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Had mine rebuilt by Autoinstruments 47 Ford Street Martinsville, Va.24112 276-647-5550 Or you can check Hemmings Motor News, there are companies advertising in there that repair them.

Yep, and this'll be the end of this saga. One thing neat about these old cars, I had the head off, the valve job done, valves readjusted, engine back together and plug wires corrected in a day. Saying it fired right up would be a bit of a stretch, but it didn't take long to get running. Peened some marks for the correct TDC on the flywheel, and still wondering whether or not it has been apart in the past - car "only" has 78K miles on it, lowest mileage of any car in our fleet. Endeavor to persevere.

The typical aftermarket mechanical temperature gauges come with an assortment of fittings for the various common sizes of threaded openings in the block. At least when I have repaired my temperature gauge, one of those fittings was the correct pipe thread for the opening in my engine’s head.

FRT, I used to go round and round with this very same question on my 1.5 and 2 tons. My multivariate analysis boiled down to two questions; which bolt pattern could I live with, and how wide was acceptable in the rear. Truth is, our Job Rated medium duty trucks are pretty narrow, when considering modern rear axle swaps. Front axles, too. Narrowest I could find in modern hardware came under cab & chassis setups from the big three. Think ambulance, wrecker, box van. Beware their ring and pinion ratios are wildly different by intended use and original powerplant. The width in question here is WMS to WMS (wheel mounting surface), unless you're in love with one axle setup and are willing to have tubes and shafts cut down to the width you seek. Lug pattern. Our 5-lug pattern is an 8" on center. The newest axles I ran across were a brief two or three year blip of Dodge motorhomes (MH) circa 1972/1973. The axles and hubs are expensive, and the wheels (19.5" tubeless), expensive as well. I think the last set of MH wheels I came across were 17.5, but I may be misremembering. For rears, my '47 COE runs a Dana 60 with an 8 on 6.5" pattern. My buddy's '59 Montpelier (Dodge flathead 1.5 ton chassis) step van runs a Dana 80 out of a wrecker, and runs slow, with the Furd 10 bolt wheels on it. A 5-lug problem solver, maybe, I had a '58 D400 with an Eaton 1350 or 1380 rear end, single speed, 5 lug on 8" circle matching the pattern under your Dodge now, it had Budd 20" lock ring wheels. And, the front axle; on my '47 COE, I run motorhome disk brakes, thanks to a spindle swap at the kingpin; the kingpin on the COE's and buses were 1.12" diameter, the same as the class A Dodge motorhome chassis from the '70's. M375 or M400 chassis, usually with the 413 and industrial cooling setup, knock the pins out, swap the knuckles over, put the pins back in and put in fresh welch plugs. All Mopar parts, and the engineering didn't outpace the application in those 30+ years. So, for my COE, that runs 8 lug on 6.5" bolt circle, plenty of wheel and tire options there, just not as large as an 8.25 R20 setup. Did this on the Montpelier, too. There's single and dual piston calipers, so size yours accordingly for your needs and intended uses. As far as keeping it original, my buddy's original '41 COE travels at 48 MPH. Crank the windshield out a bit, and it's a nice, cool, airy ride. Good luck with your pursuit! MBSoPaB

Spent more time with the parts yesterday, a few cut off wheels and a few scary moments with large pieces by myself....I've secioned it into 4 pieces now, but have decided to just build a new one, these parts are just too beat up to match up to a nice clean cab and frame. So off to CoreMark I go to spend unplanned $$.