October 26, 2009 -- Simple Pleasures

Well, after cleaning up some of my mess, the battery charged up enough to roll the engine over. I had the fuel line off the Carb to see if I was getting any gas there. No gas. Decided that the fuel pump was the only thing left I hadn't checked yet. Everything on a 48 Ford truck uder the hood is easy to get to except, you guessed it, the fuel pump. I decided to see if it would come out easier from the bottom. Found a splash pan below that area and removed the five greasy bolts holding it on. It had about one half inch of built up oil and crud on top of it. I took it out to my burner barrell, and do you know, there is something satisfying about scraping that much crud off a piece of metal and making it look good again. (Oh, the simple pleasures in life.)Had to go to dinner at friends house in the afternoon so spent about a half hour trying to get my hands and fingernails clean. You've been there, so you know what they still look like. Only one bandaid on one finger so far.Will take the fuel pump off today and clean it up. Exciting isn't it!

Coot

October 25, 2009 -- Contemplation Chair

Notice the Lewinski's

The cooking of the gas tank didn't work to well, but I decided to put it back in temporarily to get the truck running. Found the shut off drain valve on the bottom of the tank was plugged. Had to pull the tank back out because I had put about three gallons of gas in it (of course) Cleaned it up and blew out the line to the fuel pump. Reinstalled the tank (not a big problem) Opened up the drain cock again and had gas running all over under the truck. Found the gas line running to the fuel pump all rusted out. Got new parts yesterday in town and will put them in this morning. I think today the bird will run again. I am very optimistic. (How long is this project going to take?) I think this fun is going to last a long time.

October 19, 2009

So far, I have the hood off and the engine rolling over. I changed the oil and filter and found out it has very weak spark so ordered a new coil, dist cap, Points, rotor and condenser and a new set of plug wires. Also put in new plugs, battery and cleaned up the carb. The gas tank is pretty rusty and plan on buying a new one. Should get the electrical parts sometime this week. I will work on taking the bed apart this week while waiting for parts.

Norm

THE BEGINNING

  

The last week of September 2009 Nancy and I were on our way back from Minnesota and headed to Lincoln Nebraska to look at a 1948 Ford F1 pickup for sale. I had been communicating with the owner Stephanie Johnson about it for a couple of weeks. In anticipation of buying the truck I had arranged to rent a U-HAUL trailer their in Lincoln. Stephanie told me her grandfather had given it to her 9 years ago and she ran it for a couple of years and it had been setting since. Her Grandfather had bought it from the local telephone company in 1972 and had it repainted Vermillion from it’s original color black. The truck had spent all but the last 9 years in and around Montezuma, Iowa where Stephanie’s grandfather was a farmer. Stephanie gave me a good price and a hug with the condition she would be kept apprised of the restoration and that is part of the reason we started this blog. The other reason is we are so forgetful now we wanted to be able to go back and see what we did. I say “we” because Nancy is my best helper.