JBNeal

my '48 was bought new by my great grandfather, its first 20 years were as a farm truck, Dad drove it to college after high school, did some more farming before a stuck ring retired it to the side of the old barn for 10 years before I started tinkering with it in junior high, couldn't scrape up enough $$$ until after college to get it running again...since I'm so hard-headed, I figgered after I got started that I was going to finish, even if it was going to be more expensive than them other more popular brands...plus the uniqueness made me want to keep on plugging away, as bragging rights to hard work & ingenuity rather than ordering something in a catalog or picking up a part at AutoZone.

the lawn equipment stores have weedeater cable grease that's the white lithium variety and kinda sticky. Clean as much of the old grease off with diesel or parts cleaner. Put some grease in the housing, feed in some cable, work the cable back & forth, repeat...

I've seen one factory interior mirror center bar at a wrecking yard but didn't have the time to pull it off for my driver. The factory B-3 hood ornament has been something I've never seen as it has a different part number than the B-1 / B-2 hood ornament. The B-3 / B-4 passenger mirror short arm is another rarity, as well as the accessory fender steps that mount on the B-1 / B-2 / B-3 rear fenders, but I've seen a few of those now & again. One of my greatest eBay finds is the NOS B-1 / B-2 passenger mirror short arm with parts tag attached, but I found that back in '99 and haven't seen another come along since.

verify that the oil pressure bypass piston & bore are clean & smooth so the piston doesn't stick... verify that the fuel pump pivot pin is staked so that it won't fall out... when using the oil bath air cleaner, verify that it's clamped to the carburetor before going on that first test drive...

the way I see it, figger on spending $1000 on getting the brakes & suspension road-worthy; another $1000 on the engine & fuel system; and $1000 on the electrical & cooling systems. The body has cancer in all the typical places & the truck is missing body parts, but if the cab floor is shot, well then I reckon it's "good luck to you, sir" time.

I spent a little time fiddlin' on this find yesterday, pulling the hood off, removing the wings, and washing the original paint that was on the underside of the center piece. I took the center piece to PPG for color ID as they had showed me several weeks earlier that they had a camera for this. Wellll, the same guys weren't really interested in doing much yesterday, as they hem'd & haw'd 'bout that camera actually working and wouldn't go get the thing to try it out. After flipping through some old notebooks of paint chips that went back to the 60s, I asked them to look up the colors for a '53 Dodge car, and they found an original chip on that website that gave the Ditzler code. Unfortunately, after a couple of phone calls, the code led to no mixing formula, as it's probably in another notebook in a box on a shelf in an old warehouse or sumthin'ruther. Anyhow, the hood is back on the truck and I'll have to take the color I have and match it to something that there is a known formula...btw, Dr Pepper green is close but too dark

scrape the big crud off, wire brush the smaller crud off, pressure wash all the rest of the crud off, soap and water scrub the casting, apply Rust-Cure (or equivalent) on the dry casting and let it do its job...I've gone back with a smaller steel brush and scrubbed off any obvious deposits that won't take paint well and apply more Rust-Cure to make a continuous layer of phosporic acid treatment.

sounds like valves are a-stickin'; might be easiest to pull manifold and apply penetrating oil into the guides, rotating crankshaft to verify each valve is stroking & returning fully. It probably wouldn't hurt to pull the spark plugs and fill the combustion chamber with diesel or Marvel Mystery oil to get the rings to soak in some penetrant, they might be sticking too.

call Terrill Machine 254-893-2610 (or equivalent vendor) with the model # from the fuel pump & they'll send ya a fresh rebuild kit for a fraction of the cost of a new pump...make sure the pivot pin is staked in place or more troubles will be a-comin'

ya got a bottle jack and a 4x4 and some old license plates lying around? stick that bottle jack directly underneath the hinge pin, stick the 4x4 up under the pin with metal on each end, and brace the jack against something durn solid, like a building wall or another vehicle. Lift the truck up a tad with the jack and take a break. The next day, lift the truck up a tad more, maybe even assist gravity by taking a few smart whacks at the door hinge; steer clear of the pin by making a pin clearance hole in a 2x4 and put a hard block on top of the holey 2x4. Get some heavy cardboard to protect the paint. Definitely put some penetrating oil on the hinge pin where accessible (WD-40 is to penetrating oil as Danny DeVito is to professional basketball). It'll take a few days to knock that pin out, but very few colorful metaphors will be uttered with this process; you can even be driving that pin out while ya sleep!

