Reassembly Day #1

I'm still waiting on the new clutch pedal assembly to arrive in the mail, so I put that operation on hold and started some of the other pending reassembly tasks today.

I finished bolting-up the rear transmission cross member and installed the new drive shaft.  It fit well and everything looks copacetic.

 

 

The truck came to me with a C6 automatic transmission, but Ford used the same speedometer gear and cable interface for decades.  The one on the new manual transmission is equipped with a sensor for cruise control feedback, but we don't need any of that on the 56 right now, so I just swapped the speedo gear onto the truck's existing cable and put it back together.  No telling if the speedometer will read an accurate speed with the changes in transmission gearing, but it should function.

 

 

 

 

The starter was the next easy thing to bolt on, but it turned into a fiasco.  It didn't fit.  Specifically, it didn't fit into the "starter hole" in the bell housing spacer plate.  After two trips to the auto parts store and some internet research, it turns out that some Ford starters differ in diameter by 1/16" across the decades and models.  So, the spacer plate I picked up at the salvage yard a few weeks ago has the smaller hole and the starter I need/want to put on the truck needs the bigger hole.  A bigger hole we got thanks to my trusty Dremel tool and rasp bit for the drill.  I had to vacuum all of the aluminum shavings from inside the bell housing once complete.  This detour was a pain and it killed my productivity for the day.

 

 

 

 I removed the lifting plate from the intake manifold and reinstalled the carburetor:

When attempting to mount the ignition coil on the engine, I discovered that the mounting hole was obstructed when the coil was installed into the bracket, so I had to get the Dremel tool back out and remove a small piece of the bracket.  Nothing is easy like its supposed to be...

 

 

The alternator was next.  I was a little giddy during this part because these parts look pretty sweet.  A small piece of aluminum debris fell out of the alternator when I took the stock fan off, so I called the company and left a message.  It looks like a piece of the outer case, not an electrical component, so it might be okay.  We'll see.  This billet pulley set is powder coated black and is setup for an 8-groove serpentine belt and a trick tensioner.  Totally rad, dude.

 

 

Here is where we are so far.