JR's Korner of BillyBob's Garage

TRUCK LINKS including vendor sites for old parts, custom parts, and tools as well as sites for classic car and truck organizations

BOOKSTORE operating in association with Amazon.com Books

PLANNING for the restoration including project schedule and cost estimates.

PRE-RESTORATION includes log entries of minor repairs and and adventures between time of purchase and time of disassembly for restoration.

JR'S KORNER JR's Korner is the history of BillyBob before I got him authored by my brother, Wm. C. Kephart.

13. "A" Team Mission Accomplished

My vacuum was either the most popular model ever made causing stores to constantly be sold out of belts or the least popular model causing stores to not waste shelf space on an item they couldn't sell. In either case, I couldn't find a belt anywhere. I was on the verge of buying a new vacuum cleaner when I found an out of the way hardware store that just happened to have a belt. In fact he had five of them. I bought them all. Today, the vacuum resides in the Pleasant Valley Storage Facility and I have four belts in the closet.

I returned home, put the belt on the vacuum cleaner and apologized to Mom for tracking grease onto my carpet! I entered the garage in time to witness the cylinder head installation. Dad was busy instructing Tom and Mike about the proper method for installing the cylinder head. "You need to tighten the headbolts in sequence to insure that the gasket lays flat." Dad said. He went on to instruct the team in the proper use of the torque wrench. Years earlier, Dad tightened the headbolts on a Gremlin (another story worth volumes) by placing his hand a certain distance from the end of a standard breaker bar and putting just the right force on it as determined by his wealth of experience. Later, I checked the torque on those bolts; he was never more than two foot-pounds off!

We bolted on all the auxiliary equipment like intake manifold, water pump, fan belt, fan, exhaust manifold, linkages, etc. Dad carefully supervised the distributor installation so that the timing would be close enough to get the truck started.

We were at the moment of truth! Would the truck start? After a few cranks to prime the fuel system, she fired up without a problem.

The next order of business was to time the engine and set the valves. The truck, being built in the fifties, still had mechanical lifters. Mechanical lifters require adjustment for proper operation. In order to adjust the lifters one must loosen the nut at the end of a rocker arm, and turn the adjustment screw while measuring the distance between the lifter and the valve stem with a feeler gauge. The trouble is this must be done with the engine running. The nut, adjustment screw and valve stem are moving up and down about one-half inch several times a minute. In fact, if the engine is running at, oh, say 500 RPM, the nut, adjustment screw and valve stem are moving up and down 250 times a minute! This makes keeping the wrench on the nut and the screwdriver on the adjustment screw quite a feat not to mention the feeler gauge. Dad took the supervisory role with Tom, Mike and me on a different tool. Eventually we succeeded! Truck was back in business.

All in all, it was a good weekend: I got the truck back on the road and I got a clean house. The truck had better oil pressure, but not much. It was still way too "loose". Like I said, I wouldn't be driving it much, so what the hell? As for the clean house, it lasted for two days but my vacuum cleaner sure worked fine!

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You can email JR at  jr@laroke.com

Issued Wednesday February 18, 1998

Updated Wednesday June 24, 1998

copyright © 1998 William Craig Kephart all rights reserved