An insect nearly burned down my 67 stepside.
 

Boy I bet I get a lot of views with this one.

I've had my share of problems with the engine in this truck. It started with when I bought it and discovered it had flat lobes on the camshaft. I got a completely rebuilt engine along with the truck, so I simply installed it in place of the bad cam engine.

Here's why the engine flat lobed the cam. At least I think so.

Attachment 1843670

Notice the oil pump pickup screen is missing. It was laying in the oil pan when I took it off.

So I decide to just install the rebuilt engine and start fresh. Get it all in and add water to the radiator. It keeps going down every day for a few days, no leaks on the floor so I check the oil, aw shucks ( epithets deleted). Water in the oil and up on the lifters when I primed the oil pump.

It turns out that the block is cracked in the intake valley and it was small enough that I didn't notice it when I installed the lifters and the intake.

After due consideration, I decided to boil out the flat lobe engine and use it.
It only had 5,000 miles on it and no wear on the bores and the heads were in great shape.

Both these engines had been bored to .030 over so I swapped all the new stuff from the cracked block engine over to the flat lobe engine while taking all the necessary measuring precautions.

Fast forward to engine install and new cam wear in for 20 minutes.
I'd preset the distributor, all the valve tappets, and the timing so it was ready to go.

I decided to start the engine from the engine bay instead of in the cab, so I could monitor everything. I also jacked up the rear end so she couldn't take off on me in case the tranny linkage was adjusted wrong.

So here we go, it rolls over about twice and fires right up, speeds up to the required 2 grand, and sounds strong, pumping 75 psi oil pressure running as smooth as silk, with that nice rumbling sound that only the dual Flowmasters can make. So I'm patting myself on the back and about to feel great and I notice the water temp gauge is climbing fast.

About this same time I noticed that there was some hot red fluid boiling up out of the transmission dip stick all over the place. It made a huge mess so I let it cool down and decided that the 16 inch electric fan wasn't cutting it.

I pulled that thing off and replaced it with the original shroud, and a seven blade fan off the original engine. I wanted to be sure it would cool properly.
Now after draining and replacing the burnt trans fluid ( yeah it got that hot) I was ready for round two.

Now here's where it gets real interesting.

I top off the radiator, no leak downs this time, checked all the fluids after the fresh oil change, and hit the remote starter button. She fires right up and sounds great, temperature comes up to 180 and levels off and holds at 175 to 180, so far so good. So I figure the overheating engine caused the trans fluid to get too hot and up it comes.

WRONG!

I notice a leak under the oil pan and a small drip of oil on the floor so I investigate and the pan gasket was leaking. All the time my temperature gauge is reading 175 to 180. Got that fixed or so I thought.

So I shut it down again to replace the gasket and all off a sudden here comes the trans oil up out of the dipstick again. EXCEPT THAT this time it got on the hot exhaust pipe and HOLY HELL there are flames coming up in my engine compartment. PANIC! PANIC! PANIC!

Luckily I had the fire extinguisher handy and was able to put out the flames quickly. I singed the spark plug wires otherwise no real damage except to my underwear.

Now i'm really puzzled. What had caused the transmission fluid to boil over if it wasn't the engine overheating? I'm really thinking hard on this one and decided, if it wasn't the engine overheating then it must be the oil cooler lines plugged, or the transmission pump wasn't working.

Then it hit me.
While I was cleaning the fuel tank and re-installing the lines, I pressure checked the system for flow, and the tank bowed when I hit it with a low pressure charge. I knew the tank was not plugged so it must be a line. I was right, one of the line sections that had hung on the wall was plugged. It was brand new so how could that be?

Are you getting it yet. That's right, when I checked the line and ran a small rod through it, a bunch of dirt came out and the line cleared. AHA! it was a dirt dobber (mud wasp) that had gotten into that 3/8ths line and plugged it up.

Could it be that the transmission cooler line had suffered the same fate. I yanked them off and sure enough the output line from the transmission was plugged about three inches in.

The end result was that the transmission oil was just circulating in the trans and building up enough heat to cause it to boil over when I shut the engine down. If i'm really lucky, I didn't burn up the clutches in the trans.

So that my friends is how an insect almost burned down my truck.

What A loss that would have been.


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Re: An insect nearly burned down my 67 stepside.
 

I guess I'm one of the first of many to read this. Quite a story, that's for sure! Thanks for sharing with us. Stupid bugs, they can annoy us in so many ways -- but I've never heard anything like that before. Glad you figured it out & hope there was no other serious damage done. Wow.

Re: An insect nearly burned down my 67 stepside.
 

