Hot Rods Picked up a 34 off a friend

correct.. I stated that this 34 truck come from a buddy I had bought a roadster pickup off of some years ago.. bone stock 28 A roadster pickup that I built..

the roadster pickup I bought off him after building it.

what it looked like first after getting it running

 

Little update while I’m stuck at work..

Been working on it every night till about midnight..

Fixed some more wiring issues.. for some reason whoever started to put it together thought it was a good idea to cut wires out of the fuse box and just run hots off the ignition switch for all kinds of thing... wipers, blinkers, and coil. While fixing come to find all the issue was with the blinkers was a bad flasher.. so cut it back into the fuse box and installed the flasher where it should be..




only carriage bolts I could find in town the heads were just a tad to big.. so into the lathe they go..


Made up a little mount for a block tie grounds together under the dash out of left overs from the shroud



While fitting the toe board to work out the gas pedal height I noticed the bolt they had in the brake pedal was sticking out to far and hitting the mount for the pedals.. made up a pin for that and also had to lengthen/ make a new brake rod since the pedal was going down to far.



while trying to get the toe board in figured I’d pop the shifter out and look inside to check the trans out.. seems to be nice and clean inside.



Brings me to where I’m at now.. since using a 4 barrel the throttle is on the drivers side.. working up a crossover piece to get the stock pedal to work it. Being that the stock pedal pulls the carb on the passenger side. hopefully it works the way I think it will.

Can’t find any heavy walled pipe Locally with an ID the right size so this is what I have to do. Start with solid round


drill it, bore it, turn it down and leave a little to side into the pipe to keep everything straight so I can weld it together.


Welded and the ground smooth”ish”


Using 3/8 rod for the shaft that passes through and turning it down so I can use throttle arms for a stromberg carb.. want to make it so it can get parts for it easy if I need to.. that and I have parts from the roadster pickup I’m stealing to get this thing going.. so I will probably have to order a bunch of parts to get the roadster pickup going again haha



So when I get home I’ll start working on getting a mount for it made up to get it held onto the intake somehow.

 

Worked some more on the throttle setup.

Started by making up some brackets that would bolt on top of the intake..

marked the plate for some radius cuts to get around the carb and be able to access the bolts.







Stuck them in the mill to make some room for adjustment left and right.


used parts from the progressive linkage I had on the roadster pickup so I wouldn’t have to order stuff and it not work.


couldn’t help but set it back down and throw the hod and grill on. Hopefully all that’s left is adding oil in the engine, trans, and rear. Then hopefully get it running this week..

 

Well it’s been a battle last few days..

Worked up a new floor board for it.


After a few other minor things I wanted to get it cranking to verify oil pressure.

I had a heck of a time.. had the intake off and poured the oil all over lifters and springs to try and get oil on as much as I could.. crank for a while an 0 Oil psi..

what I ended up having to do was take the plug out by the pressure gauge port and thread in a hose barb and slowly add 1/2 quart of oil in that way.. after that the pump picked up prime and was set to try and start it..


Took a bit to get started but instantly had overheating issue.. big air pocket in it but still overheated running 2000 rpm to get cam broke in.. could make it about 5 minutes and it was hitting 210 and climbing..

All kinds of stuff was running through my head.. ask on a few Facebook pages and read through countless threads on here..

figured it out tonight.. ended up being air still stuck inside and timing was late.. Used the radiator I had in my rpu to test with since I knew it was clear and had a fan and no shroud on it.

Didn’t think to check the advance springs.. checked them and they had the heaviest springs the offered installed.. so full advance wasn’t till 4500 rpm..

installed the lightest ones so full advance was at 2100 rpm.. made some turns back and forth on the distributor with the vac gauge hooked to the carb..

Those things made it possible to run the 20 mins straight to get the cam done..

After that had to adjust the idle air screws still using the vac gauge on the carb so that it would idle.

have to wait to get my radiator back from getting flushed to be able to drive it.. have a few adjustments to make anyway in the meantime.. going to be like kid waiting in Christmas to get the radiator back.

 

Well haven’t posted much since it’s been a whirlwind last few days..

Got the radiator back and installed.. started going through all the things getting it roadworthy.. first real test drive yesterday failed.. ran home from work fast and jumped in the truck after readjusting the valves late Friday.

made it about a mile from the house and ran out of gas. Put 5 gallons in it and made it about 2 miles down the road went to turn around and the brakes locked up solid. Had to walk/run Back to the house to get tools. Was able to crack the bleeder loose to release the brakes. While alongside the road I tried rocking by grabbing the tailgate and the temporary straps broke and I fell flat on my ass.

The motor was running rough come to find out even being a new rebuild there must be a ring problem due to only having 80 pounds of compression. There is a slight hesitation and a nurse at 2100 RPM.

But it seem to be running OK enough for the main goal of getting the truck back to the calling that I bought it from so he can go for a ride in it..



Still some things to sort out and get the motor figured out but I think it’s good enough for now so I can get back on to my other project. I wanted to get this done before winter so he could see it.

sucks to see somebody that’s a friend or anyone for that matter that knows so much about cars struggle to remember five minutes ago but I really hope that this is maybe something he will be able to remember..

so for now this is the end of the updates.. if any majors changes I’ll probably make a separate thread.

 

Good on ya for making sure he gets a ride!!

 

Ya, running a tig bead across those cracks will fix the problem. I've found that using an 1/8 or 3/16" rod welded to an 1/8×1" flat bar, and using it between the work piece and brake, the increased radius keeps that hard street sign material from cracking. A little heat on the aluminum also helps.