M43 Resurrection

[Oldfart]

A little progress today and a problem discovered and corrected. Generator pulley did not line up with the water pump and crank pulleys. Could not find a correct replacement pulley so Ghostdriver perloined the generator off my M37.

 

[Ghostdriver]

First part of the engine work went pretty smoothly, now I feel like every single thing is arguing, and I'm pressed for time. I had to let an employee go in my store last week, so I am covering lots of days until I can hire someone else, plus I am having to deal with a workers comp investigation over some implausible "incident" that has more elements of absurdity than the sum total of everything anybody in Congress has ever said. It's just taking up hours I need that I'll never get back.

Was too tired to tackle the fuel problem today, maybe tomorrow.

 

[jets1959]

First part of the engine work went pretty smoothly, now I feel like every single thing is arguing, and I'm pressed for time. I had to let an employee go in my store last week, so I am covering lots of days until I can hire someone else, plus I am having to deal with a workers comp investigation over some implausible "incident" that has more elements of absurdity than the sum total of everything anybody in Congress has ever said. It's just taking up hours I need that I'll never get back.

Was too tired to tackle the fuel problem today, maybe tomorrow.

Wow!!!!! I didn't think anything could be anymore absurd. Just recently they almost, if not did, destroyed the US and maybe the Worlds economy. Hope things go smoother and easier for you.

 

[zout]

That kind of employee thinking is called "Entitlement"
you da boss
you da one with ALL the money to have a store
you da one that "owes" it to them



I would have thought you ate some of my "cheerries" when you put on the generator and had you head tilted to the side and twitching it would have looked straight then.

Fighting to get time to actually work on what you want to instead of have to is difficult for sure - stick with it GD - you'll get it.
Great piece of craftsmanship. I would say craftswomenship but I don;t think that is a word yet.

 

[rickf]

Ghostdriver used stainless steel bolts to put the intake and exhaust together. Maybe they will not freeze up as badly as the originals.

I have not made it to the end of the thread yet but I saw the bit about the stainless bolts in the exhaust. You might want to rethink that. Stainless is soft and the threads gall as they are put in, once heated they will break right off coming out. The M-151 has that problem all the time. I actually go the other way and use grade eights in them. With a very liberal coating of anti-seize. Like Zout I hired a female mechanic back in 1976, unheard of! She was one of the best around and still is in retirement. Glad to see women getting involved, actually INVOLVED, in the sport. And I want one of those ambulances in the worst way!

Rick

P.S. I have never known a redhead, male or female, that was not an upfront " get it done" type of person.

 

[Oldfart]

When Ghostdriver took the engine out the generator got pulled and set aside with the mounting bolts slipped back into the generator. No one noticed a misalignment in the fan belt. When she went to reinstall the generator, she found it just did not line up. That and one of the mounting bolts was a 3/8" rather than 7/16" and it was probably twice as long as the 7/16" bolt with 3 flat washers. I am beginning to think the previous owner had the generator rear mounting hole on the inside of the bracket rather than the outside and he used some washers and a loose fitting bolt in the front to kind of keep the generator in place. This would have made about a 1/4" shift to the front. Still a serious misalignment. I can't figure out how the belt did not rub on the front mounting plate. Anyhow, Ghostdriver hit the secret stash of stainless steel bolts for two proper length 7/16" replacements for the original mess.

 

[emr]

WOW!! This is an awesome post, thanks and great work !!!!!!!!!!

 

[Oldfart]

Jollyroger and I gave Ghostdriver a hand with the M43 today. We managed to get some brakes. A little work left there. We got the drive line installed and the clutch linkage back together. Ghostdriver and I had run a mix of gasoline and alcohol through the fuel tank repeatedly until we got clear fluid out the drain plug. We took turns leaning on the bed to slosh the wash fuel around. When we tried to start the engine, we encountered fuel starvation. Today we pulled the fuel line at the tank and at the fuel pump. It was dry as a bone and we discovered the fuel line was plugged about 6 inches back at the fuel tank. Jollyroger spent hours flushing the fuel line, and it now is clear. Given the crap in the fuel line we pulled the in tank filter and discovered it was covered with solidified fuel. The fresh gas in the tank had become a solvent for all sorts of tar like residue. The fuel gauge float was just covered with all that crap and stuck in the half position. We have managed a filter clean up as well as getting the tank float operational. All the new nasty gas has been drained and the tank has been dropped for the big clean up. Another day shot to ****, but progress is being made.

