It shouldn't have even run

[kc8sfq]

Last November, I HAD to move some stuff and HAD to use the M-37. It had been sitting for over a month outside when the opportunity came about to get rid of some old tires. It was the coldest day of the year so far and I had to use the 3/4 to go out in the back field and drag them out. It started, reluctantly, but it did and finished the job. After that, it went back to sleep, outside.

Now. summer's half over and a week ago, I finally finally had time to start work on it. Surprise,surprise, it started and backed into the barn under her own steam. The first thing I did was a compression test. I found numbers 1,2 and 3 to be near to spec, but 4 was below 40 PSI and 5/6 were so low that the gage only twitched. I have the new head gasket on, torqued, run and re-torqued. Now fighting with the intake/exhaust manifolds. The back nut was seized to the stud which backed out of the block, giving me yet another antifreeze bath. Everything was warped and had to be resurfaced. Since I have everything off, I'm going to check the tappets too. I hate doing them hot so I add .001 to the intake and .002 to the exhaust for expansion. These numbers have served me well in the past.

The good news is: there's almost no ridge in the cylinders, There's probably a couple more seasons left in *there*.

Anyway, I just had to crow about my old beast. You gotta love a truck that'll still work even when she's that sick. She's on the mend, though, d@m I've missed her.

[Lifer]

None of the new stuff is that reliable! It's really amazing how much torture (abuse?) the old "low tech" mechanicals could take and still function. True, they were nowhere near as fuel efficient as the modern stuff and contributed much more heavily to the pollution problem (that we didn't even know about), but they were reliable with a minimum of attention required. EPA be damned...my truck will run again, and I will use it!

[rixm37]

Right on Lifer!! Mine ran amazingly well on 4 cyls I found no compression in 5&6 turned out to be burned exhaust valves put in 2 new ones and was like a new engine!!