1961 Ford F500 project.

[Eugen]

Great point @Harry , about heating the nut only on the outside, so that the nut expands around the stud.

@JSinMO , here's another couple of tricks I used. One, go with the impact gun forward and backwards, several times.

The other one is to touch weld some pieces of metal on your socket, all around it. There are sockets with a very thick wall to make the momentum of the impact larger. The heavier the socket becomes the bigger the impact. This is what I used to get the crankshaft bolt undone on the truck.

I think the main idea with rust frozen nuts is to apply great force only AFTER the nut was shaken a bit from the stud, otherwise the stud just snaps.

[Eugen]

Jeff, look up weighted socket. Lisle Harmonic Balancer Socket is such a thing.

[JSinMO]

I wanted to thank all of you for your knowledge and comments, and tell you how much I appreciate them!

I decided to try the percussive maintenance path first. I used sockets and a 3 lbs hammer to strike the nut and then the rim. Next I got the air hammer out and went around the lugs.

Success! They came loose. I took some measurements and made a couple of templates to take with me when I start looking for rims.

So now I have the 10 inner lugs to fight with and then I can move on. I have to wait till I come up with a square 13/16” socket then we’ll see how they come out. Thanks again guys!

[JSinMO]

I started making the hard lines for Herbie this evening. Been quite some time since I made brake lines.

Sure enough I rightly and properly kinked this one beyond use Oh well I’ll save the fittings and try again. I have the brake hoses ordered so hopefully I’ll be mounting things soon and seeing if we have brakes!

I’ve found 2 old salvage yards close to me looks like they have stuff stuff from the 1930s to at least the 1980s. I missed a set of rims that would have bolted right on the truck by 3 days at the first one! He does have a set of rims for 19.5 tires that I could modify fairly easily but that’s a much shorter tire I’m afraid it would affect my top speed on a truck that already will be slow. There’s a lot of cool stuff there and he said I could come and dig around anytime. I’m headed to the 2nd one first thing in the morning it looks promising. Keep your fingers crossed for me! I’m hoping I’ll be coming home with some workable rims!

[Eugen]

Fingers crossed Jeff, hope you find something useful there. I'm sure you'll find what you need eventually.

I never flared hard lines but I'm sure if I did I'd screw some of them.

[DavidBarkey]

Fingers crossed Jeff, hope you find something useful there. I'm sure you'll find what you need eventually.

I never flared hard lines but I'm sure if I did I'd screw some of them.

It does take practice and the right tools for bending makes all the difference in the world .

[JSinMO]

Fingers crossed Jeff, hope you find something useful there. I'm sure you'll find what you need eventually.

I never flared hard lines but I'm sure if I did I'd screw some of them.

It does take practice and the right tools for bending makes all the difference in the world .

I really does take practice. I had forgotten the “feel” of it when making bends. I’m starting to come back around. Like a lot of things good flairs are made in the prep. I took a small piece and practiced. Made a few ugly ones before I got back in the swing!

No rims today but I did come away with some more ideas. And I may go after those 19.5’s I’d be about 3” shorter than the current tires not sure how much difference that would really make.

[Eugen]

I can't think of any serious downside with the shorter rims. Perhaps there's a tire with taller wall for the shorter rims?

[DavidBarkey]

@JSinMO measure the circumference of the old tire and the 19.5 " tire . Divide one into the other and you have a factor to multiply mph with to find what it will be with a shorter tire .

[JSinMO]

@JSinMO measure the circumference of the old tire and the 19.5 " tire . Divide one into the other and you have a factor to multiply mph with to find what it will be with a shorter tire .

Thank you Dave. I took some measurements but I’m not sure about the 19.5 tire. I looked at some charts online. It looks like I will lose 5 to 8 MPH at highway speed. Not too worried about that on the back roads. I’ll just have to stay in the slow lane on the occasions I have to get on the 4 lane highway.

I continued working on the brakes today looking at the numbers I think I will have over 30 feed of hard line!
I thought I should make sure the check valve was working so I hooked my little vacuum pump up and it wouldn’t hold a vacuum. I took the valve apart and cleaned it up. On a side note this is another reason I like working on old stuff, you can fix a lot of components instead of just replacing them.

I reassembled and bench tested and it works fine. Hook everything back up and no vacuum! Upon further inspection I see the problem

the hard line has a hole rubbed in it! This thing hasn’t had power breaks in a long time. I’m gonna pitch it and run a hose to the booster.

Theres todays old truck ramble!