M211 pricing

[wilber]

Glad to see you finally got her. Have fun.

 

[Gunfreak25]

It has a 455 Oldsmobile Rocket and Turbo 400 Hydramatic. Great combo, should get many years of reliable service from it. I have been putting at least several hours of work into the truck every day since I have had it, if I keep this up it should be on the road by Christmas time. I may just go ahead and repaint the truck in Gilliespie 24087 Semi Gloss OD. Life is too short to drive an ugly truck I suppose.

I think I have a plan for my electrical stuff. It still has the stock 24v generator/regulator which was hooked up just so they could get a fan belt going. If it's still working, I am going to put 2 brand new 12V batteries in to get everything back to 24V. I will be picking up an HEI distributor too, and I am going to see what the dangers would be in running 24V through it for 24V ignition. Will this be an issue? As I understand it, the only difference between 12 and 24V ignition is the AMP levels. With 24V, the amps would be 50% lower. Might even extend the life of some things. The HEI distributor can safely handle 80,000V too. Anyone see a problem with this? It would be nice if everything was 24V. Is there a difference between a 24V spark plug/ignition coil and a 12V spark plug/ignition coil?

 

[M-37Bruce]

I think you need to talk to Charles Talbert at M-Series Rebuild, he is the "go-to-guy for HEI" do a google search for then, he's in Norwood , NC, he's got 'em set up for 24V.
He posts here as well as the g-741 page.

 

[butch atkins]

way to go,hope all goes as planned for your project,good deal on the canvas parts,i had a NOS NIB top canvas that i sold to someone on here couple yrs ago ,wish i had kept it now,good luck with your project

 

[schwenk industries]

Sweet truck i do think that will give you something to do for a while good luck with it and hope all goes well.

 

[Gunfreak25]

Progress update. Spent 5 hours yesterday crawling under 500lbs of transfer case to get the floor winched back down. Lots of cussing and almost crushed my head, but I got it done and it looks great! Center floor plate removed, gives you total access to your tranny shift linkage, master cylinder, distributor shaft and everything else you can imagine. Th400 makes a great seat to work on! Spent 9 hours today measuring, cutting, welding, bending to fabricate a whole new accelerator pedal/linkage to mimic the factory setup. Couldn't stand the redneck pedal bolted to the firewall. Got the linkage finished and tomorrow I'll clean it up and drop it in. Going to carve a pedal out of solid oak painted black to mimic the huge original G749 pedal. Got the gas tank dropped and somewhat cleaned out. Should have it back in and filled up with $150+ in gas in a few days. On top of all this I have developed a nasty cold and it was raining all day today. Back hurts like **** and I am hitting the sack.....I sleep well now a day's.

Still to come.

-Set timing and check for vacuum leaks
-Clean and rebuild my Qjet
-All new rubber lines
-Get electricals setup.
-Send out a MO for tires
-Clean/replace all zerk fittings
-New oil pan (10quart)
-Mount shift tower
-Strip, refinish troop seats
-Misc bolts/pins/nuts
-Fix emergency brake lever

I give a huge thumbs up to those who have taken the time to fully restore these trucks. I cannot imagine doing it myself, I would probably douse the entire thing in gasoline, light a match and enjoy the view. Still, this thing is in remarkable condition compared with many others I have seen.

 

[Mastertech]

nothing like a day spent working on the old beast to give me a good nights sleep, been there done that. But ya I see a hugh problem with tryng to run an HEI on 24v. it wont work at least not for very long, Im taliking seconds possibly minutes here. if you split your electrical into 1/2 and switch your ignition on with 12v you shopuld be ok but it will not work on 24v.

 

[Gunfreak25]

I may just tap off one battery for the ignition. I was told since the ignition doesn't draw that much it shouldn't offset the balance of the batteries very much at all. I will even just run 24V through the starter too. No harm in running double the volts and half the amps through what it was designed for. No cold starts here and the truck fires up very easily.

Seats are down at the shop being reupholstered in brown textured vinyl. Can't wait to see them!

 

[Mastertech]

ya I think you will be ok doing that. My uncle had an old willys jeep that was 6v and he did just that swiching up to 12v said the starter never cranked long enough to know the differance. but hey if it dosent work the oldsmoble starters dont cost to much money and easy to get. If you have to you can wire and trigger the starter from a 12v source.

Byron

 

[Gunfreak25]

Any idea how much el cheapo 12V Walmart batteries run? Don't need anything top of the line.

