Gary Lewis

You guys are doing great! Please don't stop. Shaun - I'd not heard those songs, but have now found them on Apple Music so they are good options. Danny - East Bound And Down is a good one. But since I won't have video I'm not sure the commercial is the best source for that. Apple Music has the song itself so I can easily add it to the play list. Vivek - Apple also has the music from Cars, which I've actually seen 12 times. But while some of the songs are applicable to a truck show some of them aren't. For instance James Taylor's Our Town is a great song and I'm a huge fan of his. But while I can see in my mind's eye what was going on in the movie when it played, I doubt others will as few will know the movie like I do. But I'll see what songs from there seem to fit.

Any work is progress, and progress is good! By the way, your picture pointed out something I've not done - secure that Chevy 235's cradle to the skates. We aren't going to roll it far, but is sure would be a problem if a skate walked out from under that cradle. Thanks!

Some of you may not know what LRC does on an alternator. So this video attempts to show you. In Big Blue the ammeter has been reworked by Rocketman to be a voltmeter. And the center mark represents about 12.8V and the top mark is 14.4V. As you'll see when the engine starts the voltage goes to the center mark for a couple of seconds and then ramps up to the top mark smoothly. That has stopped the chirp I frequently had on startup when the regulator told the alternator to take the voltage up to 14.4V immediately. And that was with a serpentine belt and an automatic tensioner. But the 2.5 second LRC has tamed that and there is no squeal.

Jim - He texted me this morning. He's doing well but has been busy getting that Mustang body work going. Last we talked he'd found a real body guru who was helping him, so he's spending all of his available time learning from that guy while he has him available.

Yes, I'm enjoying it - the 2nd Champion. The 1st one sprang a leak and they sent a replacement.

Let's get John/Machspeed on the case as he's the keeper of the decals.

Welcome, Niko! Love the truck! Sure glad you joined. Where's home? I ask because we have a map (Bullnose Forum/Member's Map in the menu) and we can add you with a city/state or zip.

Depending on how wide your wheels are you may have a mismatch between the tires you have and the wheel width. I use Tire Rack and find my tire and then see what wheel widths they recommend for those tires. And also check the tire pressures. You might be surprised how much difference a few pounds of pressure makes. Too little pressure causes the edges of the tires to catch on grooves or ruts in the pavement and the steering tries to follow the ruts. So play with the pressures to see if it changes the handling.

Stein - I wouldn't have thought that movement in & out of the shaft would cause it to hit. I'd have thought that runout on the bearing/fan or having the motor mounted too far to one side would do it. But I hope you've fixed it.

If there's no play in the steering box then I wouldn't change to Redhead or BlueTop. I'd concentrate on getting the rest of the system in good shape and then, if everything else is top notch, do the steering box. So how does it drive now that you've gotten the steering damper attached correctly? The larger tires do cause issues with the steering but some of that can be helped with castor, camber, and tire pressure.

Cory - That one does have a lot of car talk. Hadn't heard it before. Thanks. Chris - The Beach Boys were certainly close to Jan & Dean. In fact they let them, or at least Dean, into the studio while they were recording Barbara Ann.

That's great, Bill!

Been thinking along the same lines. And while I have a Delta Mark 10 sitting on the shelf in the parts cabinet, a Pertronix would be stealth. (Ian - A Pertronix ignition module sits in the distributor and replaces the points, making the system simple and maintenance free. Read about points on Pg 152 in this book from our library.) But I'll worry about that after we get this thing started and a few other things working. In the interim I think I'll buy a Chrysler ballast resistor and wire it up simply. (Ian - The coil with this engine specifically says that it needs to be used with a ballast resistor, which reduces the voltage & current to the coil. Otherwise the points and/or the coil will fail.) Bill - You have a good eye. But isn't that a home-made PCV system? They left the road-draft tube in place. And it is supposed to be a 1955 engine from here in Okiehoma. (Ian - The rings on a piston in an engine don't seal 100%, so products of combustion get past them into the crankcase. In the early days they vented the crankcase to the atmosphere with a "road draft tube". PCV = Positive Crankcase Ventilation, which is a system to suck the products of combustion out of the crankcase into the intake manifold and burn them. That was one of the first pollution controls and it came in via California in the mid-60's.) As for the points, I have a set and may put them in later, but for now I'll just file the points and hope I don't change the timing enough to prevent it from starting. That's 'cause I have a lot of things I want to get done before Ian gets here, and we don't have much time while he is here. But I got chains connected to the 235 itself and not the cradle and lifted it up to prove that approach works. So now I know how to lift it via chains to the front side mounts and chains to the top 7/16 bolts in the bell housing. However that won't work with the 216 as it doesn't have the front side mounts, so it'll be interesting to see how we can lift that rascal out. And I hit a bunch of bolts with PB Blaster in the hope that we can get things off easy and w/o breaking the bolts. Not that I don't think we can replace the bolts, but it'll take too much valuable time to drill them out.