Oh yeah. Trans fluid on the exhaust is bad. Worse if you are under the vehicle when it decides to puke it up. You dodged a bullet V.
I reluctantly broke in my new engine with the truck inside my shop, raining. I was by myself and had a fire extinguisher handy. On jack stands too. I ran short of hose clamps so I just stuck a short piece of new heater hose with a bolt inside it onto the intake nipple and went on about running it in. As the temp began to come up so did the cooling system pressure when BAM! That short piece of hose shot all the way across the shop followed by a long stream of hot water too! :lol: I didn't do that again.

Re: An insect nearly burned down my 67 stepside.
 

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Sounds to me like if you didn't have bad luck you wouldn't have any luck at all.....:)... I blow lines out with an air hose before installing them but I'm not sure that would have worked on the trans cooler lines if they were that plugged up.

LockDoc

Re: An insect nearly burned down my 67 stepside.
 

yeah Doc I've had my share none of it was my fault. The lines were all brand new and I never dreamed that they would be plugged like that. Maybe it is getting better since this arrived.


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Re: An insect nearly burned down my 67 stepside.
 

Wow! Things are looking up that's for sure....:)... Now I could use something like that.

LockDoc

Re: An insect nearly burned down my 67 stepside.
 

"Notice the oil pump pickup screen is missing. It was laying in the oil pan when I took it off."


I've never been happy about tack welding a pick up tube to the pump on a fresh engine but that's the way it's been forever . My small block was a fresh rebuild when I bought it and to be on the safe side I opened it up and replaced the pump with a Melling and new pick up tube . I looked around and found this pick up tube retainer and used it instead of tacking and it went on great and I'm a lot happier now , :chevy: https://www.jegs.com/i/JEGS/555/2362...SABEgJdMPD_BwE

Mud bugs can ruin your day .Nothing runs like a Deere ,Check out Beet juice to fill the rear tires for traction and ballast ,Home depot sells tractor weights and foam filling the front tires will add traction and ballast also increases stability ,

Re: An insect nearly burned down my 67 stepside.
 

Vett!

Dang man glad it didn't burn the truck up man! Glad your Ok to. I have had my share of bugs also on the ramp truck. I haven't been stung by a bee in a long time until this summer.

They like making nests under the ramp bed.:chevy:

Re: An insect nearly burned down my 67 stepside.
 

Wow, that is quite a story! Glad you figured that out! I feel your pain with those mud dauber wasps though. Since my 67 GMC sat unused for 10 years, some of those accursed insects built a vast megaopolis of a city all throughout it. Every time I use the crawler under it I find yet another nest that I somehow previously missed. I will bet that I have removed at least 70 - 100 mud dauber nests so far.

Re: An insect nearly burned down my 67 stepside.
 

Is Cujo guarding it or pulling it? ;) In your excitement, don't forget to untie the dog before you get to work with the new tractor! very nice tractor btw, you're going to enjoy that. I've got a rather dated 4100, but same kinda tractor, it just keeps going and going. You'll find something you never knew you needed it for about every day. Congrats, you needed a boost after that story.

Re: An insect nearly burned down my 67 stepside.
 

I also have a severe dirt dobber problem here!
They also stop up the trans vents.
It won't blow out with air!
You have to run a wire in the lines to clear them.Then air.
I stuff rags in the end of air filter housings for the same reason.
I need a good way to get rid of them if anyone knows of one!
Mike.:chevy:

Re: An insect nearly burned down my 67 stepside.
 

Bugs suck.

Re: An insect nearly burned down my 67 stepside.
 

Ah yes, Murphy's Law!

Re: An insect nearly burned down my 67 stepside.
 

I was thinking it was a joke by from the title.

I'm glad you caught it in time. Besides the truck that looks like your house in the picture it could have been a 2 for.

Now you have a very good strange but true story and the rest of us will now double check out lines.

Re: An insect nearly burned down my 67 stepside.
 

What does that Bolt-On Oil Pump Pickup Retainer look like when installed? Did you happen to take a picture?

Re: An insect nearly burned down my 67 stepside.
 

I totally missed the subj because I got distracted by the guard dog and the tractor... Mud daubers are horrible around here. My 76 got infested and I had to go to Mop 4 with a pith helmet, face net, garden hose, and kill spray to get rid of em. I think the neighbors though I had lost my marbles. They had made homes in every stake pocket and, unfortunately, all the way down my carb throat into the intake. It was maddening... Was taking things apart and the fricking things kept flying out. Finally eradicated though...

Re: An insect nearly burned down my 67 stepside.
 