 

[Mastertech]

cant help you there I mostly use Interstate batteries at the shop. when I needed batteries for mine I called my Interstate supplier and told him what I was doing and he shipped me 2 G.I. batteries but Im sure walmart can do WAY better on the price and they dont need to be anything special just a couple to make it happen there isnt anything that puts hi demand on them.

 

[nattieleather]

Just go to wallymart and pick out two batts for a Chevy truck or Van. Anything that will start a V8 motor on 12V will work doubled up for 24V. Since your motor is changed I would go for what your motor is. Anything with about 7-800 CCA should do the job IMHO.

 

[Gunfreak25]

Tried firing it up today. After advancing/retarding the distributor (which had no affect on startup/idle) I am about 90% sure the reason it won't idle at all and is difficult to start up is simply a fuel issue. The carb is probably gunked up a little too, so tomorrow i'll be making a short walk down to Oreilly's auto parts to get a new air filter, fuel filter and some carb cleaner. Once I can get it to idle without dying I can perfect the timing and check for vacuum leaks. Other than that, the motor is very healthy sounding and the sparkplugs look great after inspecting a few of them. Always read your plugs!

 

[Gunfreak25]

Yahoo! Happy as a clam today. Replaced all my rubber fuel lines after finding a bunch of crap clogging one of them, also changed the inline filter and carb filter. Cleaned out the entire carb, inside and out. Before cleaning, fuel would "sputter" into the venturi. After a thorough cleaning fuel now "jets" into the venturi's. I knew there was a fuel issue and the carb was gunked up.
I set the distributor back to "zero" as a starting point (rather be retarded than advanced) and it fired up instantly. It idled for a few seconds then slowly sputtered to a stop. Figured the timing was too retarded so I simply increased it in 1 degree increments until it idled perfectly. Still idles a bit high and it may be running a little lean, but it sounds fantastic! Sure is loud with those tiny manifolds on there, I believe exhaust will next. I had to shut down after just a minute or two of idling, the radiator cap started spraying rusty water everywhere. Picked up a new cap this evening as well as some flushing agent and coolant. Will do the flushing tomorrow when I can run it for a good while to get things heated up.

 

[Gunfreak25]

Little update. Went to flush the radiator a couple days ago. I had found a major vacuum leak on the intake manifold in the form of an old threaded hole. Likely used to mount a vacuum tower which were common during the early 70's on 455's. Just plugged it with a bolt and now the engine idles quietly and smooth as the day it was made. About blew my socks off as to why someone would leave this unplugged. Anyway, was going to flush to cooling system and had it idling great for about 5 minutes. I had to stop due to a rusted out freeze plug below cylinder 1, it was gushing water. Took me 2 days to get it out.....tomorrow i'll pop a new brass plug in and finish flushing my cooling system. Lots of crap came already!

Also got my drivers seat reupholstered in textured brown vinyl for $100. Going to take the passenger seat to get done when the truck is on the road. Spent about 15 minutes today crawling under the back axles observing all of the electric/hydraulic/air lines. Pretty simple setup really! Looking forward to getting the brakes going......electrical is all there and will pretty much be plug and play when I get my batteries in.

 

[Mastertech]

Ya I know the brake/air lines very well on my truck just got done in the last 3 months
replacing all of the steel and flexible brake lines on my truck along with a long list of other improvements.
but hey I feel alot more confident driving it knowing it aint going to lose brake pressure
when I step on the peddle. Sounds like you are having fun getting the beast up and working
keep us up to date.

 

[Gunfreak25]

Sorry for the poor quality of the pictures, it's the best I could do for now. Had to have my brother take some using his Blackberry. As you can see it's cleaning up to be a sweet and very straight truck. Next I need to do the timing chain, valve seals, rebuilt oil pump and clean pickup screen, remove oil pan dents, get the carb back on, new spark plug wires and finish the mount for the air compressor. I know how i'm going to put it on, just need a belt first before I start welding anything.

On a side note, there's a guy here in town who may be interested in trading trucks with me. He has over 12 M35A2's and I told him everything about my M211. The chances sound fairly decent that we'll be trading trucks. My m211 plus some rifles for one good conditioned, running and driving Multifuel. Going Monday to talk it over with him and possibly pick out a new truck. Out of ten total, It will be difficult! If however he decides not to trade, i'll be continuing on with the M211. One thing is for sure, these G749 trucks are a lot more refined with better fit and finish than any M35A2 out there.

 

[USMC 00-08]

What did you end up doing?

 

[Gunfreak25]

I have not been able to get a hold of the guy with the Multifuels again, we'll see what happens in the next few days.

 

[nattieleather]

Keep on with the M211... You've done so much work to it already might as well see it through to the end... ​