Los_Control

I understand. I also bought a used replacement T-stat housing for my truck. My problem was the hose would leak because of all the corrosion on the neck. While I could mess with it & get it to seal, I replaced it first chance when something came available.

Wow! Just incredibly beautiful. And a lot of work to maintain. I have enough problems taking care of my city lot The photo reminds me of my childhood. My family rented a house on 75 acres. There were 2 houses, Grandmother & Uncle rented the other house. My father had a large 1/4 acre garden, we had use of the barn and had pigs, chickens, cows. The majority of the property the owner was retired and he worked everyday on it keeping it up like a park. A 30 acre field could have raised crops, He had it planted in grass and trees completely surrounding it in a circle .... The driveway was a mile long .... had to walk it to catch the bus for school The driveway followed the river that surrounded the property on 2 sides. .... The property owner did a great job taking care of it ... I wonder why he never lived there himself? ..... Today It is a commercial resort where people pay good money to stay for the weekend. What a great place to grow up ..... A incredible amount of labor goes into taking care of a place like that.

Thanks for clearing that up Ed. I just saw no mention of the pad in @dgrinnanpost above ..... Might be confusing why there is so much slop if not aware of the pad.

Not sure if I'm correct .... My experience with my 49 low side bed, and my 49 utility trailer that is a standard bed. The widths are different in the bed & the boards. Just saying while I thought the beds were the same, one has lower sides then the others ..... A quick comparison & there are 6 or 8 things different .... the more you look the more there is. So for the manual to show diagrams for all the different beds, short bed, long bed, 9' box, flat beds .... Would be a complete book all by itself. Your diagram looks correct to me. Is your corner strip not pre drilled? For proper bolt placement. Mine is not as I made my corner strip, I'm just going to line up the bolts with my bed strips ..... so they are lined up all the way across like in the photo you just posted. Also on my 49, I do not know if 47 is the same. There is a aprox 3/16" piece of rubber that the cross members sit on when bolting to the frame. So I will need to add the rubber between the bed side & the cross member .... leaving just 3/4" for the wood to slide in. If I do not add the rubber, I will have a 3/16" gap between the wood & corner strip. At least that is how I setup my 49 trying to copy the original. I do not know if the 47 has the same ..... are all your cross members wood?

As far as I know the 23" 218 & 230 will swap out with no problems. There are differences on the 230 crank where it will have 6 or 8 bolt holes for the fluid drive transmissions .... so if this makes sense. You can pull a 218 & install a 230 in it's place. Same time depending on your transmission .... You can not pull a 230 & replace it with a 218. Now if you have a straight up manual transmission, they do not care if it is a 218 or 230. The 218/230 share the same block & pistons, head. The crank & rods are different ..... A 230 is a stroked 218. The 230 just simply offered another mounting option for transmissions that the 218 did not offer. Or you could say, the larger cars with the fancy transmissions, only came with a 230 .... 218 was not a option in those cars. The 230 will be a fine replacement for your 218.

I just wanted to add my experience to wrap up my questions. Fitting the master cylinder was very easy. .... some say you wobble out 1 hole .... I wobbled out all 3 holes a little bit. Room for adjustment. I did shorten my brake pedal rod as short as it would go .... I still needed to cut off aprox 3/4" .... then it fit comfortably. Then I ground the end to replicate the original bullet shaped end ..... Now it fits inside the dimple on the master cylinder & needs to be adjusted 1/4" to take up the slop. To me that is perfect .... plenty of adjustment available on the rod. The real trick to the conversion is the metric sized lines for the MC. I found some bushings that are American thread, they are a little sloppy threading them in to the metric MC. But when the seal in the center hits, they tighten right up fine. .... I used teflon tape on the threads to tighten it up when installing .... once seated I gave 3/4 of a turn to cinch them down tight .... no issues. ..... They are now converted to 1/4" NPT threads for standard brake lines. Again I'm running drum brakes all 4 corners. No proportioning valve. ..... I suspect disk brakes you would need to add the valve. As is, my pedal is rock solid & locks up the brakes when wanted ...... still not highway driving though for a more accurate report. I'm very pleased how simple & easy it was to add a dual stage MC to our old trucks.

