JBNeal

On several farm PTO driven gearboxes I've worked on, I switched to Traveller lithium multi-purpose grease. It's thicker than gear oil, but thinner than higher quality wheel bearing greases such as Valvoline or StaLube. If the shafts are wore a little at the seals, the grease has a harder time leaking out than the oil. Also, any condensation that may form will bead up on top of the grease and can be removed easily with a paper towel at service intervals. The trick is submerging the gears with the grease. Turning the gears will force some of the grease up the walls of the gearbox, but vibration during vehicle travel eventually levels out the grease.

How'bout this li'l gem...anybody up for the challenge? It even has the optional hood ornament, heater & rear bumper!

Terrell Machine also sells valve guides & valves, as well as fuel pump rebuild kits. I took a day off & drove up to DeLeon and got visit the shop, it's a nice li'l operation.

Yep, washed the engine compartment on my '48 after I got it all put back together years ago...then got to pull the starter & later the generator back out to clean the innards as both stopped working. It seems that the oily residue that I wanted to clean off of the motor deposited itself on the brushes and resistance went sky high. On the bright side, this made for good practice as it only took about half the time to do this the second time around.

Here's a useful chart to take a gander at. I prefer using Chevron (green) or Valvoline (red) #2 wheel bearing grease, I've used it for years and it appears stable after lotsa hours of use. The Tractor Supply variety Traveller brand appears thin and I've seen it get slung out of high speed bearings. The #4 grade is excellent for lubricating speedometer & weedeater cables, it's thin but sticky. I've used #5 grease (yellow) to assemble gaskets on flanges and for other assembly chores, as well as slow moving bearings as it is very thick & sticky...it's kinda like RTV but takes much longer to dry out. When ya play around with enough grease lubricant, like concrete, you can go by feel as to how effective it will be for a certain application.

I had assumed that the gasket for the road draft tube would fit on the adapter but haven't done the research in the parts book to see if that was valid. At any rate, sealing the adapter should reduce crankcase contamination & reduce vacuum loss when the PCV valve is open.

ditto...t'ain't nuthin' to keep them rings from rotating, but statistically it'll take a while for the rings to all line up if the gaps are far from each other.

I hate to put a damper on yer enthusiasm, but ya might want to take a systematic approach to component inspection before sparking some charged air. If that engine has been sitting in the Texas heat for decades, odds are every seal from timing chain cover to rear main is crunchy and the valves might be gummed up in their guides. What bugs me about that truck is why was it parked in the first place, that kind of information would be gold. My '48 was parked for 20 yrs by my Dad cuz it ran fine but burned oil; turns out the rings were stuck, no internal damage. My '49 was parked purty much for the same reason for 20 yrs, as evidence to the crud I scooped out of the oil pan & water jackets. Both have leaky main & cover seals that I will need to address asap cuz I'm not allowed to park in certain driveways & local parking lots. A few suggestions to mull over: if the oil looks ok, see if you can drain it out & re-use it. If the pan plug can be removed but sludge is blocking it, see if ya can get the sludge out with like a coat hanger or other stiff wire. I've taken one, bent it so it can swing around inside the pan, and taken samples from the '48 to see if any crud has built up in the past ten years. Inspect the valve area for valve + lifter movement. If they are gummed up & there is lots of sludge in the chambers, get some good parts cleaner and a stiff nylon brush & have no mercy on the enemy. Getting that area moving freely is a must. Pull the distributor & soak the advance mechanism in Marvel Mystery Oil. Those little parts freeze up and you'll have heck getting the motor to run right. Cap rotor points condensor might be in order if they are too far gone. Odds are the vacuum advance diaphragm is toast, so don't expect too good of performance without replacement. I eventually sent my distributors off to a pro in Michigan who tore down, cleaned, serviced & tested them on the right equipment. It cost a few bucks, but so far so good... Remove the cover from the regulator & inspect the points. Clean, square points are best for the 6V system. The innerds might be full of spider eggs & whutnot and that will need to be blown out. I highly recommend pulling the generator & starter and taking them to be serviced by a pro. I had them take'm apart, cleaned them thoroughly, replaced all the critical parts with new, lubricated and tested for less than $75/each. With the exception of a starter pinion shearing after 5 years, those electrical parts have been trouble-free. Check with Bigham Implement or Williamson Cty. Equipment for recommendations if ya don't already have a guy. As for the carburetor, check the air horn for the model & order a kit. The kit will have an exploded view of the assembly, as well as installation instructions. Once disassembled, soak it in parts cleaner for a couple of days to get all the varnish & crud softened up. Get a small stiff wire, such as a strand form a copper wire, and snake out any visible passages carefully. Shoot compressed air in all of the passages, assemble & prime. The fuel pump will need the same attention, but this can be bypassed with a temporary gravity feed gas can. Anyhow, that's a lot of work but it will save a lot of headaches. It's not a full engine teardown, but it'll address some critical areas that can bring about a satisfactory end result.

