Deconstructing The Old, Dead Engine

Hello Gray Ghost Fans!

I got a little garage time in today and thought I'd provide a short update.  Weatherwise, it's been howling windy out there for the past two days!  Thankfully, this coastal storm didn't bring us any precipitation.  Just wind...and a lot of it!  That wind made it unsuitable to do any woodworking, again.  As you may recall from my last post, I was hoping to get the woodworking done for the bedsides.  Sadly, I did not beat the rain the next day and between work, home-life and the weather, I've not gotten around to doing it.  Although, I do have the wood waiting in the basement...taking up space.  More truth about doing a restoration, I suppose.  It's a hobby for me, not a business, so I really don't have a schedule to meet.  Other than getting frustrated at the lack of progress and a small pile of boards taking up space, it's all good.  Today, however, would be no exception to not working on the bed sides.  I really didn't want to set up the table saw outside and stand in the open cutting lumber.  The garage was actually comfortable to be in, even with the door open, so I set about doing another task that needed to get done:  removing parts from the dead engine block to make it easier to remove in a couple of weeks.

First to have to go was the oil filter.  Back in the day, they were dealer (or aftermarket) installed options.  This meant that they were not integrated into the engine package very well.  In fact, they were bolted onto the intake manifold and just kind of took up space.  Here's a pic of the engine bay before removal of any parts:

This photo is from the very first set of pics that I shot, to document what condition the truck was in when I got it.  The oil filter is in the foreground, has the curling hose coming out of it on the right side and has a rusty orange cap with a bolt in the middle of it.  (Other things that you can see here and that have since been removed are the turtle shaped thing to the left of the oil filter (it is the horn, which has been restored), the pancake style dry air filter (which was one of the very first things that I ever restored on the truck), the single barrel Rochester carburetor and all of the old wiring.)  Since the air filter restoration predates the blog, here's a shot of the restored filter top:

I got all the rust off of it, but did not use any body filler to smooth out the pitting.  It was during this first restoration effort that I decided I would not have a "show" truck.  Every one of those pits, dings or whatever are survivor scars and badges of honor and I won't hide them.  Instead, I'll honor them.  Now, back to today.

The oil filter had over a quart of old oil still in it.  To remove it, without creating an ecological disaster, I used a turkey baster to suck up the old oil and put it into an empty oil bottle.  This stuff was nasty!  Since it was cold out, it was naturally thicker.  On top of that, there was about an inch of sludge at the bottom of the filter!!  It really was a mess.  Once the oil filter was emptied and disassembled, I got it over to the workbench.  Off of the truck, it looked like this:

As I mentioned above (and you can't see from this shot) the top of the oil filter was originally orange.  The body of the filter was either blue or black.  I can't tell which.  I'll do some online research to try to figure it out and will eventually restore these parts.  While my replacement engine has a remote oil filter already attached, there is no sense wasting perfectly reusable parts.

With the oil filter out of the way, it was onto the intake and exhaust manifolds.  They are physically bolted together, so the come out as a unit.  There are six bolts that hold them to the engine block.  A quick shot of Kroil (that stuff is amazing) and out they came.  The manifolds looked like this when they were out of the truck:

The intake is on top and the exhaust is on the bottom.  The hole that's visible in the intake is the vacuum port.  The windshield wipers are driven off of that vacuum.  I will upgrade the wipers to run off of an electric motor and will use the vacuum port for creating a PCV system for the engine.

Here's a closeup of the intake manifold part number:

I know it's hard to read, but it is 3835527.  From the Master Parts Catalog it means:

"Group 3.625               Manifold-Adapter-Guard-Plug, Engine Intake
50-53  All w/216..............(Cast 3835395, 3835527)............3691933"

What all that means is that it is original to the truck!  For years 1950 - 1953:  trucks that had the 216 cu in engine:  the intake manifolds could be either the 3835395 or the 3835527 manifold.  Those numbers were cast into the part.  The person at the parts department would, however, order a replacement by the 3691933 part number.  The group number tells you where in the master parts catalog it is grouped.

The exhaust manifold was a lot harder to read and decipher, due to its condition.  It looks like this:

The only part of that number that is really readable are the last three characters, which look like "388".  Going back to the master parts catalog, I found that in Group 3.601  Manifold-Lock, Engine Exhaust there is a part ending in "388".  It's information is:

"50-53  All w/216.........(Cast 3835388)............3691971"  Which means it too, is original to the truck.

Once these were out of the truck, I separated them.  They are held together by two bolts from the bottom and 2 studs w/nuts from the top.  Once again, I went to the Kroil and the bottom bolts came out pretty easily.  However, the studs weren't so easy.  In fact, they had corroded so badly, that it only took a small amount of force to shear them off!  So now the exhaust manifold has two studs on the top that need to be drilled out and the holes tapped and it also has two studs on the bottom that need to be drilled out and tapped.  The ones on the bottom came from the exhaust pipe mounting studs having to be cut off years ago when I took off the old exhaust pipe...!  I'm guessing that drilling and tapping those four holes will be a load of fun.

So, after all of that, here's what the engine bay looks like now:

For reference, here's where it started:

Definitely getting there

Next to go will be the old generator.  It is just out of the shot, although you can clearly see the tension adjusting bracket coming off of the water pump.  After the generator, the old radiator needs to come out.  Then on the other side of the block, I'll take off the starter and probably the distributor.  After that, the transmission comes off and then it's showtime!  Hard to believe, but it's getting close.  Stay tuned for more updates!