I ended up driving out to Peyton yesterday to get a replacement exhaust manifold for the truck. A guy out there is parting out a bunch of 70's ford trucks and he gave it to me for free. I did buy a set of heads for my dad's truck from him for $40.

I hope to get the manifold installed on Friday.

Nice, what a great deal!

And your dad will finally get his truck up and running, just before winter haha.

That's the hope although he will still need to have the heads rebuilt since they are 40 years old.

Was that the only problem he had with that engine? After I posted that I was thinking there were problems with the block too but maybe I'm misremembering.

speedjunkie wrote:Was that the only problem he had with that engine? After I posted that I was thinking there were problems with the block too but maybe I'm misremembering.

The shop told him that the block might be cracked but I would be really surprised if that was the case. The Ford FE blocks are hard to kill. The heads can crack between the valves if overheated.

I started working on my truck over the weekend. I was installing the exhaust manifold. I got it set in plan and all the bolts started then I climbed underneath the tighten things down. Laying under the truck, I found a black widow web 6" from my head. that ended working on my truck for the weekend, lol. I set off a bug bomb under the hood and pressure washed the underside of the truck.

HAHA

Why didn't you just set the truck and the whole neighborhood on fire? That's the only way you can be really sure.

Black widows are friendly little suckers. I just relocate them when I find em.

I spent the day on Saturday working on the truck. I cleaned up the oil pan and replaced the gasket. I had to raise the motor to get the pan out. When the motor was raised up I found that the motor mounts were original and they fell apart. The previous owner didn't replace the mounts when they swapped the motor. I also started to repair the fiberglass fan shroud. New oil and oil filter are in the truck as well.

To get the motor started:
-Finish getting the exhaust manifold hooked up
-finish the fan shroud
-install upper radiator hose and fill with coolant
-top off the tranny fluid

I'm guessing I have one more day at most to get the truck going. I probably have one to two additional days finish up some of the other projects.

I'm hoping to spend some time on the truck tomorrow afternoon so I can get closer to starting it.

Being sick and having a sick family has killed most of the truck progress.
I did pull the fiberglass fan shroud and start to repair some cracks and holes. I need to sand the patches and paint it so I can get it put back in.

My truck is running. I still have to get the exhaust bolts tighter and figure out the belt squeak. I also need to add tranny fluid.