Hagerty Video: So much SLUDGE! Barn Find 1949 Ford F1 Truck – Will It Run?

Hagerty Video Transcript

Hey this is David with Hagerty and will it run and today I’m at Jeff’s house and this is not a northern Michigan 1949 F1 pickup truck because it’s together in one piece and not rotted right so Jeff tell me about this thing a friend and client John came to me and he was

Looking for a 49 F1 specific 49 because that’s the year he was born and uh about a week and a half two weeks after some searching this was located on uh on Marketplace Facebook Marketplace and uh it was down in Alabama and I think it’s spent a long time in a barn um

The guy that we got from he did sell us it was in a barn you can still see the witness marks on all the tires where it’s it’s been sitting flat for a long time but it is probably the most one of the most original complete trucks I’ve ever had

The opportunity to to to see uh I believe all four wheels are the wheels they left the factory with because underneath the hubcaps is that the same Barcelona blue paint nice uh operators manuals in the glove box um door handles don’t sag and uh it’s a

It’s a pretty truck and uh I’m hoping that with a little bit of luck today you and I will I think we can make him make noise yeah make some all right boom bang so what do we got left side left side yep pull that and then there’s a safety catch over on

This side that you oh boy push forward go ahead it’s easy hey if you like what you’re watching do me a favor and go check out the Haggerty Drivers Club subscription to our award-winning magazine discounts on all sorts of car stuff 24 7 roadside assistance with flatbed towing access to VIP events

The Link’s in the description and see this is you know one thing that we were kind of noticing is it looked like somebody started to clean up some of the wires or whatnot yeah because you know this is modern but I don’t think they got very far no

Because they didn’t even heat shrink them no all right um yeah my verify when it showed up that it does it does turn over let’s make this thing make some fire All right well we got the truck inside and uh well Jeff I know you’ve looked a little bit at some things prior to this yeah what uh what do you think the best course of action here is to get this thing running well uh you know being

That as a client’s vehicle I know we never did this in the past and the wheel runs we just basically try to start it in the field where it was sitting where it was sitting and uh I decided I wanted to pull the the inspection cover on the pan because

I wanted to make sure that the screen to the pump was was clear and it was completely clogged not one spot spot was open so and preventative maintenance I went ahead cleaned that and I put new oil in it right upon putting new oil in it I noticed that

Three quarts still wasn’t showing on the pan four corks wasn’t showing in the pan and what I think we have here is a lot of sludge in the lifter Valley and so I’m thinking you know if we want to look and check out what’s in the intake

Pull the car at the same time go through that I just so happen to have a borescope with me awesome yeah let’s do exactly that let’s uh let’s pull the pump out let’s look underneath there uh move forward sounds good Let’s just get this out of the way if it will come out of the way in it I’m caught on something I get it foreign there’s a lot of sediment in your sediment bulb a lot of wear on the push rod too fuel pump push rod right

So you did you had a problem that there was no uh no uh clamp on this hose but you didn’t mind that this is air hose just what I’m saying just saying I don’t know if you guys saw this earlier too um this is a this is an extension cord

That’s that’s going up through the firewall and this it’s it’s going to the this is 100 a farm truck yeah yeah so let’s use this borescope go down in there and see what we have inside of the intake Valley but uh I have to say this first huge

Shout out to teslong for shooting me this camera because uh I think it’s gonna be pretty helpful especially right now Oh not looking so hot up top here oh I can’t even really see what uh hey there’s about Springs yeah I can see them I mean maybe it’s not that bad on the engine that I tore apart before you couldn’t see valve springs yeah well we’re in good shape then yeah there you

Go I can actually see a keeper okay there we go I see something shiny which cams and get the cams there yeah so here we’ll do it the old-fashioned way how much cook is on the end of the camera so we took our test sample and uh hey look at that there’s Jeff

There’s a check so we got uh yeah I’ll say what I would expect Jeff I don’t see a ton I don’t see so much that it’s like a well I mean there’s quite a bit of there’s more crap here I think than what we’re thinking too in spots right yeah

Auto wanna see is a good any of the drain holes I you know that that area right there looks like one to me right but I don’t see any holes on either side of that I know what do you think I say we keep going further

