It's alive! (sort of)

Thanks to Jon Fearnow's tools, PB Blaster, and my near-autistic ability to focus all my energies on futile tasks, I was able to finally coax the last of the clutch-head screws from the cap of the sending unit in the gas tank. I'm pretty sure this is the original sending unit:

When I pulled it out, the opening of the tube leaked a blackish tar. I fashioned a bit of wire into a small facsimile of a pipe snake and started pulling chunks of tar out of the uptake tube. I spent about 45 minutes on my little roto-rooter job and finally ended up with a mostly clean tube - I will put a new sending unit on order tomorrow.

I put the now open sending unit back in, replaced the clutch-head bolts with phillips head bolts and called for Sharon again.

After some trials, and checks that fuel was coming out of the pump, and then into the filter, Sharon laid on the starter. VROOM!! All of a sudden the truck was running on its own. LIFE!!

Gray smoke poured from the exhaust for a bit and there were a couple backfires. The engine was really racing. I was a little concerned and was about to ask Sharon to turn the key when it slowed down and smoothed out on its own. I asked Sharon if she turned the key off. She said no, but she did take her foot off the pedal. Yikes!

I should have explained to her that once the truck started she could lay off the starter. I hope we didn't cause too much damage with that full throttle first start.

The engine died and I had her start it again. It fired right up. It was clear the idle probably needed to be adjusted because she had to give it a little gas to keep it running.

I was starting to grin like an idiot when fluid started coming out of the carburetor. It started smoking and I had Sharon kill the engine before it caught on fire:


I have a carburetor rebuild kit on order, with all new gaskets. It looks like I'll need to rebuild the carb before I take it on the road.

All-in-all a pretty exciting evening. I can't wait to get back at it. I feel like we are close to getting the truck running and I can't wait to take it on its first drive.

No fuel = No run

I got the new oil lines around 4 today.



Installed them, hooked up the battery, put Sharon in the driver's seat and gave it a shot - but no dice.

The engine will turn over and even run for a little while on starter fluid, but even after 2 minutes of trying to start it, no gas in the filter bowl.

Since I pulled the pump off earlier and it seemed to be working, I can only assume that there is some kind of blockage between the tank and the filter. Maybe sediment in the tank, or gunk in the lines.

I am heading down to the station to pick-up some clutch-head bits from Jon. Hopefully with them I will be able to pull the cover off of the gas tank and take a look-see.

Then I will look at the fuel lines and make sure they all seem to be clear.

Pics

Still waiting for the new oil lines to be delivered today. Thought I would post some of the full truck pics for those that have not seen them.

The day we brought it home (12/20/09):


Proud papa:


A little bit of history:
The original owner bought the truck in 1954. He was a machinist and welder. After one of the bed boards broke, he welded a steel plate into the bed. He also made the tool box mounted in the bed.
In 1976 he gave the truck to his son who took it around the Northwest as a daily driver and to pull a horse trailer. At some point he replaced the engine with a 235 from a 1959 truck. The son eventually ended up in Colorado and stopped using it regularly. The truck has been garaged for the last decade.
We bought the truck around Christmas as a project for our family and as a light work truck to haul landscape materials, lumber and anything else we can't fit in our yuppie mobiles.
We are waiting until we get the truck running for his/her personality and gender to emerge before we decide on a name.

Shootin' for Wednesday

The oil line parts are on order and should arrive on Wednesday. The new battery is installed. I will try to start the truck once I get the new lines installed and new oil in the engine. It is going to be tough to wait!

I also ordered a Carburetor rebuild kit with all the gaskets I'll need. I think I'll wait until I see if we can get it started before I start the rebuild.

Oops - Missed that!

We took the seat out of the truck today:


Sharon tried to get the seat runners cleaned out and free of dirt so that we can slide the seat forward and back. While we had the seat out, we could see daylight coming into the cab from behind the gas tank on the driver's side. We poked our heads back there and saw that a pretty big section of the bottom of the cab has rusted through:

I missed that when I looked over the truck before I bought it. We will need to remove the gas tank to get a better look at the extent of the damage. I'm no body man so I would not mind some advice on how to deal with it.

First Setback

This morning while removing the oil filter canister, the oil line connecting the oil filter canister to the bottom of the case broke.



You can see the broken line still attached to the oil filter canister. The line was really brittle so it is probably a good thing that it broke now instead of on the road somewhere. I assume that I should be worried about other flexible lines as well. I should probably check what others exist on the truck.




And you can see the small stub of the hose still attached to the crankcase. Luckily I had already drained the oil, so we did not end up with a giant mess under the car!

So our plans of trying to start the truck today are on hold until we can get replacement hoses. It looks like most of the sites that carry replacement parts for the old Chevys have the lines. Now it's just a matter of shipping time. I also need to get clutch-head screwdrivers to remove some of the original fasteners:
http://www.sizes.com/tools/screw_drive.htm#Clutch

The kids helped out today, but it was so cold that they were driven inside fairly early. They are great helpers though.

Lets start by getting it running

OK - the first thing we are going to shoot for is just getting the truck running. The truck has been garaged for a few years and while it has been started occasionally, it won't start now, and it has been a while since it has really run.

Here are a couple pics of the engine compartment:

The tags on the spark plug wires I added to help make sure I knew which wire went to which plug.



I have removed the blow-by oil air filter from the top of the carburetor

My plan to get the truck running is this:
1) Change the oil
2) Drain and clean the fuel tank
3) Drain the fuel lines
4) Replace the oil & fuel filters
5) Clean or replace the spark plugs
6) Replace the battery
7) Try to start the truck and troubleshoot from there

I have already drained the fuel lines and pulled the spark plugs. I have also confirmed that the fuel pump is operating. The spark plugs were a little black:

I'm not sure if they are black from burning oil, or from the repeated starting without running the engine hot. Anyone have any thoughts?

For now, I have cleaned them and put them back in. I plan on buying new ones in the near future, but I should be able to start the truck with them now that they are clean.

Tomorrow I will change out the fluids and give it a shot!

Old dog - new tricks

Like anyone else that has heard that phrase, I have somewhat indignantly wondered "Why can't you teach an old dog new tricks?"

While I do not quite have one foot in the grave I think I qualify as an old dog, and while I work in a high tech industry, I certainly feel like blogging is a new trick for me. Hopefully this will either disprove the phrase or prove that I'm not quite an old dog.

I also like the juxtaposition of using a tool that belongs more to my kids than to me to help me capture our attempts to restore a tool that belongs more to my grandfather than to me.

The purpose of this blog is two-fold: Firstly, to chronicle the thoughts and feelings of the Underwood family that accompany the physical changes to the truck and secondly, to allow friends and family to provide advice and encouragement - because we really have no idea what we are doing or how much we have bitten off.