Getting back to making some progress

I haven’t been able to work on Dad’s truck in a while, life, injury, the pursuit of getting through every day stuff just got in the way of getting time to work in the garage.

When we left the truck last, I had removed the horn finally, but the starter was fighting me and the fender was next on the list of things to do.

I managed to get the starter out today, unfortunately it did come apart, something I had been warned to try to avoid.  Not the end of the world, but I think it will mean a minor rebuild job on it.  Like I said, not a real problem, it will benefit from getting cleaned up as even part of the rotor was rusted.

The starter is free at last

The starter is free at last

That was one more thing on the list.  Turns out the problem was a simple one, and should have been really obvious, like bang my head on a brick wall obvious.  There was a small angle bracket through the top bolt that was attached to the block.  Once I got it wiggling some, it became apparent there was a pivot point that was holding it.  A quick look around and there it was.  I removed the top bolt, which is probably why the starter came apart, then loosened the bracket bolt attached to the block and the starter literally fell out into my hands.

The bell housing

The bell housing

Next on my list was the fender.  Dad and I had talked and decided that taking the fender off was going to make it way easier to get the engine out since the amount of room in front of the truck was limited and getting the hoist in from the front would have been difficult.

Some obstacles are bigger than others

Some obstacles are bigger than others

I wasn’t quite sure how that was going to go, there is an inside fender (engine side) and then the outer fender, and not all of the bolts were easily accessible.  The steering gear blocks some of the access to the inside of the frame channel, so I wasn’t sure if it would be easier to take the outer fender off  of the inner fender and running board, then tackle the inner fender or just to take it off as a single unit.

Examining the fender

Examining the fender

First I had to get the headlight wiring separated, then I decided to just take it one bolt at a time.  I got each one to work loose until I hit the last one holding the fender to the frame and then I got stuck.  The head of that last bolt was inside the frame channel inside a cross member and behind the steering gear.

So I decided to see if the bolts holding the outer fender to the inner fender would come along easily, nope, that wasn’t happening without some destruction, so I crawled under the truck again and figured out that if I put a wrench on the bolt from the rear through the frame I was able to get that last stubborn bolt free.

Houston, we have separation

Houston, we have separation

So another obstacle is out of the way.

Making progress

Making progress

And now we have access to continue.  I think the next step will be deciding if I am going to pull the engine with the transmission still attached, or try to separate them and only pull the engine block first.  I suspect it will be both combined after looking at it from underneath again, separating them may be difficult, there is not much clearance.

So another round of research is in order, but we have made another step on the journey.

Making progress

Another step on the journey

One Comment

  1. dad

    looks like great progress with fender removed. not based on any experience or readings but sounds like separating the trans from engine block before removing would be easier. your call ! keep up the good work. dad

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