It’s not well you know that we’re here let’s pull the carbs um Phil farther as in pull the intake but well we gotta pull the carburetor anyway and clean it up yeah yeah we know we wanted to do it I got a shop back let’s get the let’s clean

Around the intakes we don’t drop any of that crap all right okay let’s do that all right what the camera’s showing me is that well it’s clearly not showing me that the oil passage draining back down is clear enough to to visibly see so instead of

Having a concern of not getting any oil down to the pan and as soon as we started up it pumps it all out and then messes up the bearings uh we’re going to yank the intake manifold yeah and uh possibly scoop some stuff out of it so get your spoons um yep There we go you want a new guest seven RT weeks do you see the bailing wire Farm fix there to keep it in the summer mode worked works but what it’s worth that rotor is not gonna work oh it’s broke isn’t it so I think what

Happened is that the cap wasn’t on and it got spun yeah and it got caught up on a pulse and when it reached this limited pulled it and snapped the plastic reached its limit okay yes three pieces [Applause] Oh yummy boy yeah we were definitely on the good end of that non-detergent oil the idea was you didn’t suspend the you let it drop in sediment that’s what this is after so many years right yeah and then detergent oil was meant to suspend the particles

And then run them out of you know run them through the filter and these after filters were an afterthought I mean truly they were better than zero yeah I think if we get as soon as we get some of this out of here we can we can get

Some more water the oils flowing back real nice Um like my own Play-Doh machine here so the fact that this is set for a good number of years I happen to have a a rebuild kit here for it so while we have the intake off what better time than to just go through this real quick and

At least get the plunge a new plunger in it oh yeah because I’m sure the other one’s perfect poop yeah you took my screwdriver man [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] no no foreign Well we had the intake manifold off and you can see we had a whole lot of sludge in there from the oil um Jeff and I scooped about a good five pounds out it is definitely not 100 clean yet but we do have the oil passages opened up so we can get some

Oil flow going back down to the pump so otherwise it would have oil stuck on the top side and it’ll never get down back to the pump to get to the mains and the and the rods um certainly Jeff is going to have to flush this a little bit more for a

Longer term uh running but for what we’re after today we got it clean enough and we’re going to continue on we’ve got the intake actually back on Jeff has also already went through and cleaned up the carburetor so that’s ready and now we’re gonna put the fuel pump back in

We got our solenoid kind of temporary up here with a another used old one and what we’re going to go forward with it spun over real nice so that starter is working pretty good what we’ll do now is we’re going to go tackle the ignition we’re going to take our coil we’re going

To change out the points and the condenser and then check for some spark and just keep on moving foreign Do you have the coil do you have the ignition and you have the starter button oh here you can have it I got fuel you can have one it’s gonna make me do this that means you’re gonna operate the the throttle for a little bit well it’s on my side

That makes it yeah all right are we good yeah I think so these are tight right yeah okay I’m gonna turn our fuel pump back huh okay I’m ready if you are let’s do it okay here we go oh wow okay ready maybe the starter just left uh here we go up here

Okay Huh all right Jeff so this 49 Ford flathead is running you got your work on you gotta pull that intake manifold a couple more times hey but the carburetor’s done that thing’s ready to roll did a nice job on that obviously fuel pump’s ready to go yep um

Yeah really I think this is just a maintenance uh project from here on out getting you know getting that oil de-sludged yep yep like I said I would I would go through and and run some diesel through it you know soak it you could even literally fill it

Yeah fill it with these let it soak and then uh obviously drain it all out real good swish it around and uh yeah and you’ll be fine yeah I think so yeah yeah because it doesn’t sit not you know it would have been knocking and all

That if it was starving for oil and it wasn’t doing that at all so right no good deal well I can’t wait to see this thing go back down the road again because this is a ridiculously Solid Truck this is a sweetheart yeah you get you don’t you don’t find it much nicer

Than this we said it’s going to be blue yeah uh yeah we can I can see that that’s gonna look good yeah I can’t wait can’t wait yeah really I mean that’s that’s the I think it’ll be the most exciting next step right is to clean it

So uh speaking of will it will it run yes this 49 Ford pickup runs accomplished accomplished but hey you know what I gotta go back to the shop to get my work done and I know you got a couple things to do in here too so

Like we always say get out in the shop go get your work done hope you enjoyed it see you next time cool you might want to attach that different I think so