36 Ford truck on Ranger

I had a motivator for getting my truck running, an indoor car show, 20 miles away. Saturday morning didn't go well. About 8 miles from home, I ran into the rain and snow and drove in that all of the way to the city. When I gassed up, I thought I'd save some time by getting one of those touchless car washes at the same gas station, and maybe leave the truck running to further charge up the winter drained battery. Those aggressive rotating water cannons that clean the mud out of your wheels hit me and soaked that Ford flathead distributor more than anyone else has ever done. The motor [and truck] stopped immediately, ------- but not the dang water cannons. I guessed that the whole washing cycle was governed by an electric eye so I had to get out of there to stop the water blasting, but I didn't want to get out in my finery and walk through the rush of spray to push the truck back out of the wash-bay. I also didn't want to wait there loosing my paint and some radiator fins, until the firetrucks and police came to save me. I stuck it in first and ran the truck ahead on the starter out of the range of the water cannons and tripped the wash cycle, so sat quietly and got washed. Then rolled ahead on the starter some more to the big drying fans, I was moving too fast to do a good job of drying. The starter was still propelling me forward out through the door and it closed behind me. I sat there for a moment dazed. I had survived but I couldn't even curse properly yet, and I still had to start up a wet flathead with a further weakened battery. With a specially bought screw-driver I popped off the distributor cap and got my hanky out and cleaned the cap inside and the coil. After replacing the dryer stuff, I got in and the truck started right up. After that everything went a little better.
Here's a picture of me on the Sunday morning going to the show.

Holly Wet Water Ratman

Sounds like a really fun day after that little inconvenience
Hope the show went well [S
Next dirty might be ok, ya

I apologize in advance, Mac, but I have to ask...

Who, in their right mind, takes a hoodless hot rod through an automatic car wash? [S [S [S

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First carwash run through on a 2003 Gran Marquis I bought for my daughter and the undercar sprayer knocked the plug loose on the cam sensor. I had to push it out of the door, get a ride and come haul it away.

The answer, Dr. C is -----nobody in their right mind will. And, to further the answer, very few of the rest of us will go through an automatic carwash the second time.

Wb3, I like the fact that sometimes you can wash the underside of the car, [where the mud is], but not when the water washes part of your car away.

On the positive, you didn't wet your finery.

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Ah, there is a positive. You have made my flaming optimism return. Thank you.

You really needed to be smoking some good stuff to pull that stunt, or did you leave home without really waking up yet???[cl Thanks for the laff Mac and no thanks for the opportunity to wipe coffee off my screen...

There were other issues to consider here, too. The wash-bay that I usually go through was a way closer to the middle of the city and there had just been a storm go through so the streets were sloppy wet. I didn't want to have to drive through a lot of sloppy streets after I washed my truck. This 'new to me' automatic carwash was on the edge of town and about three blocks away from the edge of the storm, so there was dry pavement fairly close. I made it to the car show pretty clean.


--------- And I forgot about those stupid water cannons.

Since this spring I've guessed that my accelerator pump quit working again. So I pulled the top off my old teapot carb and found out that my fix last year broke. Well, the new gas ate the [possibly plastic] snap ring that I put on the lower end of the accelerator pump piston shaft. The snap ring was to hold a little round spring up inside the piston cup, so the cup would stay wide and aggressively wipe the sides of its cylinder. I read recently, [in a hot-rod magazine] that you shouldn't use the old black rubber piston cups, or even try to doctor them up, as the new gas makes them woussy, you should use the blue rubber ones. I doctored mine up, with a steel snap ring this time. On my trip to A&W tonight it worked beautifully. Success!

MercuryMac said:

Since this spring I've guessed that my accelerator pump quit working again. So I pulled the top off my old teapot carb and found out that my fix last year broke. Well, the new gas ate the [possibly plastic] snap ring that I put on the lower end of the accelerator pump piston shaft. The snap ring was to hold a little round spring up inside the piston cup, so the cup would stay wide and aggressively wipe the sides of its cylinder. I read recently, [in a hot-rod magazine] that you shouldn't use the old black rubber piston cups, or even try to doctor them up, as the new gas makes them woussy, you should use the blue rubber ones. I doctored mine up, with a steel snap ring this time. On my trip to A&W tonight it worked beautifully. Success!

Click to expand...

I have seen this nasty fuel eat even the blue ones. I run the old leather ones in my tri power setup. I couldn't keep the new style in it

You have to go to a lot of grief to find a blue rubber piston cup for a teapot carb, [so I didn't], and now you tell me that blue rubber is allergic to alcohol too. I'm glad I'm too lazy to do everything that I read about in the hot-rod magazines.

lowbudget50 said:

I have seen this nasty fuel eat even the blue ones. I run the old leather ones in my tri power setup. I couldn't keep the new style in it

Click to expand...

I would also suggest the leather ones like they used in the Bendix rebuild kits for some of the Harleys..

Buy "pure gas" and add a little Seafoam.

https://pure-gas.org/index.jsp?stateprov=AB

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Last week I had a wreck. My windshield wipers got out of time and stuck together when they should have been swiping separately in opposite directions. They fought for the same space and something had to give. Consequently, I had to go and find my driver-side wiper blade and arm back along the road near the grass in the ditch. I had broken the transmission shaft of the wiper drive. No problem, as I have a stash of project cars from which to rob parts. Hmmm, which year of vehicle did I rob last time. I went through all of my cars with no luck. Oh well, I'll just weld that one-quarter inch shaft back together. Wrong, ---- I couldn't make that little spade on the end of the small shaft stick. ----And I noticed, after a while that silver was dripping down the side of my vice. Whooa, part of the transmission housing on those little gizmos is potmetal, --- and it ran away.
So I ended up making a little shaft and a real metal pedestal for my transmission. In the picture [lower right] there are the two shafts; the broken one and the new grade eight bolt one which is a little longer. The weird orange circle is around the pedestal that I had to slip over the little pipe [upper right] and weld on there. I got it all together again, [not really tested though] just in time to almost be late heading for the Dawson Creek [Mile Zero, Alaska High-way] car show.
It was a darn good show and cruise. And a drive-in theatre [showing Smoky and the Bandit]. No rain, so I still haven't tested my wipers.

A guy could it bored if it wasn't for all of these little things that pop up and need fixing Nice job

Hey Dozer, just once I'd like to try that; ---having life go so smoothly that I get bored. [dr

I've been planning ahead to replace the tired, old motor in my '36 pick-up. It's getting a bit embarrassing; smoking on the hard grunts. So the local machine shop is tinkering away on another Mercury flathead block that I had. The other day they phoned and told me that I needed a new oil pan because mine had been sitting in the mud too long and was rotten on the bottom. I took the pan to a couple of welding shops to ask their opinions. I didn't like those opinions, so it came home with me and I started to patch the bad area. [First picture] the bad area cut out big enough to get to good solid metal. I'm holding the new hammer-shaped patch, that was cut out of another old pan that the sidewalls were good on. I probably should have MIGed it on there but I hate my mig with a passion, so I gas welded it on, [second pic] and ground it down smooth. To fill in any little pinholes I then smeared a thin layer of JB Weld on, inside and out, [third pic]. JB Weld is not as nice to work with as body filler, but it can be done, and I think it will stand up to the oil and the heat. Time will tell.

That will work just fine. In the past I have used gas tank epoxy kits fron napa. There are a lot of plow trucks at work I have patched this way until I can get to them and replace the offending part with a new one.

Not like you can walk into a parts store and ask for one, eh???[cl