jeffsunzeri

Like everyone's mentioned, your problem is almost certainly the accelerator pump. I'll assume you're not familiar with carburetors, so a little explanation is in order. When the throttle is opened quickly, the carb gets too much air too quickly. To compensate for the excess air, the carburetor has an "accelerator pump". The accelerator pumps mission is to add an extra bit of fuel just as the extra bit of air is being admitted, and prevent the lag you are experiencing. To see if your accelerator pump is working, do as Reg mentioned: remove your air cleaner, open the choke, and look down the carburetor as you move the throttle from closed to wide open, fairly quickly. If you find it has failed, carburetor cleaning and rebuild is in order.

The D6U1 is original fitment to your 1953 Cranbrook. D6U1 is the critical number to identifying the appropriate rebuild kit.

The draft tube is held in place by a bolt. You unscrew the bolt, and the assembly comes free. It is meant to be cleaned as a maintenance item. The filter in it is meant mostly to keep stuff out of the engine. A clogged draft tube is unlikely to cause smoke on deceleration. It would have to be blocked off almost completely to cause much of a problem, and that problem would be excess breathing through the filler tube.

Smoke out the tailpipe on acceleration (more than on deceleration) indicates worn rings, bore, and possibly pistons (sometimes a cracked block or head can be the problem too, but that's less likely). Since the oil quality and age are somewhat suspect, I'd do an oil flush and change hoping that will free up any sticky, clogged oil scraper rings. If after that your oil consumption is no more than a quart every 800-1000 miles, and the engine is running well and not fouling plugs, you could just live with it. Let us know what happens after the oil flush/clean/change.

Your compression readings are likely high because of the engine speed while taking the readings. With the plugs removed, you will get higher readings as the engine turns over faster. Yes, your oil rings could be worn or gummed up and this may be causing the oil smoke. Before you go there though, you need to answer a couple of questions about the smoking: - Does the most smoke occur when accelerating? or - Does the most smoke occur when decelerating? or - Does the most smoke occur when the engine is completely warmed up, or even when slightly hot after a hard run, and it smokes on both acceleration and deceleration and a bit from the oil fill tube? - Has an oil change made any difference in smoking behavior? The answer to these questions will lead you to the most likely condition and culprit.

No. The flathead is a plain-bearing engine like OHV engines you may be more familiar with. No roller bearings or ball bearings to be concerned with. The best way to determine whether your oil type and grade is ok in your engine is to monitor your oil pressure, and make sure it remains well within factory specifications.

It's sort of disheartening to hear of the lack of MoPar at Pomona. I've never attended and now I'm not so sure I'll make the trip down there. I know it's the biggest on the West Coast and I would expect to see a lot of MoPar stuff, but it sounds like the same stuff as shows up at GoodGuys shows - Chevy, Shivvy, Chevvy, Chevrolet, and some GM, dusted with a little Ford and Pontiac. A couple years ago one fellow had a small booth of nothing but MoPar stuff and he did quite well. It became the hangout-of-the-day for a couple dozen guys seeking refuge from endless Delco, 350/350, Rochester, GM stuff. For years we've had the MoPar Alley show in the Bay Area, and frankly, if you're looking for pre-60's stuff it is very sparse. I went to the Spring Fling MoPar show a couple of times in So Cal with high expectations, and it's about the same as the MoPar Alley get together. Lots of muscle car stuff, almost nothing for flathead powered vehicles. I'm thinking this may be a good excuse to gather up all the spare parts laying around and go sell at these meets. Who knows - it could start a trend!

Seems like there are a number of "Champion Haters" and "NGK Haters" and so forth. All of them cite lots of experience with plugs going bad too soon, misfiring out of the box, or there being duds right out of the box. The truth is that spark plugs fail for any number of reasons, the most common is mishandling, and right after that is mis-application. You can never tell who has dropped or slammed a box of plugs in the trip from the manufacturer to your car's fender, and dropping a plug frequently leads to interior failures that you will never be able to see and may not be apparent immediately. There is some overlap in heat ranges across manufacturers, so being at peace with a particular spark plug can sometimes take a little experience with a particular motor. Champions are fine spark plugs. So are NGK. So are Autolite. So are Bosch. So are Delco. So are...

There are several block-sealing (also listed as head gasket sealing) compounds available such as KW, Steelseal, Kseal and others. Some are easier to use than others. READ THE INSTRUCTIONS! They all work and make permanent seals if the crack is not too big. These are commonly used in sleeved engines.