Ethanol: it'll dissolve the winding on the fuel level sending unit over time, so the fuel gauge will stop working. It'll also start to break down any NOS rubber fuel lines, which can foul up the carburetor, as well as the diaphragm in the fuel pump, which will soften and tear. Fuel stabilizers may help to minimize the corrosive effects of the ethanol in our gasoline, but fuel system inspection & maintenance will have to be more vigilant than in the past because of our friend ethanol. Green antifreeze is adequate, the universal type won't give ya any extra cooling benefits. My opinion on the zinc-phosphate additives in motor oil debate is that I don't plan on putting so many revolutions on the flatheads I'm working on for it to make a difference. A PCV system & a 180 thermostat will do more good than any oil additive because this PCV/t-stat combination will drastically reduce sludge. I've had DOT 5 in the completely overhauled brake system on my '48 since '99. So far, the only leaks have been from a couple of flare ends that ain't cuttin' the mustard. All new lines & fresh rubber in the system probably have made the difference. I had originally tried to use NOS rebuild kits and flushed my original lines, but the result was the cylinder hones had too much pitting for the stiff rubber to seal, and the lines would rupture at inopportune times, making for an intermittent spongy pedal...YIKES

if yer running that motor at idle, it's gonna take forever and a day to get all of the air out. Throttle the motor up to 1200-2000 rpm up to and several minutes after reaching 180 to get that flathead to burp it out.

truck picture B-1-B-108: watering trees, got 200+ gallons of well water in the back over & behind the rear axle, backed the '48 down the side of the drive way, and that one wheel picked off of the ground fer a second

pull one of the mounting bolts out of the transmission, that'll give ya an idea of the size and ya can take it to the hardware store to match it. While you're at it, you can pull each bolt out one at a time to take a gander at it, then put it right back in, without having pulled out the transmission. Transmission removal and installation is fairly simple if ya take your time, prepare by studying the shop manual and have the right tools on hand. If you can take a dually wheel off & put it back on, then transmission R&I is just a tad more higher on the difficulty scale.

I picked up a trans.adapter that fits on the end of my 2ton floor jack from NAPA, I think it was $50, or make your own with some scrap steel & a chain. Make yer life easy by making some long pilot studs to back the transmission out and to slide it back in later. It probable wouldn't hurt to have a heavy rubber mallet or a dead-blow hammer on standby for persuasion if that transmission gets kinda wedged somehow.

I reckon that water pump shaft would have some end play, but that endplay would be measured in thousandths. A loose water pump shaft has been known to get the fan out of balance, eventually causing a vibrations in the fan blades that will cause the blade metal to tear near the mounting bolts. This could cause the blades to fly apart during operation, tearing up sheet metal and the radiator from the shrapnel. I learned this lesson while on a school trip when our advisor's Suburban's exploding fan left us stranded 30 miles from the nearest town, 15 years before cell phone's were in everybody's hands.

On second thought, an easier way to figure out the linkage lengths instead of doing pencil-and-paper calculations is to make a layout if ya have all of the parts. A significant amount of this will require standing on your head while looking under the dash, unless ya want to go to the trouble and fabricate a mock-up that can be used on a work bench. The electric motor crank arm has a "park" position and a "full sweep" position; the wiper crank has a "park" and a "full sweep" position also. Locate the park position for the motor, then the park position for the wiper. This will give the length of the wiper linkage bushing center points. Verify by locating the motor & wiper full sweep positions.

