For those of you who know, I had a radiator that blew a hole in it when I was bringing my truck home from just buying it. Here is a link to that old thread: http://www.fordification.com/forum/view ... &sk=t&sd=a
I started it up finally last night, and it purred like a kitten!
I had to rotate the distributor around a bit to get it to fire. Now it starts at first crank! I set the timing at 6 degrees BTDC, and the point gap at .017The damage that sustained from my overheating saga:
I had to replace three exhaust valves and cleaned up the valve guides. I replaced all the lifters.
I disassembled all of the valves and honed them myself (I made a valve compression tool with a large harbor freight C-clamp)
I replaced all of the exhaust valve push rods. Not all of those push rods were ruined but most of them were in some sort of tweaked status so I just replaced them all.
Of course in the process I painted up my engine
lots of new gaskets
put on a holley 500cfm 2 barrel
Summit chrome air cleaner
replaced the radiator
Converted from a high flow electric fuel pump (it had so much pressure my old carb was leaking like a sieve) with a standard mechanical one.
Ran all new water hoses, gas lines,
Painted up my exhaust manifolds, and put a new 30" long glass pack turning down before the rear axle.
Rewired the engine wiring.
Replaced the battery cables.
Put a carb spacer from an early Galaxie 390, it doesn't have the water cooling on it but it still has the pcv nipple on it (my water cooled one was all rotted out)
Also in the process I found that the cylinder walls looked pretty good, and it had .30 over pistons in it.
I still need to hook up my throttle linkage, kick down rod & manual choke cable.
I'll try to grab some pics of the engine tonight and to post. My truck is a rusty POS but I have big plans for it and I'm determined to fix it up completely someday. I put all the people who say I shouldn't do it on ignore. (I'm recreating the truck my dad had for over 20yrs and that I remember as a child). It won't be an exact replica as there are some things that I want a little differently.
Long term plans:
Painting it "1969 New Lime"
Removing all the tailgate trim and painting the "FORD" letters (not sure if the letters are supposed to be black or red)
Painting the stock steels back to the original white and using these dog dish hubcaps http://www.fordification.com/tech/image ... 5-2440.jpg
Restoring the original steering wheel and putting it back on (right now it's got a tiny 10" dia. on it)
This may be controversial, but I'm removing all of the Ranger trim and crap and making it into the base Custom model (like I said I'm recreating something from my child hood). I'd sell you guys the trim/chrome but it is in bad shape.
The window chrome and drip rail chrome will be good enough to sell. I'll also have the factory air, controls and all the compressor pulley etcs I'll put on this website eventually, ( I don't know if they work though, it's all unhooked)
Man you've been busy! Sounds like you have some fun times coming up! Looking forward to the progress updates 