Jim Shepard

Thanks, Reg. That seems to be it. Lubed the drive line and topped off both the tranny and diff. Both were way down. I used almost a whole gal. on both In fact, the diff never did fill to the hole before I ran out of gear oil. Bought some more today and I'll top off the diff in the next day or two. In the mean time, I took it out for a 20 mile run and it didn't make any noise and shifted much smoother.

I haven't lubed anything yet. I guess that would be a first thing to try and see if it changes anything before I start tearing into it. What goes in the tranny? All I've ever seen is auto trans fluid.

Greg G. What do you mean by 'stouter.' I thought the only difference between a 218 and 230 were bore and stroke. The reason I ask is because I need to overhaul the motor in my Pilothouse, which is a 218 and I have an opportunity to pick up a 230, which would also need to be overhauled.

You mean disconnect the drive shaft at the differential? If so, how does that help pinpoint the problem? Also, what causes too much freeplay in the ring and pinion?

I've posted this on the truck side also, but I want to open it up to you car guys also. I just crawled under the truck, which is a B2B with 3-speed and fluid drive. I do not see any obvious issues with the u-joints. They're all dry and tight. The drive line doesn't have any play in it, in terms of side to side or up and down pressure; however, when I turn it, there seems to be some 'slop' in the differential. By that I mean when I turn the drive line by hand it moves about one-half inch before it engages and the axles turn. Also, if I grab the drive line and turn it vigorously alternating in both directions, I get the same noise I'm hearing when I drive it. It sounds like the gears in the differential are clanging together. I've never turned the drive line by hand before so I don't know if this is a new condition or if it's always been like that. It does seem to duplicate the sound I'm hearing. Whadda you guys think?

OK, here's the latest. I just crawled under the truck, which is a B2B with 3-speed and fluid drive. I do not see any obvious issues with the u-joints. They're all dry and tight. The drive line doesn't have any play in it, in terms of side to side or up and down pressure; however, when I turn it, there seems to be some 'slop' in the differential. By that I mean when I turn the drive line by hand it moves about one-half inch before it engages and the axles turn. Also, if I grab the drive line and turn it vigorously alternating in both directions, I get the same noise I'm hearing when I drive it. It sounds like the gears in the differential are clanging together. I've never turned the drive line by hand before so I don't know if this is a new condition or if it's always been like that. It does seem to duplicate the sound I'm hearing. Whadda you guys think?

Thanks. I knida figured it was something like push, pull, jerk, twist, etc.

Ok, today I started hearing a new sound coming from the drive line. Some guy in the Home Depot parking lot heard it too and said it was my u-joints. It sounds like someone rapping on a cast iron sewer pipe. It doesn't do it all the time. Sometimes when I shift up into second; sometimes when I turn real slow (like in a parking lot). When I crawl under my truck tomorrow, what am I looking for?

I got mine at the glass shop that cut my new glass. I think any good auto glass shop will have these.

I think you'll be pleased with it. As I said, I got mine from them and it's really nice. It went in very easily and the instructions were very clear and easy to follow.

I mounted my break setup first. If your pad is from Roberts none of the holes will line up anyway.

The name of the painting is "Construction Crew." I don't know when it was done.

My pleasure. The next one's on you...

Well, I did a compression test a couple of days ago with the following results: 1 = 75# 2 = 90# 3 = 97# 4 = 110# 5 = 85# 6 = 98#. Number 1 came up to 85# when I added a little oil to the cylinder. This is quite a change from just a year ago when all cylinders expect one were at least 100lbs. So, here's my plan. A friend has offered me a 230ci out of a '54 truck. I think I'll take him up on it so I can drive mine while I'm overhauling the replacement motor. Also, that gives me a little more power. I'm also thinking of boring it 60 over and raising the compression a tad, maybe 8.0:1. I'll go with the cast iron headers and a triple carb setup if I can find the manifold at a reasonable price. If not, it's duals. Thanks to Reg I've now got two 16" wheels for the rears and I'll put some tall tires on to gain some top speed. I'm hoping to find a three speed with overdrive also. After all of this I should be able to stay out of folks' way a little better than now...

That's right. The manual shows a pre-PH cab, but the diagram showing the hardware is from a PH. As you can see, there are no springs. Here's a photo showing what mine looked like and how they go together. I took this photo before I saw the diagram in the manual. This is one of the three that are alike. As I said, the front driver side is different. The manual diagram shows the two different ones. The one on the left is the driver side bolt.

I agree that it would be fairly simple to create your own wiring harness. In fact, after I got mine from YnZ's and saw how simple it was, I made one for my turn signals. Granted, I didn't have the cool-looking fabric covered wires (but I did color-code them using the leads from my turn signals) just like they did. I then carefully wrapped the whole setup in black electrical tape. It looks pretty nice...

PH don't use springs. Are you referring to an older truck?

I removed mine with friend's forklift (a big one...). I took off the steering wheel, but left the column in place. It's a two-person operation because one has to finese the cab up over the pedals and steering column, as well as the gas tank inlet pipe. I'm not aware of anyone making the hardware. Fortunately, mine were in reasonably good shape and I re-used them. Be aware the front driver-side bolt setup is different than the other three.

Thanks Merle. Now I know what to look for. I'm guessing a Dodge would also work; maybe even a DeSoto...

Mine is from YnZ's out of Redlands, California. It was pricey, but worked great. Fit is absolutely perfect. They use modern wire with the original cloth-looking and correctly color-coded fabric coverings. All ends are soldered and covered with heat-shrink. It really looks nice.

For those of us considering such a move, the source car is critical. To Normspeed: what was the source car?

My thinking is a complete rebuild. I didn't anything to the motor when I restored the truck because I had purchased a 241ci Hemi to put in it. Then, I changed my mind and decided to keep the truck stock. Before the resto I had checked out the compression a couple of different times and it was 110 in five and 95 in one. The 95 might be where my issue is. At any rate, I'm going to put dual carbs and exhaust on it, so I might as well bore it out a little and maybe raise the compression a tad.

Either way (bad rings or bad guides), I'm looking at an overhaul, right?

I picked up HWY16 in Sacramento going west through Woodland and up through the Capay Valley. HWY16 ends at HWY20 and I took that west until I came to the HWY53 turnoff, which heads south into Clearlake. It's about 110 miles one-way and mostly two lane. I would imagine during the weekend it would be much more crowded because of Cache Creek Casino, but, yesterday, I only had to pull over a couple of times to let traffic get by. The only issue I had (and this happened coming up to your place, also) was a lot of smoke when decelerating downhill. A little less when going up. I suppose I'm looking at a ring job one of these days...

Well, I took another road trip today. About 220 miles round trip. I went to see an old buddy of mine who I haven't seen in about 20 years. We've been talking on the phone for the past several months and he has a '51 Chevy. So, I drove up to Clearlake and had lunch with him. I also met a guy by the name of Brett who siad he's also got a B2B he's going to hot rod. He says he's familiar with the PH site. Anyway, I've always been impressed with the photos "blueskies" takes on his road trip so I thought I'd snap a few. This is an old bridge I ran acorss on my journey. It's too bad they couldn't have waited another year to build it - I could've had a '50 PH sitting on a bridge built in '50... This was a real nice drive with no problems and very little traffic.