Very nice Tom! That valve cover came out really good. That's one thing about aluminum, a little hard work and it looks almost like chrome.

As usual really (x3) nice work! I thought that might be a valve cover but the rods with the don't poke your eye out caps threw me. I thought it might be a fancy tank for the wet system. BTW, I just realized, you might need to chrome the radiator shell and front bumper of the 155w to keep the fleet looking the same. But I'd bet you'd notice them missing when they were at the chrome shop.

Thanks for everyone's comments, we appreciate them!

So here is another update...


Last weekend we had finished up the actual exhaust itself, so this weekend we needed to work on the exhaust brackets. I wanted to do something similar to the 155W, with the difference being the Y pipe being located below the frame on the 361 and above the frame on the 155W. I already had a piece of 2x6 for the piece to run across the frame rails but I needed additional steel for the diagonals, etc. So the day before the 4th I picked up the steel to finish the project. I wound up buying 5’ pieces of 2x3 and 1 1/2 x 3 box along with some 3” angle and 4” flat stock…



To mount the 2x6 to the frame, I used 3” x 1/4" angle and cut two pieces 8 1/2” long. I wanted to use the existing bolts for the crossmember to also mount the exhaust…



Using the hydraulic saw we started to ‘cut’ the angles to shape…



And here is what we wound up with… I know these look strange but you’ll see why I did it shortly…



Once they were cut I tack welded them to the 2x6 and set it back on the truck to trial fit it…



I also cut angles from some 1 1/2 x 3 I had laying around, and cut the long side to 2”. Here is where these will be welded to…



More to follow…

After I was happy with everything I welded the angles (end caps) on…



Once the bottom support was done we moved onto the diagonals. Like I mentioned earlier, I may wind up adding mufflers in addition to the muffler I have underneath the truck, so my diagonals are fairly tall...



Once I determined the correct angle to cut the diagonals, we adjusted the hydraulic hack saw and cut all 4 ends. One the 155W I cut them by hand so the saw really helped out with keeping everything straight…



When the diagonals were cut, I cut four 4” pieces of flat stock for the mounting brackets…



Then I tacked them on the diagonals…



And then trial fit the driver side…



When I was happy with the diagonals, we removed everything and set it up on a set of horses with various C clamps to keep everything lined up…



After I was done welding all the plates on we set everything to the side and tried to figure out what we were going to work on next… Here is a close up of the bottom mounting plates…



More to follow…

On Sunday Maddie spent some time with me in the garage!



One of the last things I wanted to do before we tried to start the motor was install the jake brake. So I dug out all the parts so I could start cleaning them…





After a short while, with the exception of the housings, we had everything wire brushed and ready to go…



While cleaning the fuel lines, I realized of the lines was too short. Someone must have damaged one at one time and used one of the original lines by bending and tweaking it to fit… Here is a pic of the ‘too’ short line… So I need to locate another one. These lines have the old style flared ends and I know they have been replaced with an O ring style line, so I may wind up upgrading all of them. I will probably rebuild the housings also and hopefully today I can find the correct rebuild kit locally.

Here is a quick pic of the fuel line… You can see how they bent the one with the green tape… They refer to the lines and long and short, so I guess I need a long line…



That’s it for now!

Very nice thanks for the weekly fix .The detail is awsome cant wait to see the truck in cortland .

Tom, What's the prediction? Are you gonna make it ???
or will I have to stop on the way up to see the new project?
Emery

Hey Emery... still tons of work left on the truck but that's ok... As long as we are making steady process we are happy!

This past week we worked on checking off some items on the list to start the motor. We filled the transmission with 90W mineral oil from Napa and since the trans is mounted at an angle it took almost 5 gallons. We also filled the power steering reservoir with straight 20W non-detergent. This was a little harder to find, but it turns out that Tractor Supply has it on the shelf. As we were topping off the fluids, I figured I better start working on the gauges as well. So I dug out the tach cable along with the speedometer cable and realized that both of them were bad. The end of the tach cable was broke and when we pulled on the speedometer cable to measure it, it broke in half!

So here is what we started with…





I found a place in Lancaster PA called Powl’s Speedometer Repair and wound up mailing them my old cables. In less than a week I had a pair of new cables…



Then we moved onto some wiring… I decided to mount the solenoid and a maxi fuse on the steering column mount. I ‘believe’ they used to mount the voltage regulator here but I’m not sure. Regardless, this was a clean location and it makes the solenoid a little more accessible.



And here are the two pieces mounted…



After that I moved onto the alternator. I believe the truck originally had a Leece Neville but the output stud was busted (spinning inside the case…). So I decided to upgrade to a 130A Delco 21SI which is the same alternator I used on the 155W. So using some #4 cable I wired the alternator (as well as the jake switch)…



When the wiring was done I dug out the new gauges we have been collecting over the past few years…



As well as the tach and speedo…



The oil gauge is mechanical but the remaining gauges are electric, so I will wire them up before I start the motor.

One of the last things I did was finish the final exhaust mount. If you remember, I installed a stainless flex coupling to isolate the exhaust somewhat. So I made a bracket to mount the exhaust off of the transmission. I started with a piece of 1 1/2” angle…



And then bent it to the correct angle and welded everything…



And then bolted it in place… For additional isolation I used a neoprene Peterbilt exhaust mount from Grand Rock and a 4” grand rock ‘flat’ U exhaust clamp. These are a lot nicer than the typical off the self clamps.



