Pusher fan installed

I didn't get a picture of the fan fully installed. But it came out very nicely. I painted the horizontal brackets gloss black and riveted them to the radiator. The fan sits about 5/8 from the radiator core(and it's centered). I'm very pleased with the install. Drivetrain wise all I am waiting for to tune this think up and drive it is the exhaust. Im helping my grandma move this weekend. But next weekend I am borrowing a buddy's welder and doing it up. Once its running I'll be able to tell if this fan is going to get the job done. As much as I would rather have a mechanical fan there is a piece of the is happy that its not there. Ive seen some blades come loose on jeeps and reek havoc on hoods and fenders. I don't want to think what a fan blade would do to a person.

Looks like a truck again

FIRE!

Just about wet my pants working on the truck today. I had just finished setting my static timing and I was testing to see if I was getting spark. I had one spark plug out and grounded to the frame. When I hit my push start button the engine fired right up. With no coolant, not exhaust, and running on five cylinders blowing out the sixth spark plug hole. Running a bit rich flames were shooting out the exhaust manifold. The only thing I could think to do is throw my hand over the carb which stalled it. I cant wait to get this thing put together. And to let it run for more than a few frightening seconds.

Pusher fan.

I just sent some money to the-fan-man.com. I've got a 16" pusher fan coming my way. I really would have preferred a mechanical fan but after test-fitting the radiator I saw that the mechanical fan will not fit without some serious modification of the core support. I can leave the radiator in the stock location if I mount an electric fan on the front of the radiator. Still I will only have about 2 1/2" of clearance from water pump to radiator. Just enough to make belt changes and water pump maintenance livable. Hopefully this and my throttle parts will be here for the weekend. I've got some minor stuff like my trans crossmember and static timing to do while I wait for parts.

Throtle

After playing with my linkage for some hours I gave up. I ordered a Lokar pedal and cable. It will be easier but much more expensive. So, ill wait on the mailman.

Throttle linkage

Sometimes I get a spark of an idea and I cannot concentrate on anything else till I work it out. I just had to sketch out an idea for a cable throttle for the pickup. It's actually a linkage from the accelerator pedal to one side of a bell-crank. On the side of the bell-crank is a cable that pulls my throttle. It's certainly not a new idea but I hadn't envisioned a way it would work in my application. The sketch on the bottom left is my final(at the moment) sketch. Now to translate this to metal.

Paint booth

This is the dog kennel/paint booth.

Alternator bracket done.

Done at last. I swear, the things I expect to take an hour take a day, and the things I expect to take a day take an hour. At least I can mark this one off the list.

"Drillpress"

Drilling thru half inch steel with my "drillpress".

Alternator bracket MarkII

After I screwed up my last bracket by letting my drill bit walk I started over. My welder is still dead so I used a friends. This time I was smart enough to drill a pilot hole so everything is lining up well. I've got to egg out one of the mounting holes 1/32" this morning so I can get it mounted up. Then I can find a v-belt that will fit. At the very least I should have my alternator mounted today.

Vacation is over back to work.

Me and the wife spent a couple of days on Catalina Island. It was a good time to get away from the truck. I was having a little trouble staying motivated. I get to the point I can't see past the little problems long enough to make any progress. I've got to walk away for a day or to when that happens. Cleaning up the garage helps too. My only intention today was to go clean up the garage. I didn't clean much before ideas started popping into my head. I think I have figured out how I an going to set up my throttle now. I'm going to use a cable. Would have liked to have figured out a linkage instead. But I have faith that my cable will perform nicely. I am going to fab up some brackets so I can keep my stock pedal. Today I also got my choke and fuel lines done. I've got my glass bowl fuel filter in. Looks good. Wish I had taken a picture to share. The fuel filter I have is not unique in its form. You can order then at any parts store. But my is "distressed". It's got probably 40 years of wear on it that you can't really fake. I like the patina. I like that back then parts didn't get thrown away. Instead they were rebuilt. Hardly anything on newer cars is fixed. It's just replaced. My other progress of the day was my clutch pivot. Ups brought me the correct ball and spring. So now there is nothing keeping me from getting my transmission in. Still looking forward to starting her up. All these little things make a big difference though. I like to let ideas ferment a day or two before I start building anything custom. For example, as I was typing this I just realized a great place to put my throttle return spring. I was planning on attaching it directly to my carb because that's the common method. But I wasn't happy with the size spring I would have to use. A short spring can be strong enough but would not be very smooth. Instead I will use a spring on the bracket I will be making connect my accelerator pedal rod to the cable. There will be much more room there. I don't know. I'll let that one stew till tomorrow. Also I started fiddling with my $50 welder. It's an Astro PowerMIG 130. I need some new tips. I'm not sure how well it will run flux core but I'm sure I will find out soon. Maybe tomorrow.

