Wednesday, May 3, 2017



Franklin being delivered. I had nowhere to put the machine but in the driveway.

I’ve had so many cars towed, I’m on first name basis with the local towing operation. So it was, grab the cash, make a call and head over to the next island to get the truck.



So many of these trucks turn up with the engines as big balls of rust. This one looked pretty good. It was actually an M37 engine. Same as the original, but maybe 10 or so years newer. Just for kicks, I hooked up a battery to see what would happen. Surprisingly, a lot of stuff still worked. What the heck, lets see if we can get this thing to start.

First step, clean up the carb.



The amount of rust found in the float bowl. How can you get this much rust? Just a tiny bit will clog the jets and kill the motor.

This is not the original carburetor. Someone in the past adapted this one (Carter WA1) to fit. As I pulled it apart I found that the last person to work on it assembled it wrong. So there was some reconfiguration.



All cleaned up and, hopefully, ready to go.

I’d also replaced the ignition wire. Yellow at the bottom of the picture. All the insulation had fallen off the original ignition wire. Most wires in this machine are falling to bits in the same way. As are all the rubber parts, like oil & water lines. The current plan about this is.. To be careful.



Gas tank inlet filter? Just a ball of rust.



Gas tank full of rust. It had rust drifts in there.



Remains of the gas gauge float..


What to do?



To the best of my knowledge I think this truck hasn’t run since around the early-mid ‘70s? I’m in a hurry, blow out the fuel line with an air hose, plumb in a boat gas tank and lets give it a whirl.


To our everlasting amazement, the machine fired up!


Seeing it only had about 2-3 feet of open exhaust pipe, it sounded pretty cool too.


Now, fix the brakes and we can try it out.