Getting Bessie Going Again

Got Dan's old 36 running this summer by taking off the 4 barrel Carter carburetor and putting a kit into an old 2 barrel Rochester that was laying around. This particular Rochester might have come off this truck when bulding it up back in 1977. Got it running pretty good and was working out the bugs when an overwhelming amount of sludge was discovered in the upper motor. There was about 1/4 of gunk in it everywhere and the PCV was complete sludged up. Got it all back together and ran a compression check:

Didn't get it started at the end of the day, but it was about ready to go. Here are some pictures of the process:

There'll Be Gunk in the Valley	Parts on the bench
Valve parts ready to be cleaned. I found one bent push rod.	STP flowing in the valley to lube the cam for start up
A little paint on the manifold and top half of the motor to dress things up

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8-25-09

Got back to Bessie today and got her fired up. Brought her up to temperature and adjusted the tappets. All the rockers had oil so that was a good sign. Got everything worked in and let her run for about a half hour. She's got a heck of a rear main seal leak and there was some blue smoke out the tail. She probably needs a new set of rings and short short block work. That will have to wait until Little Danny takes her apart to put new suspensions under her and new paint when she comes back up. Below are a couple of pictures. Later on in the day the leak was suspected to be in the rear of the intake manifold. That shouldn't take too much to correct.

Slotted valve cover for adjusting tappets	At least she looks nice

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8-26-09

Made a run at the intake this morning and got it done in about an hour. Then the oil filter container leaked like a sieve. Worked on it too. Trial runs had the brakes pull to the right. Cleaned that side out to no affect. After lunch, pulled down the driver's side and it had a leaky rubber on the hydraulic cylinder. Checked around the shop for a replacement, but couldn't find the right size. Cleaned the brake area out and put it back together. Drove the truck a while even taking it home for a bath. She ran great. The brakes started pulling a little bit again. Need to get a new rubber boot from Bob Drake's or shut Bessie down until Little Danny can get to her with a full restoration with modern suspensions under her. A Mustang II front end with disc brakes would work great.