You can certainly drive the car 19 miles to start the rebuild. It's going to need one with that scoring in the cylinder. Are all the cylinders scored like that? The slight discoloration at the edge of the piston may indicate pre-ignition and/or overheating. Although the engine will run in that condition, and it may actually be smooth and seem ok, that condition will cause overheating and rapid wear as well as oil breakdown due to blow-by. The faster you run the engine, the faster it will wear and break, overheat, or seize. The scoring can be a result of bad air filtration, oil breakdown and dirt in the oil, or poor/incorrect piston and rod installation orientation. The sad news is that now that its .060 over, you may be at the end of that blocks useful life. Some blocks can take an .080 overbore without sleeving, and others won't. It's hard to tell from a picture, but it seems like those scores won't hone out and another bore or another block is in your future.

You can use this site as a good conversion table: http://www.sparkplug-crossreference.com/ RJ12's will work. You don't need a resistor plug, so anything from a J8 to a J12 will do as well. Check the plug color after running a few miles to see if the heat range is good in your motor.

"Sounds like he may have access to one as an aircraft mechanic where cleaning spark plugs is apparently standard practice." Correct. "How many miles/years are you now getting on your correctly cleaned spark plugs? I am curious just how cost effective it is to buy such a cleaning machine????" In vintage automobile applications, it's not cost effective at all. I don't replace the plugs in the flathead until the spark plug body is badly corroded. I keep several sets of cleaned plugs on hand and just switch them out from the "to be cleaned" bucket to the "tested and ready to install" bucket. I never throw out old plugs anymore until I've inspected them and run them through the cleaner/tester. I do maintain quite a few old engines, so it works out well for me. In vintage motorcycle applications it seems like I switch out plugs about every 1,000 miles, sometimes more (a lot more) depending on what type of bike, engine and application. Most of the aircraft engines I support use either 14 or 18 spark plugs per engine, and some are twin engine airplanes. The cost of each spark plug is about $30. Without cleaning, each plug would require replacement about every 100 - 150 hours or so. With cleaning, 500 to 700 hours or more of service is common. Champion charges about $3,500 for their current machine, other brands can be as low as $600. Abrasive runs $10-20 a bag. Being a restoration guy, I bought an old inoperable Champion unit off eBay for $100 or so and restored it about 10 years ago. Prior to that I used one in a friends shop. It's a great tool.

"I see on the Tech film strip about performance over at the Imperial site that Chrysler told their mechanics to use a spark plug cleaning machine but cautioned not to leave them too long as it could damage the porcelain. I've seen other recommendations saying never to use a media blasting type cleaner as it not only can damage the porcelain but leave debris in between the insulator and the shell." Spark plug cleaning machines use an abrasive to clean the tip of the plug. The (best) abrasive is supplied by Champion and is meant specifically for plug cleaning. The machine also provides a step for cleaning the tip after the abrasive blast to make sure no abrasive remains. The machines provide testing apparatus which supplies voltage to the plug while the plug tip is in a pressurized chamber. We're not talking about the under-$40 'cleaners'.

"How difficult would it be to make spark plug and distributor coil wires. Might be better than what is available today and maybe even save me a few $$ for my paint budget." On a scale of 1 - 10, it's probably a number 3 task, where doing an automatic transmission overhaul to new specs might be a 10, and changing a spark plug on a flathead Plymouth would be a 1. You can get better quality plug wire than is generally available in kits when you buy in bulk. I prefer Packard 440 cable for older cars and trucks. Rubber boots of various configurations are available as noted above, and you will get a better look than using those available in kits meant for V-8's. Installing the terminals is made easier and a professional job can be done using the proper crimping plier, a necessary expense I feel. Finally, for cleaning spark plugs, a professional spark plug cleaner-tester is usually available at most aviation engine shops. Aviation plugs are frequently cleaned and tested rather than replaced due to cost of new plugs. Most all of the cleaners use a rubber seal appropriate to the spark plug size (18mm or 14mm) to accommodate either automotive or aviation plugs. The machines do an excellent job, but are very costly to purchase. In my shop I charge $1 to clean and test an automotive plug.

I'm not much of an expert on the pilot house trucks, but I believe the chassis and suspension is very similar if not fundamentally the same as the earlier Job Rated trucks with which I am very familiar. Checking and adjusting the front end and rear suspension on these is about as simple as it gets. There is no caster/camber adjustment with the kingpin arrangement. All there is to check is toe-in and centered steering. All you need to do this is some straight edges, measuring tape and a flat floor and the factory manual. At some point I wonder why you want your 60 - 70 or 80 year old vehicle to behave like a 21st century vehicle. If that's the ultimate goal, why not buy a ToyotaSanUndaiChev and take some photos of an old truck and make some vinyl wraps from the photos and put the wraps on the modern truck so it will look old and there you go.

Under development since 2010 and now available in the U.S. a flathead six. http://www.dmotorusa.com/

Do NOT blast this. Do NOT wire-wheel it. Even if you don't live to regret it, the next caretaker certainly will. It sounds like it doesn't have an old re-spray on it now, which is good. The best process will be to sand the old finish using good air tools or by hand. Using high quality wet sandpaper this will go amazingly fast. Once you get to an even old finish, or bare metal, use a good epoxy primer. Blasting body panels warps metal, removes too much metal indiscriminately, and creates a surface that requires too much primer and filler, which can never be properly restored. Confine any blasting to frame and other really thick parts such as the engine block. Don't become a DPO!

