More Fords

Another full day at the body shop but not too much on the Galaxie. I got some more filler in some low spots and sanded down some old filler but that was it. The rest of the day was spent on a new (and hopefully money making) project. Gene and I have gone into business and bought 4 trucks. We now have a 1953 F100, a 1956 F100 and two 1967 Ford pickups. One of the 67’s looked to be in fair condition so we thought that it might be fun to see if it ran. The first problem was that the starter solenoid was shot but we easily overcame that with the aid of a shorting bar. With any old car that hasn’t run forever it is always best to check for a spark, pour some gas down the carburetor and see what happens. Unbelievably it fired and then died but not after puking an egg cup of fuel out of the bottom of the carb. After having run for less than 5 seconds Gene diagnosed that the plug leads were crossed and sure enough 6 and 8 were transposed. I took off the distributor cap and the removed the plugs and cleaned everything up. Gene had a carb repair kit so we replaced the diaphragm to cure the leak and we were set to go. I only mention this high tech stuff so you get an idea of what a high powered body shop we are. So it is time to fire it up again and could we get it to run, could we hell. I pulled the fuel line to find that there was nothing coming out of the pump. We blew it through with an air line and checked the connections and eventually came to the conclusion (two hours later) that there was no fuel in the tank. MERDE.

Now we are running, now I don’t know if you have ever started an engine that has not run for 10 years but it is very strange. It sounds like crap on wheels and thick blue smoke pours out of every orifice, but within 10 minutes the valves seal up, it starts to sound nice and the smoke disappears. Time for a test drive and as I pull onto the lane and gun it, it stalls. I pop the hood, walk around to the passenger side, jam my shorting line across the solenoid and she fires up first time. It appeared that I might have overlooked the fact that when you hot-wire a truck you also bypass the safety switch that prevents the truck from starting unless it is park. Can you guess what happened next? Yes indeed not so much in park as in reverse and as she fire she started to reverse towards the body shop. I am on the wrong side to hit the brake and the best I can do is to scrabble along the side and jam myself under the tailgate.

To add insult to injury everyone (including assorted wives) was watching and too busy wetting themselves to help. Eventually someone kindly jumps in, throws it in drive and without stalling the engine parks it neatly in its bay.

Perhaps I should stick to block sanding the Galaxie.