1949 B-1-D-126 BUILD THREAD 1-ton

[John-T-53]

The area on the inside of the frame boxed in by the fuel tank is prone to debris accumulation...I just removed my tank the other day and there was a lot of crap in there, along with moderate corrosion of the frame. This is where the rear brake line passes through. Case in point - when the brakes failed on my truck several years ago, the problem was in this spot - the brake line rusted through from the outside in. It was just a pin hole, but enough for the brake pedal to go to the floor and send the truck out of control!

[pflaming]

I just finished mounting my fuel and brake lines. I kept the brake lines in the inner part of the frame. The fuel line ran inside the frame also. At first I was conderned that it might get crushed but it is above the spring mounts.

I am trying to mount them firmly so they will not rub through yet have a bit of flexility to relieve any pressure at the connecting points. I nice to see those shiny, steel tubes.

[Frank Elder]

Properly sized and placed Adel clamps will greatly add to the life of your lines.

[JBNeal]

I thought I would try to install a crankcase ventilation system in the '49 while I had the inner fenders out of the way for the fuel line replacement. I originally wanted to follow the vacuumatic crankcase ventilation service bulletin from way back when to see how well that system worked. I had chanced upon 5 NORS PCV valves on eBay last year from an unheard of manufacturer, but the boxes appeared to be from the late 60s from their application tables printed on the backs. I was able to get the seller to get some critical dimensions off of these, and they appeared to be similar units to those sold by VPW...I made an offer on all 5, and got them to the house for less than the cost of one from VPW

Being *ahem* frugal and laden with extra odds & ends in the parts shelves in the garage, I thought I'd try to make my own crankcase adapters rather than purchase the ones from VPW. So I've cut down a couple downdraft tubes and brazed on a fitting for the PCV valve side of the PCV system. I've also brazed on a fitting to the oil fill tube, similar to the ones sold by VPW, for the air flow side of the PCV system.

I attempted these modifications before trying to make the oil bath air cleaner modifications. With the thinner sheet metal of the air cleaner housing, I have been hesitant to get out the brazing torch for fear of ruining one of these. The housings I have are in very good shape and I don't want to run the risk of butchering these specimens. But first things first: a hole would need to be drilled into the base of the housing throat. This task is practically impossible as it is not a straight shot for a drill bit, nor for a center punch to start a pilot hole. The only straight shot is to drill a hole through the side of the air cleaner housing and into the throat, then braze a horizontal tube through both holes. This would put the tube below the oil fill line on the housing, and my brass brazing practice is a work in progress so I'm not that confident that one of my submerged braze welds would not leak. Maybe with enough practice material to perfect the brazing technique, I would attempt this tube installation...my guess is that is the same reasoning why I've never seen one of these air filters modified per the service bulltetin. If I was converting to a paper element, I could probably try something like this modification...

While reading up on brazing techniques, I turned the problem upside down and thought about putting some sort of fitting on the air cleaner itself. Brazing was out of the question for fear of damaging the cellulose material. Drilling a new hole in the cleaner was out because there was no good way to access the innards of the cleaner. But there was one hole already in the cleaner, where the wingnut clamps the cleaner onto the housing. So looking at some brass fittings, doing some air volume calculations, and mocking up some fittings to check for clearances, there appears to be a way to have a PCV port at the top of the air cleaner that requires very little surgery. With a bit of finagling and some sealing washers, we'll see how well this works out

[JBNeal]

I put together the shown contraption as an alternative to the practically impossible brazed air cleaner housing setup specified by Chrysler back in the 40s. The specifications are pending following road testing, but the picture shows the general parts & tools used. I probably spent way more time thinkin' bout it, but I only had to cut once, so I reckon this is a sound approach. This setup allows the use of the oil bath air cleaner with no modification to the base as Chrysler suggested for their PCV setup.