Motor is in

I didn't have a whole lot of time to work on this today. But in the few hours I did have I made some progress. I got my drivers side motor mount shortened and mounted on the frame. And I got the engine in and bolted to all four mounts. I didn't clean the whole frame forward of the cab like I would have liked to. It would have taken me the rest if the week to do. So I painted everything that did get scraped clean. Now for the hard part. Setting up my clutch and throttle linkages to the new motor. Still need to work out an alternator mount and figure out my belt alignment. I need to go to the junkyard and find a fan and a bellhousing inspection cover.

Motor mount

I wish I could say this way my weld. I opted to take to the muffler shop down the street from my house. He did a really nice job and only charged me $20. I'm sure this kind of thing could add up but as far as this motor swap goes this is the only outside welding that I have needed.

I saw the light

The light at the end of the tunnel. I had the engine in position today. Only for a few minutes though. Just long enough to bolt it up to my bellhousing crossmember and mark exactly where my front mounts will go. I've still got a bunch of gunk to clean off the front of the frame rails before I will be able to paint them. I think POR15 is going to be the answer here, especially on the front crossmember. It's spent that last many years filled with mud and oil. It's got some rust but not nearly as much as I expected.

Front mounts

I got the passenger side mount in. This is the mount that Stovebolt engineering aka Tom Langdon sells. The drivers side mount needs a little less than a quarter inch taken off the height to fit inside the frame rails. Should be a simple cut and re-weld. I thought I might take it down to the exhaust shop down the street and let then throw a bead down on it. They said they would only charge me $20. But I think my little 110 welder might be up to the task. I thought I was going to need to drop the leaf springs down in order to drill the bottom mounting holes. But my drill bit was just long enough to go thru the top hole to drill the bottom hole. I'm using 7/16 grade eight hardware. Now that its all mocked up I will pull the mount and paint it and red loctight the bolts.

Little adjustments

My frame as some spots that needed a little tweaking. This seams to be the prefect tool for the job.

Tuck!

My boy is almost two and he is nuts for the truck. He loves to sit in it.

Project O the day

Today I need to find a flywheel that will bolt to my 70 Nova crank, and work with my 57 pickup bellhousing and starter. Seems like this should be easy but I'm have a bit of trouble.

Cross member done.

Welds are looking better.

Old engine is gone.

I sold the 235 that came out of the truck. I probably would have given it away. Working in my one car garage I don't have the space to keep parts that I don't intend on using. I had it hanging from my engine crane so now that it is gone my new 250 is hanging from the crane. I got it situated so the engine hangs very close to level. I am going to have the engine in and out at least twice while I mock up my motor mounts and bellhousing mounts. I'm pretty excited about getting this thing on the road again. I need to take some vacation this month or I stop accruing new vacation time. I think I'll be making some progress on the truck. My stated goal is to get the drivetrain done by the end of the year. I may be able to go thru the suspension and disc brake conversion too at this rate.

Another bump in the road.

Some days everything just comes together and I make a ton if progress. That was yesterday. Today however after I spent all of next weeks truck budget on parts and then realized that the flywheel on my motor is for and automatic transmission. Also I noticed that my alternator is not lining up to my crank pulley. I've got a water pump pulley in the mail that I found on ebay. I'll probably wait for that to show up before I start messing with belt alignment. I'm going to call it a day for now. Maybe tomorrow I'll bolt the bellhousing up so I can finish my crossmember mounts.

Getting there.

I'm not much of a welder but I am really happy with how these came out. All I have done it cut three, three inch long, strips of two inch steel and welded them into a c-chanel. They fit on the crossmember very snugly which will make the easier to get in the right position. Today I will drill the mounting holes and mount them to the bellhousing. Then I can slip it on to the crossmember and get it exactly centered and mark where I am going to cut. I need an access hole to reach the mounting bolts. If I keep going at this pace my engine will be in by the end of the weekend. After that I'll just need to work out the exhaust.

Crossmember Modification

This is what the original crossmember looks like. There are flat spots on either side fo the transmission that the bellhousing mounts to. The newer style bellhousing mounts are at a 45(or so) degree andgle.




















