Los_Control

Just my thoughts, the battery in my daily driver sbc is 600 amps .... yours is probably overkill. Still trying to remember though, we have bounced around a lot .... are you 6V starting with a 12V battery? @sniper explained in your other thread, your coil will get hot if you do not have a ballast resistor in front of the coil. ..... It will still run. Do you have a new set of points & condenser installed? .... I have seen modern condensers never start a car out of the box, then seen them start a car once, but never again ... they can work 100 miles and then fail. Every thing you say kind of sounds normal, sucks if it is a condenser that failed though .... you have to diagnose by the brightness of the spark at the plugs ... if you have the original I would try sticking it back in.

Yeah mine needs water every other day at the least .... right now it is screaming for water ..... Just been so busy with other projects that the garden is getting neglected this year. The wife car has been a challenge for me but think I have it whipped now ..... that has kept me busy for 2 months .... my daily driver truck broke down on me and with used parts on the shelf I fixed it just needs a good tuneup ... past due on oil change and I have $200 worth of parts from RockAuto ..... lust trying to get the wife car finished and out of my work area. Don't get me started on neglected household projects ..... Glad you getting those water lines out of the way .... here they are only 1 or 2 feet deep, my sewer line is 3' deep out in the alley, is only 2' deep through the yard then dives down. Water lines are not buried deep either ..... still a job to do.

Lucky b@stard! I have a hard time with tomatoes here. Just gets to hot in the summer and the blooms fall off never produce. So I get a few tomatoes in the spring, then in the fall get a few more .... never enough for salsa though .... funny cherry tomatoes grow great .... I eat em like candy though while watering.

Little too early for a victory lap yet .... We got 50 miles on it so far .... last used engine spun a bearing about 40 miles as soon as I gave it a good shake down run around town, I took it right out on the freeway .... It did ok. A issue popped up, the speed limit is 75mph. Normally this car you barely touch the gas pedal and it cruises at 80mph. ..... The gas in it is 2.5 years old. I had to give it over 1/4 throttle to get it up to 75 .... then going over 75 it started to chug like it was running out of fuel. Drop the speed down to 70 and it cruises comfortably ........ The gas gauge was reading full I have it down to 3/4 tank and want to get it to 1/2 then fill it with premium fuel and let them mix together. ...... maybe it will run better. Other then fighting bad fuel, it is running fine. ...... It is getting a major bath this weekend, just getting ready to pressure wash the engine bay, then give the exterior a good bath .... recharge the AC. I thought about getting it registered today, then my tag would be due in June and only get 11 months instead of 12 .... so Monday taking it down for inspection. .... Then will get full 12 months registration. I need to adjust the camber on the drivers side, passenger is fine and it drives fine .... will get abnormal tire wear so I will lift it back up and adjust, give everything else a once over to be sure is ok ..... I am feeling confident it is back in the living world again.

Actually a funny staged photo .... can anyone think of a good reason to raise a car that high? The lift they have looks to be decent and that style has a safety lock on it so it can not come down if their is a issue. Seems to have solid lumber on the lift raising the car ..... The rear stands are only to prevent the car from tilting backwards ... they have no weight on them. Just a silly staged photo to post on FB to get clicks.

Thanks for the kind words ..... Fact is, I was just pissed off at the car and put it in the corner for 2 years on a time out. Even after I bought the motor for it and started working on it .... I stopped with the excuse it was spring time and if I'm going to have a garden this year I need to spend my time there instead. .... so I did. The used engine came with a 90 day warranty, that ran out June 11th and I finally started it up on the 25th 2 weeks after warranty expired. .... I have just been dragging my feet on the job because it is a very big job, I really had no heart to do it, a 2nd time. So now it is sorta personal to me to fix it, Mother wanted the car to go to her daughter when she passed away. Then sitting in it this morning drinking my morning coffee warming it up, I adjusted the radio, turned on the AC, thought how comfortable the seats were ...... memories of the times we have taken it on road trips for months at a time. We have a lot of seat time in that car. Same time I have kept it up in good condition, If the motor proves to be good, the rest of it is ready for another road trip. So for me it is a forever car that we will own til we die ..... I just wish I fixed it sooner.