I've done stick welding on sheet metal, with the electrode as the negative & ground as positive, following a method I read in an old welder's book. The trick is to stitch the weld to keep from burning through the base metals. Some older body work I've found appears to be done with oxy-acetyl, either done well or done marginally, but either way the base metals did not appear to have distorted or burned through.

Yep, it's do-able: Instruments are similar, but instrument housings are different.

Original wiring harnesses should be discarded, IMO, even if the conductors are intact. I've seen the cloth insulation rot away inside the factory electrical tape sections and things get kinda warm & gooey after that. A battery disconnect is a great idea, especially if the vehicle isn't driven every day. A simple knife switch from the battery to the ground cable works on my IH diesel tractor. I reckon I'm gonna try to put one on the firewall of the Dodge to have an engine compartment accessible emergency shutoff. Most of the lights & gauges are grounded to the chassis, and this is a problem whenever any corrosion is present. The 6V systems don't have enough oomph to overpower the added resistance, and this affects light & guage performance. I've run a separate ground lead from the fuel level sending unit to the battery, which has yielded more accurate gauge readings. I plan on running a ground lead to all lights, especially the brake lights.

'48 B1B108: bought new by my great grandfather, was his first new farm truck when he was 68. My first memories are of riding in that truck when I was still in diapers. Dad parked it by the barn in '78 cuz it was burning oil and the brakes were iffy and he didn't have the time to fix it & farm 1000 acres by himself. I was told when I was 13 that if I fixed it up, I could have it. I had been fixin' up lawnmower flatheads & furniture, so I graduated to workin' on a bigger flathead with a windshield. '49 B1D126: saw it on eBay back in early '01 but didn't bid on it. It showed up several more times during the summer, so I emailed the owner who was in the Panhandle, a good day's drive just to get there. His health had started to deteriorate, and he didn't have the energy to fix up that hulk after years of trying to get started on it. So end of September, I went up there & picked it up...paid too much for it, but live & learn I reckon. That guy had it for 5 years, where his cats hung out during the winter (I'm guessin' that's why I don't have any problems with rats getting into that machine parked next to a corn field). The guy who owned it before him was the son of the original owner, who parked it in '84 after years of farm use in western Oklahoma. '53 B3B116: Parts truck that my neighbor told me about. The previous owner had dismantled it to hot-rod it; tossed the drivetrain, stripped all the sheetmetal, primed all but the back of the cab, then lost interest in '02. It sat rotting in his mother's front yard and was slated to be hauled to the junk yard because his mother was going into a nursing home and her house was being sold to make way for an elementary school. '51 B3B108: Parts truck I spotted in 2000 in a Waco salvage yard stacked on top of two Tradesman vans. The yard owner told me it wasn't for sale because it had been sold to a guy in Florida. In 2008, I saw it out front of the same salvage yard...when I asked the owner what happened to the guy in Florida, he just looked at me funny. I then talked him down to half the price he was asking for it to keep it from going to the crusher. '52 B3B108: found here (thanks tonybiel) with complete drivetrain and a title; grille is from a B1/B2, bed is a low-side that has seen better days...thinkin'bout takin' what's left of the '51 and putting on this one. '51 B3D126: found here (thanks jakenoklahoma)...it needs a little work '53 B4B116: found on CL (Mansfield) listed for $1 by an older gent with medical issues...in surprisingly good shape for a truck that's been baking in the TX sun for over half a century '48 B1D116: found on CL (Marble Falls) listed for a few bucks by a kid who was under orders by the city to clean up his property...the Dodge car engine has all kinds of cracks in it from maybe being dropped off of a bridge or something, the interior is gutted, the bed wood is long gone, and there's not a lick of paint on it, but the rims & original early '48 bed fenders are in good shape. '50 B2D116: found on CL (Dallas) listed for a few bucks, worked out a trade for a spare cab and a couple of doors...the Dodge car engine isn't running but turns, the grille, rims & some of the interior parts are salvageable, the rest is "practice material"

The dimmer switch is supplied voltage from the headlight switch and directs it to the low beams or to the high beams + dash indicator. With a multimeter, check continuity between two of the three terminals. Toggle the dimmer switch; if continuity stays, then those two terminals are your output to the lights.

that sounds alot like how "Hansel & Gretel" got in trouble

BTW another advantage of drilling out with progressively larger bits is that the metal will gradually get hotter, causing some expansion of the surface of the threads. On some occasions, I've drilled on a busted bolt and eventually the remains of the bolt grabbed the sides of the bit...I then was able to back out the bolt with the drill bit, just like an extractor would.

