JBNeal

4WIW, the radiator in my '48 is thought to have come out of a much older Pontiac. That radiator had a center fill neck that had been removed and patched over, with the Dodge neck attached in the driver side of the upper tank. The Dodge mounting brackets had been grafted to the sides of the Pontiac, and it fit, barely. That radiator sat high in the engine compartment, with the tank less than an inch lower than the hood. I would not be surprised if these high sitting radiators were skillfully transplanted from some other vehicle back in the day when it was cheaper to fix stuff than to buy a replacement. I recall an old local garage commercial where these two knuckle-draggers would say "we'll make it fit"...

the ceramic coating absorbs heat so slowly that the heat in the exhaust gases escapes the manifold before significant heat exchange takes place. Aluminized exhaust pipes are similar in that they absorb heat slowly, but since aluminum is ductile, the pipes can be formed without damaging the surface coating.

Tractor dealers & suppliers sell the 2/0 cable by the foot, solder lugs can be ordered too. That pre-packaged battery cable at AutoZone is 4 gauge, about half the diameter that the 6 volt system requires.

A trick I learned when I lost 2 center caps off of my Dakota was to put RTV on the cap where it contacts the wheel/clip. I've also done this with my '02 Ram 2500 CTD 4x4 center caps after losing one of those li'l jewels. It appears the RTV doesn't glue the cap on as much as it fills the voids between the cap & the wheel/clip, vastly minimizing vibrations that would shake the cap loose. It's cheap, simple, and can be cleaned off & re-applied with new when servicing. IMO, it seems like it's harder to pry the caps off of the wheels because the cap doesn't want to pop off, it has to be worked loose to be removed.

When I got my '48 road-worthy, it was all over the road as the bias ply tires reacted to every lump & dip in the road; I quickly opted to limit my speed to under 45mph to keep from wandering into the ditch or into oncoming traffic. I did find that when I had about 1000# in the bed that the ride smoothed out considerably. After that load was removed, the rear seemed a li'l more under control, probably because the load had worked the springs loose after they had sat dormant for 20+ yrs. I spray those rusty leafs every spring and put a load on to work the springs loose. By comparison, my '02 Ram 2500 CTD 4x4 has a solid front axle, and WOW is that truck a handful compared to a 1/2 ton longbed. It's much smoother than the '48, but it's still a chore to keep it in a straight line compared to a lighter modern truck. [steering and suspension issues were repaired, yielding a truck that rode like a dream] Radial tires are helpful in smoothing out the ride. I've also heard of guys removing a leaf or two from their rear springs to smooth out the rear hop. New shocks would help too, so would setting the steering box & front end alignment in keeping the wheels to track straight. The spring bushings have a grease zerk on them for a reason, and if they are frozen or worn, then it's time for new ones. I reckon if each suspension component is addressed at the same time, then you'd recognize a change in handling. But as my dad told me, it's still a 50+ yr old pickup, so don't expect it to float like a Newport on the way to town.

If the insulation is falling off, then the wires will probably be corroded and that will increase your system resistance. It's time to replace that harness, perhaps with a temporary one made with rubber insulation. I replaced the harness on my '48 one wire at a time, long before I got a shop manual. The wiring diagram in the shop manual shows color & wire gauge; if ya wanna further decrease resistance, bump the wire gauge up to the next size, effectively broadening the electrical path of the circuit. But the 2/0 battery cables are plenty big as long as the starter is within arm's reach of the battery.

With #1 @ TDC, distributor rotor should be pointing around 7 o'clock position. If your vacuum advance was introducing a leak into the charged air, then the carb will need to be reset because it is now too rich. Turn your mixture screw all the way in, then back it out 3/4 to 1 turn. I recommend shooting a 1-2 second burst of ether down the carb with the choke open to give the fuel a little boost in the sparkability department.

are ya talkin' bout one of these...?

FOR SALE: low-side bed in Californee...any takers?

My experience has been to fill any gearbox about 3/4 full of grease, then after using for a few hours, the grease will 'settle' and then can be topped off. On PTO gearboxes, grease will be pushed up the gearbox wall, and then fall over onto the gears, coating them continuously if enough grease is in there. A short cut is to use a putty knife to scoop out the grease from its tube & force the grease into the gearbox (cover removed). Assemble, use for probably a hunnert miles (preferably on hot days), then top off as required with a grease gun.