Simple fact, if you did not have the plug wires correct, it would never have started for 5 seconds ..... so you got that right. I'm just saying to leave the wires where they are and search elsewhere for issues. Often at this point it can be fuel delivery ..... who knows. Coils are actually known to go bad .... maybe not often but they do go bad. I agree with @keithb7if you leave the key on and the points happen to be closed .... you will burn out the points and warm up the coil. I do not think the coil should get hot in this situation ..... It will get warm, but not too hot to touch. So if your coil is too hot to touch, this is not normal in any situation. ..... If your coil is bad, the car will not run properly if it runs at all.

Well 2 years later it is a runner again ..... I have some more work to do. Damn I just hate pulling motors that should come out the bottom ..... out of the top. So I have done it twice ...... I'm happy it actually runs and seems to run well. So I'm happy it starts and runs .... The last engine did the same and spun a rod bearing at 50 miles on the odometer. So it will take some time before I trust this engine that seems to run good.

I was always told by my Uncle ...... If they are too long, just wrap them around the dip stick tube a few times ..... works for both battery cables and plug wires.

I agree 100% with Sniper. Do not get hung up on that point. .... If you lift the distributor up and rotate it it would not help .... just connect #6 wire there and carry on. On these engines with this firing order it just does not matter .... They run the same as long as you place #6 wire and follow order. The oil pump is geared and it is close but 2 teeth off when last mechanic installed it. In the past I have ran into 4cyl and 8cyl engines where the distributor was installed 1 or 2 teeth off and they never ran right .... it was my lob to figure out why and properly placed the distributor in to correct it. Our 6 cylinder engines do not care and will run fine anywhere you install the oil pump ..... As long as you match the plug wires to where the rotor is pointing it will run fine. Mine is wrong also, I would fix it lickety split if I thought it mattered ..... our engines just do not care and will run no better if you change it. I will fix it someday when I actually remove my motor and reassemble it .... just a waste of time today to worry about it.

LOL 🤣🤣🤣 you Easteners were always looking for guidance .....

I just want to add I have had a few electric fuel pumps fail on me ..... one just died and nothing happened period after that. I had one that was failing but worked as long as the weather was cool ..... We nursed that one along from ABQ NM to Seattle. ..... Driving at night and hanging out in the park like bums during the day. I had another one that failed and it simply lost it's get up and go .... could not deliver enough fuel .... but it ran fine otherwise at lower speeds. I get it I'm talking electric fuel pumps, I honestly believe any fuel pump can fail in a different way. ..... There is no set pattern to tell you. So what you describe could be a fuel delivery issue. I will go as far to say I had a 1991 Dodge Shadow and rebuilt the engine, it just never had the performance I thought it should have. Then it got worse and I figured out the fuel pump was bad. Once I changed the fuel pump, it ran like a race car ..... These are symptoms of a bad fuel pump or poor fuel delivery. ..... hole in the fuel line would do the same .... good luck.

@FarmerJon that is excellent advice ..... I would go further to suggest it might be a failing fuel pump that has a small hole in the diaphragm and no longer produces proper fuel pressure. Seems like there use to be a test where you actually pumped fuel into a bucket and measured performance by volume of fuel pumped by seconds to pump it. Or get a fancy gauge to rate the psi of pump.

I will throw in my 2 cents on the subject .... Many will say and I will agree that 6V + ground is a good system. And it does exactly what it is suppose to do. At one time positive ground was the norm for all the big automakers .... except GM. .... There is much discussion about it is a better system then - ground. GM would never fall in line with the rest though. ....... Their was a great need to standardize electrical systems so everyone was on the same page. Chebby would never get in line with Ford, Dodge, Packard, Studebaker .... they just bucked the system and walked alone. Then in 55 chebby came out with the first sbc and they were kings of the market then ..... so all the others switched over to - ground. Does not mean it is better, is just the way the market went. Seriously, if you want to switch to - ground .... why not just do it right and switch to a 12v alternator while at it. Thats what I did.

