bkahler

The cutout on the blue panel is slightly different than the cutout on the red panel. Do I win the prize?

The exhaust flange gaskets are supposed to arrive today so I believe the exhaust system will be complete sometime this weekend. Stay tuned.....

Thanks! I'm hoping the final install will have the tail pipe closer to the frame rail which would uncover both holes but at least I know which one I can't block. My truck didn't have the hanger when I bought it, I had to scrounge through several junk yards and talk to Larry Frank to get all of the parts I needed.\

Quick question. I'm really close to finishing the muffler and tail pipe installation and I noticed that there are two holes for the spare tire hanger bolt. For 1/2 ton trucks which hole is used? The last thing I want to do is block the hole with the tail pipe! Thanks

While I'm pondering whether to mount to floor or seat frame I'm curious how many of you use retractable lap belts vs non-retractable lap belts. At the moment I'm thinking non-retractable. All of the retractable lap belts that I've seen require the use of plastic sleeves to keep the ends of the belt up high enough for the driver/passenger to reach them. That just doesn't seem like it would be to convenient to me. The reason I haven't made up my mind on whether to mount to the floor or the seat frame is due to the anchor point required. The anchor point might be to far behind where the seat tube is located. There are things I can do to overcome that but in the end is it worth the effort when all I really need to do is drill four holes in the floor board?! ? As you can plainly see, I have WAY to much time on my hands at the moment

? About the only air bags you could fit to a Pilothouse would be some bags for the cab to ride on.....?

The addition of a fore-aft support makes sense and probably wouldn't be that difficult to add. I will need to make my mind up soon as to whether or not I want to go this approach because I'm scheduled to take the seat frame to the painter Friday! I'm not sure about the 2 additional mounting points to the cab. The seat frame has to be adjustable fore and aft. Yes, this would only be for lap belts. I think if an accident occurs that is violent enough to rip the seat frame from the cab will likely be violent enough that I won't need to worry about much after the fact. Having been in a high speed roll over (2-1/2 flips) and walked away from it I'm pretty sure if an accident like that happened with this old truck the results would be considerably different. There's a lot to be said for the safety features in modern vehicles.

If I remember right the stock GM mechanical pump puts out around 6 psi. The surprising thing is on a 31 foot motorhome it's pulling from the tank which is about 20 feet away. That's a long stretch for a mechanical pump to suck fuel from the tank, through an electric pump no less when the pump is off. The real reason for the addition of the electric pusher pump is for grades. The engine requires so much fuel the mechanical just can't keep up.

I should add I think the return line concept is an interesting one. I have a 1994 Cushman Truckster that has a little 22 hp motor using a Walbro carburetor. It came with an electric pump and a return line setup from the factory. The fuel filter itself had the return line port which makes for a very simple arrangement.

I'm curious as to how you would implement a return line? My assumption is a return line needs to be directly fed into the tank which means you would have to add another port to the tank. Is there another way to run a return line?

This is not true. I know of many motorhome owners who have the Carter P4070 pump on their motorhomes and they only turn the pump on when they approach a grade or when first starting the vehicle. Normally they just rely on the mechanical pump for operation. I don't run my pump that way but it does indicate that you can pull fuel through the Carter pump when it is turned off.

Recently I've been prepping the seat frame and seat tracks for installation in the cab. While looking at the seat frame it occurred to me that a possible location to fasten the lap belts would be the rear lower horizontal cross tube. The reason I bring this up is I was recently working on my motorhome and it came to me the seat belts on the dodge truck could be mounted similar to how RV seat belts are installed. With the RV seat pedestal the belt is attached to the the horizontal bar. If the seat assembly is separated from the vehicle the seatbelt stays with the seat. I guess in my mind I see the horizontal tube on the dodge seat frame being equivalent to how the seat belts are fastened on the RV seats.

Just got a text from the upholstery shop. Seat cushions are ready to be picked up! If weather holds I hope to pick them up Friday or Saturday

I finally managed to weld the two flanges to the down tubes yesterday. For some reason my camera didn't focus very well on this shot. Probably because the welds aren't some of my best I suppose the good news is that you can't really see the welds once they are installed ? I went to install the pipes and found the gasket that was sent with the kit was not correct for the front pipe. The front down turn on the manifold is kind of an odd size so I ended up spending a bunch of time searching for one that will work. I think I found one and it's on order but I don't know when it will arrive. Hopefully by the end of the week.... In the meantime I'll go ahead and assemble the exhaust system so I can figure out the muffler orientation and hanger locations.

Based on that drawing 78-1/2" is the original design height. Looks like mine is sitting about 1/2" to tall but once the sheet metal and bed are install I should be pretty close to design height. That's cool

Yep, that's it

Hmm, one of these is not like the others....

I just measured my 51. Currently the truck is a rolling chassis with the cab installed and all of the drive train and radiator. No sheet metal, no bed, etc. With that in mind it sits less than 80" to the top of the cab, probably more like 79". Also, for reference I have 7" between the top of the front leaf spring to the underside of the frame rail. Those numbers should give you a good idea. Oh yeah, the wheels are 16" with P225/75 radial tires. The diameter of the tires is very close to the original bias ply size.

My 51 B3B just fits under a 7 foot garage door.

My experience with Carter pumps have been just the opposite. They are the only ones I've found to stay running.

Here's where I mounted the electric pusher pump. It's a Carter P4070 pump. (Should have mentioned, it's a 12 volt pump)

That truck sounds great! Getting the stack over to the driver side definitely took some plumbing. Could you post a picture of the exhaust side of the engine?

It's a round muffler. I've been struggling a little in orienting the muffler. For one thing the down pipes provide a fixed point in space for where the inlet to the muffler needs to be. The way I currently have it with the inlet lower than the outlet keeps the tail pipe up closer to the frame. I'm not sure if that's good or bad and at the moment it looks like the hangers might not fit properly, i.e. to short. Until I get the down pipes welded to their respective flanges it's kind of a juggling act to get things to fit together. Once they are welded I'll have a fixed point in space that is solid and I can actually hang the muffler and play with the orientation of the inlet and outlet. Basically once the welding of the flanges is done the rest should sort of fall into place. That's the hope anyway

Taxes makes sense. I guess even though I never noticed any Gross Weight tags on the sides of trucks in Nebraska doesn't mean they weren't used, I just don't recall ever seeing any. Brian's point about getting pot holes filled is valid but I often wonder just much of the actual taxes collected to fill the holes actually make it to the pot holes ?

Yes and no. You can't feed it a straight 12 volts but you can use a ballast resistor to drop the voltage to the coil.