Dave told me that he remembers when they drove the 49 into the field and parked it. I have no idea how many years ago that was. There was a set of homemade 4" lift blocks and extra long U-Bolts on the 49 that were taken off and put on the front of the 56. Dave took a chain and wrapped it around the front axle and leaf springs so we could get the 49 on and off the trailer.
Late one sunday afternoon when we were doing the brake job on the 56 we were wondering what kind of shape the engine on the 49 was in. (The 56 runs like new.) We had previously noticed the 49 had oil and good antifreeze in it and we had taken the plugs out and put oil in the cylinders. We got a battery and using jumper cables found the starter turned it over. We couldn't figure out the jumble of wires hanging out of the dash so we hot wired the coil. When we spun it over it instantly tried to fire when we gave it a shot of ether. So we took the electric fuel pump and plastic gas tank off the 56. (Yes, that 2 gallon plastic tank you see is the gas tank for the 56.) The 49 fired right up and ran quiet as can be.
Notice the great looking tread pattern on the Firestone tires. Wish I had a new set of them. Don't know if Firestone still makes these. We are planning on a set of 38" Super Swampers.
Since this engine ran OK we are going to not attempt a rebuild at this time.
Next job is to get the engine and trans cleaned up and ready to go.
While cleaning this up we found a nameplate on the engine.
This is a
Mohawk Chief Replacement Engine
#1553
Northeast Engine Rebuilders Inc
Central Bridge, New York
Here's what it looks like outside while all this activity is going on
in the garage.
Getting the engine cleaned up is a tedious job. Sure would love
to use the sandblaster but that is definitely out.
So first it gets a good scraping with the putty knife. Next a
good bath with gasoline using a paint brush and wire brush. Follow
that with a power wire brushing then a detergent bath, then Prep-All solvent.
Here's the finished product. That's Ford red high temp ceramic paint from Walmart. All the trim parts (fan, oill filler tube, starter) were painted black.
Big Problem!!
When we went to install this engine in the 46 frame we got a big surprise.
It wouldn't fit!!
Turns out the "Mohawk Chief" is a 251. We knew there were 2 different engines for these trucks but during all this time we never actually measured the length and didn't know we were working with a 25" long 251 instead of the 23" long 230 we needed. When we were lowering the engine into place, and it wouldn't fit, we went around to the back of the house to check out the 49 frame. Sure enough, we had never noticed it before, but someone had unbolted the front crossmember, and slid it front 2", and welded it into place. Now we also realized why the 49 had those lousy looking welds on the hood. The hood was lengthened 2". So were the support rods from the cowl to the radiator.
Well we didn't want to modify the 46 frame if we could avoid it.