1967 International COE, Small Adventure

I just appreciate all the Car People (there are car ladies around too!) that admitted to having to balance the family time. Mazd's stories of the balance have been in inspiration to review how I have been balancing that at home, along with all of the other people posting how they have managed. I don't have a project car right now due to family finances taking a front seat to fun money, but my wife knows, when we get over the current expenditures I will one day show up with a car, I just have to promise not to take her spot in the garage.. fair. It's a balance, all things in their due time. Keep all of the goodness coming this way GRM. I'm glad I stopped lurking after all these years, speaking of, I should go check in at fordsix.com and foxtbirdcugarforums.net, it's been a couple years...

In reply to FunkyCricket :

This place is full of enablers, and at times I join the cry of "go for it!" It's good to recognize that there are at least as many people reading the forums that are sitting on the sidelines for good mature reasons waiting for life to get organized. Don't worry, I'll probably still be working on this when you send your kids off to college.

I'm starting to think that painting piecemeal is stupid. It works, but it's horribly inefficient. I'm now dreaming of a shop where I can strip Ferdinand truly down to the frame, inside, blast it, and paint it all in one go. Then do the same for the individual pieces that I've taken off. Someday. 
Today however I had stuff to do before I could paint. We need to finish a baby quilt this weekend so I had to go make things match for some borders and edging. Somehow I've become the go to guy for picking out fabric. The old ladies and the fabric store love me. 

And then to paint. Kind of screwed up my timing. I thought I'd only have time to paint one side, but had I planned better and mixed more paint I'm pretty sure I could have gotten both done. Crap. I'll see if I can grab a couple hours in the afternoon tomorrow. Getting this far forward will let me install both cross members and the cab support and install the motor. Assuming I get it assembled of course. I want my Grosh space back. 

When this was dropped in my driveway I was thinking a good solid year. Now I'm getting more comfortable with the fact that this project is going to be multiple years. Probably decade. Takes the pressure off. 

I think you're making good progress, at this rate in a decade Ferdinand will be concourse ready!

That last sentence made me think about something, how some people need a project to be drivable and usable to keep motivation going to complete the project one step at a time, and how some people just have this image in their head of how they want it to look and drive and won't stop working until they achieve it in one big step. You need to know which type you are before you plan out a big project as this one. Keep up the good work, I love this thread.

I am 100% a rolling project guy. I want to fix one thing, reassemble, drive it around the block, and identify the next thing to fix. Oldopelguy and I both thought that's where this truck was. It needed the fuel tank sorted. And then some electrical. Get a bed on. Sort the hydraulics issues. Tons of piecemeal stuff. One system at a time. Start it up and drive it up and down the driveway in between. If this motor runs once I get it in, that's how this whole thing will go. I'll start with a running motor and work my way out. 

In reply to mazdeuce - Seth :

I agree Seth. The Vette taking ~6 months to even get started was a nightmare for me, just because I didn't know what else would need fixed. Of course in hindsight it's all much clearer. With the Suburban being running/driving - not to mention(hopefully) less of a project overall - it's much easier for me to take it one step at a time because I can see & evaluate the results immediately, and get a much better idea of "What next?".

mazdeuce - Seth said:

 

Before I read the text, I saw this and immediately thought, "Man, that is going to be the craziest truck interior I've ever seen!"  So disappointed now. :)

In reply to Pete Gossett :

I'm putting out of my head all of the things I KNOW are wrong. The fan won't bolt to this harmonic balancer. The spacer for the pilot bearing is shattered and I can't even find one on parts diagrams. Still need to sort fuel. At thing point if I can get the motor in the truck and firing on ether I'll call it a raging success and then start picking at the rest one by one. At least I had 8 functional brake cylinders before I ripped all the lines out, so there's that. 

In reply to efahl :

I have all the bows for the headliner and enough of the old fabric that I should be able to use it as a pattern to sew up a new one. The only upholstery in the truck is the seats, headliner, and drivers arm rest. I'm going to have fun. 

The spacer isn't anything special usually, given ID, OD, and thickness it's a simple thing to make. Well, for someone that can do some machining.

mazdeuce - Seth said:

In reply to Pete Gossett :

I'm putting out of my head all of the things I KNOW are wrong. The fan won't bolt to this harmonic balancer. The spacer for the pilot bearing is shattered and I can't even find one on parts diagrams. Still need to sort fuel. At thing point if I can get the motor in the truck and firing on ether I'll call it a raging success and then start picking at the rest one by one. At least I had 8 functional brake cylinders before I ripped all the lines out, so there's that. 

Seth, that motor came from a scout, yes?

lemme talk to my machinist. He does a lot of work on older internationals, and should be able to come up with something.

The fan doesn't bolt to the harmonic balancer, it bolts to the water pump.

If you're having alignment issues with the belt drive, use the parts from the 304, they should fit up to the engine the same.