Found some specs: Firing order: 153624 Points: gap = .016" Blue Streak DR-2227XP Turns out that I have one Condensor: UDR-6X Blue Streak Don't have one of these but if this one's bad I'll put another one in Rotor: DR-308 Don't have one but DeWayne has one on order The cap looks good and I may just file the points if we get to try to start it.

Good points, Buddy. Bill - Thanks for the info! I'd forgotten where the timing pointer is, but you reminded me and I found it. And yes, the vacuum advance rotates the distributor in the block. But the points are questionable, as you'll see. I have a stock of points but my documentation doesn't go back to 1955. Do you have the Blue Streak or Autolite #? And what's the firing order. The plug wires are off/missing and I doubt it is 18436572, so...

Yes, Buddy, there's a lot to learn. We can do it together. I got started today 'cause we need the 2015 truck to pick people up at the airport, and if they have luggage we might want to have the bed free. So I moved some wheels for another pickup out of the bed and then got the engine out. There are a couple of pics below to show that. It is now in the shop on skates and we can roll it around easily. But I'll start checking out Ugly Green to see what needs to be done to get the hood, grille, and radiator out so it'll be easier to get the engine out.

Glad you found that page, Vivek. Was just about to point it out. But you can confirm starter interchanges on our page at Documentation/Interchange/Starters.

Chris - I wasn't aware that the Beach Boys were more into cars than surfing. But looking back on their songs I see that there were a bunch about cars. Cool! Cory - I've been of the opinion that Don McLean was off by about a decade on when The Day The Music Died. But that Billy Joel song is very good. However, while it is of the Bullnose era, the closest it seems to come to old trucks is "You can't go the distance". So while I agree we should have some Bullnose era music in the mix, is there anything in that era that is about at least cars if not trucks?

I don't have any to offer, but I recently went through this, as chronicled in my thread called Bucket Seat Seatbelt Standup Thingee? You might read through that, but I strongly recommend you stay away from buying the sheaths from Seat Belt Planet. In fact, if you buy aftermarket you might get the belt and sheath together 'cause getting the Ford belts through aftermarket sheaths is NOT easy.

The crack isn't always easily visible. I had Dad's truck on the lift and took a pic after pulling the steering box off. The pic was from the front towards the rear kind of down the driver's side frame on the inside using the flash. I put the pic on the monitor of the shop computer and saw the crack. Went back to the truck and couldn't find it. Used a light from the front and there it was. The light caused a shadow at the crack, just like the flash had done. In that case the crack was at the back edge of the bottom rear mounting flange. The hard edge of the box concentrated the forces right there and eventually cracked the frame.

Yes my buddy and I part out 73-79 trucks on the regular. He bought a 77 plow truck for a couple hundred bucks that we gutted and sold off everything good on and then scrapped it and then gave me the front end out of it. It needs to be totally gone through and the radius arm studs are rotted through but it didn't cost me anything. I would check your frame. It's common enough that it happens on stock trucks too. Yes, it happens on stock trucks. Dad's truck had never been abused but its frame was cracked and the huck bolt was loose. Big Blue's frame wasn't cracked but the huck bolt was loose and there was movement that would have led to cracking.

Stein - We got there via car. This was a 4-week vacation where we flew into Naples and saw the Amalfi coast. Took a train to Florence and spent time there. Rented/hired a car there and drove to Pisa to pick up or son & DiL. Drove north of there to a rented villa and used it as a base to visit bunches of places in Italy, including Florence, the Cinque Terra, & Orvieto. After the kids left we drove to Lake Garda. From there north through Fussen and then the Romantic Road, which was boring. Then Rottenburg, and finally Bacharach where we stayed 4 days and drove up and down the Rhine visiting cute little German villages. But we discovered that 4 weeks was just a bit too much. Anyway, good job on the rear window. But looking at that drive it is amazing that it worked at all. I'll bet it is like new now.

Did you buy it?

I was just about to post the same thing, Bob. I’d pulled the album up on Apple Music: