I was thinking the same thing. That may be the case on the early 215. On the 223 the oil supply and discharge tubes go into that hole and into the shaft and that locks it in the right place.

 

The hole we are discussing for sure does not extend into the shaft. It goes through the metal of the support, but not into the shaft itself.

I think we may have solved our mystery. It seems likely that each of the six shaft supports were manufactured with holes--two are for oilers, two receive the fasteners for the valve cover, one serves as a set screw locking the shaft in position--and the one we are talking about is an "extra" with no particular function. It has a hole maybe just to be interchangeable with the others. How's that for a theory?

Edit: Actually the holes for the different functions--oilers,valve cover fasteners, set screw--appear to be quite different. My interchangeable parts idea is not supported by the facts.

 

I'd say your theory is about 99.9999% correct.

 

Thanks Hiball and all the other FTE members for your help and support. I could not be doing my project working by myself. Having a place like the FTE forum to come to for advice and encouragement, has been invaluable.

I'll be taking a week or so break away from my project. Maybe that will be a good thing. When I get back to work, one of the first issues to address will be the wiring. It seems to be all screwed up. Nothing electrical works. I'm not sure how that happened, but I was trying to repair some of the old cloth covered wires and put a lot of the exposed wiring in looms for protection and to tidy up the engine compartment. Probably multiple mistakes were made. The good news is my friend's shop is an auto electric place, and he is an acclaimed wiz at fixing electrical issues in vehicles.

 

If the electrical problems surfaced during the engine R&R, I would SWAG you have disturbed a ground somewhere. Hope it is that simple.

 

Like most things on my truck, the electrical system (simple as it is compared to a modern vehicle), is pretty much of a mystery to me. I know I did paint the surface where the main positive cable from the battery is grounded to the block. I sanded this area and the connectors too, but maybe not good enough. I know where there is a small ground wire for the headlight wire harness--where are some other ground wires I should check?

Two critical areas that I worked on were the starter solenoid and the voltage regulator. The wire leads to these devices were really bad. It's amazing that they were not shorting out, as there was very little of the original cloth insolation left on the wires. There was also a three prong plug close to where the steering column goes though the fire wall that I messed with. I thought I was being careful to get each wire back where it belonged, but the fact that nothing works seems to argue otherwise.

What's that little phrase again? Knowledge is power, but Ignorance is darn frustrating.

 

I bought a stock style original looking wire harness with cloth covering from MidFifty back in 1999. I sure they have them for 6 cylinder 53 panel trucks. I just bought from the dash and ignition forward to the headlights and then a crossover wire. I figured the wires going to the taillights aren't seen and I ran that wire myself.

If you do go this route do not rip out the old wire totally and then attempt to put in the new. Rip out about a foot of the old, add the new and so on so it is easy to see where the new should go.

 

My friend, the garage guy (and the auto electric guy), "fixed" my wiring two years ago. That's when we became friends. He used, much like you suggest, his own cloth covered wires, rather than purchased wire harnesses. He replaced a lot of the wiring, but obviously not all of it. We did less than a complete job at the time because I was trying to save money. When he was finished, the gauges, lights, and everything else worked. Everything was still working two years later until I started messing with it.

I should probably bite the bullet (again) and get a commercial harness for the ignition and under the dash like you did. For now, I'm hoping to just cobble something together so I can limp out of my friend's garage. I've been in there taking up prime space on one of his hoists since mid January!

 

The main electrical problems were solved by running a new wire from one of the bolts attaching the starter solenoid to the fire wall to one of the bolts attaching the coil to the engine block. There may be some other issues under the dash, because the wires there were disturbed when I worked on the emergency brake and installed a new choke cable--but hopefully they will be minor. My friend knows just what to do when it comes to electrical problems.

With the new ground wire in place, the starter and ignition were working, but we discovered the new starter drive we added as part of the rebuilding process was not right. It wouldn't engage the flywheel. We have the correct drive coming. The engine is just about ready to fire--but today, unfortunately, was not the day. Maybe tomorrow.

 

There's always tomorrow! Good luck and take a video!

 

The "Tomorrow" referenced above, came and went, and still there is no successful start-up to report. The starter issue was resolved, and the exhaust system re-installed--that's the good news. On the negative side of things, the distributor turned out to be 180 degrees out of phase--and the unkindest cut of all--the oil filter of all things turned out to be improperly installed.

The starter drive didn't come until the end of the day, so we really didn't have much of an opportunity to get the engine started. When we did get a chance to try, the first thing we noticed was some back firing through the carb. This led to the distributor out of phase diagnosis. With the distributor repositioned, the engine wanted to start and briefly did what I would describe as "dieseling". It was then that we discovered the oil pouring out where the oil filter connects to the block. There were some gas leaks too from the glass carb bowl and some of the line connections. And this is where matters stood at the end of the work day today.

I'm concerned that the distributor was installed wrong. We adjusted the valves based on the assumption that we had the #1 cylinder TDC on the compression stroke. Will the fact that #1 cylinder was instead TDC on the exhaust stroke, affect the valve adjustment? Could the valves being adjusted wrong cause the dieseling we experienced?

So, I don't have a celebratory video of my engine running to share, but here instead are some pictures from today:











To quote Abe, "There's always tomorrow". I'm anxious to hear if re-adjusting the valves will be a part of the "festivities". Thanks everyone for your help and continued interest.

 

I would go back and readjust the valves. Being 180 off will put the cam where the exhaust is closing and the intake is opening rather then being on the base/heel of the lobes..

 

It sure looks pretty, the engine colors, the clean firewall, the painted radiator, the painted radiator elbow pipe, and even vintage hose clamps! Now you gotta get the valve cover decal. And get it running of course.

 

Thanks for the kind words, Abe. It's been a journey for sure getting to this point. There are still quite a few things that could/should be done to get my engine bay up to actual original restoration standards. I'll keep working on the details after the engine gets squared away.

First thing tomorrow I have to deal with the oil leak. How embarrassing! I get tripped up on even the most basic of things. Thanks Hiball for the advice on the valve train adjustment. It only makes sense that it would have to be re-done. Hopefully, the valve cover gasket survives the "trauma".

 

Today WAS the day! The oil and gas leaks were quick fixes, and with these issues resolved, the engine started quite easily. As we discussed yesterday, the valves are not adjusted correctly, and as a result, I only ran the engine for 30 seconds or so. The valves were clattering pretty good, and I didn't want to wreck anything.

I sure would have liked to try the engine out some more, but I needed more guidance than was available today at the shop for adjusting the valves. At this point, I do know the engine runs and starts and doesn't appear to have any leaks. Oil pressure on the gauge was 30 pounds at idle speed. I was thinking this was low, but who knows how accurate the gauge is.

Sorry no video. I don't even know how to get regular pictures from my flip phone into an on-line post. As has already been demonstrated, I'm no mechanic--sadly not a tech guy either.