36 Ford truck on Ranger

[MercuryMac]

Hi Tripper. I agree with you about not being cheap. You usually will lose any good will that could have come your way, when you beat someone down on any deal. It was the colour of paper that the mechanical inspection was written on that caused the grief. That baffled me at first, why it had to be on green paper. My mechanical inspection was on white paper [garden variety inspection] not green [provincial]. I was branded a criminal for trying to pull such horribleness.
Our terminology is slightly different. I was trying to get registration---which is probably title and licence plates.
I should have started sooner but in order to pass the inspection I had to have the truck in order, and that didn't happen quickly.

 

[MercuryMac]

Hi guys. Well I went to the show on Friday evening,---- in my '55 Merc, boring, right. I came back home late Friday night and worked on the '36 all day Saturday while the car show guys were playing poker rally and other games. There were a bunch of little niggeley things in the ignition to fix. Point to file, coil to change, Distributer cap to change, but finally I unplugged my voltage reducer in the ignition and fed 12 volts to the coil, all the time. Whoa, blue spark across the plugs. Now, my electric gas pump wasn't putting gas in the carb. It turned out the mechanical fuel pump had gummed up valves so they were freed up. Now the electric pump could force gas through the mechanical one and on to the carb. This engine had possibly run for two minutes in the last 40 years. I pushed the starter button and it fired right up and ran quietly and smoothly. Without messing with the choke or footfeed the motor idled nicely. I got out and walked around the back to listen to the exhaust note, very nice. I looked at my watch and figured out time lines. Just enough time to make it back to Dawson Creek for the big supper and cruise. With the shop door open I jumped in to the truck and stuffed it into first gear, NO first gear, well second then, NO second either, so I went for a test drive in 3rd gear and made the painful decision to take the '55 Merc to the car show again this year.

 

[rex1927]

Tripper-I wish every state had a title service like yours.The reason I have quit buying many cars is the paperwork mess that goes with it.Just not worth the trouble,so I don`t buy much anymore.
If we had a title service here I would sure use it.That would be great![dr

 

[MercuryMac]

Hi Tripper and Rex, How I wish we had a private licence service too. Our licence offices were semi privatized a few years ago and they are better than they used to be. It was the way I was treated[like a violent criminal] that bothered me so much, when I had not enough paperwork and some wrong paperwork[pretty small crimes]. I had been arrogant enough to think that Alberta would be nice enough to deal with, seeing that I've been buying seven or eight licences there every year since they opened, and I don't look very criminal.

 

[MercuryMac]

My daughter got a photo of me whizzing by the house on my test drive. It's been too small to send to you, but now she reE-mailed it to me and I think it will work. The first picture is me changing the solenoid [a steel one, era correct looking, brand new] for an old used plastic one, that works right. The second one is the test drive, in third gear of course.

 

[earthman]

Somehow this is the first time i have read thru this thread . But while there are not many comments there are 3400 veiws! Love the truck but not much else to contribute because it looks like you have it all under control. My favoritest thing is to see pix and vids of members completed projects out and about in their natural habitat. Kind of like putting a face to a name. Hmmmm....what a good idea for another contest.

 

[MercuryMac]

Hi earthman. Thanks for the thumbs up and the acknowledgement of finishing a hotrod, a bigger feat than I expected. You must make the thumbs up symbols. You know, you're hotrodding this forum when you add coolness to the words and pictures. Right on.
I purposely submitted the picture of me changing the solenoid so I could get in the limelight and the guys could see if I measured up to their expectations. I know I sure like to see the builders sometimes in the pictures.

 

[GJunktionMike]

Driving with one gear is still driving [cl

 

[MercuryMac]

Whoa GJ, double the fun, I had to use reverse too, so two gears. Anyhow, I was dreading the taking apart of all the sound deadener, gaskets, flooring, and homemade seals that I had so fussily installed. The gearshift and mounting base turned out to be a way worse than I'd imagined and it looks like putting it together will be even worse. I lifted the top off the transmission easily but couldn't tell if the forks were in there right or wrong, so my guess that I had missed the shift collar with one fork could be right, or not.[S[S

 

[Sam_Fear]

I wanna know how that hat is staying on your head?! Congrats on the test run.... but that sucks about having to tear back into the trans.

