Nice to see you are moving along on your project Brian.

You have a really solid base project to work from; and the truck has a family history! Your son will love the bumpy truck when you get it rolling.

Keep the updates coming.

 

It does have a little sag, but not as bad as that one picture makes it look. Something else to fix in the future!

And I actually drove it around the block with my son, it drove well, but he thought it was bouncy due to me not knowing how to double clutch just right yet which made for a jerky ride.

 

After vacation update...

A friend with a welder came over last weekend and he welded on bolts and got all 4 thermostat housing bolts off. I replaced the housings and thermostats, put coolant in, and started it up again. No leaks, and it's running great!

I had an issue with it not starting after it running fine, but I'm pretty sure it's because the battery was low. I'm about 95% sure the generator doesn't work. I'm thinking about going with the MACs alternator for the 6 volt as a replacement. Need to do some research on it, not sure how it wires up with the 1 wire vs. the 3 for the generator.

I'm also not sure how to tune the carb, reading my manual now. If anyone has good pointers (step by step) I'd appreciate it!

I plan on taking it to an old car show on Saturday with another friend with a 1941 Ford truck hot rod.

I've been driving it around, and it runs really well for a stock engine and transmission! Getting the hang of the 4 speed non-synchro, but downshifting to 2nd seems nearly impossible until stopped!

 

First show today! People loved the old rust look of the truck and that it was all original (with new parts of course).

I had a crowd, one guy said "Alot of really nice rebuilds here and the biggest crowd is around the old rusty one". Mine was the only one of its kind, as most people do alot of body work.

Here's a pic (for some reason images are rotated wrong on this forum...sorry). 9 people around it, 2 are under hood looking at engine.

 

Updates

Right after this show the vehicle started hesitating on WOT and going up hills. That's on a separate post here and after 3 months of carb work (lower power valve number, lower jet size cause i'm at altitude, and even an ebay carb that I rebuilt), I finally figured out from a Mustang forum that it was a bad condenser (even though it was new!). My carb is in fantastic shape now and the new $35 ebay carb fixed some leaks... so it wasn't a wasted effort.

So, I got it running great again, and it's been fantastic. I take it on errands around town even when it's cold (Colorado), and there's a new non-ethanol gas station only 5 miles from my house now. There are only 3 within 100 miles, so that's pretty sweet.

As I was driving it around I noticed it was riding really rough so I replaced the shocks, and then found my cab was actually RESTING on the frame. There was NO rubber in the "dog bone" in the rear, nor was there any in the front 4 mounts. So I ordered the parts from LMC truck and after cutting off the 4 bolts on the front mounts I replaced all the rubber and the rubber for the dog bone. In a post on this forum I found some tips and used them. I supported the cab with my floor jack on top of a cinder block, and then on top of wood I used my 1950 F1 stock jack to press the bottom of the dog bone back up into the rubber so i could get the bolt back in. Worked like a charm! The cab is no longer on the frame in the back and it's levitating about 1/2 inch off.

Anyway, here's a couple of pics of the "dog bone" cab mount before and after, you can see it's now levitating. You can also see in lower left the cab was digging into the running board, and it no longer is. I'm going to drive it today (finished it last night) to see how it rides... I bet it's going to be great!

 

C'mon man, don't be a Richard Cranium, thread right here at FTE suggested condenser right away during your epic "Hesitation" saga. I think hardly a week goes by here without somebody rediscovering the ****ty condenser problem.

 

Condenser was brought up on page 6 of said FTE thread after 3 months, for me that's not "right away" as you state. There was one other mention earlier, but it was dropped when i had stated i had all new points/condenser/coil/wires. The only other similar comment was the ground wire in distributor.

Most everything else was carb/fuel related until page 6. By that time I had already gotten an ebay carb for $35, rebuilt it, and checked compression, fuel pressure, vacuum advance, timing, etc.

But hey, at least now I know all my numbers and that everything is working properly and it's running great as expected!

 

Very nice story, thanks for sharing.
Greg

 

happy ending, enjoy!! it will always be a crowd pleaser at shows, esp when people learn the history of it. you can't recreate that with all the money in the world.

 

Very enjoyable story here!

 

The truck is still running great, I used it all winter and even drove in some snow. Here's some new pics of the latest upgrades which included seatbelts, fixing swiss cheese floor pan, and tidying up the interior. The blue blanket is a temporary cover for a deteriorating seat... I will be re-upholstering the seat, but the back of the seat is still in great shape so I may keep that.

Kids seem to love taking pictures with the truck at car shows, because it's "Mater" from Cars! Although it's not really, but hey, we'll let them think it.



This image is before i cleaned it up and sealed it. I'm new to this welding thing thing anyway.





Does't matter what it looks like anyway because I got a form fitting rubber mat to cover it!

 

We took the truck out in January for a photo shoot. We had another family come to use the truck as well. It was in a nice snowy, hilly park and about 35 degrees out. It ran great the whole time and the photos turned out pretty good too. The photographer asked how much I'd want to sell my vehicle. Since it's got sentimental value I told her it really wasn't for sale but gave her a number probably 4 times what it's worth, which would allow me to buy a completely stock frame off restoration in it's place if she actually wanted to buy it.

 

Update to an almost 20 year old thread: Truck is still running great after 5 years. I really haven't done much to it besides taking it to car shows and driving around town every few weeks. I did put on a new seat cover and padding since the original one was finally getting torn up... plus there was quite a bit of rat poop in the old seat! I also put in the original radio, and the image is old but I bought some ***** on ebay for it this summer as well to finish the look. The radio is just for looks though, it's missing several old vacuum canisters and the wires have all been chewed by mice.

Here's a few pics of my winning entry into a "truck or treat" last Halloween, and latest interior.

 

Brian,
I'm going to show this thread to my kid tonight, your story is truly inspirational.
Please reconsider NOT selling THIS truck. The sentiment & memories will be concrete in your kid's head and heart when he wants the 3rd gen family truck.
No replacement truck will do.
Too many online Ads of children trying to find their father's old "something" sold in "somewhere USA" about 19xx.
They are indelible memories that he may be writing about 25 years from now on this very website with his handle maybe "Yosemite II".
I'm glad that I saw your post!