Thread: '52 Chevy 3100 pickup w/splits

Tweet

I'm just roadtesting this sweetie. I had most of the body off the frame, made 25gal underthebed fuel tank, brakes, emergancy brake, exhaust (kinda), rewired it, replaced most lights and added parking lights, cleaned the enginebay up, soundeadener, dual 1bbl Zeniths on a Tattersfield intake, stainless split manifold header (storebought & modified), original beehive oil filter and other stuff, fairly major project.
Thats legitimate shop dust on the truck, you got to excuse that.
I might have 10 miles on it so far and it runs like a top! Wicked to about 2500rpm, which is a big improvement.

Really nice truck! And the motor is impressive too. That's quite some tank you've built, how long did it take you?

Nice tank, but it brings a question to my mind since it's not shown installed. You've got four stout mounting pads welded to the top which is going to look clean, but you'll have up to 200# of fuel in there when it's full and I'd be concerned that those tabs are going to tend to deflect and break your welds, or violate the integrity of the tank over time, bouncing down the road. Are you using a couple of straps, too?

Heres the truck pads, i didn't think to take a pic of it bolted in place. Look at the tank constr, there are 2 baffles in it (the tank as shown is upside down, the bottom was last to go on) that are flanged and thru welded tying the top and bottoms together.
Its plenty strong.

Don't take this wrong, as I'm not trying to criticize in any way. I hear you on "plenty strong", but you've got all of the weight concentrated on the top sheet metal through those four tabs. The sheet metal is what, 14 gauge, supporting the weight of the tank & fuel? If it were mine I'd bolt in a substantial, gusseted cross brace to the lower frame rail, but that's just me. Just curious, can you drop the tank, or do you have to pull the bed to lift it out?

One thing i'll share - do you notice how i am not going into supporting the fuel tank? - when fullay assembled i tested the tanks and sending unit thoroughly, double tested it until i was without doubt it was perfect. I installed it, restested the sending unit with the new gage...it worked perfect. We made the fuel lines etc and put the bed back on it.
The pic shows the tabs i welded to the tank that i bent over the fuel line and another for the sending unit line. very tidy, right? I run the line or wire thru the middle and bend each side over to hold it.
Do you know welding to the tank will burn out a sending unit?
Yup!
I welded the tabs after testing and never gave it a second thought, i had to take the whole bed back off and replace the sending unit, it was fried and curled up.
I'm sharing this so's you guys will know better than to weld on a tank with the sending unit in it.

LOL! Good one!

Very nice truck and so nice using the six with some dress up gear, so refreshing from the normal. I personally would like to see the centre of gravity lower to the ground but, hey it isn't mine to go tampering with but at least 2 to 3"out of the front would give it a better Hot Rod stance.

Yes, i agree - kinda. The stance isn't right but i want to raise the rear another inch or so. When it was brought to me the rear had 2" spacers under it and i replaced them with 1" and will likely remove them - they are visible in the pic of the frame. After that i'll look into lowering the front a little. I don't want it 'in the weeds', its more a period piece and i am careful about what and how i do it.
Thanks for the compliments.
Just so you know, it took 8 zeniths to make those two. The pic shows the first batch that we were doing the coatings on (the main bodies are done here and we had a problem doing the phosphate on the cast iron bases hence the rust), when i started to assemble there were problems and we had to do another batch.
I just looked at the pic and see that there are a number of holley 94's there too, this must have been the 2nd batch where we did another 4 zeniths and threw some holleys in the too. Sorry about that.

Originally Posted by ojh

Do you know welding to the tank will burn out a sending unit?
Yup!
I welded the tabs after testing and never gave it a second thought, i had to take the whole bed back off and replace the sending unit, it was fried and curled up.
I'm sharing this so's you guys will know better than to weld on a tank with the sending unit in it.

Hindsight, but if you would have pulled your negative battery cable and grounded your welder direct to the tank as close to the weld as possible I think you'd of been OK welding those tabs. It's even more important on the computer controlled cars, where you can blow a computer or melt lots of stuff in a heartbeat if you weld on the vehicle without unhooking electrically. I think most of the shops, like muffler shops welding exhaust parts on the car, now use a surge protector across the battery terminals so they don't lose all of the electronic pre-sets.

Like you said, this is for the guy who may need to weld on a tank, or other component on a finished car.

hi great looking truck and i think its riding at the right height to suit the look.
with your fuel tank -what did you do about air venting for filling the tank at the gas station and for letting air in to allow fuel out?
another question-does the tattersfield intake manifold have or need a heat system on it to make the motor run better in cool/cold temperatures- i want to make my own 2 carb manifold/3 into 2 headers for a 292 l6 and see the factory manifolds have the exhaust heating the bottom of the manifold and some of the aftermarket manifolds have heater water going thru the base?
thanks and look forward to more pictures
mark

SharpMark, good questions. I didn't do anything for vent to filling, i based the design on an original '48ish chevy that had the tank under the bed & pieces of the filler neck are from one of those. I tried to make it look as if it were factory, even though they weren't avaiable. When i filled it for the first time i was disappointed how long it took so i will experiment will the filler neck angle, rise etc. I think it is a gravity thing and not venting.
We made a plate to seal a chamber under the tattersfield and have 3/8ths(?) copper going to it, supply from the water pump and returns to the thermostat housing. It is cold here and i can start the engine up with little choke and it'll quickly idle - i use the choke more as a throttle for the higher idle.
I am having a problem with the carbs getting stupid with flooding at high vacuum, when i close down the choke the vacuum gets high enough in the carbs so (i think) fuel gets pulled from the main wells. As long as the engine runs and you open choke as normal there isn't a 'problem', if you shut the engine off after brief idle fuel will dribble out the throttle shafts. Its an interesting problem and may be an inherent design issue with the 'tube' type carbs.

Some of those old tanks used a vented cap to keep pulling a vacuum with the fuel pump. As you fill, the same volume of air is going to be rushing out the tank nozzle as the fuel going in, liquid displacing air. All the more modern tanks have a vent connection and a sealed cap, and than an anti-rollover valve in the vent.

Originally Posted by ojh

I am having a problem with the carbs getting stupid with flooding at high vacuum, when i close down the choke the vacuum gets high enough in the carbs so (i think) fuel gets pulled from the main wells. As long as the engine runs and you open choke as normal there isn't a 'problem', if you shut the engine off after brief idle fuel will dribble out the throttle shafts. Its an interesting problem and may be an inherent design issue with the 'tube' type carbs.

Check the float level, sounds like the float is too high (to much fuel in the bowl).

.

Originally Posted by 36 sedan

Check the float level, sounds like the float is too high (to much fuel in the bowl).

.

I been looking in there, the float level in these is lower than you'd think.
I've seen this on other carbs too, i saw it on a set of holley 94's i was sorting out. You could put your hand on one of them and it'd get wet quickly. It might've been rochesters on a gto. I remember repeating with the same result and pondering why fuel would get up as high as my hand when none should be flowing.
Life is a puzzle when you are as stupid as i am.