JBNeal

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.

When it comes to rear bumpers, I have found that there were many different variations of designs that eventually evolved into the modern step bumper. The area between the rear of the bed and the rear of the fenders was wide open, and most truck users needed something there to step onto just to gain access to the rear of the bed, from adding or removing materials from the bed to loading or unloading livestock into a bed with sideboards. And then the truck owners would invariably need to hook up to a tongue pulled trailer, so a hitch needed to be fabricated. Here are a couple of examples on some parts trucks. The white bumper is made from one long stick of angle steel, with a notch cut to allow the angle to be formed & welded. It is welded to the frame, but is flimsy since there are no attachments at the ends, and not very useful as the angle is right up against the bed frame, so only the toes can grip that surface...and if it's got a li'l moisture on it, fuhgeddaboutit. The black bumper is one long steel channel that was formed at the corners and the hitch area. It bolts to the frame and fenders, but it appears to have had a reinforcement that was bolted to the channel and probably to the bed sides near the top of the stake pocket. This bumper appears to be made at a factory considering the quality of the metal forming. This bumper appears to be a modified aftermarket bumper that has been tweaked on one side. The bumper is welded to the frame, and a hitch has been welded to the bumper. One misstep near the back of this truck and them bumper corners will slice ya right open. This bumper belongs to a neighbor up the road, and it appeared home-made. The bumper is flush with the rear of the bed, so the only steps are on the sides behind the fenders. The frame of the bed was notched for the hitch clearance and not really reinforced very well. Needless to say, the tailgate & bed frame are purty beat up from trying to hook a trailer onto that ball hitch. This bumper belongs to the '48, and may have been a modified aftermarket bumper. It is made of a heavy diamond treadplate steel channel that was notched, formed & welded at the corners. Diamond treadplate flat steel was used to extend the bumper to the fenders for use as a step. The bumper & hitch are welded to the frame. The bumper is just close enough to the bed frame that I can barely get my boots in there when I climb in the back, so it's a li'l tricky to navigate when it's wet. It has flat bar connecting the stake pockets to the bumper corners, presumably to stiffen up the rear of the box so the tailgate can be opened & closed if the truck is on uneven ground. This bumper belongs to the '49 1-ton, and was definitely home-made. Heavy angle steel with a hole torch cut for hitching, with pipe flattened on each end and formed, attached with some gorilla welds. There's a 1/2" hole cut through the pipe & bed; I'm guessing the farmer who had this in OK used a bar to string barbed wire out of the back of the truck. Simple, heavy, cheap & effective...I might keep it after cleaning if up a bit. This bumper belongs to the '51 1-ton, and was definitely home-made. Heavy angle steel was welded to the frame, and what appears to be some sort of farm shredder blade was used as a hitch of sorts. It's tucked under the flatbed, so it's kinda awkward to access the floor with this step. This original factory bumper belongs to the '53 Spring Special. If you're not careful, one wrong step and ya could break yer leg, or at least land on some mighty important real estate in an awkward and uncomfortable fashion

there's an outfit in Waco called The Perry Company that has been making aftermarket bumpers for decades. I remember that back in the day, dealers would install their silver painted Ruffneck bumpers with the dealer's name & city/state stamped on them, but those started vanishing when the price of steel shot up about 10 yrs ago. I've been on the lookout for one of their early checkerboard tread plate bumpers, but have only seen one so far and it was too wide, of the 60s vintage I reckon. The predecessor of the Ruffneck was the Smash Hit bumper...I reckon they got away from that name cuz it didn't exactly inspire 'toughness'

when they changed the radiator shell & hood halves in '51, the hood bumper moved from the radiator shell (that would contact the hood half) to the lips of the hood halves (that would contact the fender).

from an earlier discussion, I ordered a couple of Tanks, Inc. units to do Tod Fitch's conversion. The Tanks, Inc. units look very much like JC Whitney's Datcon units (which JCW no longer has available), so I'm gonna try this conversion on the malfunctioning Roberts units I found a few weeks ago. The only thing different from TF's conversion is to have a ground stud on the mounting flange. I am in the process of reorganizing my 1-car garage-turned-workshop, tossing useless items while inventorying the useful stuff...I gotta do this 5S stuff at work, might as well do it at home I reckon. At some point, I'll give this conversion a shot and post my results as I've got a bad unit in the '49 that needs replacing anyways