I was really confused earlier when you mentioned differences between the 304 and 345. The 266, 304, 345 and 392 are all the same on the outside. You can't even tell them apart without looking at casting numbers or pulling heads.

On the coe the radiator is positioned such that the fan does mount to the harmonic balancer because the water pump would be too high.

Ah! NOW I find the picture I was looking for.

I learned something new today, you are correct, it bolts to the crank.

You're probably going to want to machine an adapter or something then. IHC V8s are externally balanced.

mazdeuce - Seth said:

I'd rather be outside than inside, so I'm going to knock down the little bit of rust that has formed since the last time I knocked it off and prep it so that I can paint more of the frame tomorrow. 

This is giving me one of those unfavorable flashbacks.

I did this for about 2 months with my flatbed project except it kept raining "tomorrow" or I'd get called into work at the last minute and it would rain before I got back to it. 

I'm usually quite grateful for rain, but this seemingly endless cycle made me resent it a bit. 

Fortunately, it gave me the opportunity to endurance test several brands of wire wheels, or something... 

In reply to Recon1342 :

Yes, Scout, and as Oldopelguy confirmed the fan bolts to the crank. I need to get the motor back in and then see how clearances change. The 345 balancer is thicker as well as clearly having different weights than the 304. It may be that there isn't enough room to run the fan I have with an adapter, which is why I'm holding off on making any decision. It might be that the current balancer pattern is common enough that I can grab a different fan, but it's not a huge concern right now. 

If I try and solve all of these problems right now it will all look impossible and I'll end up curled in a ball under the cab crying. I'm headed out to paint the second chassis rail and get the three crossmembers ready to paint. More paint, engine assembly, get the motor back in place and start it, then reset and attack the next round of problems. 

Thanks for the support from you and everyone. 

This was in my towns Christmas parade this morning. Not sure if it’s relevant or not now that I posted it. 

In reply to ebonyandivory :

100% relevant. One of the cool things about these is that they (I'm pretty sure) use a standard truck cab and maybe fenders from the era just rearranged higher in the air with a stubby hood. I'm almost certain that's the same cab as my father in law has on his 1948 Chevy Truck.

Finished painting the other rail. Mrs. Deuce came home when I was just about done and got an action shot.

Hand painting takes forever. Every hole needs a small brush (I found q-tips work as well as an actual brush) to get paint in the hole. There are a lot of holes.

And lots of nooks and crannies.

Looks fantastic seth. 

Keep up the good work Seth!  You know what they say about eating an elephant - one bite at a time!

This may be a little late, but Permatex makes this awesome "Rust Converter".

it only works on rusty metal, no shiny pretty stuff. after scraping any loose scale off, you spray or brush on a thick coat of the stuff and it "converts" the rust into a indestructible flat black primer that will resist rust from now til the end of time. 

Thanks for the encouraging words. I think I need to mentally approach this more like the Grosh than the R63. It's much more like building something than fixing something. Feels that way anyway. 

There are a couple of things that need to get done before I can even think of putting the motor back in. One of them is the shift rods. They're about six feet long, weight somewhere around 12 lbs each, and are very specific to this application. 

They go in the frame behind the crossmembers and they can't go in or out with the front crossmember in place. I think it's worth my time to get these cleaned and painted and get all of the moving parts at least able to come on and off easily for future replacement if needed. Once they go back in, I'll have to pull the motor to get them out. That'll suck. I only got about two hours of puttering and wire brushing before getting rained on. More work tomorrow. Always more work tomorrow. 

Still poking around with the shift rods. The rod ends are copper plated which is interesting. They all move though they need grease and new protective sleeves. 

Didn't quite finish. My knotted wire wheel started jettisoning wires from one side. I quit when it got too wobbly. Hopefully I can make another HF run in the next couple of days. 

I used some of the leftover gasket/paint stripper from the R63 to clean the timing cover. This stuff takes seconds to work, it's a bit terrifying. I'm still fascinated by the casting and work that goes into timing covers. 

With the paint off you can see that the vent on the fill tube is brazed on. Kind of a neat detail. 

Those copper plated rod ends are interesting.  I wonder what that's all about.  Could they have been chrome at one time?

With your new commitment to purchasing tools when they'll make your life easier you might be interested in this Link .  I have the Snap-On version and it's excellent at removing everything from rust, to body filler, to sound deadening to skin.  It's one of my "how did I live without it" tools.

Some of the details in this engine are almost steampunk-industrial kind of neat. Compare that timing cover to a GM stamped piece of tin.

In reply to APEowner :

Any reason why this electric version with a much broader wheel wouldn't be awesome? I have air, but the width intrigues me (and it's $80 cheaper). Curious whether in use it makes sense to have the narrower wheel for the amount of pressure/area needed or similar observations you might have from actually using one...

I finally got to tag along when my wife needed to go to the Barcelona office; couldn't go to Spain without taking Ferdinand. And he's won! The building in the background is now a mall inside, which I may not be fond of, but at least it's no longer a bullfighting ring!