JBNeal

agreed on the pride they take in their inventory...I took a day trip up there in 2012, and upon entering the office spotted a B-series hubcap hanging on the wall. It was in OK condition--dings & scratches--and they wanted General Grant to liberate it from their custody. I opted to pass on that "opportunity" and just walk around taking pictures

looks like the driver couldn't cut the mustard

from what I recall, the Bendix drive starters were used on the cars, and included a firewall mounted starter relay and a starter momentary switch (push button would be the easiest install). The Bendix starter gear & truck flywheel ring gear would have to be verified as compatible. I have not done this swap, but I've seen a few pics online of it done with Plymouth powertrains installed in a B-series. Another option is to get a later year flathead starter with the conventional starter solenoid instead of a Bendix drive unit, again verifying the starter gear and flywheel ring gear compatibility. I don't have the specifics, but I recall that anything flathead from '57 to '60 went to 12V and they also changed the flywheel ring gear, so these items couldn't be used on earlier flatheads even though they looked similar.

the original B-1 seal in theory was to compress between the top of the tank and the bottom of the cab so as to not allow any moisture to collect on those metal surfaces, much like a flange gasket. But the spongy rubber material Dodge chose would shrink over time, allowing moisture & debris to collect, the seal would sag and eventually tear as shown and fall out of the truck. The thinner rubber seal used in the B-3s etc. is much cheaper to fabricate, install, and replace. The four holes are also in the B-1 cabs, and they must have served some purpose as other holes have been located and questioned. My guess is that these four holes may have been for locater pins on an alignment jig at the factory so that the cabs were aligned uniformly from one truck to the next, allowing the fuel tank to be properly located so that the sending unit can be removed from inside the cab as well as quick & accurate installation of front sheet metal, etc. Then again, these holes may have been for supplemental ventilation for all the cig smokers back in the day

there is an adjustment that can be made on the starter switch so that the starter pedal is not so sensitive from being brushed up against. I recall the starter pedal having a 2-3" travel before contacting the starter lever, and then the adjustable travel for the lever to contact the switch. But if ya make the Bendix starter upgrade, that starter pedal can be used as an attitude adjuster that can fit in the glovebox

the plate looks to be a belt & suspenders approach compared to the original installation, but it looks good and oughta keep the varmints from coming in that way

found this B-series on the website of Old Jody's, a fine eatin' establishment:

auto-drive was used in Demolition Man (I'm still trying to figger out the 3 seashells tho)...particulate emission restrictions could effectively legislate future diesel power out of existence because equipment costs might become so high that gasoline/electric power might be the only choice in the trucking industry--and that could happen within the next decade...

I had a coworker who took ownership of a lightly used '08 Mustang C/S with a standard transmission specifically so his old lady could not drive it cuz she did not know how to handle a stick shift

somewhere along the way, it looks like somebody posted a color pic on the Wiki page...anybody recognize whose dump bed that is?

I took a gander at the '51 & the '53, and this rubber is intact but hard & brittle. The original rubber appears to start at the rear of the fender as shown but terminates about 1" before the break at the fender edge & firewall radii: A good body trim adhesive should be adequate for this rubber installation, carefully applied and using something like wadded up newspaper between the cab & the rubber. This should allow for installation without pulling the fenders for mechanical fasteners.

a loose fill tube can be made more secure by expanding the base. This is a trial & error process that can be done with a pair of pliers or an anvil + rubber mallet. I have used the horn on an old anvil to open a fill tube that did not have the bracket, and used some large pliers to distort the edge slightly to really lock it in. The tube should be able to be removed when required by carefully working the tube back & forth while pulling up, and be able to be installed by hand with the reverse method.

TOOLBOX ARSENAL: I ran the numbers, and it was going to be cheaper to by a Harbor Freight 1000# engine stand than to make one. And once completed, this unit had a small problem: ...so I took it back for an exchange

I found this battery tray in my stash last week. It is an NORS tray by Holman for Dodge & Plymouth 1941-48 inclusive. It is sized for Group 1 batteries, and is of a cheaper construction than the Mopar Group 2 tray, as can be seen by the gaps at the corners and lack of drain nozzle.

HOLLYWOOD saw this'n on The HAMB:

this is a light duty work bench to have a horizontal workspace for small projects. It has come in handy for doing electrical projects such as repairing an extension cord & soldering on a wiring harness, as well as doing some small mechanical assembly and some woodwork. What is not seen is the 70s vintage Black & Decker Workmate for doing heavier woodwork. The shop up the hill has the bench vise, bench grinder, hyd.press, oxy-acetyl torch, AC/DC FCAW, etc. and has enough space for an entire truck, but it's occupied by a tractor and whutnot for the time being. Bottom line is that with a small $$$ investment with some planning & sweat equity, this underutilized storage area can now serve double duty as storage & work space; this also allows for less space being used at the big shop so that it can handle larger projects with less clutter. In turn, it also means I can do more work at the house at any time during any weather instead of making the trek up the hill...there have been many times where I've been working on something up the hill and have to go back & forth to get special tools, parts, shop manuals, etc. and the absent-mindedness gets a little tiresome