The original drawer-type headlight switch is prone to internal corrosion that can boost resistance sky high. It's possible to run the switch back & forth a few dozen times to knock the corrosion down, but I went so far as to carefully disassemble the switch, clean the contacts, and add some dielectric grease to coat the contacts. The dimmer switch also is prone to internal corrosion, but since I could not find an easy way to disassemble the switch, I found a NOS unit on eBay (got lucky & only helled out ten bucks). Maybe that switch needs to be operated a few dozen times to work the corrosion loose. But the biggest culprit of all is a bad ground. I've run temporary ground wires to lights, switches, etc. from the battery to verify continuity, and most times I have found that the cumulative effect of corrosion at riveted & bolted joints can make for excessive resistance in the 6V circuit.

SURVIVOR S: took a few pics this weekend: the B-3 2 ton is no longer out in the field where it sat for many years, I reckon the new land owner sold it for scrap; I'll have to follow up on the B-1 that is covered with weeds as this was a goat feeder (no goats in sight nowadays); the B-1 grain truck had both front wheels yanked off, so I reckon the guy is working on it now; the B-1 sitting in the back yard has been there so long it has moss growing on it

Replacement cable should be 2/0 AWG, preferable with soldered lugs & terminals. One of the hardest lessons for me to learn about 6V systems after dealing with 12V systems all of my life boils down to Ohm's Law. The 6V system needs the least amount of resistance to operate, and even though my original cables looked OK, there was corrosion between the strands in the cable that had a cumulative effect that bumped up the resistance significantly, especially when the engine got hot during the TX summer. Also, corrosion at the terminals & lugs would do the same thing. So fresh conductors with sealed off terminals are ideal to minimize resistance, along with using the minimum length required to complete the circuit. Crimped or bolted terminals are ok for short term use, but eventually corrosion will begin to take place within the cable as sulfates begin to wick along the copper strands, and then you'll be cussin' the 6V system for being unreliable. Figure out where your battery will be located before investing in new cable assemblies. Originally, the positive ground cable was bolted to the top of the transmission. A simple upgrade is to use a starter mounting bolt as the location for the ground cable. This will ensure continuity and make for improved starter motor performance.

this got me curious, so I checked the '48 short bed, the '49 extra long bed & the '51 short bed out front: none had this cover. The short beds have the stamping so they don't need a cover, and the 1 ton is so wide that it doesn't need extra access. Makes me wonder if this is a California vs. Michigan thing...

I replaced all brake lines and sleeved the master & wheel cylinders, so I opted for the DOT 5 in the '48 1/2 ton back in '99...the brakes seem to be holding up with consistent firm pedal. If it weren't for a bad flare on one of my lines, I probably would never need to top off the master cylinder every few months. I repeated this with the '49 1 ton in '04 with similar results.

if I remember right, MTBE is on the way out because although it helps to clean emissions, it doesn't break down when it gets in the water supply and has been linked to problems akin to lead & mercury or the like. Ethanol & methanol will 'attack' most natural materials, but is not as deleterious to sythetic materials such as stainless steel alloys, EPDM rubber, etc. E-10 has quietly become used here in TX as in many other places as most cars on the road have the critical materials in their fuel system hardware that can handle the evaporative characteristics of this biofuel. The ethanol in E-10 is essentially a combustible filler that helps in producing cleaner emissions but does not substantially affect catalytic converters or oxygen sensors. The gasoline in E-10 has enough lubrication to overcome any drying effect that ethanol has on rubber components, so modern synthetic rubber can withstand contact. Natural rubber, on the other hand, will dissolve in time with contact to E-10.

My '92 D-250 CTD ran on 235/85R16 tires, and that is similar in size to the 7.50-16 tires. One of my plans, way way way down the road, is to find some D-250 rims, remove the centers from those, & replace them with the centers from my lock-ring rims. One thing I've noticed is that my single wheel one ton rims have a different offset than the dually one ton rims, and that offset is different from D-350 rims, dunno if the bolt circle is the same or not though. At any rate, I am wanting to get away from the lock rings because of the hassle of trying to get a simple flat fixed. I've already had to stop using two truck tire shops because those guys ding'd up my lock rings every time with their sledge hammers, and their attitude was...well, they were truck stops and I was throwing off their rhythm I reckon. But then again, some kid at Firestone ripped the bead while trying to fix the flat on my Ram 2500 CTD a few weeks ago & ruined that tire, so what can a dude do...