The modification to the air cleaner housing requires cutting down the spot welded 1/4-20NC rod, threading part of the rod, and adding a coupling nut and some length of threaded rod. Of note: Pittsburgh Tap & Die Set (Harbor Freight) is JUNK, as they overcut the specimen and standard bolts/nuts fit loosely. I took them back, told the nice goth gal running the cash register what happened, she gave me the ol' deer-in-headlights look and refunded my $$$. Alternatively, I found a nice Irwin [made in USA] Tap & Die Set at the Ace Hardware in the next county over (was in town there on business)...it cost three times as much as the Pittsburgh set, but they worked like they should...$$$ well spent

I lucked upon some brass 90 fittings at Lowe's that work almost perfect for fitup, although there were only two available of the machined style shown. The other fittings, as well as those seen at a couple of area Ace Hardware stores, were of the cast style and would not work well. The alternative to this 90 is to plug a tee and drill a hole in the plug for the threaded rod. A rubber washer is under the zinc plated washer, and a flare adapter & bushing screw into the 90. Total cost for the air cleaner adapter is in the $10 neighborhood.

Right after this picture was taken, I got the butterfingers and dropped the air cleaner, locating an Oreo sized dent in the top. That should be fun to pop out

The crankcase adapters used the existing draft tube and oil fill tube. Trimmed air hose adapters were brazed to these tubes...these are my first tries with brazing, so they are taking some time to clean up the slag & whutnot to look presentable. Cost to make these modifications is less than $5.

I look forward to putting these to road use, not only to see how well they work in keeping the oil clean, but to see how well they hold up to vibration. But I reckon I'll need to upgrade that 160 thermostat to a 180 thermostat to get the full effect.

[Jeff Balazs]

Very clever.....please update when you have had a chance to use it for a while.

Jeff

[JBNeal]

After multiple software & hardware technical problems were addressed, I finally got a wiring diagram put together in AutoCAD. This includes the Signal Stat wiring diagram and a headlight relay to improve lamp candlepower output. I've also routed the PANEL switch to control the dome lamp, linked the front & rear park lamps at the HEAD switch, and shown a ground wire to the horn (something I've been tinkering with, details to follow). The wiring insulation on the '49 is falling apart, so it'll be the first to get this tryout. The next thing I want to figger into this is an electric fuel pump with relay & oil pressure safety switch, as well as a fused power tap for a radio & a fan. I've read articles on the dangers of overloading this simple circuitry that's choked off by that AMP gauge, so I've been considering doing a partial bypass...anyhow, more to fiddle with; at some point I'll put it on paper, figger up a wiring jig, and slap it together

 

 

 

B-WiringDiagram3.PDF

Edited July 22, 2022 by JBNeal
revised image + pdf

[HanksB3B]

That's very cool. Mine's done but I wish I had that diagram a while back (esp. the Signal Stat part). Going to save someone out there a whole lot of hassle that's for sure.

Hank

[JBNeal]

I've been trying to get the '49 running since installing the steering gear, and while running new fuel lines from the cleaned out fuel tank, I noticed that the brake line from the master cylinder to the system junction block was grimy from the flare at the master to a low spot in the line. I had some difficulty with the fuel line flaring, and upon inspection it looks like my clamping anvil has become bent. The flares were not centering on the tubing, but making an adjustment while flaring made the flares come out decent. Since this was the same tool I had used to make the brake lines back in '04, and remembering I had similar problems back then, I reckon all the brake flares need to be checked. Since being put up on blocks back in '08, the master cylinder had leaked out; before that, the brake pedal had been spongy, and that supply line always had a weep to it. So the brakes will need to be bled, and that means I'll get the opportunity to rig up that hardware store pressure bleeder I've read about.

