Posted by Lew VB on Friday, June 07, 2002 at 10:14PM :
In Reply to: Build em or eventually lose em posted by RDavis on Friday, June 07, 2002 at 11:22AM :
O.K.
Both groups are right.
There is a time when historical originality IS important. When you have a truck that is in great shape or unique then I beleive that it would be only proper to maintain the originality, two differant cases #1 My wife has a '46 Dodge/FMC firetruck, it is the 21st truck made after the war. FMC-John Bean made it a point to record on the Truck serial #, truck serial# and the motor serial# in their delivery book. This truck will NEVER have another motor even if I got one of the warmer versions that VPW had a while back, they would have to gaurentee me that I would get my engine back {if they still offer that service} My wife won't even let me add any external items such as the split headers. #2 A friend of mine with an R-2 crash rescue truck, butchered his truck with a 318 along with the transmission {bye, bye winch PTO}, I could just die!
On the other side of the coin. If your truck isn't in the best shape and/or there isn't anything special {1 of the umpteen million M-37's out there}, and it works for you the have the truck move better, HAVE AT IT. If I had a choice of making it drive decent in "modern" traffic, using it as a daily driver of having it bone stock and sit in the garage because it's a pain to drive anywhere then bye, bye flat head. {How many Model T's do you see as daily drivers?} Face it, you can build a flat head with more HP and tourque but it all boils down to RPM, you and only turn a flat head so fast before it stops turning. Case in point: I have a '41 Military 1/2 ton, when I bought it for $45 at an auction anyone with a logical brain in their head would have brought it the the scrap yard. No motor , tranny, wiring , radiator , box , bumper, mastercylinder, floor boards, pedals, ect. and I also found out later that the cab wasn't original. So.. I figured that I could be an auto engineer with a pretty blank piece of paper. I now has a /6 with and auto trany and it works well down the road. 65 mph at 3000 rpm and I'll run it up it 4000+ rpm when I want to make a statment.
It all comes down to this-it's YOUR truck, do with it what YOU wish.
Lew VB
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