I found an electric wiper motor from a '53 and tried to install in into my '49 cuz its vacuum motor diaphragm was dry-rotted. This required some 4-bar linkage calculations that I was reeeally rusty at doing. The sweep angle increased and pivot point moved further away from the motor as the '53 wipers park horizontal. This means modifiying the wiper arm linkage because the motor crank arm length is different for the B-1s & B-3s. My first attempt had the wipers slapping the outside window frame. It took several more attempts before I had something that worked, although now that I've found a '48 windshield wiper motor & linkage, I'll be removing the '53 motor to put in my driver. Bottom line: swapping out the electric motors from a B-1 to a B-3 or vice versa isn't as easy as it appears because the wiper linkages will have to be fabricated. Once the linkage length is calculated, the bushing installation has to be accurate or the linkages will have enough slop in them that the wipers won't stay exactly synchronized, one appearing to trail the other and/or not having the same angle sweep.

I've been keepin' it under the X in T E X A S since '73...as summer draws to a close, we set the record with 87 days over 100; 44 days in a row over 100; 31 days in July over 100; 30 days in August over 100; and it got so hot that the local post office left me two notices in my box last month: an annual renewal notice, and notice that the post office may or may not be closing in the coming months

took some more pics last night before it got too dark...footing is treacherous in the field as we're in the worst drought on record with no end in sight. The black dirt (aka dark brown clay) crumbles/collapses under a moving load, and I've turned my ankles every time I roam out yonder...taking a few of these pics took several attempts as the ground would shift as I would shoot--YIKES

the cardboard in the truck is in purty sad shape, as the TX heat & humidity & varmints have taken their toll. The heater is an Aristocrat, one I've never seen before (see pics). I'm pondering how to get a paint chip to the PPG over the hill from work to see what the non-Dodge Truck Dark Green color is. I'm thinking I can remove the hood and take one of the wings in for them to sample, as under the hood is purt'near pristine. There is evidence that the wheels were the same light green color, which matches the color photo that Boss Hog has produced. Anyhow, that's the first challenge I'm gonna tackle with this truck is to get the paint colors figgered out. I have a few more trucks ahead of this one to fix up, so we'll see how this works out. In the meantime, I'm gonna keep on whittling away on the little stuff for fun

Something to consider is your electrical grounds on your truck. These trucks were riveted & bolted together, so there is a possibility that a cumulative resistance is building up once the truck heats up. one problem I ran into with the '49 was the original battery cables, which appeared to be in decent shape, were actually corroded between the copper strands throughout their lengths. This had a cumulative resistance that cropped up once the engine heated up, and hot re-starts were purt'near impossible. Replacement with new cables with soldered terminals practically cured the hot start problem. While trying to figure out this hot start problem, I removed the starter & took it to my starter/generator guy in town. He found no problems when he tested the starter, but he did volunteer that routing the chassis ground cable to one of the starter mounting bolts would provide for quicker starts compared to having the original ground located at the transmission housing. This coming from a guy who rarely spoke up about anything, so I took that piece of advice as words to live by. Another thing to consider for chassis grounds is the chassis construction. The frame is mostly riveted together; these rivets and the hole surfaces in the frame the rivets pass through corrode, increasing resistance. The transmission ground location is also a concern, as the path to ground from the starter alone has to cross threaded bolt surfaces that can corrode, further increasing resistance. It is summertime in my neck of the woods for practically 1/2 the year, so by late summer, the battery has to be recharged to overcome the resistance drags that still exist in my frame. A fix that works on paper is to locate short welds at frame member attachments to fuse the frame together rather than being clamped together with rivets. Also using a ground strap to the engine, cab, etc. from the frame should also improve grounding continuity.

check yer spark when cold, run engine until it starts to run afoul, then check spark again. If the spark starts white, then runs to a yellow, then yer coil is might be given ya the fits.

internal corrosion is implied if external corrosion is present. Steel tubing is subjected to harsh corrosive effects of humidity, salt spray, road chemical wash, etc. Brake fluid absorbs moisture over time, so the thin walls of the tubing are being attacked on two fronts. By the time the tubing outer surface begins to corrode, the internal surface has already begun to corrode. Much like stinky exhaust is indicative of a poorly performing engine that has sky-high carbon monoxide & NOx emissions (which are odorless), a rusty lookin' brake line is a corroded brake tube.

pull the air cleaner, shoot some ether starting fluid down the throat (1-2 second burst), immediately crank the starter, then ether again every 5 seconds during a 30 second start cycle