I'm all for customizing these small details, as these trucks are purty basic...each arm rest was optional, as was the passenger visor, rear view mirror, heater--stuff we take for granted these days as standard equipment on newer trucks. I've seen center consoles made for cupholders, storage etc. I saw a truck in a magazine once that looked like he used the center console from a customized Astro van and whittled it down so it fit up against the firewall. That truck had a modern axle with parking brakes, and he had mounted the parking brake handle (out of a 60s D100 I think) on the driver side kick panel area. It was a clean look, and very user friendly, and the exterior of the truck looked almost stock. If'n yer gonna drive the truck every day and yer not worried about losing points at some originality contest, why not make it to your liking? It's nice to tell folks that are eyeballin' yer buggy what the original stuff was on it, but it's also nice to be able to grab something to slam the door shut on a windy day, as well as have something comfortable to lean on during a Sunday drive. Life is too short to depend on a flimsy arm rest

wellll blow me down...I might need to make me one of those piston pin removers, looks like I might have most of the parts rattlin'round in one of the work bench drawers

the Spring Special has the remnants of an original armrest on the driver door and an aftermarket armrest on the passenger door

connecting rod remover

not much spectacular goings on with the Spring Special these days, it's down on the priority list after this that & the other. I had cleaned the bed out when I got it, but it has slowly filled back up with some odds & ends. The doors were sticking when I picked it up a couple of years ago, but this past year, they have been a real bear, with the passenger door mechanism not releasing since last summer. A couple of months ago, I was able to pop it open on a particularly hot day, so I promptly began treatment with Marvel Mystery Oil on the door latches & hinges. Today I was able to open the doors easily for the first time...small victories

that sounds like it'd make a good compact spare

nice pic...why not post some dimensions of the NOS bumpers and let Gary know what ya have and what he's selling. He may do something about it that could benefit his business & his customers

somebody call the Coast Guard, this thread has been hijacked

VINTAGEPIC: saw this B-1or2 on the Flickr:

here or here ?

FYI I had put together a wiring diagram that includes some additional information that may improve headlight performance. One way to check the wiring posts on the AMP gauge is to hook the lead from the starter to one post, and the lead to the headlight switch to the other post, with lamps hooked up to the headlight switch. When the lights are turned on, the AMP gauge should read discharge. Or hook the lead from the starter to one post and a test lamp to the other post. Grounding that lamp should also read discharge. Once the AMP gauge is figgered out, then ya can move onto the ignition switch, attaching that jumper wire from the discharge post on the AMP gauge to one of the posts with the key in the 'off' position. A test lamp can be attached to either of the other two posts and grounded. The lamp should only come on with the key in the 'on' position. With the fuel gauge, attach that jumper wire from one of the key-on terminals. Ground the other terminal, and the gauge should read "F".

This reminds me of the first time I took the '48 for a state inspection. The inspector (a kid actually) made a disapproving face as he got in that old beast, then made an even more disapproving face when I had to stop him from twisting the key off in the ignition (the key is still twisted btw). When I pointed out the usage of that fourth pedal, he scoffed, and rather than let me start it for him, he stomped on the starter and it fired up...he then threw the stick all the way up and nearly backed into the car that had pulled up behind him. For subsequent inspections, I would start the truck for the inspector and remind him where 1st gear was

I have seen several variations on the poor man's security system on some vintage vehicles. There are battery disconnects that mount to the battery terminal and employ a knife switch to interrupt the circuit...I tried to install one once but had clearance issues with the battery cell caps & frame. I have seen quite a few master kill switches mounted under the hood near the starter...they were simple heavy duty rotary switches, some were heavy duty toggle switches, that could be reached after popping the hood. Then there are the ignition kill switches that can be hidden under the dash. A simple toggle switch interrupting the AMP gauge circuit could do the trick...maybe that's how Biff Tannen kept folks from taking a joyride in his Ford