This is approximately what the crossmember looks like in a cutaway. It's not boxed, its a C-Chanel with a little flare on the bottom.






























So the plan will be to find or make a C-Chanel that will slip over the top of the original crossmember. I will cut it along both sides and bend it to the angle I need. Then I will weld this bracket to the top of the original cross member. When I get home tonight the paint will be dry on my new bellhousing so I can stick it in there and take some measurements to see if I will need to cut away any of the original crossmember to get the transmission low enough. In any case I will be cutting access holes to be able to insert the bolts into the bottom of my new bracket(below).

Engine is out

Well it took me the better part of the day. But I got grill and fenders off and the engine out. There is layers of oil and dust an inch thick in some places. I like this part of the job though. Taking a nasty pile of gunk and cleaning it down to raw metal, painting it and making it look new again. I need to do quite a bit of cleaning before I can even mock up my new motor mounts. I was thinking I could get this done in two weeks. But now that I have all this apart there are a few more things I would like to get done before putting it back together. I want to patch the holes in the fire wall and a half dozen other little things. And when it is all back together I'm hoping to do a new wiring harness.

So it begins

Front bumper is off. Now I am daring fluids while I wrestle with the grill and fenders.

Almost ready

This motor is pretty much ready to go in. It looks really nice on the stand. I painted the oil pan tonight so tomorrow I can put it on. In the second and third pictures you can see the pushrod covers very well on the side of the engine. This is where these engines get their Stovebolt nickname. I'm not too familiar with wood burning stoves of the thirties and forties but back then people though that these side covers looks very similar to the wood burning stoves. I was really surprised today as I tool the cap off of my distributor. The 1970 Nova that this engine came out of came with a regular old points system. But at some time someone has installed a Plantronix electric controller. I'll admit I haven't read a lot about the Plantronix conversion because I I always though if I was going to use a high energy distributor then I would just swap to the newer style instead of modifying the original distributor. But now since I got one for free basically I'll go ahead and run it. So no more adjusting the points. Only the timing. Tomorrow after I put the oil pan on this bad boy I can start pulling the grill and radiator off the pickup. Theres a whole list of things to do before the motor comes out though. I'd like to have the old motor out this weekend. It's a three day weekend so I think I can get it done.

Oil pan

One of the most satisfying parts of restoring and old truck it when you finally get to paint stuff. It takes a lot f work to get it ready to be painted but when it comes time to pull the trigger thing start looking good very quickly. This is the before and after pictures of my oil pan. This engine and oil pan might be 18 years newer than my truck but it's still 41 years old. And in the last 41 years I can see that it has been blue, orange, and black(painted not just oil). I decided to paint it orange. I like to stay on top of my oil leaks and orange makes them easier to see.

Pant chosen.

I've been thru a lot of paint colors but settled on this one. It's a factory color from 53. My truck will look very similar to this one because I have the same wheels and hubcaps. Biggest difference will be my big "Smash Hit Bumper" and my big side mirrors. I'm still on the fence about the side mirrors. I like the original style like in this picture.

The shop.

Lots more room in here when there is not a truck in the way.

Getting Dirty

OK now it's time. I picked up this motor a few months ago. It's a 250 cubic inch chevy 6cyl out of a 1970 Nova. I tore it all down in the stand and I don't see anything scary. I am not pulling the head I am just going to clean this thing up and drop it in. I really need a truck right now and as it sits I don't trust it to make it to Home depot and back. So, new balancer, timing set, new water pump, new thermostat, new seals, new clutch and flywheel, and the starter and carb off of my 235 and she will be ready to drop in. I need to go buy a new harmonic balancer puller before I can say I am done with the tear down. That will be tomorrow. This engine uses motor mounts on the side so I ordered some custom-ish mounts for the truck. They will need some modification on the passenger side but I will not really know how much till I get my old tired 235 out of the way. Feels good to be getting dirty in the garage again. The last two months I've been landscaping my yard and haven't spent any time in the garage. I've got enough work laid out in front of me that I am sure to get my fill. I am planning on taking three or four days off of work in June or July to get this motor in and the truck rewired. After that and a new set of shoes she will be on the road. I will be able to finish the rest if the mechanical and most of the body while it's roadworthy. I am going to try and post every day I work so I can have some notes for when I am finished. Seems a long way off when I consider the body work too. It will be interesting to look back