Distributor Drama

I went and purchased new points today to replace the set up inside the distributor. The points were basically the last thing I could replace. I pulled off the cap and rotor, then removed the old points. I installed the new ones, and put in another new condenser, reinstalled the rotor and then cap. I went and tried to start her and still nothing, but when I went and looked at the engine in frustration, I saw smoke coming up from the resistor that I had installed a few days ago. After asking some questions on Stovebolt, I found out that I must have installed the points incorrectly. Apparently I had installed them so they created a closed circuit and weren't opening and closing like they should.

A couple of guys on stovebolt explained how to fix it. They told me that I should adjust the spacing of the points, that they should be set at 18 thousandths of an inch. Once I had adjusted the spacing I should check for spark, they told me a nice easy way of doing this while keeping the cap off of the distributor, and without having to climb into the truck to try to start it. First by removing a spark plug and it's wire, then attaching the other end of the wire to the coil, where the coil is normally connected to the cap of the distributor. Then using a screw driver to open and close the points, I should eventually see a spark at the end of the spark plug. If I don't then my wiring is incorrect somewhere.

Up On Blocks

So after doing some research at the car "cemetary" across the street I came to the conclusion that I had the wrong rotor on the distributor. I happened to grab one while I was there and tried it on Diane when I got home, it fit like a glove. The gap I had previously seen with my old rotor was no longer there, and I noticed that the new rotor actually touched the top of the cap. With the correct, or so I'm assuming, rotor in I tried to start it up again. Still no luck, but I wasn't able to check and see if there was a spark or not so I don't know if I'm getting a closed circuit now or not. I'm thinking that I'm going to purchase a new rotor of the same size I happened to find at the cemetary. If that doesn't work then I might try replacing the condenser.

Since I couldn't test the spark last night, I decided to move on to a project I could complete. I decided to put her up on blocks since the poor old tires weren't holding air too well. When we picked up Diane, she had been parked out in the field without anyone messing with her too much so her tires were able to hold air without any problem. Before I put her on blocks though I had to remove the old tires and wheels. After soaking them multiple times with Liquid Wrench and WD-40, I was able to penetrate the rust. With a little persuasion from an impact wrench the bolts started coming loose. Once the bolts were loose I lifted the front end up onto jack stands and removed the tires. Needless to say I feel much better now about leaning on her, before I felt like she was going to try to roll away every time I leaned on her.

Adjusting the Timing

I have finally gotten the time to remove the old ground cable and install the new one. What a difference! The new one looks great. I'm hoping that once I have the timing figured out, the new ground cable will give me a better circuit to run from.

With the new ground cable on I have turned back to the timing. I think I've figured the timing out. I pulled the valve cover off, and removed the plugs, then figured out a way to advance the engine with a hand crank. After rotating it around a few times, I figured out the sequence of the valves and pistons. From the information I received from Stovebolt.com, I adjusted the timing so that both of the valves on the first piston were up, while the piston was also up. I reconnected everything, tried it and of course no luck. I took everything apart again and pulled out the distributor as well to see if the timing was off by a rotation. I advanced the engine to verify the timing was correct and rotated the distributor 1 time. I reinstalled everything again and tried to start it one more time. No luck, it was still sounding like it wasn't getting any gas. I poured a little into the carburetor bowl to see if that would help. Still no luck. Since I was getting a little frustrated with taking everything apart and putting it back together, I decided to test for spark again, the spark is still good at the coil, I am able to jump about a 1/4", but still nothing at the plugs. I removed the coil and took it in to get tested, everything came back within normal range.

Since everything came back normal, I'm beginning to think that maybe its the distributor or the rotor that is not correct. The gap from the rotor to the points is close to 3/8", quite far when I am only able to get 1/4" jump from the coil. I'm also beginning to wonder if it might be the condenser after asking on Stovebolt again. My next step is to talk to Chev's of the 40's to get their opinion about the gap and condenser.

Engine Schematics

While searching online for schematics for engine wiring, I found a forum on Stovebolt.com, a website dedicated to older Chevy engine's like mine. I asked some questions and was told the firing order for the plugs, 153624, and they, a couple of people that answered my questions on the forum, explained the timing for the starter as well. I have checked the plug wires and they are correct, or at least I am assuming they are. On the engine block they are done correctly, but I don't know where to start on the cap. After trying several locations, I decide it may not matter, and that I could try other things while I continue the search for the starting position on the cap.

