Originally Posted by Fordestes
I bought my 46 half ton ford to convert to a 40 I was about 13years old I paid 25 hard earned dollars for it and tagged it for another 4.00 found out the 40 swap was beyond my capabilities (and still is) I soaked the old ford 6 for many weeks with a.t.f we pulled it towards town with a ford tractor and she broke loose I already had the ign. wire ready to clip on if it broke loose. we dragged it toward town to
the nearest gas station and put a dollars worth of regular in the leaking fuel tank and hooked up the batt. and dragged it back to the house behind an 8 N ford I choked the daylights out of her and she started up and sounded good . I was disappointed the old 6 was in my mind would have to be knocking like a jackass kickin a tin barn or burned up beyond repair before my dad would allow me to own anything with a v-8 power he was just that way, I went around about 5 counties and collected up and bought a pickup load of 8ba parts, I came in late from my parts finding and my dad looked through the pile of scraps and said to me What did you have to pay for all this? I said 25.00, he kind of smiled and shook his head , he came out later and started looking over the 2 engine blocks and said to me where is it cracked at? I said why do you think it is cracked , he said Son I always told you a flathead ford is always cracked! I salvaged one good block and a couple of well worn cranks .I worked for days drilling and hammering the old pistons and valves out of the block , spent another 20.00 to have the crank turned, the machine shop never said a word about the sludge traps in the crank pins needing to be cleaned. I gun brushed the crank and use some .25 a gallon gasoline to clean the parts and honed the cyls. and lapped the valves and put in the best used pistons I could find with knurled skirts , piston knurling was another .50 each but Pa said it had to be done, put it all together and pulled the old six out of the way and found out the trans would not fit the bell , so I went to a pickup salvage and bought a couple of used v8 transmissions for about 10.00 and took them apart and made 1 good out of the three, all the time I would look out of the barn and see pa smile and shake his head . that 25.00 pickup was about to make me give up, Pa said welcome to the real world of maintaining a vehicle , YOU TEAR IT UP YOU FIX IT !! All this took about another year to do by myself and a little savy from Pa and a lot of late nights I worked and didn't get to town much, Stayed out of trouble that way (Pa would say) The saturday finally came and the Mish mash of ford v8 parts came alive, Next chore was to put brakes on ( so Pa would let me drive it to town,wrong again ) I could drive a tractor to town though, after another two months of wrangling brake parts I finally got it so she would stop (well almost stop any way I had to spend another 3.00 for a master cyl. kit to repair the pitted out master cyl. got that done) THEN I WAS READY? NOT YET? Pa said now if you take it out of the pasture I will take to town and sell it for scrap.( Why?) he said you don't have a licencse .Ok/ I pittled with the old truck for another few weeks and on a cold February morn. my mom took me to get a license another 2.50 , Ok now can I? nope! what now? you got to have insurance so my folks added me to their insurance , Wow after darn near 3 years I finally got to take that bucket of rust to town and show off my dime store spray can paint job, I drove the old truck for about a week and for some reason I lost a lot of oil pressure, It didn't knock at least to me it didn't. So Pa said pull the pan an see what you left loose .I found the problem the crankshaft looked as if it were turned too far on one crank pin, I just knew it was ok when I checked the bearing clearance with a piece of brass shim stock, all upset and complaining about the crank Pa said it ain't no ones fault but yours I got a hard earned lesson in responsibility, Dang how growing up was getting expensive, So I pulled the engine and took the spare crank down and had it turned , and I was getting madder by the mile I was going to let that machinist have a piece of my mind, I took the damaged crank in and said what did you do this for, He said politely you either have have a leaking fuel pump or you didn't clean the crank, I told him how I cleaned the crank, He said you didn't do it right. So what else was I supposed to do? and he pointed to the plugs in the crank and explained to me what to do in order to properly clean a crankshaft, he said ford and mercs. have the clean outs
So I got her back together and have had the same engine since about 1972,I still have piles of ford and merc. engines parts that I most likely will never need cause you can't Kill a flathead Ford, Oh yea, before Pa died a couple of years ago he told me He was afraid I would get out hotrodding around and tangle that old truck up in the weeds out on a county red dirt road, cause you always want to go faster, until you either hurt somebody or yourself, So I sold some of my heard and still have that high priced hard earned (ugly truck) ford v8 after 44 years!
I was bored today and don't remember ever putting all the frustrations a vehicle can cause a no nothing kid to go through wanting to learn what kind of magic goes on inside an engine, I learned the hard way but I won't forget it , Thanks to someone taking time out and showing me the way it works.
Fordestes
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