What in Tarnation?

[GB SISSON]

Kind of boring in the dead of winter. I have plenty of work in the wood shop, but I gotta have a mechanical challenge so I have something to 'engineer' when I lie awake at 3 am after getting up to pee. So there's this cummins inline 6 cyl turbo diesel I keep rolling back and forth on a cart in my shop. Not the powerhouse 6bt like a dodge or the shorter 4bt from a frito-lays delivery van. It's a 210 cu in 120 hp. I have owned 2 others but sold them in trucks, the latest I had put into a '59 f350 9' pickup, but sold a few years back. A very rare case of seller's remorse for me. OK, we go back about a week or so and I had been thinking about a conversion into my 47 tonner PU. The 59 ab is low on oil pressure and compression and tends to foul plugs. The truck is a gem though. Maybe best cab I have ever seen and I rebuilt the box and a nice grill etc. Here's what I have done so far. I have 3 tonners in my back 40. One is just a 100.00 rolling chassis with chopped rear of frame and no title. I decided this would be much easier to arrange the engine and it's gm sm465 tranny into as a mockup, then transfer what I did into my good truck. Super easy access on a bare frame.

I hoisted the engine/tranny over the frame and after a lot of head scratching decided the only way I could get the mounts in and clear the steering box, oil filter etc was to cut out the front ford engine mounts out with a torch and side mount it about mid engine..... So I did and other issues kept cropping up. The worst issue was I hated myself for cutting that frame (and since it was a mockup, the horror of cutting my good pickup frame later) Last sunday morning I got out of bed at 3:30 am, Welded the mounts back in and made a pledge that if I was going to do this it would be a complete bolt in kit. No more cutting, no welding on the frame, nothing. The 6at is now mounted with 1/2" clear at the firewall, 1" fan clearance to the ford 6 cyl G radiator I had in a parts truck, re-fabbed motor mounts up forward in the 6 cyl position, using the stock ford donut motor mounts. Trans is mounted on a heavy duty removable cross member just behind the untouched ford trans mount. I made a spacer to get the radiator clearance right but it's just a bolt pass through affair. The throttle lever is in the exact right place on the right side but it needs a pull to accelerate the bosch rotary pump. I had planned to heat the ball end leg to go up, not down, but now have dreamed up a bell crank to change to a pull, bolted to the head. Did I mention I placed a factory cowl on this thing to get firewall /tranny clearance? It would have been used for a bread truck or school bus etc. The GM shifter comes up through the trans cover about an inch further back than stock, but still comes through the cover with no cutting. It's late here and this is the longest post I've ever seen. I will get some pics tomorrow, but excuse the messy shop strewn with scrap metal and the ugly mock up frame. If you have any interest look on youtube at '59 F350 with cummins 6at' I know, I know it isn't a flathead, but I might build a nice one in a couple years and drop it in some weekend. Why am I doing this? Because it was there......