 

[GJunktionMike]

It would make sense to only have 3rd and reverse if you had a fork miss the grove. I had the same thing happen before, worth a try to stab it back in.

 

[Bamamav]

I thought 1st and reverse were on the same fork, and 2nd and 3rd on the other? [S

 

[GJunktionMike]

I thought 1st and reverse were on the same fork, and 2nd and 3rd on the other? [S

Oops my bad I had them backwards.

 

[MercuryMac]

Whoa up, GJ and Bama, You're assuming this puppy is a stocker, three speed, wrong mistake. It's a HOTROD with a Borg Warner four speed, it's just small and aluminum, the forerunner of the T-5s. The first and second syncro-unit collar that was not engaging its fork was the culprit. Well, the real culprit was the mechanic that arrogantly put the top back on the transmission, assuming the forks were in their right collars. That same mechanic, much meeker now, just put the transmission lid back on CAREfully this time. I tested the five different gears after the top was on and the truck moved appropriately in each of them. Fixing up the mess in the floor around the transmission is all that's left of this part of the project.
And Sam Fear, you're thinking I have a problem with my hat sliding over my eyes and then falling off all the time. Indiana Jones stapled his hat on in one movie and I've considered doing this but I don't have time.

 

[MercuryMac]

Hi guys. As I was crawling around under the truck today it struck me that almost all of you make tin floors and I made a wooden one. I have two other wooden ones that are over 30 years old and still good. A John Deere farm tractor and an old Kenworth. Both of these floors have suffered a lot more life than a hotrod would. They are quieter, more rigid, fairly removable and easy to add things too. Got any opinions.

 

[MercuryMac]

Hello again. Well, I just came back from my second test drive. My wife wanted to come too; seems she has been waiting for this moment for years. The gears all work but the clutch seems to be hanging up a wee bit. Shifting into that first gear is embarrassing. It's a NOS clutch that's been lying on the shelf for 60 years so it might heal up a bit as it wears in,-----I hope. We took the truck out in the field and I turned sharp each way to get all the bubbles out of the power steering, which made it slightly lighter to steer, although it wasn't bad. It drives down the gravel road nicely and brakes feel good. You should hear it start, wow, immediately every time and then it'll sit there at a dead idle so nicely. At high revs it flutters quite a bit as if I've got the points too close, although I didn't feel a problem pulling good in high gear. Overall, it was a real good run.[cl

 

[Old Iron]

Great lookin truck [dr
I like the fenders being on it [cl

 

[bob w]

What Old Iron said. Looks like the Ranger chassis worked out well.

 

[Snake Farm]

[cl Congrats on the shake down run! Congrats on the wife being interested too....makes it so much more enjoyable. The truck looks great!

As for wood floors if they were good enough for Henry Ford they are good enough for me I'm a carpenter first and a hot rodder second so there's lots of wood in unusual places around here, like my home made wooden sand blasting cabinet and my wooden welding cart. My Willys has metal floors but it has a wooden stake bed and a plywood seat.

 

[MercuryMac]

Hi and Thank you Old Iron, Bobw and Snake Farm. I like the fenders too, and we live a way out in the country on gravel roads, kinda like a lot of farmers, so the fenders keep the rocks off the paint. I remember why we should have had fenders on our first hotrod [my little brothers and mine, a '50 Ford car chassis]. We never got around to putting Dad's Model T phaeton body on the '50 frame. We were too young to drive legally so some of our miles were in the cow pasture. After we were painted green quite a few times we put pretty nice mudflaps on. Anyhow, we still have the old hotrod and the Model T body.
The Ranger chassis worked out really well, in fact I will recommend people to use one or at least think about it. The frame rails have two 'Z's so the cab area is fairly low and beneath the toe board is about 30" wide and at widest part it is 33" wide. The frame is beefy and the suspension gives a nice ride.
Snake Farm, ya, my wife perked right up when the truck was finally a truck. It seems that she didn't get much out of the build years. She's coming with me to A&W tomorrow night. Wow.
Also Snake Farm, here's a question just made for you. What do you think of my theory that you could build something out of wood for your ratrod, then age it by sandblasting it aggressively and painting it grey with a spray bomb.
Thanks Guys. and Keep on tinkering.