There is a old familiar image of winnie the pooh bent over with his head stuck in a honey jar. Then another layer of fabric where winnie is standing behind the bear who's head is stuck in the honey jar ..... looks like they are doing you know what. There is a lot of artistic ability in sewing upholstery. Lining up a pattern on a seam .... sewing straight lines .... creating a diamond shape pattern. A simple seat insert with straight lines & the side skirts with a rolled edge separating the pieces. Truly is artistic ability to do it correctly. I see others looking and saying the interior looks nice, I doubt they know how many hours went into creating it. ..... some do. I do not know all the correct terminology for the different pieces ..... I do not care to learn ..... Just a area I will never be able to compete in. I have a old singer machine I hope to complete 1 truck interior with .... then toss it out. I have no use for a true walking foot machine that would only use once. I have a lot of respect for a old Mexican blanket for a seat cover.

Actually you would want this tank .... From Tanks .... https://www.tanksinc.com/index.cfm/page/ptype=product/product_id=349/category_id=68/mode=prod/prd349.htm Is the tank I am using, they claim it fits 48-53 trucks with minor mods .... I have a thread here showing the mods or options needed. The front bolts in place and it lines up with the filler neck, just the rear mount needs modification .... Here is the challenge. Not difficult to work out .... 48-53 they moved the rear cross member. When I bought my tank it was $250 .... now they are $315. There are other dealers that claim a direct bolt in fit for $800 ..... I have a thread on it here ... called hound dog hauler. I gave this one away for free, B1C 3/4 ton factory flatbed, engine would run .... Just not worth trailer it 1200 miles to Texas. This truck needed everything mechanically. Then I paid $1800 for my hound dog hauler, $200 to have it delivered, another $100 for a tip so the delivery crew could get a decent lunch on me. So $2100 into my current project, 5 years ago. Probably too much, but it is exactly what I wanted. 1/2 ton with the low side bed. Body sucks but the exceptionally good running gear was a surprise and saves lots of money. ...... Painting just sucks. You too can easily over pay for a vehicle. .... When you see exactly what you want ... A few $$$ one way or the other does not matter. Last week I saw a crack dealer offering a stripped out cab for $1200. Fun & cool trucks, they should be driven or restored & looked at.

Seems my alternator is a rock star. Took 2 weeks before it was ever shipped. Then first stop was Lubbock TX .... ready for next day delivery. It took a ride to Kentucky, then flew to Dallas airport, then returned back to Lubbock .... 3 weeks later it finally arrived. Not exactly a 1 wire GM alternator. It is 65 amps. More then I need. It is a rebuilt / refurbished ACDelco ..... 1 year warranty,$46 but $56 with shipping. No core required. I have to do more research before installing it .... I understand that the 2 male plugs, the one on the right is for a idiot light ... not needed. The plug on the left is a exciter wire .... just loops back to the main battery lug .... looks like a grounding lug far right. I need to do more research, seems like this is the alternator I want. I do not expect too much issue with mounting .... I think spacers will cure all. It does have a narrow pulley on it. ..... My existing non stock generator also has a narrow pulley. The narrow belt works fine on wider pulleys, just sits deeper & impossible to jump off .... Just not as cool as a wide 3/4" belt. While it is a used rebuilt alternator ...... just too shiny & new looking. I'm thinking some satin black paint, oil & dirt .... could look like it belongs there buried at the bottom of the engine bay.

Just a opinion or observation .... Thinking of the quality or size of the jumper pack battery. I have a old school shumaker battery charger with option of 6 amp or 2 amp trickle charger. I would think on 2 amp trickle charge it would be fine ..... if not then I probably did not want it anyways. Maybe 6 amps would be to much charge for the smaller battery? I wonder what the recharge time was when you had the original charger & good battery. How many amps the original charger was pushing? I would guess it took a couple hours for full charge .... A trickle charge should work. Today my Makita 20 volt Lithium battery for cordless tools recharge in 15 minutes. My older Dewalt tools with old school batteries took 45 minutes. No idea what battery you have, I think a slow 2 amp charger may take longer, but not overheat or damage your new replacement battery.