Someone may have the exact number, I think it matters on if you have a low side or standard side bed. My truck is a low side and I have a standard bed utility trailer. They both seemed to be different measurements ..... the beds are different and probably were made in different assembly plants. If you look at where your strips go. The 2 outside boards are wider and I believe the center boards are 5.5" wide. The 1/4" carriage bolts are a spacer between the boards, they do not go through the boards ... it is a expansion joint and the strips covers the joint. The boards have a kerf cut in them that the edge of the strips sit in and hold the boards tight. ..... So just measuring in-between the bolts gives you the width. The large bolts and washers that are on the side of the bed, they do get a hole drilled through the wood. The height of the strips welded to the bed sides set the depth for the wood. They are set for 3/4" thick lumber. Just saying if you change them, you want to be sure to put them back where they came from .... or raise them up if you want to run thicker lumber. Again I have a 49, yours have some difference in the cross members, I think everything else is the same ..... I believe you have 1 wooden cross member in the rear ... 47 up they were all metal. .

To be honest my truck came to me with a Texas suntan, no visible paint to to see. ..... But it was a black truck from the factory and so I painted it black. I'm not even trying to restore it just repair it. I used exterior treated plywood and was able to salvage the original strips and painted them black .... I'm not really the right guy to tell you what you need to do to your bed. @Young Ed is another one that can chime in and he has a truck like yours and painted it black .... He knows more then I do. I just want to make mine a daily driver and not restoring .... so this is what I did.

For fun I will play along and admit I do not know the correct answer. I'm pretty sure the original wood was painted black from the factory. It only makes sense the strips were painted black also. So any truck with tinted and stained wood is custom, they never came that way ..... In fact the standard beds were all painted black inside and out. The cab was painted a body color, but the beds were black. If you look at @ggdad1951truck you will see a red truck and a black bed .... That was the way they came. I'm sure you might be able to custom order the paint scheme ..... and many did ..... but if you just went in and bought one off the lot, the bed, the wood, the strips were all black. I do not think we notice it so much today, these trucks are 70-80 years old and all been repainted or in the need of paint. .... They usually get painted one body color .... some times two tone .... But from the factory the bed, the wood, the strips were all black. .... Cab and dog house had body color.

I always appreciate everyone's opinion. And to be fair I really just do not know better myself so getting others ideas help me ..... Thats where I was at ..... what could possibly be the difference? .... will it really matter? In the end I can at a glance see where they are. .... kinda nice to have them on the outside. Because of your input I did revisit it and here is the exact issue in my case why I cant run them on the outside. You can see when I install the wheel, I will be pushing them out of position into the rotor. I just did not pay close attention to that and was thinking it would be fine ..... @Dave72dt I want to thank you for your opinion .... you got me to take a better look at it. Thats probably why the inside pads have a slightly larger surface area to try to keep the wear kinda equal. I could just cut the indicators off .... all they do is ruin your rotor .... I watch my stuff closer than that. So I will just switch them around ..... I learned something today

I think people sometimes makes things more complicated then it needs to be. If you understand that #1 and #6 pistons are at TDC at the same time. The difference is one is on compression stroke, the other is on exhaust stroke. I simply use the pipe plug over #6 and lay a small piece of toilette paper over the pipe plug hole. Then I rotate the engine by hand with the spark plugs installed .... when #6 comes up on compression stroke you will see the paper move or blow off the hole. Now you know that piston is coming up on compression .... Now take a long wire over 6" long and insert in the hole and continue rotating the engine and watch where it gets to the top. .... when it starts to go down then stop and rotate the engine the opposite direction to bring it back to top. Now look at the rotor on your distributor .... install the cap, the plug hole on the cap the rotor is pointing at is where #6 wire goes. ..... Thats all you need to know to install plug wires. The firing order is 153624 ..... you install #6 wire, then going clockwise you install #2, #4, #1 .... This is how I wired my truck. If you truly want to do it by the book and start with #1 ..... When you get #6 at TDC compression stroke and the wire starts to go down, just keep turning the engine around 1 full turn and when the wire comes back up to TDC ...... Now #6 is on exhaust stroke and #1 is at TDC compression stroke and look at the rotor and that is where you install #1 wire .... To me that is just one extra step that is not needed ..... we only need to know 1 cylinder that is ready to fire, since we are working with the pipe plug over #6 why not just start there? Technically by the book, #1 is at 7 O'clock and #6 would be about 2 O'clock ...... you can raise the distributor before installing plug wires and rotate it .... then install the #6 wire on its own side of the cap ...... It will run the same any way you go it just makes no difference ..... simply gets confusing when someone else comes along in the future and gets confused. My #1 is at 6:00 because the guy who installed the oil pump installed it a tooth off .... no big deal .... just find where #6 is ready to fire and install the wires and it will work.

