Tested my 88k mile 318's compression today, finally. I got 50 lbs on the #1 cylinder and decided not to go from there.

I reckon I'll let her run that way for a while. Luckily rings are cheap. Eventually I'll give her a quick hone and slap some rings in her. It is a farm truck after all. For now...

On the bright side, I did get some worn out 31x10.50 BFGs mounted, I painted the valve covers which adds at least 30 ho, and my intake manifold arrived from Elwenil over on RamChargerCentral.com so I can get that Holley 650 mounted tomorrow. The worn out 318 will love that.

 

Alex, I love that truck, it's oozes 'character', if you ever want to get rid of it I'll take it off of you for the right price, all you have to do is ship here. It's pure magic IMHO.

Just imagine driving it down to Super U and frightening all the French, they'd run a mile lol.

 

Haha, thanks France! Trucks like this are pretty common around here, but i:'ve got to admit that there's something a little different about this one. Part of me wants to fix the rust holes and paint it. Another part says leave it exactly how it is. For now I think I'm just gonna power wash and scotch Brite it to take some mold and stuff off. Probably a set of Cragar v-5 rims and some 33" tires once I really get it on the road.

I did finally get the 4 Barrell intake and Holley 650 installed.



Started it for just a minute. Then I installed an HEI ignition system and the starter motor died before I could even test it. Tried beating it, rotating the armature, everything. Starter is totally dead. Bah!

That said, it idled fine with the Holley. A little high, some tuning to do. Backfired through the exhaust and occasionally through the carb around 3k rpm which I felt was an ignition issue, hence the HEI. We'll see once I get a starter.

 

Alex, it looks a nice job. No, no, don't paint it up, it looks excellent as it is. By all means fix any rusty bits and fix any frame rust but it has real 'character', I really think it looks great as it is.

 

Thanks France! I'll post back when I replace the starter. Might keep this thread roughly up to date as I do little things.

 

Replaced the starter with a more modern gear reduction unit and bypassed the neutral safety switch because both died at the same time. No, it wasn't just the NSS, I tried just bridging the contacts to bypass it on the old starter.

She cranked right up! Quicker than my DD Disco does. Idles a little high, but the HEI seems to be working well. Still have some tuning to do on the carb, I think to the accelerator pump and maybe change the jets. Otherwise she ran fine for about 5 minutes till the battery died. Alternator is dead. That's fine, I'll probably just rebuild it.

Oh! Also found out how long it had been sitting. My neighbor said it had been in the same spot in his field for 15 years.

France, I'm having a kick out of imagining this thing driving around the streets if France with no exhaust.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4h-A...ature=youtu.be