And last but not least, here is an overall pic of the rear of the truck with both the stacks installed….



That’s it for now… I working on getting everything ready to start the motor next weekend, but I have run into a few road blocks. The tune up kit for the Jake didn’t come in yet and I just scored an individual spring loaded rack down in Lancaster. We did spin the motor over yesterday and built up oil pressure but also found out 3 of the injectors are stuck. When we bought the truck in ’04 it started right up and ran on all 6 cylinders after sitting for some time, so I’m hoping this will be a quick fix.

Godspeed Tom! And thanks again for allowing us to watch this come together.

Lookin' Good!! Tom. Also like the 64 Impala on the rack.

Emery

FOCUS .....Emery ...Focus!!!!

The truck is the thing here...time is running down on these boys till showtime. No other distractions.

Looking good Team Mallard!!!!!


Stretch

I too liked the 64 on the rack wouldn't mind having that! Back to the truck looks awsome 13 days in counting can't wait to see it hopefully were all crossing are fingers that it makes it to the show. keep up the good work .

Sorry to disappoint everyone but we are still a long way off from being done... So the 361 won't make it there this year but the 155W and the 761 will be there!

So now on to more progress!!!


Well this past week was very productive… The jake tune up kit didn’t come in yet so we started working on some other loose ends. I started with installing a new fuel level sending unit (240 ohm to 33 ohm,, standard Stewart Warner) in the driver’s side tank…



And installed a new vent / roll over valve as well…



When I went to install the new tach cable, I couldn’t get the end to thread straight onto the tach drive and I quickly realized the threads were crossed. The tach drive (and the speedometer drive on the trans) are 7/8” x 18. I had a few thread files but none of them had 18 threads per inch, but after a quick search on eBay I found a die that was reasonable. A few days later it arrived and I was able to run it on by hand to straighten the threads out. You can see in the pic that the two top threads we way out of line.



Then I moved on to the top of the motor. The motor hasn’t been run since ’04 and it turns out that injectors #2, #4 and #6 were stuck. I didn’t have any hooked pry bars (or crows feet…) so I wound up borrowing one from a guy at work.



Within no time I had the 3 stuck injectors out…



More to follow…

On Wednesday I received a call that the jake tune up kit was in and the next day UPS dropped it off. I wound up ordering it from Chad at Penn Diesel in Syracuse. So on Friday night I laid the housings out on the bench so we could start cleaning them. By the looks of the housings, it doesn’t look like the oil was changed but every million miles or so…



And then we started disassembling the housings and cleaning the parts that would be reused…



And then we soaked and cleaned the housings…



And here is what the tune up kit includes…



After everything was cleaned we started reassembling the housings…



And by the end of Friday night all 6 housings were done and ready to go…



More to follow…

The first thing Saturday morning I started working on the gauges…



And within an hour I had them wired and ready to go…



After the gauges were done and temporarily installed in the dash, I went back to working on the injectors. Even though only 3 were stuck, I did wind up removing all 6 and soaking them in kerosene…



While they were out I also cleaned the tubes they sit it. After we were done cleaning the injectors, we reinstalled them and then installed and adjusted the exhaust bridges for the jake. After they were done, we bolted on the rebuilt housings along and started installing the fuel pipes…



The next thing to do was ‘run the rack.’ I did a lot of searching for this online and there is not a lot of good info out there. I friend of a friend gave me a manual for V71’s, so I opened it up and started reading. I started with the adjusting the exhaust valves and then set the injector heights (thanks to a tool that Stephen L gave me a while back.) Within a few hours I had everything ready to go and my Dad climbed up in the cab. Earlier in the day we filled both fuel filters and put about 10 gallons fuel in the drivers side tank. After a revolution or so it started but only for a second. I had filled the injectors with fuel earlier and they probably ran out of fuel. It took some time to get the system primed but the soon as it did the motor started. It ran up to about 1500 rpm or so and then I quickly shut it down. After a quick call to Stephen, he reminded me that I forgot to turn down the idle screw. So after backing out the high speed and idle screw, we were able to start the engine and have it idle with the help of some vice grips on the rack… I did spend some time adjusting the idle but need to read up some more on the governor… Thanks again to Glen for the extra fuel pipe I needed and to Stephen for his technical help… Stan also volunteered to come down but I had picked a bad weekend (due to poor timing on my part!!!)

I had set the camera on a ladder to take a video of us starting it… so here it is!!! The noise you hear in the background at first is my big fan running to pull fresh air through the garage. And please don’t make fun of my paisty white legs. It was warm out so I trimmed a pair of Dickies with blown out knees

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Q-9Vc2ohQk

Nice job, Tom and Tom Sr.
topping off your project with a video is a big bonus. Thanks Tony

Major Milestone Tom!! Thanks for sharing with us.

Emery

Guys, The video was great. It must have been a thrill to finally fire it up. Keep up the great work and you can't rush perfection!

Tom, did you get the tach and speedometer hooked up? I have a maintinence manual for the two of them, and I can make copies of it before Friday.

Hi Jeff...

If you could make copies of both the speedo and tach manuals that would be great. I have few Stewart Warner manuals but non of them cover the 550 speedos and the 551 tachs.

Thanks for your help!

Tom