Every 6 months or so, I've been pulling the spark plugs & putting several capfuls of ATF down the hatch, then a few days later would spin the crankshaft a few times to limber things up. With the fuel system reinstalled and a new battery in place, as well as fresh oil + filter in the crankcase, I engaged the starter for about a minute with the ignition off and watched as pressure slowly built on the gauge (maybe 5 psi). But no fluid level change in the partially filled bowls for the fuel pump & filter had me scratching my head. I had disassembled, inspected, cleaned & bench tested the mechanical fuel pump and it had checked out OK, but didn't seem to be pumping on the truck. I filled the Stromberg with fresh gas and cranked several times, getting a 1 second run time on a few occasions, but no change on the fuel pump output. I even pulled the fuel line to siphon some gas up to the pump to help prime it, but no change.

So I took a break and visited my neighbors up the hill, helped them pick pecans and talked 'bout all the crooks & whack-jobs running for office & whutnot, then walked back home looking at the setting sun and decided to pull the fuel pump and disassemble it real quick. Lo & behold, one of the check valves had popped out of the fuel pump air horn. Put the whole thing back together, cranked for 5 seconds and without much manifold flatulence, that ol' 230 was running again, idling just as smooth as it did over 4 years ago. And once that manifold & exhaust started to heat up, the smoke started to pour out of the tailpipe. I let it idle for about an hour while getting the wheels put back on & getting it off the jack stands, and the smoking went away.

As darkness was setting in, I grabbed the steering wheel off the shelf in the garage & eased it onto the steering shaft, put the truck in bull gear, and eased out on the clutch...and the '49 is rolling under its own power, departing from The Money Pit to the driveway, a li'l closer to the house electrical outlet and where there aren't 2 inch wide cracks in the ground to swallow up errant nuts & bolts & whutnot

 

 

 

Edited August 22, 2021 by JBNeal
revised pictures

[ggdad1951]

very good to hear! I want your space and collection to play with!

[JBNeal]

when I picked up the '49 in '01, I was at a loss as to how the driver door could have such damage. The fenders were intact & the frame was undamaged, yet the door skin was peeled back. A couple of years went by before I had the chance to take a really good look at the truck, and found that there were cracks leading from the rear cab mounts to the door frames. The piece of painted sheet metal I found under the seat was originally welded to the seat frame skirt to the passenger door. I found some sheet metal that was the same thickness as the cab steel and fab'd up some fish-plates to re-enforce the areas as a band-aid until I could learn how to braze-weld. A trick I tried was to use a small floor jack between the cab floor & running boards to lift the cab up for the fish-plate installation. It took some time and some colorful metaphors to get it to work, but the plates fit in nicely and have worked well enough. I had also attached a piece of slotted angle steel between the cab mounts for more reinforcement, but I reckon that ain't required so it'll be yanked out when I start cleaning out some of the varmint mess that showed up this past winter

 

 

 

Edited August 22, 2021 by JBNeal
revised pictures

[48Dodger]

Don't know about the floor cracks, other than vibrations. The lower door damage is common, usally from opening the door into a misaligned front fender. And there, any number of reasons why its became misaligned. Check for a push dent on the front grille area of the fender, they hide pretty good on a patina truck.

48D

[JBNeal]

To clarify: the rear cab mounts were busted through the cab floor and the frame rails were supporting the back of the cab. Both doors were rubbing the fenders at the bottom corners, but the more oft-used driver door had significant damage. Polaroids of the original condition have been lost, but removing the fish plates on both sides of the damage would show this damage. I recall being baffled by the Dodge design as there is a reinforcement at the front cab mounts that extends beyond the door frames but just shy of the rear cab mounts. Anyhow, lifting the cab off the runningboards allowed the doors to open freely without interference from the front fenders. In retrospect, if I knew what kind of damage I had been looking at with the cracks in the cab, I would have made a much lower offer to that geezer who advertised this beast as in very good condition...live & learn, I reckon

[48Dodger]

Ooooooooh......got it.

