I would agree that 6V batteries aren't that hard to come by. I live in a small town and have personally purchased three right off the shelf.

Radiators might be good though, and I have an interesting personal story. It involves a bent over old man, still working everyday, with what he describes as almost 70 years in the radiator business--just the sort of interesting character that belongs in a book. The old man's wife, just as old, works in the shop too. She keeps the books. The shop, of course, is right out of the 1950's--stuff everywhere (and dirt) that hasn't been touched in years and years.

I initially took my radiator to a local shop. They said it was junk and needed to be re-cored or replaced. I heard of another shop, however, several towns over, and decided to give them a try. It was the old man's shop, and it was said to be the best place for radiator repairs in our area. The old man looked at my radiator and said he could re-core it for $800 or he could make a repair for $200. I mentioned to him that my local radiator repair guy said my radiator was junk and couldn't be repaired, but the old man insisted he could fix it. I took a week or so to think over the old man's options, and that's when the story takes an unexpected turn.

You can read about it in a thread entitled, "Radiator: Repair, Replace, Re-core. I don't know how to post the link, but you can find it by clicking on my user name, then go to "statistics", then click on "find all threads started", and finally the thread containing my radiator story.

Posts 1, 10, and 18 tell the story, but there's lots of background information about old radiators in the other posts. Another interesting little tidbit from my radiator story--Every time you remove your radiator, you have to drain the antifreeze. I had my radiator in and out at least three times during my radiator adventure. On one occasion, I was under the truck draining antifreeze, and it spilled all over me and surprisingly wrecked my phone in my shirt pocket.

Good luck.

Jim

 

This it?
https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1...r-re-core.html

 

Josh, the title looks right, but it doesn't seem to link to the thread--at least on my computer. Thanks for trying though.

Jim

PS. It's working now. Thanks Josh.

 

It worked for me. But I had to copy and paste it.

 

I fixed the link from my computer. I had copied it on my phone,

 

For the sake of the story, money isn't an issue. I need something that's going to take 6+ weeks, if a battery is fairly easy to get a hold of, and they want to put a new radiator in - could that be something that is back ordered? Or is that something you'd just order and it'd show up a week or two later? Part of the excitement is that now that ( ??? ) has arrived, they can finally put it in and take it out on the backroads for a spin.

And can I just say again, how grateful I am. You guys have been super helpful. I was at a plotting workshop last Saturday bragging about this truck forum and the help I was getting. Now everyone else wants a group like this for their various story-related questions.

 

6 weeks? I'd say a water pump as Effie Trucker recommended above. You could even have to send it back because it was the wrong year, for wrong engine, etc.

 

If you order a new radiator, It can arrive in a week or two. If you go to an old school shop for for a radiator repair or re-core, there very well could be a substantial wait. There are very few shops anymore that do repairs and re-cores. Commercial jobs and farmers are usually fast tracked to the head of the line. Someone with an old truck would probably be placed on the low priority list.

In my case, I waited in line for my repair to be made, picked it up when it was ready, but then didn't put it in my truck for nearly a year. It was then that I discovered that the repaired radiator still wasn't going to be usable. That meant I had to order a replacement, which of course took more time. The radiator was the last thing needed to get my truck back on the road. The big event was much delayed because of radiator issues.

Jim

 

Hi Hanne,
I'll put my vote in for a water pump. The truck could be said to have the 226 CID six cylinder flathead engine and we here know that there are only maybe three new water pumps left on this planet for that engine.
One is leveling a wooden table with a broken leg in a Maori village in New Zealand, one is forever untouchable because it's misidentified on a parts shelf at an old Ford parts distributor in Georgia, and the third one is on E-Bay by a seller who knows where the other two are and wishes to retire early on the sale of his still-in-the-original-box pump. He is asking more for it than the actual whole truck cost when it was brand new.
Nobody reproduces them in the aftermarket, the main character is out of luck there.
But a fourth one is found....based on a tip from a old guy in town who knows a guy who knows a guy that was going to rebuild his 226 engine 30 years ago and never got around to it. He has since sold his truck but still has a box of parts in his shed. He ends up giving her the pump because was glad that someone wanted to revive a 226 engine, and he didn't think anyone else would ever want it.
(Fortunately he has never been on E-Bay and never will in his remaining lifetime)
It took four weeks to finally get the name of the guy that the guy knows and another two weeks for her to finally get him to answer his phone. He didn't recognize her number on his wall phone's caller ID, also didn't have an answering machine, so she asked a local veterinarian friend of hers if she could use her business phone. Sure enough, he picked up on the second ring when he saw a safe looking phone number with a doctor's name appear. Finally making contact with him, he was happy to chat with a young woman who liked an old truck. She couldn't go over right away to get the pump. He made excuses why he wasn't going to be home. In reality, he just wanted time to clean up around his house first before having company over. And to find the box of parts.
So six weeks later......

Tom

p.s - these trucks new around 1950 were about $1,400 with a couple options, tax, title and all.

 

Tom, you ought to write a book! Just one problem, old wall phones don't have caller ID.

 

Tom, you crack me up. Since you guys are such a wealth of information, my next book will be about a guy named Tom who knows a guy who knows a guy who knows a chick who is looking for a very specific water pump. He could just mail it, but he's going to spend 6 weeks cleaning up for when he has the company of a chick that likes trucks. Sure to be a NYT best seller. I'll mail you an autographed copy.

 

 

 

He must be so disappointed that I just need a fictional one and that my truck isn't real!

 

Haha, here in Seattle, we just don't answer (caller ID or not) - DON'T CALL ME, I WON'T ANSWER. But you'd better answer if I call you.