In the mean time I disconnected the wire that goes from the starter to the ignition switch, then back down to the coil. I replaced it with a wire from the starter to the coil, to see if the wire coming back from the ignition was bad, since it looked fairly frayed. The engine still won't turn over. I've checked the coil for spark, and now that I've replaced the wire from the starter...it is much stronger, but I still don't see anything at the plugs. Since the sleeve that the coil sits in is missing one of the bolts, I am wondering if it isn't making a ground or if it even needs too.

Since I'm at a loss for ideas for now, I've decided that I want to move onto other things that I can accomplish without too much difficulty. I'm reinstalling the ignition switch under the dash. Working on removing the wheels, so I can get them cleaned up or install new ones. I'm also replacing the ground cable from the engine to the frame. Last on my list before I ask Rob for more advice is to reinstall the coil and sleeve with the new bolts I have picked up to see if that helps.

Checking the Spark

Rob came over yesterday to help me trouble shoot the non starting engine on Diane. While looking things over he saw that the 12 volt to 6 volt reducer wasn't needed to start the engine, and said it might even be the reason it wasn't turning over. While looking at the coil he noticed it said it needed a 12 volt resistor. I also asked him about the fuel pump because it sounded like it wasn't getting any fuel up to it. He suggested that it might just need a new gasket, so it would make a tight seal. He said not to worry too much about that right now, that we could just bypass the whole thing and run gas right into the carburetor with a pipe and gravity. Rob also thought it would be a good idea to get a battery charger and replace some of the old rotten wires.

We headed to the store to buy the resistor, wire, battery charger, and some hose clamps. When we got back to the house we removed the reducer and replaced it with the resistor. We rewired the line from the coil to the resistor, and checked all of the plug connections. We reconnected the battery and tested the line from the coil for spark. There was some, not a lot and not very strong, but there was a spark. Rob had to leave to head back down to Salem, and wanted to beat the traffic.

Before Margaret left for work, she helped me and we tried to start Diane again, with no luck. I talked to Rob, and he said it could still be any number of things like, the timing, the wires not in the right place, the coil, since there was such a small spark. Today I am going to look for schematics on the wiring of the cap and plugs, as well as trying to figure out the timing of "Diane".

Starter Drama

I dragged Margaret to the Auto Swap Meet in Portland this weekend. It was neat but really just a chance for a bunch of people to get together drink beer and sell their parts and misc. other junk. But there were some really cool looking old cars and trucks that I was able to look at to get some good ideas for mine. I did meet up with the owner of Chevs of the 40's, Bill, who gave me a bunch of insight on how to move forward with my truck. I talked to him about my truck not starting and wanting to keep it as original as possible but still converting to 12 volt. He told me I could keep the 6 volt starter and have to replace it every few years and run an alternator unless I could find someone capable of wiring a starter and generator to 12 volt.


When we left the Swap Meet, I removed the old starter, at left, went to Chevs of the 40's and purchased a rebuilt starter. Then went home and installed it. Reconnected the battery cables and tried to start the truck. A small little grrr, then nothing. I tested the connections with my voltmeter. Everything said it was fine, but when I had Margaret try starting the truck every connection would drop from 12.4 volts to .3 volts. So I knew something was wrong. After some swearing and what not I decided to go to buy new battery cables. I also thought it would be a good idea to take the battery too since I haven't been able to charge it in the truck with all of the cranking I've been doing. Of course when I get the battery tested and it only has 81 cold cranking amps, when it should be closer to 500 +. Needless to say I was glad I took it, they charged it up for me and I took it and new cables home. I was able to reinstall the positive battery cable without too much trouble, but the negative cable was next to impossible to take off the frame. The bolt holding the wire on the frame was more or less welded tight with rust. After lots of WD-40 and Liquid Wrench, the use of Vise Grips and a socket on the other side I was able to twist it apart, in half that is. I connected the new negative battery cable to the frame and then to the battery. I started the truck and the new starter spun with such force, but yet still not able to turn the engine over. It still wasn't getting any gas. I decided to call it a night so I could cool down and rethink my next step.


