Sam Buchanan

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But the brakes won't be any better....... ?

Go head and buy the stud extractor.......don’t mangle the stud with vice grips to where the extractor can’t get a good grip.

Low fuel pressure due to vapor lock?

The kid has great potential as a corporate executive.......get the peasants to do the dirty work.... ?

The shift housing is easy to remove, just follow the manual procedure. That will allow you to determine if something is out of whack in the housing. You should find this recent thread an interesting read: https://p15-d24.com/topic/52787-no-reverse-or-first-gear/

I had to adjust the linkage after installing new tranny mounts.....couldn’t find all the gears. Your project looks great!

Points are fine with either, resistive core wire is usually needed if you have a radio to eliminate RFI noise.

Not older........wiser! ?

I wouldn't do it.....much better to just use unmodified jack stands you can trust.

Yep, a vendor that services the vintage tractor community is a good source for wires for our old cars.

The generic wire kit with 90* connectors I referenced earlier:

You will do well with the flattie and will really enjoy working on it....welcome to the community! Very nice slant six.....(but I have to say this.......replace that plastic fuel filter with a metal one......). ?

My local mom-n-pop auto parts emporium had a universal set of 6-cylinder cut-to-fit plug wires with straight and 90 boots for less than $25. It was very similar to this: https://www.amazon.com/26A60-Universal-Spark-Plug-Wire/dp/B07BSQBZ9D If you think you want to convert to Pertronix you will need non-copper conductor wires. But points work very nicely.

The issue we face when removing a manifold is compounded by the stud extending into the water jacket. When the nut refuses to budge torque is transferred to the stud which cannot turn because the end that protrudes into the water jacket has enlarged due to corrosion and is now wedged against the crankcase. So we apply some more torque and the stud breaks. Now we get to drill out the stud, clean up the threads and install a new stud. If we are really sharp, we will carefully install the new stud only far enough to prevent the end from extending into the water jacket and the corrosion problem rearing its ugly head for the next guy who removes the manifold. The bolts securing the two manifolds together on my car were so degraded that just the slightest torque snapped them. Fortunately there was enough of a stub sticking out of the intake manifold to allow grabbing the stub with a stud extractor and the stub could be unscrewed without damaging the threads. The stud extractor also made short work of removing a couple of studs in the crankcase that needed replacing. https://www.amazon.com/Shop-Iron-16023-Drive-Extractor/dp/B00265M8N4

If you put motor oil in it and it doesn't shift like you think it should.....is the problem with the tranny...or the oil???? Go ahead and buy the good stuff. If you need to go back into the tranny you can drain it and save it.....frugally. If the tranny works well, you won't need to change that oil in our lifetime.

My wife would consider that to be very appropriate........... ?

All this dwelling on tach talk prompted to me to find my old dwell-tach from the VW days in the 70's. Here it is....bet I bought it from JC Whitney....isn't that where we got everything back then? ?) It still works to some degree...hooked the red lead to the positive battery post and the black one to the wire going to the distributor. I'm wondering if the tach is reading a bit high....dwell indicated 40* and that is probably pretty close.

My favorite jack stands:

There is only one MTL, it is 75W80.

The auto parts store oil is almost certainly GL4 or GL5. Both can be too slippery for smooth shifting a cold transmission.

The RedLine MTL should fix your problem and protect the syncros.

I can't recall if the the seal has a spring but if it does the spring "goes toward the oil", in other words, toward the chain.

You will get various opinions about this (try asking what kind of motor oil to use.....) but the closest thing we have now to what was used back in the day is GL-1 lubricant. The more modern GL-4 and GL-5 have components that can lead to deterioration of the brass synchronizers in our old trannys. I started out with a GL-4 in the '48 P15 but had issues with the 1st-to-2nd shift being crunchy until the transmission got hot. I changed to Red Line MTL which eliminated the crunchiness and is also formulated to play nice with the brass synchronizers. It is a little pricey but should last a very long time in our cars.

Wow......that brings back a flood of memories. My dad bought a new '56 Savoy 4-door and it was the same color as your Suburban. I recall seeing Hy-Fire V8 on the valve covers or air cleaner and it had the overdrive. My dad was very particular about maintenance and drove the car with longevity in mind. As a kid I would sit in the front seat and the radio speaker was my 'steering wheel' as we drove down the road. I recall falling asleep on the back seat as a youngster listening to the soothing whine of the diff while on trips to the grandparents in Arkansas. I learned to drive in that car and took my driving test in it...had to demonstrate stopping and starting on a hill (how many teenagers could do that with a three-on-the-tree now??). My brother and I discovered the OD could be engaged in 1st gear if you wound it out tight enough. ? The overdrive was great and no doubt was a reason why the car had 143K miles on it when the odometer quit working. We sold the car a few years later (1979) after my dad's passing and it still ran great, the only work it ever needed was tune-ups and brakes and I recall replacing front wheel bearings once.. Thanks for indulging me for a trip down memory lane.....it was a great car. ?