[ARC5] 25 year old cars

[Spencer Petri]

Mine is a 1966 F-100 that I bought new. It has more than 800,000 
miles on it. Engine rebuilds and short blocks kept it on the road. 
Still has the origin transmission, I haven't registered it since 2000 
but still drive it around the property. The muffler has rusted out, 
again, and sounds good. I could overhaul anything on it with 3/8", 
7/16", 1/2",9/16" and 5/8" wrenches and sockets. I was in Dallas one 
Saturday and the cam fiber gear teeth stripped off. I managed to 
coast into an apartment parking lot. I had left my tools home because 
I had planned to go to Hamcom and be away from the truck for hours. 
There was an auto parts about 2 blocks away. How did I know that was 
the problem? The distributor wasn't rotating when I kicked the motor 
over and those fiber gears were know for failing. Anyway, the store 
had the gear I needed. I rented a gear puller and bought  1/2", 5/8" 
and 9/16" wrenches. I drained the water, removed the radiator and 
pulled off the gear cover. Crap, the fiber got down in the pan. So I 
took the nuts off the engine mounts and drained the oil into an old 
pan that I had behind the seat. I jacked up the engine and removed 
the pan. I locked the parts in the cab, went back to the parts store 
and got a pan gasket, oil filter, anti-freeze, a gasket for the gear 
cover, permatex, quarts of oil, paper towels and a degreaser.  Now, I 
pulled the cam gear, and turned the engine until the timing marks 
matched at TDC and I tapped the new gear on the cam, I did have a 
hammer under the seat, I cleaned the cover, sprayed it with 
degreaser, wiped it off and put it back on with the new gasket. I did 
the same with the pan, cleaned  it and put it back on with the new 
gasket. I let the engine down with the jack and put the nuts and 
washers back on the engine mounts.. I put the radiator back on and 
filled it with antifreeze. Put on the new oil filter and put the 
oil  in, threw the trash in the back. Got into the truck and it 
kicked right off, I let it warm up and topped off the anti-freeze, so 
I took the gear puller back to the auto parts store and got my 
deposit back and dumped the trash. It was getting late in the day and 
I was tired so I blew off Hamcom and went back to East Texas. Did I 
mention it was toward the end of July? It must have been at least 110 
degs air temp in the parking lot. Back then I was a working fool and 
now I wonder how.


de Pete WA5JCI