly driver.
Around 2000 or so he took a job that required ~60 mile each way commute. Not wanting to put that many miles on the old truck he bought another much newer pickup. He didn't really intend for this to happen, but with the ease of just jumping into the new pickup, the '46 started to get neglected. It got driven less and less frequently. Since it isn't driven frequently it seems to have a perpetual dead battery.
The last time he drove the truck was around a year ago, just for the sake of driving it. He broke a brake spring and didn't have time to fix it so he just parked it. Thankfully it is garage kept! I am in a position currently where I am only working 3 days a week so I thought I would use some of my free time to bring the old girl back to life.
I knew that it had at least one leaking wheel cylinder but both myself and my dad had forgotten about the broken spring, this will come into play later
Anyway a few weeks ago I started by ordering all 4 new wheel cylinders and purchasing a new battery. I have been told that if you charge a battery for a little while before trying to start the vehicle you can get more life out of it... makes some sense afterall batteries do go down while just sitting and 6-volt batteries don't move very quickly. I charged the battery for a few hours and installed it.
Time to try to start the truck. I expected it to be slightly troublesome but not extremely so. The engine is a 1961 235 that has been rebuilt nearly 20 years ago but only has ~15,000 miles on it. It runs great if you can get it started. Typically when the truck sits the gas evaporates out of the carb and with the weak battery you can't quite spin the motor fast enough long enough to pump any fuel up to the carb. With a hot battery this shouldn't be a problem though.
I tried and tried and got nothing. The next trick is to use a little bit of starting fluid. Usually you can get the truck to run just a few seconds on the fluid and this is all it takes to get it going. Well, it ran on the starting fluid but would die as soon as it was exhausted. It would also run if I poured gas straight down the carb. I looked and I noticed that I was not getting any fuel from the carb when I actuated the throttle.
This told me that either I had a carb problem, or I wasn't getting any fuel to the carb. I removed the fuel line and turned it up into a container and cranked the engine, sure enough I was getting fuel. I took the top plate off the carb (carter YF model) and found the float bowl empty. The inside of the carb was actually in very good shape, no sludge, maybe a little varnish but nothing that should stop up the whole works. I looked at the float and found that although it moved freely, the needle was not falling out of the seat when the float fell down BINGO!
I carefully removed the float and pulled out the needle. It looked clean but apparently there was just a little bit of varnish making it stick. I used a q-tip to clean out the seat and remove the varnish, I also cleaned off the needle. I re-installed it and made sure it was moving freely. While I had the top off I poured some fuel into the float bowl and actuated the throttle a few times until I did get fuel, proves the accelerator pump was working! I put the top plate back on and tried again, it fired and ran nearly immediately! It even purred like a kitten, which is pretty amazing since I'm quite sure the gas is likely 3-4 years old.
Now on to the brakes... rear wheel cylinders went without incident. Sure enough they were both leaking, one more than the other. The front is where it got exciting. The driver's side front drum did not want to come off.... this is when we remembered the broken spring. The shoes were locked up against the drum pretty tight and I couldn't back off the adjusters. We finally got it removed and sure enough the spring fell out on the ground.
The hoses were in bad shape up front too so we set out trying to find parts. O'Reilly actually had hoses that looked like they would work, THEY DON'T. They look right but the hard line end of the hose is ever so slightly too small to screw on. NAPA was able to get the hoses, special order of course. They also were able to find a spring that would work, although they had to match it up from the book and order it.
With new hoses, wheel cylinders, and springs installed I put all the drums back on and adjusted the shoes. Finally it's time to bleed the brakes. I went through the floorboard to get to the master cylinder.... 13/16" won't fit, 7/8" just slips........ Nothing I could do would loosen that cap. So I got to crawl under the truck and remove the master cylinder. With it clamped into a vice I still couldn't get the cap off, the "soft" cast iron just wanted to come off or round over.
I could still see a little bit of the flat sides so I figured what the heck, can't make it any worse. I grabbed a file and gently attempted to reshape nut. I was able to get it very close. A 13/16" would go with some persuasion. I took a 13/16" impact socket and hammered it down. I then used an impact wrench and was able to remove the cap with absolutely no problems. I had to use a punch to remove the cap from my socket. Now that I had the cap off I made sure it would thread on and off easily. I continued to carefully file it down until a 13/16" actually fits it well.
I re-installed the master cylinder and was finally able to bleed the brakes. For the first time in over a year the truck was actually able to drive and stop under it's own power! I need to tweak the brake adjustment a little more now that they have been operated several times and centered up.
Next on the list is new tires. It's got 30 year old bias tires on it now that I just don't trust anymore. It's getting a new set of radials tomorrow!
Ultimately none of it was what I would consider hard, just time consuming. Maybe by posting what I went through it will help somebody else somewhere down the line.
