JJs 1948

George, The decals came with the truck but I believe the previous owner bought them from Roberts.

Dave, I found the fresh air duct on Ebay last fall. I had enough left over and Charles Furman bought it. I bought it for a good price, if memory serves me correctly, for about $30. The duct was reproduction that was made sometime in the 60-70's. I sent the original box to Charles and he might still have it to get a name from it. What ever I paid I just split the cost for the left over duct. Maybe someone else has some.

Thanks grey beard. Pulling the inner fender was probably easier for me with my truck having been just put back together with new paint and nuts and bolts. Wish I had a video of the adjusting job and knew how to post it on the forum. One nice tool his father had, which he doesn't have, was a set of feeler gauges that had a set on each end of a long handle. Your hand was away from the hot manifold. This type of feeler gauge was more common for working on the flat head engines during that time.

Probably the more experienced folks will have the correct answer about the oil filler cap's vent tube. I've seen them on vehicles and one Pilot-House owner told me he prefered that type of cap to help keep fumes away from the engine and cab. I do have one that came with extra parts for my truck but stayed with what was originally on the engine. Just let me know if you want the floor before mid November. After that, the winter weather may cause the floor removal to wait for spring. Also, no problem if you don't want the floor. I've read in Don Bunn's Pilot-House book that Fresh Air Systems are fairly rare but have no idea what percentage of truck owners here on the forum have what options. Might be an interesting survey idea.

Welcome austinsailor, I see you have the "Fresh Air System" on your truck. That is a nice option to have. Your going to have some fun with your truck. I think the floor pan from my parts truck might work for you. I do have an extra trans cover also. I can cut it out and ship it if you are interested. Let me know. Just have to pay shipping cost. Jeff

From what I understand, the hose on the oil fill pipe is usually there to take the blow-by exhaust gas down and away from the engine. Most instances were to get rid of the fumes or smoke so it didn't get into the cab. Smoke coming out of the oil fill pipe in volume enough to dirty the engine probably means a rebuild is eventually needed but people would buy a vent cap and vent the fumes down and out to prolong doing any major engine work.

For anyone interested and in the area; Yipsilanti, Michigan is having a vintage truck show at Depot Town on October 3rd. If weather permits this is usually a well attended show. Held at Riverside Park along the Huron River. There will be a number of vintage fire trucks there because Depot Town is home to a large firefighter museum. Look it up on the web for more info. I'll be there with my blue 48 B-1-B. Hope to see another Pilot House member there. Jeff

Searched the forum some last night about adjusting valves on our flathead six's and thought I could pass on a recent experiance I had on the subject. Adjusted the valves when the engine was cold and had not been started yet after it's rebuild. Went thru them about three times. Started the engine for the first time and could hear one loud tappet with the rest of them clicking away ok. Adjusted them again with the engine stopped but hot and went thru the adjustment two and three times more on all the valve tappets. Sounded better but still had a noisy tappet and slightly rough idle. Asked a antique car mechanic friend to come over and check my engine. He found the idle jet was missing in the carb, put one in, and that smoothed out the idle pretty well. We made plans to adjust the valves another time which he said had to be done with the engine running. I thought, "no way, that will be a huge oily hot mess" but I did see that in the repair manual. So, a few nights ago, with the engine hot, putting the front end on jack stands, removing the front left tire and inner fender panel, we were ready. By the way, the inner fender panel comes off easily with some hard tugs. Started the engine after removing the valve covers and slowed the idle down about as slow as possible. He took his feeler guage and bent the ends down about 1 inch from the end to help avoid the exhaust manifold burning the knuckles, .10 for intake .14 for exhaust. The valves move slow enough that you can check their gap after getting use to the valve movement. Remember, slow the idle speed way down. As the valves were adjusted it seemed like majic how the noises stopped and the idle smoothed out soooo nice. Then after another 15 minutes of engine idling to fully warm the engine he adjusted the valves again. I tried a few and it wasn't too bad. Yes, you could feel the heat from the manifold but we didn't wear gloves or burn ourselves. Not a drop of oil ran outside the engine during the whole time and he explained that if we revved the engine up we would get a fine mist of oil, not dripping streaks. Now the engine runs great and the biggest difference came in overall performance. Recently I posted a want ad for a rear end higher than my 3.73 as in a 3.31 or 3.54. well I don't need that anymore. My engine is stronger, quieter, and has more top end speed. I can cruise at 55 with plenty of pedal left. The noise level in the cab is down by at least half !! Hope some of you can try this out if your valves need adjusting. The engine can idle easily with the valve covers off. Jeff

Dylan, I went through the same slow cranking problem you have with a fresh rebuilt engine and a new fully charged 6v battery. After searching the forum I read that you need to have the starter and battery well grounded to the frame. Everything else that needs a good ground too for that matter. I think grey beard (Dave) showed where he installed a ground wire from the battery directly to one of the bolts that holds the starter to the bell housing. O or OO cable is a must. I also ran a cable from battery + ground to one of the starter bolts, a ground strap to the cab, a ground cable to the frame from the battery + ground, and a wire from where I grounded the frame to the fuel sending unit. A 12 volt battery was also used to jump the 6 volt battery with a few times because of the tight rebuilt engine. Now my engine cranks good and my headlights are nice and bright because they have a direct ground wire also. Hope this may help.

