'36 Ford Pickup long deserved upgrades

[Laecaon]

Sweet, That will be a nice upgrade.

[DRIVEN]

My brother split for home early this morning so my dad and I put in about 4 hours to get the ball rolling. Got the wiring all disconnected from the peripherals. Drained the fuel tank. Hacked off the super old exhaust. Removed the shocks. Fought rusty bolts on the running board, fenders and bed. Dismounted (unmounted?) the fuel pump and filter as well as the transmission cooler from the bottom of the bed. Then used the engine joist to lift the bed off.
Once we were done with disassembly we put the bed on jackstands and set the canopy back on so that we would have a storage unit.










I've got work out of town for a couple days so my dad may chip away at it. Otherwise, we'll probably do some more on Thursday.

[Laecaon]

Nice to see some progress happening on it.

[DRIVEN]

Progress marches on without me. I'm in Carson City right now but I guess my dad got the tank and fuel lines removed, yanked the steering column, as well as getting all the cab mount bolts off.

[wayno]

Is your brother even interested in this anymore?

[DRIVEN]

Absolutely be is. He just lives 450 miles away, works all the time, has 5 kids, and no place to work on it. We just figured this would be a good way for my dad and me to stay busy this winter while getting this back into driving condition.

[DRIVEN]

We put in another 4 hours today. The cab was unbolted so we shimmied it back a couple inches then yanked the engine and transmission. After that we pulled the rearend and used the tractor to rickshaw the old stuff out of the way.

Once we got the floor cleaned up and the new frame in place we installed the new rear springs. Contrary to my expectations, the rearend dropped right in place.

After we loosely mounted the brake pedal and master, the next step was to mock up the engine and transmission. We had to fake it because one of the motor mounts as well as the transmission mount were broken. It appears that the motor mounts on the frame are in the right spot but it was built with a TH350 in mind.

That meant some rough eyeballing to mark where things were in the way followed by some surgical steel removal.


And after...

So that's where we knocked off today. Front suspension parts are in transit. Motor mounts and transmission mounts should be here in the morning but we won't likely do any more until Sunday.

[Taterhead]

What I can see of your dad’s tractor looks just like the one my granddad had when I was a kid. Although I’m sure all the old Ford tractors have the same steering wheel, fenders, and back tires.

[DRIVEN]

Yeah, they made about a billion of those old 8Ns. I'm sure I've mentioned it in the past, my great grandfather owned that tractor and farmed with it in Nebraska and later used it on his tree farm in Oregon. My dad, uncle, and all their cousins got to run it when they were kids. When he died in the late 70s it got sold to a family friend who did somewhat of a restoration on it. My dad was able to buy it back about 30 years ago. My nephew has used it making the 5th generation in the saddle.
I keep it mostly at my place but we ran it to my dad's for the winter so it could be stored inside. There are 8(?) Implements with it, a couple were made by my great grandpa in the 50s. Pretty useful tool to have around.

[Taterhead]

That’s cool as hell. When I was a kid my step-grandparents had 16 or so acres that we planted and farmed. Various implements although I can’t remember them all. But, I vividly remember standing on the rear axle housing and leaning on the fender and watching field rats scatter as my step-dad bush hogged. Or riding on the home made disc turner and my step dad warning that if I fell off it would chop me up and kill me. And filling the back tires with water for traction.



When I think back to how life was when I was younger I feel bad for kids nowadays.

[DRIVEN]

They don't even know they're missing it. When my dad and uncles tell stories about their childhoods I'm kind of amazed they made it to adulthood. 8-12 year olds shingling barn roofs, helping on saw mills, driving pickups and tractors...the state would put them in protective custody today.

[DRIVEN]

Short day today. We test fit the engine/transmission with the new mounts, removed, fine tuned the tunnel trimming, then installed them again. About that time the UPS guy delivered the front suspension parts. We got the control arms and spindles hung and when I went to mount the calipers I found that they had sent the wrong brackets. Packed the wheel bearings but can't put the rotors on yet. Mounted the rack and tie rod ends. Last thing we did was test fit the old driveline to see if it fit. We could probably force it in but it's completely bottomed out.
I'm headed out of town for a few days so my dad will handle a bunch of small tasks. It's almost a roller.

[wayno]

I drove a tractor when I was very young, I also helped my dad re-roof his house, it was very steep and 3 stories high, we cut a hole in the roof and used that hole to get up there and walked around on 2x4s nailed on as steps, we were up there for days pounding wood shingles on one at a time, I was not there when he closed the hole and finished that last side.
I do not recall having a rope around me, but that was 50 years ago, and I was not scared so I forget stuff when normal everyday things, I likely had to have a rope as my mom would have had a fit if I didn't have some kind of safety devise, I was maybe 12 years old when we did the roof.
I also helped him build the garage, that was finally tore down last month, the house is still there, it was originally built in the 1870s, but it was cut in half and my dads part was moved next door, that section still exists, but the other part was not taken care of and was tore down 40+ years ago and at least 4 houses were built on the 3 lots, and the rest became an exit for the new freeway overpass/exit/entrance.

[DRIVEN]

While I was out of town my dad got the driveline shortened and finished putting the frontend together.
We put in another 4 hour shift today. We started by pulling the engine and transmission again so we could do some more frame surgery. This time we opened up some extra room for exhaust.


I fabbed up some basic upper shock mounts for the rear. Apparently I've forgotten how to weld. They came out sturdy but not too pretty. Good thing the bed covers it up.


We mounted the fuel tank then set the front down and leveled it so we could measure for coilovers.

List making finished up the day. The front sway bar is on order and needs to go in next. I've ordered up a timing cover set and oil pan gasket to take care of some seepage while it's out. My dad will pick up some more hardware and my brother should be ordering up coilovers in the next couple days. If all goes well it should be a roller by the 1st of 2019. Then it gets a trip to the exhaust shop.

[DRIVEN]

Parts have been trickling in. Adjustable Q1As are here, green front sway bar is here but the hardware was wrong. The black one is for the rear and had been mounted to the old frame for as long as I can remember but never had end links on it. Gaskets showed up.


We screwed around for a few hours on Sunday but didn't seem to make much progress. My dad bought more hardware and we regrouped this morning. I resealed the engine (pooched timing cover gasket behind the alternator) and got it ready to drop back in. New CTS too.



The oil was ridiculously dirty and I think it's the same filter that's been on it since I rebuilt it. Guess it got enjoyed more than I thought.

My dad fought the swaybars some more but ran into even more hardware issues. We'll hit it again for a few hours tomorrow. Stay tuned.

[wayno]

Any progress is progress.

[DRIVEN]

Rear sway bar mounted, end links on order.

Front sway bar was a bit of a challenge. Not much real estate to work with.


We also modified the crossmember to lower the rack mounts. The tie rods aren't exactly parallel to the lower control arms but certainly much closer.

We dropped the engine and transmission in (hopefully for the last time) and set the ride height then mocked up a fender just to see how it sits.




Next time we'll probably start on the upper coilover mounts and the brake lines.

[wayno]

I wish I had a shop, but I would not like the morgage payment so I will just be jealous.
I really like the invisible shock tower mounts, I bet you can see them in your head though.

[DRIVEN]

Yup, I'm looking at the shop the same way I look at a boat. "The only thing better than owning a boat is having a friend who owns a boat." A shop is still on my list but it'll be a while before it happens for me. Not interested in adding that debt right now. Pretty fortunate that I have access to my dad's only a few miles away.
The upper coilover mounts are next on the list. Probably start on them later today.

[wayno]

I did everything to make it seem like I have a shop except for having the building, so I am a fair weather mechanic.