I appreciate your input .... I also was thinking the same thing. It is impossible to install it in the rear, unless you remove the mounting bracket like this. The wear indicator gets in the way and you can not slide the pad on the rail. Then remove caliper and change pads and assemble then reinstall as 1 complete unit. I can then put it in the back. My limited knowledge, I've never seen a car I had to remove the mounting bracket to install new pads? I can leave the bracket in place and install on the front like they are. I'm just not sure if it matters which side they are on. The pad with the indicator has a tiny bit more surface area so maybe it needs to be in the rear? I Dunno. I guess another way is to leave bracket mounted, remove caliper, front pad, rotor, rear pad .... Then slide rear pad on, rotor, front pad .... DOH! ..... I will change it

I'm with Merle, it is 180 out assuming the plug wires are correctly installed. Simply removing the cap and see where rotor is pointing. Then lift the distributor up and rotate it 1/2 a turn and drop it back down into the slot where rotor is pointing to other side. The 4 stroke engine pistons are at TDC twice, once for compression stroke and once for exhaust. It is fairly simple to get it to TDC on the wrong stroke. You are getting fire to the cylinder when the intake is opening so it coughs out the carb instead of the exhaust. This is actually pretty promising .... it is a actual ooops moment of slight embarrassment .... I have done it a few times over the years, SBC were the same way. Is a simple 2 minute fix to lift the distributor and rotate it and do not move the plug wires. If you did everything right it will now fire on compression stroke and should run. ..... If not then you need to start over from scratch.

I could be wrong .... just suggesting all cars were parked for a reason .... being a detective and finding out why the car was parked can be fun. Very possible the engine was good and ran fine but had other issues. ...... Almost probable you will run into stuck valves and zero compression in some or all cylinders. First thing you want to check is if the engine will turn over by hand, or is it locked up? If it turns over you want to start soaking the cylinders with oil ..... when you are ready to turn the engine over with a battery, probably best to disconnect all original wiring. Then run a compression check on it ...... The older engines have cast iron piston rings, very common for the iron rings to corrode to the aluminum pistons and not seal .... then the valves are known to be sticky .... Simply the oil gets gummed up in the valve guides and the valve springs are not strong enough to pull the valves back down through the gunky oil. ..... All common issues and usually easy to fix ..... just do not get discouraged if you have a engine with low or no compression. The manuals or diagrams are not going to tell you how to revive a engine that has been sitting for 20+ years in a field.

Ok spelling police ..... Lets be fair, I think I assembled the brakes fine while managing the breaks

I know I should not get hung up on paint .... Honestly I do no care what color the paint is. I was so mad at myself when I installed a new water pump on the 49 Dodge .... I thought to paint it and then though that was silly .... Now it looks like rusted up crap and only a few months old. My wife .... I thought you were going to paint them pink? Me ..... I thought about it ..... pink would make your brakes wiggly, Race car red will improve your braking performance 30%. I just used the paint I had on the shelf. Been thrashing a few days on getting all installed, my body needs a break .... assemble the breaks is all thats on the agenda today.

@BayArea48Deluxe very first thing is what I posted earlier ..... now tell us what condition your car is in. Does it even have a engine ..... how much rust are we looking at ..... What are your goals for it ..... What good does a manual or a wiring diagram do you if you plan to swap in a modern drive train ..... You are in the right place, I feel we have no idea how to really help you if you do not share photos and ideas of what your end goals are. Some say it came from a graveyard, what they really mean is it sat for 3 years in a barn and needs work ....... some actually get pulled out of a farmers field and need more work ..... What do you have and what are your goals?