bkahler

Everything you wrote makes sense except for this last sentence. I didn't realize there were inclines in Texas?! 😁 Hopefully I won't have to go down this path, yet. My passenger side was still intact and back in the 90s I managed to find a truck with a good check strap retainer and I liberated it. Thanks! Brad

This year would be nice but I'd really like to be able bring my truck and I'm pretty sure it won't be on the road by April. There is a lot better chance of that happening next year!

One of these years I'd like to make it to the barbeque unfortunately it won't be this year. I'm hoping to retire at the end of this year which means 2022 or later is a distinct possibility Brad

Yep, I wish to heck I had installed the cowl vent before doing anything else with the cab. Even more so after installing the first seal only to find out it was a piece of crap and had to remove it. Latest seal came from VPW and is cut to length. Unfortunately, still not installed yet......

Forgot to mention the brake MC. I ended up used a Jeep Cherokee MC mainly because I had to do a rear end swap due to a bad ring gear so I ended up with a Jeep Cherokee differential with disc brakes. Since I was now going to have discs front and rear I figured a newer master cylinder would probably be appropriate. I made an adapter plate that put the new MC in the same spot as the old MC. Needed new plumbing and the pushrod need to be shortened. Brad

Jim, I finished the Rusty Hope installation a few months ago but have not driven the truck yet. The kit comes with the caliper mounting bracket that have been CNC cut out of plate steel. He also provides the necessary bolts to make the conversion. The calipers, rotors, bearings, brake hose, etc are purchased by you at whatever place you buy parts from. Personally I source mine from Amazon, ebay, the local parts store and probably a few other places as well. The kit comes with a complete list of parts needed and which vehicles they were sourced from.

What? Only one picture? If it was a photoshoot I would have expected a lot more pictures, even a few more of the truck would be nice....... 😂

Well crap This afternoon I was sorting out the spark plug wiring and it would appear I installed the oil pump incorrectly. I think it was early this spring that I had determined that the oil pump was installed incorrectly (wrong!]. I'm used to rebuilding Triumph sports car 6 cylinder engines where you set the distributor so the rotor physically points to the #1 cylinder. So when the dodge manual states "rotate crankshaft until distributor rotor is in firing position for number 1 cylinder." I interpreted that to pointing to number one cylinder. I guess

Worked on a couple of small projects this morning. First was for the carburetor mounting. The Rusty Hope dual intake has exceptionally large holes where the bolts go, .455" where .375" bolts are used. This allowed for a lot of slop in how the carburetor could be positioned. So I searched around online and found some .375" ID x .4375" OD x .555" long aluminum bushings. I had to trim about .120" off the length but they worked great as spacers to take up the slop in the bolt holes. The other task was to try and salvage the rubber sleeve

I would have loved to see those pictures. Any chance of reposting them?!

The ball joints on your mower are only 1/4"? That seems awful small.

The way I have it figured, this is the last time mine will ever look this nice. Unfortunately once I complete something I tend to neglect it and move on to something else. Just one of my many flaws I guess

Thanks Actually they are Dorman Throttle Ball Joints.

I made a slight change to the linkage for the carburetors. Originally I had two fixed links going from the pivot shaft to each carburetor. Thinking about it and looking around at what others have done I realized that there would be no way to synchronize the two carburetors together so I modified the arms to make them adjustable. I still have a little more work to do on the overall linkage but it's getting close Brad

I don't have any samples or pictures buy my 51 had the sewn seam down the middle as well. It was also the same light tan color. Brad