If you have a chance an album of the Pilot-House woodies would be great to have for the forum. I also happen to have an addiction to beautiful wood cars and boats. Someday maybe to own one..... Thanks in advance!!

That is one beautiful truck Charles. Someday I would like to see one in person. Do you have any idea how many of the Pilot House Woodies are left? Please post more photos. Thanks, Jeff

I have two completely restored, didn't use them, and in excellent condition. Sandblasted, epoxy primer, gloss black paint. Let me know if you are interested. Thanks, Jeff

I'll measure my tires tonight Reg. Thanks for the info. Jeff

Hi Merle, That is the piece I posted wrong before. Darn nice filler for our trucks. Go to www.dennis-carpenter.com and look up 1948-52 "Ford" truck cowl to fender seal, part # 7C-16068. Nice product and did you get the bottom door seal yet? Thanks for all your help too. Jeff

Thanks Reg, and so other folks know, Reg helped me often with pictures and PM's. I purchased the bumper guards, Jiffy Jet Washer, and Fresh Air parts from him to name a few.

Thank you Andy

Thanks but remember it just got finished so some road time will dirty the engine up a bit. This is not going to be a trailer queen and I've been able to drive it more since changing the rear end to a 3.73. This truck was an absolutley bare frame when found so having a clean engine was much easier to do. Actually the original engine block was cracked so I found a 1952 block to rebuild with.

Your right about the steering wheel. The former owner had a nice horn ring so I had to find a 1952 wheel so I could use it on my truck. Just like the looks of the 52 wheel with horn ring but I still have an original for backup. The wheel was restored by Bob Monetti who runs an ad in Hemmings. I didn't plan on having a perfectly done original 1948 but tried to keep it as original as possible except for a few personel preferences. I wanted the box to match the cab color and prefer not to paint the Dodge tailgate lettering. Don't get me wrong, I like all the trucks I see here. I'll change the wheel rim color possibly when I see something I like. The black seems to plain, maybe paint the rims the same color as the cab? Finding the accessorys was fun and many came with the truck by the former owner. He also had an original front bumper chromed very well so I will chrome some bumper guards in the near future. Change the front bumper from black to chrome and back again anytime, just for heck of it.

Again and enough for now.

This is the only way I know how to post photos right now. Five at a time, sorry.

This is my 1948 B-1-B which I have almost finished restoring after buying it as a basket case in 1997. Started and interrupted working on it many times but finally gave it top priotity this past winter. This forum helped me tremendously so thanks to all of you here for the information and motivation. I live in S.E. Michigan and hope to make it to a car-truck show somewhere, sometime, to meet a few of you in person. I will be glad to answer any questions if you have some. The blue paint color, (which I get the most questions on), is the color from Marathon Oil Company. Any good paint supplier can get the formula. Many station owners-dealers have tow trucks or other service vehicles they paint to Marathon specs. Sorry, the color looks brighter in the full sun photos. My last main job is to install the Model 61 Heater. The rear carrier was changed to a 3.73 from the original 4.78. My former top speed was about 40 mph. Now I can stay around 50 to 55 but I still wish there was one more gear to shift into. The truck has the 4-speed trans., 6.50 x 16" tires, 218 cu. engine. The former owner is an antique dealer and he had many new and NOS parts and a few factory options that came with the truck. More options were purchased from members here, Hemmings, and Ebay. A friend and body shop owner did the most of the work. My work was finding parts, showing him where things went back together, and paying the darn expenses. "Holy Crap" on the expenses!! Now if I can get the photos right.....

Starting to make some sense now. Thanks for the info and I'll try again soon. This forum made it possible for me to end up with a restored Pilot-House Truck so I wanted to post some good photos.

Nope, didn't work. Help please from someone!!

Trying my luck at using photobucket. I hate computers!!! http://i829.photobucket.com/albums/zz217/zanadie52/DSC00467.jpg

Looks like you have the "Fresh Air System". Do you still need to install a heater? I have the same setup you have and I will install my heater soon. Just want to make sure I connect all the heater hose sections properly. Could you show a couple more photos of the dashboard? It looks great. Thanks, Jeff