I have had problems with T-stat housings sealing on various vehicles in the past. You clean the surfaces, the head should be flat. The housing run a straight edge on them to be sure not warped. I use permatex gasket shelac compound for a sealer. Sometimes still end up with a little weeping like yours. ..... Double check the bolts are still torqued correctly ... not over tightened, run it through a few heat cycles and would disappear. Just saying my daily driver work truck, drive it a day or two & would seal up & never return. Me a old hack, I would leave it as is for a short time & see if it goes away .... If installed correctly it should. No guarantee you put the new one on and will not have same issue. As a kid they leaked every time on me, I never got the surfaces clean & down to bare metal. Or had a housing that was warped, cracked, badly pitted... So after redoing my work many times, I now feel pretty confident in replacing my T-stats. There are still a few that weep for a short period & then quit.

It is very realistic, depending how high your standards are. The same old rules apply, buy the best truck you can afford to start with. Your "want list" looks fine .... not sure why you want to replace the leaf springs though. You might be better off to just disassemble, clean, grease & replace bushings on the existing. I expect I will replace my rear end at some point. As long as it works as it should .... I will be fine with it with around town driving. New drums are $400 each. I will rear end swap first .... All my drums/brakes were replaced before it was parked though. I chose to go rustyhope on disk brakes on a old project I never finished. Moved out of state. Gave the truck away for free so I kept the new parts for it. Now with my current project, I inspected my front end. Kingpins, tie rods, brakes & drums are all are in good-excellent condition. The steering box has no slop, is full of oil & no leaks. I cleaned, painted & greased everything .... had to replace several zirk fittings as old were plugged. I replaced all the lines, wheel cylinders. Tried to fix the master cylinder & failed. Replaced it with a 1991 Toyota Camry unit .... easy swap. New fuel lines & fuel tank. I'm only replacing what is worn out & needed. When it is a driver, I will pick & choose what to change or modify next. Toyota master cylinder. 12 volt GM alternator. I bought a $50, 12 circuit wiring harness .... still on the fence about using it though. Every switch, cable, gauges, door latches, window tracks needs attention .... window rubber needs replaced. I need a seat, thinking I will browse the wrecking yards .... many newer vehicles come with seat belts built into the seat. I have newer steel wheels 1960's-70's, 15"x5" with 235 75R 15 tires. The bed wood needs replaced .... I'm thinking 3/4" treated plywood painted. West Texas sun, it will sit outside often .... I cant keep nice wood here. While the treated plywood is available local in my small town, used for wheel chair ramps holds up well with no sealer at all. I am taking everything apart & painting it .... my choice. Am using Rustoleum rusty metal primer & single stage enamel from Tractor supply. This is my first project, my standards are low. I'm leaving some dents for character, removing some according to my skill level. My end goal is a truck in good working condition for daily driver use around town .... wont be pretty, wont bother me if I drive through a mud puddle or I get a scratch on it at the lumber yard. A beater with a heater. Still a big project though. I have been disabled unable to work since I was 48 years old .... 60 years old now. I bought the truck in 2018, been calling it therapy with lifting, bending twisting .... thinking. Took a year off to teach myself how to weld. Then several months to work on the wife car. Life gets in the way. My truck sat in a field for many years after being parked though .... Depends on what you buy. The better truck you start with the less work you need to do.

It was a 1/2 moon key is what I have always called them. Was very stuck in my case. Tapping down on it from one side to the other allowed it to rock back and forth to loosen it.

Seems not a lot of info on these old mopars ..... we might need a video of @keithb7 replacing king pins ... Same time the videos I watch like iron trap garage shows replacing king pins on old Fords. They do not fit out of the box, you either need to ream out the axle or the spindles .... just saying you need to fit them to your needs. They are oversized so they can be machined to fit. King pins really do need to fit precisely, .... If you can get any movement in your spindles 1/16th of a inch .... they are shot & should be replaced. Yes you can do it, not really a afternoon job for the first timer. ..... I doubt I could do it ever.