How'bout some teflon tape on the tube nut threads, that might help. I fudged a li'l bit & put some teflon on the end of the tube just shy of the flare, then teflon on the nut. If your flares have any distortion or tears, they won't seat on the brass mating surface cleanly. Brass is supposed to form to steel taper threads, but I've found that a li'l teflon fills in any gaps that might form.

if ya look close at the pic of the tipped-over air filter housing, the carb.mounting gasket is directly below it on the fuel pump splash guard. This gasket is found in a Fel-Pro gasket set, probably 3/32" thk rubber or thereabouts. Your plastic 'crush' gasket sounds just as good, if it doesn't deteriorate from heat+vibration.

I went so far as carefully prying the tabs open and cleaning the innerds real good with rubbing alcohol, let air dry, then coated with the dielectric grease and put back together...did the same thing with the headlight switch. If'n that don't work, you can always bypass this switch & wire directly to the headlight switch...that way, when ya hit the headlights, the panel lights fire up too, just like in modern automobiles.

I had a smoking problem on the '48 a couple of years ago...I drove it into town to run some errands, and I keep it under 40 because of the roads & the traffic. The first hard right I make into a business driveway brought a li'l smoke into the cab, and the stench of gear oil. Upon further inspection, it looks like I forgot to tighten that li'l screw to the air cleaner:

I reckon if the carb was running rich, you'd have black smoke out the tailpipe and there'd be soot in that area too, as well as the spark plugs being a li'l dry carbon fouled. I ain't seen bearings do that before, but it sure looks like the bearing materials are delaminating. The oxidation you cleaned off with steel wool might have been an indication that there had been some chemical damage to the bearings, but that's just a guess. Another thing to consider is the placement of the rings on the piston. I remember reading somewhere that the oil ring gap should be in one location, and the other rings should be located 90° from each other. If the ring gaps were too close, then I reckon some oil burning took place, although that would show up on the spark plugs. Check the pistons & rings thoroughly for any pits, cracks or pitting. My guess is that some of the rings will show some damage from contacting loose material from the bearings, if they got up that far. If the cylinder walls are undamaged, then clean up the pistons and re-use.

a few questions: what kind of assembly lube didja use? didja have the rod #s facing the valve side? were the bearing holes aligned with the holes in the rods? were the holes cleaned out with a small stiff wire? were the clearance specs noted within tolerance? whut kind of break-in procedure didja use once the engine was assembled? but then again, I don't see much streaking or discoloration of the bearings, they appear to be hammered & spalling. I'm curious what the pistons look like for any signs of detonation...anyhow, good luck with the repairs

Good shocks also help with braking. When brakes are applied, the shocks absorb the inertia of the frame + body as it wants to continue in the same direction as it had been travelling. Poor shocks will allow the frame + body to lurch about as the springs travel unfettered, increasing braking distance. This is a similar to hauling a large liquid container that is half full; the sloshing of the liquid has a pulsating effect on braking.

Thanks GTK for this forum...it gives me an opportunity to learn what I need to know & share what I have learned over the years. I'm glad to see that li'l story I sent ya about 'road timing' is on the P-15/D-24 site...it came up at my grandfather's funeral a couple of years ago, and everyone there got a good laugh, those that had heard the story the first time as well as those who were present for such exhilaration.

I don't recall the price, but it was up thar, something like $700 for the whole truck...this was back in '98 and I didn't have a lot of choices available, just what I could find in the Hemmings ads. The advantage I bit on was that the brass sleeving was not as apt to corrode as cast iron would. My cores were ravaged with pitting from sitting so long in a humid environment, and Roberts & Bernbaum & NAPA cost about the same for new. They cleaned them up, sleeved them & replaced all the innerds, good as new.

That's the thing with old hydraulic brakes: you fix one leak, another one pops up somewhar else if'n ya don't replace everything with new. I replaced lines on the '48 after honing the master & wheel cylinders and still had a spongy pedal. Finally bit the bullet and had all the cylinders sleeved by White Post. They told me that the master cylinder & the rear half cylinders were all out of tolerance for the piston cups to seal properly, so fluid was slowly leaking past the sealing lip when pressure was applied. It cost a purty penny, but I had addressed the entire brake system (except the pedal itself) and now it's worry-free braking. When I did the '49, I didn't even bother honing anything, just sent every cylinder to White Post. On both trucks, I went with DOT5 since all the rubber was new; so far, so good...if it weren't for a weeping line on both trucks, I probably wouldn't have to top the MC off at all. Anyhow, I reckon since ya fixed that one leaky fitting that the tolerance issue may have been amplified. I reckon I spent more $$$ on brakes than on the fuel tank & engine compartment combined...Dad told me to focus on the stopping before the going, and the going before the showing. It was a tough pill to swallow when I was 15, but patience paid off as every time I stomp on the brakes, I can do it with confidence.