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Posted by D Sherman [24.32.202.83] on Saturday, June 12, 2010 at 11:59:37 :
In Reply to: Power wagon field find posted by Anthony [74.65.139.107] on Saturday, June 12, 2010 at 10:29:10 :
Bring a friend who's worked on lots of old trucks. I don't mean to be sarcastic, but it sounds like you're new at this and you're eager to get it going. The big danger isn't that it won't start when you put gas and a battery in, but that it WILL start, you'll hop in and try to drive it home, and before long the engine will have chewed itself up. I learned my lesson the hard way on a 1958 5 kW military generator set with a little 65 cubic inch 5 cylinder Hercules engine. Although it had sat out in the weather and was rusty, the genny had less than 100 hours on the clock, and it started right up when I hooked up a gas tank and a battery. The governor brought the speed up to 1800 RPM and electricity came out of the wires. Within a few minutes it started sounding a little rough. I was so thrilled that I figured it would "work it out" so I let it keep running. Within a couple more minutes it sounded like somebody was banging on the front end of the block with a double-jack. I reluctantly shut it, down, pulled the pan, and found a neat pile of shiny shavings which were the remains of the #1 rod bearing, and steel powder which was the surface of the #1 crankshaft journal.
You don't need to pull the pan, but at least put lots of oil on top of the pistons (you'll need an oil can that will let you squirt it sideways since the spark plug hole isn't over the piston), make sure you have a working oil pressure gauge on it (best to add your own after-market mechanical one temporarily), have enough clean oil in the pan, and shut it down the moment anything sounds funky. A rod bearing isn't too hard to replace, but a crankshaft is.
To minimize the number of variables, I would strap a jerry can to the running board with a rubber hose from it to the fuel pump, thus avoiding all the possibly problems of rusty old fuel lines and dirty fuel in the tank. Similarly, to get it running, I would hook a battery to the battery post on the starter, and a wire from there, via a switch, to the ignition coil, but leave the rest of the on-board wiring disconnected. There are undoubtedly shorts and opens throughout the electrical system, but you don't need to deal with them when you're just trying to get the truck running. Before starting the engine, make sure it will turn over. Either bar it over by hand or try the starter, with the spark coil disconnected. If it turns over, then try to crank it with the starter enough to get some indication on the oil pressure gauge. Jumper cables to your good truck with its engine running will help. You'll notice the theme here is make sure everything is good and oily inside before you start it.
Before you drive any distance, make sure the gearboxes are all full of oil. If you're only going a little way, it's not going to hurt if there's water in the bottoms of the gear boxes, so long as there's enough oil on top of the water, but when you get it home, drain and re-fill them. If there was a lot of water in the gear oil, expect to replace bearings eventually. The damage has already been done, so you're not going to make it worse by driving a little way with rusty bearings.
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