Another purchase

[iranch]

An awful lot of money to spend to get your name at the top of Joe's forum. Check the registry.

I have 10 trucks that say "POWER WAGON" on them, 3 "DODGE RAM"s, 3 M37s, 1 M43, and several plain "DODGE"s but there are those who say I finally got a "REAL" one.

An interesting side note, when I go to get it next week, it will be the first one i have ever seen in person. The are rare in this neck of the woods.

Dennis

[Gordon Maney]

Do you mean you have not seen a 1-ton Power Wagon?

It looks nice....

[BigSmoke]

Congradulations.

I also, just aquired my first "REAL" truck a few weeks back.

I didn't need to wear a belt to keep my pants up for the first few days.

Good luck!

[iranch]

The "REAL" 1 ton power wagon - I have 3 "OTHERS"

Gordon,

I've never seen one, touched one, driven one or anything else.

I can think of three that have been offered for sale within 200 miles of here, but none of them worked out for me. I had no intention of buying this one, but minutes before the auction ended, I fell pray to the fever and went for it.

I hope it wasn't a mistake.

Dennis

[jsiebert]

Not a mistake according to Matt, and he would know. John

[iranch]

Got it home

I went and got the truck today. It looks like Matt was right, it's a pretty nice truck. It has a couple things that need work, but still a solid truck. I'm happy.


I stood around and talked "Power Wagons" with Steve to long and didn't have much time to mess with it after I got home. I wonder how much I'll get done tomorrow besides mess with the new toy.

Dennis

[Gordon Maney]

It will be a good day.

[iranch]

Too many other things

Other things have a way of changing plans. Didn't get anything done today except put a different tire on, do you think it needed it. The ones on the other side look a little better.

[jsiebert]

Well that is a combat rim,looks like the tire has seen combat. :) John

[iranch]

Continued

Well, it's going to be a while before I drive my first "FFPW".

Closer inspection shows some real problems. No fire trying to get it running. Compression test = 110-20-0-20-100-0, so it's soaking with ATF for a while. I'll pull the head later and see what's up.

I have another engine for it just in case, so that's not what has me worried.

I got a set of matched tires installed so that it should sit level. It doesn't, the left rear corner of the bed is about 3 inches high, the hood fits perfect on the left side, the right hood is close to 2 inches off. The frame has been broken on the right side, just below the cab and welded, they did a fairly good job on the repair and the frame is straight at that point but whatever broke the frame mangled it in other places also.

I don't have time to deal with these problems right now, so the thing is sitting for a while.

Dennis

[Matt Ely]

Frame

Dennis, I have an extra frame in Bozeman, MT. I may be coming your way soon - let me know if you are interested. Matt 406.580.3591, elyoneone@yahoo.com

[iranch]

Frame

Thanks for the offer Matt, but I don't think the frame is bad enough that I need to change it out. There are no kinks or obvious bad spots in it, it's just tweaked a little here and there. The big I beam, some log chains and bottle jacks and I can get it back to where it's supposed to be.

I'm just a little disappointed because frame straightening and engine replacement are outside jobs around here and winters coming on. I have enough work stacked up before the snow flies, so it might not happen until next spring. I was looking forward to driving and using this truck quicker than that.

If you are in this part of the country, stop by we can compare notes.

Oh well, life goes on.

Dennis

[iranch]

Spent some time on it.

I pushed the truck into the shop and fired up some heat.

The frame appears to have a twist in it. It probably sat with a flat tire on the right front for a long time and took a set. It shouldn't be hard to get it tweak back the other way.

The engine is another story. It had water in the cylinders at some point, the pistons were freed up and don't look bad at all. The valve seats are another story. Three cylinders are beyond simple lapping. I called around and nobody has a portable grinder any more, the only option I can come up with is to strip the block and take it to the machine shop. I may as well go thru it all the way as it's the original engine. The Plymouth motor I have been saving can go in it for a while.

The thing that gets me is that whoever tore the engine down the first time bolted all back together, never even tried to fire it, just got rid of it. Hidden problems get you every time.

Dennis

[olgraybeard]

"nobody has a portable grinder " you might try a auto wrecking yard in your area that also does machine work alot of them still use "old" equipment

[iranch]

Auto wrecking yards.

There is not much of that going on around here any more. There are yards that do sell parts, but only newer stuff and any of the rebuilt stuff comes from rebuilding suppliers, not the yard itself. They found out the real money is in supplying cores, not in doing the rebuilding themselves. Even the farm machinery yards are part of national chains now and rebuilding is done at a central location.

The old stuff is simply cut up a sold buy the pound. The only "tool" in most yards is a cutting torch.

The engine should really have new seats in those cylinders anyway, so I'll go clear thru it a little at a time and have a good engine when I'm done. In the mean time I'll run the Plymouth engine, it needs to be put in something and run before it gets stale anyway. It only has a couple hundred miles on an overhaul. I didn't have any part in the overhaul, so I don't know how well it was done. I'll find out sometime next week.

Dennis