 

[Ghostdriver]

And is anybody surprised the fuel system was clogged from the tank forward? I'm not. Dang thing sat for 12 years.

 

[Oldfart]

More work and more Photos

 

[Oldfart]

Yesterdays video

 

[Gamagoat1]

Great Job. That smile would make any engine run perfectly.

 

[Ghostdriver]

Well, it's a little far from running perfectly, but at least it's running (or was). Lost spark on it last night for some reason, but we were too tired to troubleshoot it. Had four guys helping me, and I am so grateful. Mixed up some paint last night, and one of them is going to shoot it for me today. She'll be at the airshow (and green), even if we have to trailer her up (which is probably not a bad idea anyway on such a fresh engine.

 

[Danger Ranger]

Whoooohooo! glad to hear it was running! work some of the bugs out, I think I speak for everyone when I say we are waitng for updates and the day it drives around the compound!

 

[steelandcanvas]

She'll be at the airshow (and green), even if we have to trailer her up....

I'll put you on the list for a good spot GD. Very happy to see you (and your crew) got her running, I had no doubt that you would. Are you going to leave her on the trailer during the show? Probably a good idea, especially if the fresh paint is still a little tackey, that will keep curious little fingers off.

 

[Gamagoat1]

Beside the tacky paint, consider the gear box's and diffs. Unless you have drained and flushed each you have no idea what's inside or condition.
This GamaGoat I'm working on is a great example. The rear diff holds 5 pints of 80-90 gear lube. I drained nearly 2 full gallons of highly acidic oil and water out, the ring gear has holes eaten in the teeth 1/4 to 1/2 inch in diameter, at least 1/8 inch deep. You wouldn't want to discover that whil zipping down I-25.

 

[zout]

I saved that video clip to my desktop here at work and have watched it at least a dozen times just to hear the excitement level on HIGH.

Yup - that's the sound of firing up your first engine job alright.

Keep us posted on the paint and seeing it at the show with people drooling and lurking all over it will be awesome.

Congradulations DG and troops. You folks did a great job.

 

[Ghostdriver]

Sadly, we have had a very large setback. The loss of spark happened because the distributor shaft stopped spinning. The distributor shaft stopped spinning because the spindle on the oil pump sheared off some teeth and caused the gear to be rounded off on the cam shaft. The oil pump that was installed from the motor shop was a civilian oil pump, and not a military oil pump. It seemed to index in when we put the distributor in, but it was probably just dumb luck (or not so lucky). Pictures and further explanations to follow. I cannot stress this enough, YOU CANNOT SUBSTITUTE A CIVILIAN OIL PUMP FOR A MILITARY OIL PUMP ON A MILITARY DODGE 230 ENGINE!

After about 60 seconds of extreme disappointment, I have accepted this and I am going to persevere, it just won't go to the air show this weekend. We'll look for a new cam and oil pump tomorrow, and this is a good learning experience. Honestly, we probably should have pulled the oil pump out and looked at it at the get-go, rather than trusting that the motor shop had put the right one in. Hopefully somebody else will be able to learn from my mistake.

And here I was thinking I was going to paint "Semper Fi" on the truck and have it all ready to go pick up some cute Marines.

 

[jollyroger]

This was an unfortunate set of circumstances.........But it could have been worse. We could have sheared the driveshaft to the oil pump and kept the distributor spinning and burnt up the new engine with no oil pressure. I would rather pull the engine, turn it upsidown and yank the camshaft rather than rebuild it........This situation has a whole lot of suck attatched to it but it's not a whole bag of suck with a side of suck sauce.

This is very ag-ro-vating because me and dad stressed several times to the motor shop that it had to be a military oil pump because the distributor shaft slot was offset......They didn't listen apparently. And we didn't double and tripple check. This is why I like doing stuff myself. At least it only took about an hour to figure out what happened.........And it's nobody's fault but the asphalt right?



So without further adeu.......

 

[zout]

I hate cliche's when times like this happen and someone wants to express themself with trivial verbage.

Aggrovating and dishearting to say the least when your excitement level is pegged.
I find myself walking away for a day and finding something totally different to do that takes my mind off it (will power) instead of digging right back in arms and elbows - that is when things go to pot.

Come back a new day - just as if you had bought a 43 with the problem it now has. Start fresh. Its a new mission that needs to be acomplished. I am sure the more experienced of you know that from past trials and tribulations.

GD now gets her first bite of it - stick in there - stick with it - you have done a great job so far.

And yes I will be screaming like a pack of wild banchiees when this one fires up.