I can attest to the quality of Deere products from the past. My 1999 4100 still performs perfectly.

Re: An insect nearly burned down my 67 stepside.
 

Wow! Glad to hear problem things were keep to a minimum! And First off your OK. Little things cause big problems I learn from the folks here. Recently I thought my engine was flat lobbed. Found out later after some speaking with a tech that Accel distributor coils have an extremely tight tolerance, like 500 ohms!

Talk about mother nature wrecking havoc! I would not have gotten to where I am at today without learning from you, Now the stars have lined up for you, thankfully!

Re: An insect nearly burned down my 67 stepside.
 

Yeah Andy that was some scary stuff for a few minutes. I was shaken pretty good after it was over.

Thanks Jocko
Funny she thinks she is Cujo, her name is MIdget but she thinks she's a giant.

I plan to use it a lot and next to my truck it is my favorite toy.This is now my favorite color.

That's actually the main reason I posted it to let Y'all know to look out for those little bugs. That's my Garage and I had the truck outside in case something went wrong but I sure never thought it would be a fire. It sounds too good to be true but it sure is.

Thanks TBC those are kind words.


And thanks to all my good friends here, may you all have a MERRY CHRISTMAS and happy New Year.

Re: An insect nearly burned down my 67 stepside.
 

You call that a hard luck story? That's nothing. I drove my hotrod S10 with a 383 down to my cousin's about a 1/4 mile from my house and the oil pressure dropped to zero as I was going up his driveway. He's an old time hotrodder so he says no problem lets rebuild it. Same problem as you had, pickup tube fell out.
Ok after a couple months and about 3 grand the motor is ready. I decided not to put it back in my S10 but to put it in my C10. I also had dirt dobbers to clog every line hanging on the wall of cousin's shop. He knew he had a dirt dobber problem so we checked before installing lines. Now it's time to fire up motor and all is good. Motor runs strong and has good oil pressure pegs the gauge, that is until it gets hot then it has 0, zero, nada, no oil pressure. The big cam, big stall, motor didn't work for the C10 anyway so I just pulled it out and bought a GM L31-R crate motor.
By then I'm back at my house with the new motor ready to install, just waiting for a day off work. That's when I get a call at work from a friend with a panicky voice saying someone just stole your motor. That's right someone(I know who) backed up to my shop pulled the doors off with their truck and stole my new motor.
Homeowners Ins. said not to worry you are covered. Yes you are covered just some more paperwork and we will send you a check. Three weeks latter I get a call, " Sorry you are not covered after all" bye thank you.
I am happy to say though today I have motor #3 a GM crate L31-R in my truck running great and the thieves are in jail(but getting out soon). I sold the S10 and 383 for pennies on the dollar and had to buy two crate engines to get one in my truck but I never gave up.

Re: An insect nearly burned down my 67 stepside.
 

Great story. You wouldn't believe some of the insects, rodents, tools, mud and other debris I have pulled out of some of the antique farm tractors restored over the past 30 years.
Good rule of thumb - if it is a new or original oil line, fuel line, water hose etc it should be blown through with compressed air before going into anything.
No problem with the mud dobbers here in Arizona..... but when I lived in Oklahoma and started the tractor in the shed after a winter's hibernation, boy were they there and pissed off. nest of 'em in the tractor. Musta got stung 5 or 6 times before running out of the shed.

Re: An insect nearly burned down my 67 stepside.
 

If you got stung,they weren't dirt dobbers!
Dirt dobbers don't sting.Or yours' have some kind of weapon that ours don't have.:lol:
Mike.:chevy:

Re: An insect nearly burned down my 67 stepside.
 

Sounds like something that would happen to me. Oh, the (long) story I could tell about what it took to get the old GTO back together and running.

Glad you slayed the beast and hopefully no permanent damage was done to the transmission.

Re: An insect nearly burned down my 67 stepside.
 

Ya learn something every day. I always figured they were dobbers because of the nests under the tractor hood. I spoke to a lifelong friend last night in OK.... he said naw those weren't dobbers they was yellow jackets.
One thing I AM sure of - they were pissed off.

Re: An insect nearly burned down my 67 stepside.
 

Yeah I worried about that too. If it's bad I will probably get my 700r4 rebuilt or buy a newer one. Mine is an 84 but it was beefed up. I went to the turbo 350 because the front pump seal was leaking on the 700r4 and the PO had had it replaced twice and it still leaked. I had a shop replace the seal and bushing and flush the converter for $100, and when I picked it up they told me it wasn't going to last long because the clutches were bad, and the converter bearing was worn. After they took my $100 of course.