While rethinking my next step, I wanted to come up with a name for the truck, since "the truck" just doesn't cut it. So Margaret and I came up with a name for her. Since most of the boats that Rob, Margaret's father, owns have been named after women in the family, I've decided to name my truck Diane. My mom's middle name.

Since we picked out the trucks name I could move on to thinking about my next step. I'm thinking I'm going to test for a spark, then see about running fuel straight to the carb, to see if that might let me start the truck and once it has started then the fuel pump will start working.

The "New" Truck

Since I am starting this blog a couple of weeks after getting my dream truck I guess I should get everyone caught up on what's been going on thus far. I came home from a meeting at work on my birthday to open the garage and see a 1950 5 window Chevy pickup that I had dragged Margaret to see a few weeks earlier. I had seen an ad on Craigslist for the truck, it was just sitting out in a huge yard, covered in surface rust. The ad said it it was running and that the guy had purchased it from the original owner. It also said that it came with the original title and over $2000 worth of parts. I dragged Margaret down to Happy Valley, southeast of Portland a couple of days after seeing the ad. When we were there I told Margaret it was the truck I had always wanted. After drooling over it for almost an hour we left and I had all but talked myself out of it on the way home. Saying it would be too expensive to restore and that we just don't have the space to store it or the resources to restore it. When we got home I tossed everything into the recycle bin. Although the truck has been my dream since I was at least 4 or 5 years old I just couldn't bring myself to begging Margaret for it. Luckily I have a wife that loves me because I didn't need to beg. Apparently Margaret grabbed all of the paperwork I had tossed and called up Dave, the owner of the truck, and told him she was going to purchase the truck for me for my birthday, and had asked him to be patient with her while she set everything up. So during the next few weeks she had been secretly going down to his place to pick up parts and store them in our neighbors garage and set up getting the truck up here to our house. Needless to say I was totally surprised when I showed up and saw my dream sitting in the garage. When I got out of the car after driving up about the only thing I could do was scratch my head, in total disbelief...Margaret had pulled it over on me and given me the truck of my dreams!

Later that afternoon, we went and bought a 6 volt battery and tried it out, with no luck. It didn't even sound like it was getting any juice to the starter. After some head scratching and swearing, I noticed that the coil was a 12 volt. So I exchanged the 6 volt for a 12 volt. I dropped the new battery in and we tried turning the key again. It now had the juice to get the starter going but it just wouldn't turn over.

It just didn't sound like it was getting any gas. I picked up some starter fluid to see if I could get it started that way. No luck. Then after some more brain storming with Margaret and my neighbor, Kevin, we came to the conclusion that I needed to be able to turn the ignition to allow current to flow through everything. Since I didn't have a key I had to disconnect everything attached to the ignition and bolt it all together to close the circuit. Still the engine wouldn't turn over.

While all of this has been going on, when I get too frustrated with the engine and starter, I've been working on other small projects that need to be worked on, such as getting both the cowl vent and left side vent to open again. Since the driver side window was shattered I've removed the glass and am working on removing the rust welded bolts that are holding the frame to the window shelf. I've cleaned out the glove box compartment, found some 1940's pennies, and some plastic pieces that I need to clean up to figure out what they are exactly. I've been working on removing the aftermarket turn signals from the front fenders, without much luck since they have been rust welded on as well.
I pulled the starter out to replace the starter switch, but found that the screws were stripped and stuck. Luckily with a little work and some Vise grips, I was able to loosen the screws and remove them. Once I had the old switch out I could easily see why the starter only worked intermittently...there was so much corrosion and wear on the copper plates that there was barely any contact when the switch was depressed. Now that I had removed the old switch I had to find new screws that would fit in the existing holes, so I could install the new switch.

After reinstalling the starter I tried to start the truck again. Once again, it sounded like it wanted to start but wasn't getting any gas, then the starter sounded like it was dying...until after a few tries, it did die. I removed it again, and have taken it to several auto parts shops, like Baxter, Autozone, and Parts for Less, to see about getting it tested to see if it really is dead. Since it is from such an old truck, there isn't really a good way to test it, but two of them say it is dead and it's time for a new one.

That about sums up what's been going on with my new truck for the past couple of weeks. Hopefully this weekend I'll be able to figure out what's going on with the starter so I can actually start it and see what else might need to be done.