Vintage Power Wagons, Roberts, Rock Auto, and I'm sure there are others who sell online. I've found the best deal is a local friction/relining shop. Most big cities have at least one shop that specializes in applying friction material for clutches as well as brake shoes for all sorts of industrial and agricultural as well as automotive purposes. They are usually very cost effective too. Smart ass answer: Johnston & Murphy.

Some test procedures you may find helpful: 1.) Test each horn individually. Disconnect wires at the horn. Using a fully charged battery and 2 test leads, momentarily connect the positive lead to one terminal on the horn and the negative lead to the other terminal. The horn should beep at full volume. Some horns have only one terminal, and are grounded by the mount. In that case use the mount as one of the terminals. 2.) Test the relay individually. Disconnect the wires going to and from the relay. Using the same battery and leads from the horn test, clip the positive lead to one of the input terminals. Touch the negative test lead to the other input terminal. You should hear the relay switch make contact. To make sure the contact is good, connect your volt meter to the outlet terminals on the relay confirming a full 6 volts. Sometimes relay input/output terminals are not marked and you have to do some testing to determine what terminals require ground and power. While the relay is disconnected, use your ohmmeter to check continuity of the wire leading to the relay from the horn button or ring. You should see continuity to ground only when the button or ring is pressed. If you see continuous ground, you have a short in the horn wire from the button or ring.

Notice the use of the crankshaft nuts with engagement dogs to enable hand-cranking.

Tom - while the group here is extremely helpful, there is a Yahoo group dedicated to the 39-47 pickup: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/39-47Dodge You will find numerous photos and a high level of expertise for your pickup, similar to the high level of expertise for the Pilot House pickups found here. Sounds like you've got a great project going!

There are 2 types of distributor cap: one is about 3 5/8 diameter and the other is about 3 1/8 in diameter. Trying to fit one type of cap on the wrong distributor will be immediately obvious.

"There are differences between the truck and the car bellhousing to wit: 1. the car bell housing and tranny rest upon a cross member white the truck bellhousing rests on mounts attached to the frame rails. 2. the car brake and clutch pedals are mounted to the frame while the truck pedals are mounted to the clutch housing. 3. The front mounts are so similar so that that is not a concern, attach that mount then work in the back. 4. Fuel pedal linkages may work. . ." That's a bunch of work.... The '35 Dodge truck above has a nice setup that the B3B can't readily take advantage of due to the frame cross-member on the later trucks. I've been looking into GearVendors overdrive (Laycock) units for 1947 and earlier pickups. It's an excellent unit in all regards and well supported. The things you may have to do to install the GV (or equivalent) OD unit (Gear Vendors offers a lot of options, so this is just one way to do it): 1. You'll want to maintain the hand brake setup, so fabricate an extended linkage for this. 2. Modify the frame cross-member just behind the transmission to allow the installation of the OD and re-located brake. 3. Re-locate the gas tank to just forward of the rear frame cross member (where the WD-1 and Power Wagons have them). The most difficult part of all this is the modification to the cross member to accommodate the extra 16 inches or so of OD unit.

I think you'll find a fiberglass-blade (flexible) fan a better replacement than an electrical one. Circuitry for the electric fan and it's switches can be problematic and they (the electric fans) are noisy.

A word of caution: Be very careful in selecting the wire for your re-wire job. You may know about this if you are electrically savvy, but just in case it's worth repeating. You need to select wiring not just on gauge size, but number of strands as well. The type of wire and insulation is also very important. All 14 gauges are not equal in all respects. The AWG size refers only to the equivalent of a solid wire. For stranded wire, a second number indicates the number of strands, such as 14/7 which would indicate 14 gauge made up of 7 strands. Count the number of strands of the wire you will be replacing. When purchasing new wire, try to use just one supplier and use a comparable strand count as OEM. Cheap wire typically has cheap insulation. Aircraft grade wire is meant for aircraft installations, not automotive. Although of higher quality insulation and wire, it is not meant for the automotive environment, especially where flexing is required. Gauge is assumed to be AWG sizing. Much imported wire is not sized to AWG sizes, and is approximated. Before undertaking a re-wire job I like to have all the wiring on hand and from the same supplier so I don't run out of one size or color, and have to source from a second supplier. Buy the best terminals you can afford and use the best expensive crimping tool available. Just my personal preference, but do not leave the color coded blue/red/yellow plastic visible on the connectors. Cover them with black shrink tubing for a professional job. Nothing shouts "AMATEUR" louder than a bunch of red and blue crimp connectors under the hood.