'36 Ford Pickup long deserved upgrades

[Laecaon]

Those are the worst kind of delays.

[DRIVEN]

Frustrating, for sure. My dad was going to tackle this while I was out of town week before last but he said when he hooked up the battery there was flashing and arching sounds behind the dash. That kind of surprised me because I'd already powered it up with no issues.
So this morning I was going to tackle the electrical issue first. Come to find out he had the ignition on while he was trying to connect the battery (under the passenger seat) and the flash was the LED indicator on the VATS simulator and the CEL. The arching noise he was hearing was a couple relays chattering. No problem!
So the next order of business was to calibrate the sender and put the bed on. That way he could handle the lighter work without my help on his own schedule.

[wayno]

Oh well, just a minor setback.

[DRIVEN]

No biggie, really. Plenty of other stuff to work on. We'll maybe jump back on it Tuesday or Wednesday.

[Ni10]

SOB, how does a person fix them pin holes ? Brazing ? welding ? I know JB weld is not correct.

if theirs them pin holes now, I wonder when others will start popping up after it gets installed.
Are their any after market gas tanks that can be bought today ?

[DRIVEN]

Well, it's only 83 years old, so I guess it had to happen eventually. Believe it or not the inside is almost spotless. Just out of frame is the bung that used to be a drain plug. It's now the fuel pickup. It appears that the bung (flange) is dropped in to the hole from the inside, riveted, then soldered or brazed. It really is s pretty simple fix for a radiator shop. We just have to wait on their schedule.
There are several aftermarket options available, poly, steel, and stainless. None are cheap or any quicker so we might as well fix this one.
It's always baffled me that the tank is installed the way it is. 35-40 Fords use the same frames for cars and pickups. The way the tank mounts, it's necessary to either remove the bed or the entire body if it's a car.

Sidenote: My pickup will have a fuel cell in the front of the bed.

[DRIVEN]

Tank back in. New sending unit calibrated. Bed back on. Fuel pump and transmission cooler reinstalled.



That's pretty close to ride height for now. The rear sway bar end links are actually interfering with the bed substructure just a bit so some minor clearancing will need to be done, then it'll get all the rear travel it needs.

[wayno]

Is this going to be painted?

[DRIVEN]

Maybe eventually. For now it goes right back together as-is to get it back on the road again.

[Laecaon]

Lookin good!

[wayno]

That is what I would do, get it on the road and drive it, unless there is a lot of bare metal, then it would need paint.
I actually like the color it is.

[DRIVEN]

That old black has been on there since before I was born. The hood, grille, and LF fender and inner fender will not match but that's my brother's issue. Truthfully it needs a lot of work for a nice paint job so I really don't know what he'll eventually do. At least he'll be able to drive it.
If I would have patched mine back together 19 years ago I could have really enjoyed it over the years. But instead, I wanted to do it "right" and it's still not done.

[DRIVEN]

While I was out of town the last couple weeks, my dad got the running boards and front fenders mounted. I went over this morning to help mount the grille. Also swapped some other rollers on and adjusted the coilovers. There is just enough room for my little finger to fit between the tire and the fender lip. It'll probably go higher in the front and lower in the back before we're all done.









Getting closer.

[DRIVEN]

We put in a few more hours today. Got the driver's side headlight mounted, front bumper, cut some clearance notches above the rear axle, wired the lights and cooling fan.

We filled it with coolant and were going to start it when we discovered the battery was weak. Put the booster on it and it fired right up. I topped off the ATF and backed it out of the shop where we let it idle for about a half hour. Then we let it cool and topped off the coolant again. This thing is an absolute bitch to burp all the air out of.

We had to jump it again. Alternator is putting out 14.2v but the battery won't bounce back so it looks like we'll probably be returning it. Then my dad drove it a few hundred yards to get his mail. He said the idle surged a but and then it sounded like it was trying to detonate so he shut it off. When he did, it puffed back through the intake. Hmmm...curious. of course the battery was dead so we towed it back to the shop.

It'll stay on a charger all night and we'll mess with it tomorrow afternoon.



No pics.

[DRIVEN]

Looks like the battery is junk. It would take a surface charge up to 12.4 but just cycling the fuel pump dropped it to 10v. Since I had bought the identical battery for my wagon, we swapped it in and it cranked over fine but wouldn't start. Turned out that a connector at the coil had been bumped loose when the radiator hose was installed. Easy fix -- fired right up.
I drove it up and down the driveway a couple times. Then we just let it run for about an hour while we messed with other stuff. It's getting closer but the more we look, the more we see that needs to be done.

[wayno]

Once a battery starts doing the battery appears to be charged because the charger says it's charged, but it only turns over the engine for 10 seconds before starting to lose power, I have never seen one come back from that issue except a couple times, and that was because the battery acid was very low and I topped it off and the battery came back to life.

Perhaps you should quit looking at it so hard as they are never finished except maybe if your Jay Leno and pay others to do it, I would imagine that eventually he gets tired of paying others to work on that vehicle, that is when it is finished.

[DRIVEN]

Hey, check this out.

[Laecaon]

It has moved!

[DRIVEN]

This thing wants to do burnouts in the worst way.

[Ni10]

This thing wants to do burnouts in the worst way.

wellllllll