How much storage space do you have? ??? If the brake drums are any good you want to save those, any decent hardware, springs, shoes. Good chance the axles will interchange if the rear ends are same width. The drums for new replacements are $400 each .... Springs and brake hardware are kinda unique .... you can order online new ones at a premium price. .... Never know when you need a axle. Too be honest with you, depending what your end goal is ..... When my rear end gives me issues, I'm going to replace it with either a jeep cherokee or ford explorer rear end. I want 3:73 gears for highway, I will have modern brakes I can buy at any local parts store, I will change the u-joints & drive line to fit. My current u-joints on my truck are hard to find & $80 each. I'm just saying, if the hogs head was bad on my truck I would not mess with installing another just like it, I would swap the complete rear end. So I would not bother storing it. Good brake drums ... yes ... small hardware, springs & shoes ... yes. A axle .... maybe. The leaf springs throw me off. .... They generally are vehicle specific. If they are bad on your car you want to build .... I have no idea if the ones from your parts car will fit. There is a really good chance they can help you repair yours ..... if you take both spring packs apart and assemble with good springs ... no idea if they just bolt on. I would save those if yours are a issue.

I think someone somewhere can give you the exact answer .... Long story short, you just need to try it & see. @Booger makes a good point on counting the the bolts to see if they are the same. Another issue could be the axle shaft diameter & spline count ..... Possible your axles will not fit this hogs head. I remember back when I was 25 years old, swapping one out in a hour or so on a 1960's dodge truck without a tapered axle in a hour or so. Only suggesting it is very likely it will work because how close they are .... small chance it wont work .... in 1 hour or so you can find out. No idea why you want to change them. 4.1 is what my truck has, great around the town or farm, 50mph probably top speed stretching it. Good for a race car in a 1/4 mile track. The 3.9 is better for highway use .... maybe 60 mph? .... I dunno but more highway friendly then a 4.1.

I hear ya, I make it sound a little crude. I have my wood stump ... several actually. I will use a grinder with 36 grit paper .... or possibly my dremel tool to carve out a small mold for the indentation. Then carefully use my body hammer and form the panel to the mold .... probably take me a hour to make the mold, another hour to pound & smooth the panel. Just more fun to say .... Smack that thing with a hammer it will be fine! To be honest it is probably a waste of time for anyone to do it. For me I want to do it for a learning experience. What better place to practice then the floor that will never be seen. Someday I may want to do the same thing on a exposed panel that we will see. Also I'm not changing my mounts at this time .... they look fine, may be a mistake .... a little extra clearance for me is not a bad idea. Glad to see you are making progress. It is all looking great. My time right now is taken up by the garden. Kinda sucks that it takes all my time for a couple weeks in early spring. But once all is in place it only takes a few minutes a day to keep things going .... no complaints. Thought I was going to get my alternator delivered today. It was in Lubbock yesterday ... should be out for delivery today. It currently is in Indiana ?

I will add that my engine had a overheating problem .... went straight to overheat. I will add that my water distribution tube was plugged with hard water deposits. Once I cleared it & flushed out the block, it would not warm up with no T-stat. With a 180 T-stat installed, it would warm up & maintain steady temps for long periods of time. I also pulled all the soft plugs & replaced them while working on it .... flushing the block at same time.

I'm going to play stupid here. Point being, if a generator was putting out full output ....it can fry a ammeter gauge. More commonly seen with a 12 volt alternator conversion .... My alternator is 65 amps ..... many are over 100 amps. Same time it is possible to burn out a ammeter gauge on 6 volts depending on the load you send through it. Probably more common on a 12 volt conversion with a high amp alternator ...... Just as possible on a stock 6 volt wiring harness with too many amps being pulled through the gauge. I'm only suggesting it is what goes through the gauge, 6 volt or 12 volt .... Some people have ran 25 years with no issue using a ammeter gauge on 12 volts. .... The next guy needed headlights, heater, radio, fan .... burned the ammeter gauge to the ground. While more common on 12 volts, is just as possible to do the same on 6 volts. ..... Not likely .... but possible. @harmony has a honest question here. While I do not know the exact answer here, I think if you run the headlights or other heavy loads after the ammeter .... the gauge simply reads the battery & current charge.

