1951 Chevy Truck

… – Insert crazy life problems here – ….

8 years later….

This is now how it sits as of 3/2/2022 It has sat for far too long while all my life and health problems happened, I am back and more motivated than ever to get things moving again on this project, I dug it out, blew it off, and took some photos. Next big step is to see if the motor runs, and if so, rip it down and refinish it to look good as new. Stay tuned, lots to come!

UPDATE: 3/3/2022

Last night was productive, I pulled the spark plugs they look about how I would expect them to look nothing crazy and no signs of a dead cylinder. I than stuck a bore scope down the hole and looked around, the cylinder walls and pistons looks amazing, no scoring, pitting or even rust! That is a good sign. I then pulled the valve covers, they were pretty clean inside given the age. I found 5 of the 16 rockers a bit loose to the touch could rattle them around a bit.

I than put some ATF down the spark plug holes and let it sit while I removed the belts and accessories. I put a wrench on the crank and prepared to turn it over for the first time in 8 years… bam it spun over with ease, full 3 or 4 revolutions with no problems, no weird noises or squeaks. I then connected up the starter and gave it some ‘beans’ she spun over real easy and again no odd sounds. Item of note here, all the loose rockers from before tightened right up. Is this normal? I then pulled the cap and coil from the distributor to look at the points… looks to be an old early HEI setup.. I do not know much about these, but looks to be solid state control of the built in coil.. interesting…I plan to replace the plugs, wires, distributor, and carb, so will not spend to much time on them. Just enough to do a test fire to make sure it runs before dumping money into its restoration.

Stripped down all the old suspension components, and picked up all new parts. Need to source or clean the old control arm.

Dug out the sand blaster, it still works! Lots of water in the sand so need to dry that out before I continue. I also found my box of hood parts, so may start with sandblasting those!

Going to work on finishing up the motor restoration first, than back onto this !