Projects 1949 M47 pickup. Basement barn find!

Just sharing what little knowledge I have... I remember working on a Tecumseh lawn mower engine that used needle bearings on the con rod. They kept falling out when I was putting it back together. Frustrating until I “glued” them in place with bearing grease!

 

In the beginning my '48 F2 looked like this; I removed the entire drive-train ( flathead six, 4 speed trans, no synchronizers) and the rear axle 4.88 /1 full-floater. The 12 leaf rear springs were reduced to 5 leaves. Next, the entire front axle ass'y and steering column , were removed then replaced with a cross-member, having a power rack & pinion, and steering column from a '76 AMC Pacer which I purchased ( the entire vehicle) for the tidy sum of 250 dollars. The 9 inch Ford ( 3.00 ) rear axle was donated ("freebie") from a good friend. Next was the installation of bare 49-53 V-8 block attached to a C-4 core simply to mock-up what was to be an experiment. The wife was was telling me this place looked like Sanford (no sons), as at this point I'd dragged a '72 Ford Torino into the driveway, complete, seemed-to-me a good candidate for a driveshaft and misc. other parts as required ((to be continued))

 

those panels look to be in great shape though!
i suspect way better than mine.

 

Decent cab and frame, no rust Tony... The hood and bed were terribly bent and buckled as this old truck was used to haul roofing shingles throughout Greater Trenton, NJ... that was approx, the time when ROD 1 Shop carted it away in pieces, which is when I built the souped Merc Flathead and acquired a rebuilt C- 4 auto trans. This was assembled on the floor of my garage__.
*31 years later, it continues to 'amaze'.

 

Just read through this whole thread. The whole thing is just too cool!
My mom was from Quebec up on the St. Laurent (Trois Pistol). Many of her siblings were in Montreal.
Haven't seen any of them in 50 years (she passed at the young age of 37).

Anyway, cool truck and cool thread.

 

its been brutally cold here so i haven't been in the garage for a few days but i've been collecting everything i need to fire off the motor. hoping to get in today and start connecting stuff and laying out a basic wiring harness just to fire the engine off.
ive got a voltage regulator coming in on friday and i think thats the last piece i need for the motor, but i will only know for certain once its all in front of me.

 

Got some things mounted on the motor. Fuel pump, carb. Then I pulled the trans and mounted the flywheel. Looks like it has a pilot bushing and not a bearing....not sure if I should pull it or just run it.
I will likely replace the clutch release bearing....or maybe not, maybe I'll just regrease it. The trans is pretty filthy so it's possible I'll need to do work on it after its running a bit, but I wanna see it rolling before just buying shit for the sake of it.
Made a list of things I've gotta connect still and will keep chugging along!

Anyone know what this bracket is for?!

 

That gearbox sure does need to be worked over with a carpenters chissel. 3/4 inch blade will do. If that filth is as hard as i think it is a hammer needs to be added to the end of the chissel

 

Looks like you're missing the crankshaft washer assembly. Number 7609 on the attached diagram from Vanpelts site.

 

oh wow, ok thanks for that!
it looks like it goes between the flywheel and the bolts that hold it down.
ill find that before I crank these bolts down with a torque wrench!

is that big ring necessary, or would regular washers under the heads do the trick just the same?

Edit: it looks like its not a washer so much as it is a safety to keep those dowel pins from coming out as the motor runs. hopefully its not too difficult to source.

another edit: wellll....itll take longer for me to order this and get it than it will for me to just make one out of some sheet metal in my garage so looks like im making a washer!

 

I have been tapping away at it with a screwdriver and a hammer and it is thick.
its like someone drove through drying concrete or something its wild!!

 

I might have one in my stash if I can find it. I'll look tomorrow morning. But even if I do locate one by the time the USPS gets it across the border you'll have the truck running and driving. Regardless I'll let you know if I find one.

 

@51504bat thanks for that!! But you're absolutely right that shipping takes forever unless you pay hella $$$. I'll have one whipped up and the clutch and trans reinstalled before Saturday if all goes according to plan.

 

You need a needle scaler on an air chisel . https://www.harborfreight.com/needl...19-pc-62483.html?utm_source=google&utm_medium

 

Hey Tony, you mentioned buying shit... As a fellow Canadian I like to offer you in the spirit of East-West relations free shit. I’ll have some in the morning, all you have to do is pay the shipping! LOL

 

re; C-C-old weather__ I feel your pain, Tony. Currently, I've another fh Merc under construction, splurging this time having acquired an engine stand. But so dang cold it'll weeks before I wrench on this !?
You're making great progress, and yes you DO need the 'disc' underneath the 4 flywheel bolts.

 

its going to be an almost summer like -9 this afternoon so im gonna walk over and try to set the static timing/distributor up on the flathead.
ive never done this before, i have no clue if it has a timing mark, basically im going in blind. ive read a bunch about HOW to do it, but reading and doing are two different animals.

im sure itll be fine, but this is a bit of a stressful thing for me. i will be putting in brand new points and condenser in the distributor too. i've set those up on motorcycles, so that doesnt intimidate me.

while im there i will also take an imprint of the pulley and bolt pattern so i can make a washer tomorrow after work for the crank/flywheel to install it all on saturday morning.

its going to be a bit warmer early next week, in the positive degrees, so im really pushing to try to start the motor when its not below freezing just to make my life a little bit easier. though the cold will be sunk into the block.....MAYBE it will make a difference.
this weekend i still need to flush the old radiator out and see if it has any obvious leaks and potentially even pressure test it in the motorcycle garage.

just a reminder, i have rented this garage for this truck, but i have a much better equipped shared space where I work on my motorcycles. its where 98% of my tools are and its heated, and its shared with 7 other people so there's always another set of eyes, ears, brains around to get input. alone in the cold is a whole other animal. id work on the truck there but we have two garages filled to the brim with winter storage for motorcycles that pays our heat and subsidizes our rent bills throughout the year. sadly no space for four wheeled vehicles.

 

Made a template for the washer.
Installed the distributor!
Installed the oil filter canister and most of the lines, just need one adapter.
Theeeeen I sheared a bolt installing the coil....
It was eventually gonna happen, hopefully it's not too annoying to pull out. I have all the right tools to do it, just at the other garage.
Onward and upward!!

 

It never fails. You got this!

 

Doesn't that small flywheel bolt plate go towards the transmission and under the bolt heads onto the flywheel? Sounds like you were planning on it going between the crank and the flywheel.

Dave

 

@dwollam I was planning as you described, under the heads of the bolts.
After reading up it only has the four holes for the bolts because its main purpose is to keep the dowel pins from falling out. Allegedly.

 

@MTL Tony Cool!

Dave

 

I am friggin filthy.
It took about three hours with a wire brush but I got rid of all the rust on a lot of parts that needed to be painted to get this motor running.
Radiator mount, fan, starter plate, starter body, fan shroud.
I then pressure tested my radiator and it's golden, so I masked it off and painted all the steel parts and just hit the non steel parts with a light brushing to just make it a little nicer.
Then I tested my starter so I'm not just putting in a bad starter. Works fine!
I'm sure I'm forgetting something but I'm exhausted and waiting for paint to dry and I'm about to make that washer.
Maybe I'll post again with that. Or I'll just post it on the motor.

Anyways, here's some pics. Kind of weird and odd angles. I was trying to focus on working instead of taking pics today since I got started a bit later than I wanted due to a busted water pipe in my neighbors house that I had to fix.

 

For good measure.
Here's the washer.
I'll drill the four holes in it when it's in front of the crank so I don't mess em up.

 

Slow but sure. coming together

 

i just did a back of the napkin wiring diagram here.
everything is 12v now.
i am just firing up the engine to hear it run. i likely wont even let it get hot enough for the temp senor to register, but ill have it hooked up anyways.
oil pressure sending unit hooked up so i can spin the motor over without power to the coil to make sure its got pressure before starting it. i will ground them out though i realize i didnt draw it on the diagram.

i might also not hook up the generator at all. i can run it off the battery for now.

im not 100% sure about the coil/distributor part of it, but i also just dont have them in front of me at the moment. im running a 12v coil for a 56 f100.

does this look accurate for a quick firing?

 

I recently came across your videos on You Tube and subscribed. I didn't see a link to your You Tube channel here, maybe I missed it, but here it is for others to enjoy. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0VPRWr-P0E8mljYQllZr5g .

 

Thanks @Copper Top
I posted just the first video since so far it's the only one that many folks will find relevant, the rest is mostly moto content.
Got another one for Thursday of the mounting of the rear axle/suspension. And then in a week or two of just cleaning out the truck. Currently working on the one to start the motor, which will likely be pretty long. So there's definitely more truck content coming with moto stuff thrown in.

 

The weather was nice today so I was able to work in a sweater with the garage door open and it was damn glorious. I can't wait til spring is here.

Mounted the radiator!
Mounted the fan!
Realized I put the fan on backwards!
Put belts on!
The generator pin is in the wrong spot so I spent 45 minutes trying to pull it.
Then I said fuck it and I pulled the whole generator bracket and fan off again. I'm gonna just cut the dumb pin out and press one into the rear hole. It's not a blind hole so I can take it out very easily. I also decided to paint the genny bracket while it was off so it's currently hanging with drips all over because it's clearly too cold to paint. One day I'll learn.
I also went to FIVE stores to find the reducer for the oil line into the block. But I finally found it. This isn't the pressure reducer, just the one so I can actually mount the line itself.


I'm really stoked with the progress I made today though. I'm allllmost ready to throw some wires on. I'm currently charging up my two spare batteries I've got in a closet to fire off the motor hopefully this weekend.

Here's a couple pics of the radiator.
I think I mounted it right!
The second pic is after I pulled the fan and gen mount off to deal with that.


Oh yeah I painted the bolts for mounting the radiator too.

 

Keep at it Tony! You’re doing great mon ami...