48D

[JBNeal]

I've done some high idle testing over the past few weeks to see how the motor is operating after its recent revival. Cold startups are relatively quick at less than 5 seconds of cranking, and there is practically no smoke visible at any time during operation. After a few minutes of idling after the choke was no longer needed, I've operated the flathead for up to an hour at high idle, approximately 2000 rpm. The flathead is then brought back to idle for a couple of minutes, then shut down. After high idle and after shutdown, there is no noticeable smoke coming from the crankcase. So I reckon the partial PCV system I have installed is doing its job. I'm getting a hint of some valves ticking after the engine heats up, so maybe I'm gonna have to do a valve adjustment at some point

[JBNeal]

I took a little break this afternoon and broke out the camera for some picture takin'...here's 1/2 of the PCV system I put together & installed on the 230.  The crankcase adapter is a modified draft tube with a modified air compressor hose fitting brazed onto it.  The PCV valve I found on eBay, looks very similar to the VPW valve but only cost $5.  This setup is similar to the Power Wagon setup, and I reckon it works OK (haven't done extensive road testing on it yet nor have I completely adjusted the carb for the controlled vacuum leak).

 

additional information - PCV upgrade installation

 

 

 

Edited August 22, 2021 by JBNeal
revised pictures

[TodFitch]

I took a little break this afternoon and broke out the camera for some picture takin'...here's 1/2 of the PCV system I put together & installed on the 230.  The crankcase adapter is a modified draft tube with a modified air compressor hose fitting brazed onto it.  The PCV valve I found on eBay, looks very similar to the VPW valve but only cost $5.  . .

Nice! Got a part number and manufacturer for that PCV valve?

[JBNeal]

PCV-75 by way of Guaranteed Parts Co Inc, Seneca Falls, NY 13148...a guy in Arizona was selling them on eBay, he had a book that said these valves were used on Jeeps from the late 50s-early 60s as well as Power Wagons to the early 60s, and some other applications that I can't recall...the cutoff date on his application table was in the early 70s, so I'm guessing that's how old these things are:

 

 

UPDATE:  AC Delco CV697C (with threaded ports)

Edited August 22, 2021 by JBNeal
revised picture

[JBNeal]

I found a li'l gem on eBay for $10 a few weeks ago, and have had a few folks ask for a comparison of the draft tube adapter conversion I did and the VPW adapter:

 

 

Edited August 22, 2021 by JBNeal
revised pictures

[JBNeal]

I took some time on Independence Day around sunset to fiddle with the '49, as it may be used to run water to trees & whutnot in the short term. While airing up the tires, I noticed something out of the corner of my eye; turns out to have been a yellowjackets' nest...they weren't too happy I was jostlin' around in their neighborhood. I put some gas in the tank, fuel bowls & carb, a shot of ether down the Stromberg and a stomp on the starter and it fired right up. But this good news was short lived, as all I needed to do was turn the truck around (only the park brake works right now) and a tire went down. Turns out that one of the 10yr old tubes decided to shed one of its valve stems, so the nearly new 10yr old tires will probably need to get yanked off to replace them tubes/flaps. I wasn't planning on cleaning up the wheels on this beast, but I may do one at a time just to get the ball rolling on fixing this truck up. I haven't taken apart a locking ring rim before either, but I've seen it done plenty of times so I might give it a try after reading up on the subject...SAFETY FIRST

 

 

Edited August 22, 2021 by JBNeal
revised pictures

[JBNeal]

I was fiddling with the '49 this afternoon and was scratching my head again as the carb kept running dry.  Eventually I pulled the fuel pump and found one of the check valves fell out again and jammed the plunger.  This happened back in the fall, and I'm still unsure why this is happening now as I put over 1000 miles on that truck before it was put up on blocks back in '08 and I did not have this problem.  I popped the check valve back in its bore, tried to pull it out with a pair of needle-nose, then tried to slap it out on my hand, and it wasn't budging.  So I put it all back together and it fired up right away.  I let it idle for about 1/2 hour, and the engine ran smooth with the occasional stumble.  And then I put it in bull gear and aimed it down the driveway for the first time in 5 yrs, with the floor boards sitting in the garage, using the hand throttle to rev the motor, and only the hand brake to whoa it up.  I took it across the road into the old pasture in 1st gear, down the hill & back up again, clocking about 1/2 mile on the odometer.  I wanted to get some oil on the leather & rubber seals without tearing them up so I reckon seeing 2nd gear will have to wait until the hydraulic brakes are working again

