It’s funny you mention this. I was just talking to a fellow this morning about this project and he brought up the same thing!
I hadn’t heard of running kerosene in the engine to clean it up before. His formula was 4 quarts of motor oil and 1 quart of kerosene or diesel fuel. And run the engine for a few minutes. Said he learned it while working at a Chevy dealership.
On a side note I would love to have a 65 Galaxy 2 door hardtop! I’ve looked at few but they’re beyond my budget. But you never know, I’m sure there’s one hiding in a barn out there somewhere waiting for me to find it!
I can pretty much figure what this truck did in its working life on the typical farm in the 70s and 80s. It brought square bales of hay and straw from the field to the barn, it brought grain in to the bin, and they told me it wasn’t used to take grain to market much, they had a bigger truck for that. From my experience that means a lot of idling, and low rpm putting across the field in low gear. These were the days when you walked next to the truck and threw bales on the back as you drove across the field. To me that means carbon build up in the combustion chambers.
To my eye I don’t see enough sludge at least in the top of the motor to concern me. I’m not planning to do anything beyond dropping the pan and cleaning it up and slapping it together and running it at this point. As far as what carbon may or may not exist in the combustion chambers, to me getting it on the road and running it at higher rpm is step one and see how he does. If it has issues I’ll probably try the Seafoam treatment @Eugen talked about. I’ve done that before and I seen positive results.
I can’t see tearing down an engine that starts right up, and makes no noise. If it does start having problems I would probably look for a newer FE motor to rebuild and put in as opposed to trying to rebuild an engine from 1957 that may not be easy to get parts for.
Wheww that’s one hell of a Monday evening ramble for me! If you read all that and are still with me, thank you!
I appreciate the conversation on this guys. Your input really matters to me and helps me proceed!