I put new sockets on the '48 as my wires were in similar decrepit shape. The pigtail that was on it had 3" leads, well short of the terminal block. I was able to remove the spades from the socket and removed the short leads from the crimp. I soldered new leads to the spade, being careful not to build up too much lead, and popped them back into the socket. Then I was able to have the leads go to the terminal block in about the same length as the old wires. I probably went overboard with the soldering approach, but since I was replacing the entire wiring harness, I figured I wanted to have as few butt joint splices as possible. On the '49, I went a different route as those wires were only bare in a few places. I would cut the old wire back just shy of the good insulation & splice on a new conductor, using electrical tape to cover the butt joint and about 3" over the old wire insulation. When done, I would tug on the tape a little to see if the old insulation would pull off of the conductor. In one case it did, so I re-worked that joint with a longer lead. I consider this a temporary fix as I want to replace the entire wiring harness when I do the cosmetic restoration on that beast.

I submerged the air filter in a bucket of diesel for about 3 days on the '48 & '49, both had been parked in a field in different parts of TX for more than 20 yrs...draining the filter into that bucket, they both dripped out a good chunk of residue. Rinsing in kerosene per the manufacturer's instructions might not get all the crud in the cellulose, and if the filter housing was 'dry' while the beast lie dormant, the thing might have filled up with bugs or dobbers' nests or the like. I am opting to convert to the paper element because some of us klutzenheimers have spilled a fair amount of that oil bath on the side of the truck or forgot to tighten the base bolt and spilled the contents on the motor rounding that first right turn. Either way, them things can make a mess, whereas the paper is a tad more forgiving.

a PCV system isn't necessary but it helps to keep those fumes in the crankcase from going to atmosphere. The road draft system does use a venturi effect to move gases, but the big problem is at idle to low speeds. Not enough vacuum is produced to fully extract blow-by gases, so a cloud of sorts forms in the crankcase. I have seen this while setting a loose idle screw as a greyish cloud would be wisping from the oil filler pipe & draft tube. Oil would drip from the draft tube, necessitating cardboard on the floor. And if I'm not mistaken, blow-by gases can dissolve into the crankcase oil, further contaminating the oil with NOx gases that can react with the hydrocarbons to produce all kinds of nasty stuff. The big advantage to the PCV system is that it is on demand all of the time. When routed correctly, PCV will draw gases at idle, at top engine speed, and all speeds in between.

that copper line goes to the vacuum wipers...in the 4th pic, this can be seen behind #5 spark plug. FYI: there are several variations on the 23" block intake manifolds. My '49 has the vacuum port for the wipers between #5 & #6 cylinders, as well as a port around #3 pointing towards the right front fender, but this one is larger, maybe 2-3 sizes up, with a bushing & a plug installed. I have a '53 flathead that has neither of these, but there is a casting belly-button in the same area as the '49 for the wipers, probably made by a plug inserted in the original mold to eliminate this port. The larger port was also moved to just below the carburetor flange. My assumption is that Chrysler decided to use one vacuum port on the intake manifold instead of two to reduce cost (one less hole to tap).

OOPS...I hadn't thought about dialup usage when I've posted pics in a thread. I reckon I'll do thumbnails from now on, after resizing them. I had been uploading photos to an album on my profile, but I reckon if I resize these pics from my camera I can get them down to the 80kb size and put together better photos in the gallery.

The 180 t-stat helps the engine get hot enough to evaporate any condensation in the crankcase. Adding a PCV system takes full benefit of the hydrocarbons put into a motor, as blow-by gases & evaporated water are forced out of the engine crankcase through the combustion chamber instead of being allowed to flash off by free convection. With moisture removed from the crankcase, sludge is much less likely to form. As for definitive proof, look into what military issue Power Wagons did on their flathead engines. All have a PCV system to keep moisture out of the engine from fording waterways. The added benefit of removing condensate from the crankcase was one of those accidental discoveries as engine maintenance showed with oil visibly containing less contaminants (black vs. dark brown). Chrysler even went so far as to issue several service bulletins concerning the use of PCV systems back in the late 40s. Vacuumatic crankcase ventilators were added to engines at dealerships, but I reckon Chrysler didn't add this at the factory because of the increased cost at the time.