Edited August 22, 2021 by JBNeal
revised picture

[JBNeal]

Since I parked the '49 back in '08, the DOT 5 had leaked out of the master cylinder.  I pulled the line from the MC, and the flare at the brass elbow had a small split in it.  So I made another line, complete with pigtail...but I made one for a Ute instead of the 1-ton, so I started over with another tube.  I hadn't bent lines in some time, so it took me a li'l practice to get back into the hang of it.  The steel lines available in these parts are not very flexible and are very easy to kink.  Making a 90 turn can be a li'l frustrating, and anything over that can bring out the creative German language.  But I eventually remembered that the trick is just like forming metal:  ya don't bend it in one pass; ya take several tacks at it.  So I would make a bend a tad over the diameter of the tube, reset the bend point to mid span of the previous bend, repeat several times over while alternating on each side of the 1st bend, do some massaging fine tuning, then BAM a pigtail without a kink.  It's not factory perfect, but it works good enough for me

 

 

So I filled the MC, pumped the brakes a few times, then did some other stuff for a couple of days.  Sure enough, there's some weeping at the brass elbow.  Hmmmph...maybe that elbow is messed up, so I drained the MC & pulled it out to get a better look.  I tried to get a pic of it, but couldn't get the details to show up to illustrate how the cone in the brass had become distorted and almost flattened out.  So this is why the tubing was leaking:  the flare was not seated.  During my lunch break the next day, I walked across the street from Burger Boy to pick up some new brass elbows and some tire tools (story to follow).  With a new brass elbow installed on the cleaned/installed/filled MC, I put the new line back in went to do some other stuff for a couple of days.  So far, no more DOT 5 has been seen weeping from the brake lines.  I'll need to clean the dirt dobber nests out of the bleed screws on the wheel cylinders with a drill bit, then bleed the brakes...I suppose I'll need to fab up a brake shoe adjustment tool at some point, as I only adjusted them by ear back in '04

[Don Coatney]

Kinks are not nearly as much fun as kinky.

[JBNeal]

Because of a string of 100^o days, I had to ramp up my efforts to put the ol' beast back to work.  The hydraulic brakes were assembled but not adjusted, but the hand brake still worked once I lubed up the sticking release button.  So I cleaned out the cab & the bed, put 5 gallons in the gas tank, and loaded up a 275 gallon tote tank for a trip down to the well for some ice cold high quality H₂O.  I got the truck up to 10mph in 1st, using the hand throttle to control engine speed as the floor boards were sitting in the garage waiting for anti-squeak to be installed (.040 EPDM scraps from a roofing job back in 2000).  It was an interesting test of hand-eye coordination to operate the throttle AND the brake by hand.  By the third trip down the hill, I had it figgered out and the pucker factor was waaay down (did I mention I misplaced the steering wheel nut?).  Going up the hill in bull gear seemed almost effortless to the stock 230 with nearly 2300# over the rear axle.  It was like I was piloting a wagon under its own power...a powered wagon of sorts

 

 

 

With so much weight over the rear axle, I didn't want to get in too big of a hurry.  The weight rolling over unpaved terrain really knocked the rust out from between the spring leaves, as the squeaking rear on the first trip got really quiet on subsequent trips.  The flat spots on the tires went away too, as they would squat down under the weight (front & rear, I measured).  Braking was a combination of using the hand brake and the driveline's low gearing.  As I watched the speedo touch 10, I wondered "who thought it would be a good idea to put 80 on this speedometer...they must've been hopped up on opium"   

Edited August 22, 2021 by JBNeal
revised pictures

[Don Coatney]

Dang JB, you got me going. Kinky is a lot more fun than pucker factor.