1953 Chevrolet 1/2 ton pickup truck.

1957 235 c.i. Inline Six, aka a Stovebolt.

This document is meant to be short and to the point. Please forgive the grammar and or type-o's. 



2002


January 31st - The day the truck was purchased and brought home for $900 United States Dollars. 

In the following weeks oil was sprayed, and junk was cleaned out of the cab as the truck had been sitting for awhile.

The ignition switch was removed, taken to a locksmith and a key made. The key of course will not fit the glove box, so we wonder what might be stuck in there.

A starter was found in a junkyard then, brought back and rebuilt.

A gasket for the carburetor was bought and it was mounted up. A air filter from NAPA was bought, it was a little short, so a spacer was made so that the top would fit nice and snug.

April 15th - The truck was moved out of the yard and onto the patio. This turned out to be a good thing, since one of the old tires keeps going flat and we had to put a jack stand under there to keep it semi-level. Plus we have always worked on things  on the patio, so it fits in with family tradition. 

April 19th  - The starter(newly rebuilt) was mounted. The linkage worked, O.K. but a spring was needed. The gear on the started meshed well with the flywheel. A picture in the shop manual showed a fitting for the spring, to make the linkage pull off of the start switch that was missing. One was made out of a fender washer.

April 20th - A spring was found for the linkage for the starter. The fender washer was cut so that it would not hit the starter switch. (a picture would explain this so well...) The ground cable for the battery/electrical system was in the way, or possibly in the wrong place to begin with, so we moved it to another readily available bolt hole.
	The battery was installed into the battery box. The battery cable was installed from the battery box to the starter. The bolt of the ground cable wasn't any good, so it was cut off with a hacksaw. Everything was checked out, and the starter pedal was mashed, it turned over just fine. Yay! 

April 21 - Measurements were made, to make a bracket to hold the ignition coil. A bracket that was attempted earlier, didn't work just right.

April 22 - The pieces were cut for the bracket, and welded. Holes were drilled according to what was needed. The coil was mounted to the bracket, and the assembly was mounted to the engine(where it is supposed to go). 

April 23 - A piece of pipe was threaded with the same thread as a spark plug. The plan is to use this pipe, to help determine the compression stroke on the number 1 cylinder. The plan: put pipe into no. 1 cylinder hole, put finger over pipe, with valve cover off, turn engine over and feel compression stroke while watching the valve sequence. The Stovebolters explained this to us. 

May 18 - The bracket for the coil was removed, and the bolt holes were filed on some more as the bolts were a little too snug in the holes, then it was remounted. The distributor was taken out and the points removed. The points were badly pitted and were smoothed down as good as possible. Everything was lubricated and the points were adjusted. The distributor was put back in. The spark plugs were removed, cleaned, the gap set and placed back on the motor.
	A toggle switch was wired between the positive side of the battery and the coil. A wire was installed from the coil to the distributor. A new plug wire set was installed(it was needed, as there were no wires at all). Some gas was poured into the carburetor and the starter pedal was mashed. The engine acted like it wanted to fire, but was not catching and running. Some starter fluid was sprayed, the starter pedal was mashed, and the engine fired up. Woohoo! It was cranked again and kept running with starter fluid for about a minute. We had no cooling system, so we didn't want to over do it. We were just excited that it turned over, cranked and didn't sling a rod or something worse. :) 

May 23 - The gas lines were cleaned and blown out using the air compressor. 5 gallons of gas went into the tank. the gad flowed in the line leading to the fuel pump, and it was hooked up. The engine was cranked using the pour and spray method, but no fuel was coming from the fuel pump. The fuel pump was taken off, and the fuel line was stopped up. 

May 24 - A fuel pump was purchased at NAPA and it was bolted onto the motor. We turned the motor over and it was pumping gas just fine. An inline gas filter was installed between the fuel pump and the carburetor. It is just a regular NAPA fuel filter, nothing fancy. The throttle linkage and the choke cable were hooked up. The motor was fired up again for a little while.

May 28 - Bought some hose clamps and some hose for the cooling system. 

May 29 - The radiator that came with the truck, isn't the right one so it just sorta sits in there, so it was zip tied out of the way of the fan, so that we could put it to use in testing out the cooling system.

May 30 - Hooked up a vacuum line to the carburetor. Hooked up all the water hoses. Hint: Vaseline helps hoses go on real well, and makes them easier to take off later. Water was poured into the radiator, and then we noticed water going everywhere, before we even cranked it up. The freeze plugs under the intake manifold were rotten/rusted out and the head gasket was leaking water also. AaaaAH! The freeze plugs were removed, after much beating and banging and strong use of choice language.

May 31 - We got the freeze plugs, the rubber kind with the bolts in the center.  We pulled the head off of the motor(easier typed than done, that thing has some weight to it) and discovered that the gasket on there was completely wrong. It was no kind of right, and explained all of the leaky action. We cleaned up the block and head, sludge was everywhere and it took some scraping but we emerged victorious.

June 1 - We put the freeze plugs into the block. Then we put the head back onto the motor(again, easier typed than done - use a hoist or get some help, or both). We dropped the bolts in and torqued them up good. 

June 3 - Put the rocker arm assembly onto the head and cleaned the bolt holes on the push rod cover.