Exactly .... your engine does not represent the standard engine in the manual. As long as you are getting adequate oil pressure at idle .... 10-15 psi? Some get worse. Just will be a tuning thing where you find your engine likes to run. You want a quick response with the gas pedal & a low idle .... you will have to search for that. I need to apologize for a earlier post .... I said I never removed my doors. Actually I did remove them after I installed the front fenders.. .... Just saying I matched the fenders to the original doors ...... Then later removed the doors & worked on them .... yeah that again is a future Fred problem .... I will adjust them better then. Exactly, set the doors to the cab .... it does not change. Then the front nose/fenders. ..... you will know what spacers you need. .... If any. Really seems like in the best of situations that throttle linkage is really close to the original toe boards. I'm going to clearance it with a hammer & never think about it again .... My decision not yours.

Kind of common to want 500 rpm idle for manual transmission .... 700-1k for a automatic transmission. The cool thing on these old motors, the slower you can run them at idle, the cooler they sound. Just depends on how well your carb is setup & condition of your motor. Kinda like doing one of the old dances to see how low can you go to get under the cross pole. 350-400 rpm will sound really cool at idle .... if your engine can handle it. Maybe you would be better off at 500-750 .... get straight to work. Just thinking the manual does list specific rpm at idle .... Not everyone follows them ... key is, how low can you go? Assuming you still have good oil pressure, you choose your idle speed.

There you go .... Those gears break while driving .... You may as well remove the steering wheel & hand it to your passenger .... you drive awhile. I wonder how interchangeable the truck & car steering boxes are? .... I have no clue. There is a guy on Face Book named Douglas Crozier that is very active in buying pilothouse trucks 48-50 and selling parts from them .... and shipping them. He is located in Kansas. Typically, a old farm truck may not get as many miles on it as a car? ..... It might be a good solution, If the accessories like wheel & column cover can be swapped. If interested & you can not find him, pm me and will dig up his info.

My limited steering box skills comes from driving Ford trucks. They all needed adjustment. Proper way to adjust them is to loosen the lock nut then tighten the adjustment screw 1/4 of a turn .... thats all you get .... tighten the lock nut. The gears are like a wedge, they wear equally together. 1/4 turn will usually take the slop out & drive very decent. If that 1/4 turn is not enough .... you are stuck with it for awhile & let the gears wear down .... depending how often you drive it 6-12 months? Then give it another 1/4 turn. ...... On a 1987 Ford work van I bought it very cheap $1k with a rebuilt transmission & crate engine installed. The contractor traded for it, because it drove like a shopping cart his employees would not drive it. I bought it & drove it home .... did 1/4 turn & it drove beautiful for the next 12-15 years .... thumb & finger to steer it. I had a 1969 Ford 1 ton that was pretty bad. I adjusted it same 1/4 turn and it was much better ..... not great. Then after several months of daily driving I adjusted it again & was really good then. I drove it daily for 3 or 4 years, one day on my way to work the steering box gear broke. Lucky I was still in my driveway heading for the road. It was incredibly difficult to back up the driveway to the house .... took 1 or 2 full revolutions of the steering wheel to make the wheels turn .... would have been death on the freeway. I'm only suggesting when you adjust a steering box, you do it in very small increments. Because of the wedge shape of the gears if you make them too tight will be difficult to steer .... but also may cause irregular wear. They will wear .... there is only so many adjustments available .... too many adjustments & the gears will wear too thin & break. Only advice I can offer is to loosen it up where it is easy to turn & drive-able. Then adjust a 1/16" or 1/8 of a turn ...... Because you have change the adjustment soo much already, a 1/4 turn may be too much. If these small little changes does not fix your problem, you may need to rebuild the box and change the gears

Sorry for being sarcastic, I just wonder if we are over thinking this. In another thread you asked about body installation order. .... I did skip doors because I never removed mine. They are the true starting point for you. ... You want a decent gap at the top and rear. You want them to open close latch properly. My truck took a decent hit in the rear fender, lower cab .... I'm thinking the hinge at the upper cowl took a hit .... I'm going to need a hammer to fix this. Just pointing out, you get the door set first with the cowl, roof, cab ..... then you can adjust the fenders to it. This door is not correct at all, it is a truck 70 years old .... needs some tlc & a hammer. ..... That is a future Fred problem. It opens & closes ... I will repair before paint.

OH MY!