I have been asked about the peculiar work bench setup, as it's a hodgepodge of leftovers & repurposed items. The base is a 70s era dresser made of real wood, but the veneers are peeling so bad that it was given to me to do my magic. It is sitting on the 4x4 remnants of a wood pallet that originally was used to ship a service truck jib crane at my old job. I replaced a door at my friend's house, and the old heavy door was solid laminated sawdust & fiberboard, with the 6 inch strip on the doorknob side removed. The shelves are made from repurposed plywood from something my dad made in the early 80s but removed from his house when we remodeled it a few years ago. The dimensional lumber on the shelves was all Home Depot cull lumber that was warped, twisted & split and sold at 80% off the original price. The screws & nails were all left overs from several other projects. The backing board was originally purchased 5yrs ago to patch a drafty wood-framed garage door, but it was determined that the door frame had more problems than a couple of rotten panels, so that door was replaced with a new steel door, and this sheet of material was propped up in the barn to collect dust. The power strip mounted on the end of the bench dates back to my college days, complete with a metal body. The two NiCd battery chargers were 'donated' by neighbors who had upgraded to shinier power tools. The automotive battery charger was donated by a neighbor because it was thought to be malfunctioning; testing showed that the only problem was an intermittent sticking amp gauge. Total out of pocket costs for this setup: about ten bucks

Much progress has been made in the li'l garage shop, with the two 40W bulbs replaced with 4 fluorescent light fixtures, three electrical outlets wired & installed, all the shelves built & installed, parts separated & put in bins, and the work bench tidied up...I was a li'l amazed that this room that looked like something out of hoarders has been organized to the point that some actual work can get done in there, with a garbage can full of junk hauled off, a pickup bed of old cardboard boxes recycled, and a 5-gallon bucket of steel in line to go to the scrap yard. A tad more work is needed in there to get things all put away, and then I'll have a place to tinker with a motor & whutnot It's not a full machine shop, but it'll suit my needs...the big shop is up the hill and it comes in purty handy too I would have made more progress recently, but getting roped into moving a bleepin' piano, diagnosing electrical problems with 2 tractors, and mowing elderly neighbors' pastures before the 1st freeze hits has kept me sidetracked a tad much. I did get a chance yesterday morning to crack the carb open on the '48 to put some gas in it. As some of y'all had deduced, I had a stuck pump plunger...needed some pliers to break it loose. With a fresh charge on the battery and a full carb, the truck fired within 5 seconds after it had been parked for about a month. The same goes for the '49: fresh gas in the carb, full charge on the battery, and it'll fire within 5 seconds. They both purr like a sewing machine, and they both have issues that have'm off the road until further notice, so I've got a little work ahead of me. I'm gonna strive to get that P26 stripped down and to the machine shop this week so that I might get it back before Thanksgiving...

The handles on the '48 parts truck are long gone; the handles on my '48 have questionable origins as they appear almost pink. The handles on the '49 are not original either, as one appears to be from a B-3, and the passenger door has an unknown handle. I recall reading in several places that chrome plated parts were painted or had some other coating once that police action flared up on the Korean peninsula.

if the cab & fuel tank are aligned, the sender can be fished out via the cab access panel. I've swapped out the sender on the '48 twice over the years, and pulled the one on the '49 last year to verify that it only works if the tank is over 1/2 full. I've seen retaining ring removers fabricated out of a PVC pipe, but have not tried this yet as I have a nice pair of pliers and a screwdriver that can work that ring off in about a minute. The float arm should have enough flex in it that when pulling the unit through the cab floor, the unit can be laid over enough so that the float can be pulled out of the tank opening.

VINTAGEPIC: saw this B-3 car hauler on The HAMB

from a previous post, the steel fuel line just needs to clear the manifolds to reduce heat absorption. Comparing the AC & Carter fuel filter setups, the AC has a more robust bowl clamp that is less prone to problems from vibration. At any rate, if the fuel bowl is installed and doesn't line up in the level orientation, the trick that's worked for me is to put some Teflon tape on the brass fitting, thereby increasing the taper diameter allowing for another stab at screwing everything down as required. One or two turns of Teflon should be adequate; any more than that and ya might risk cracking the fuel filter base trying to force the issue. As for the flex line at the frame, don't bother with the NOS units from the 40s & 50s that are on eBay. I've accumulated a bundle of those over the years, and they last less than a year as the ethanol in the gas dries the old rubber very quickly & they split open. Brass hose barbs are available that can be attached to a length of modern rubber fuel injection line and that works nicely, costs about $5 to make what ya need. You can go krazy and have a fuel line made with crimped fittings at a hydraulic hose supplier for about $20 if ya want a factory look. I recently replaced the fuel pressure gauge sending unit hose on my '02 Ram CTD as I relocated the sender closer to the firewall, requiring a hose that was about a foot longer than the one that was supplied with the sender. The guy at the shop said the cost was in the crimped fittings and setup time as the length of hose was pennies in comparison. as a point of forum use, is there a limit to the amount of information that can be included in a thread? Build threads can stretch over years covering a wide range of topics; why can't a repair thread do the same thing for a truck that has already been built and is having issues after several years of use? Call me crazy, but I figgered having a handful of connected threads centering around one vehicle to share as well as to collect information as being an efficient use of the forum.

1st yer block, now yer tank...maybe that silver paint is the culprit

VINTAGEPIC: found these B-3s while surfing the internets

I found this bumper at CTC in Denton, and whoever built this has some impressive skills. It is definitely home-made judging from the quality of the cuts and the metal forming as the assembly was not exactly symmetrical. But the concept is something that I had sketched up awhile back before I found this example. My inspiration was the rear of an old cattle trailer that had the step behind the fenders with a reinforcement that went up the sides with integrated lights and a step at the rear to protect the endgate when backing into a ramp.