I was driving it up a long and not so steep grade one day when the engine made the most horrible banging and clanging racket I ever heard.  I immediatley pulled over and parked the truck.  I had it towed home.  I fired it up and home and it would run but made the same terrible noises.  I pulled the pan and to my untrained eyes nothing looked out of place.  I did find a small piece of "sheet metal" in the pan took it to a couple a people who had a lot more knowledge that I and they weren't sure but surmised it was some sort of splash guard or something that came loose.  I knew this was not the source of the noises and figured the engine "skipped time" and the valves were bouncing off the pistons.

I was about to put myself through college so the truck was put in storage because my savings was going to pay for school.  Shortly after I graduated college I married a woman with two young children and began raising a family.  (Time and $ was scarce)  Well after the girls were grown and on their own and me having better job I finally had some more time and a little more money.  A few years ago I inherited a different big window 1956 f100 of my dads's and it gave me the motivation to get working on Hot Rods again.

So, after nearly 26 years I crawled under the truck to see If I could figure out what went wrong.  After short examination, there it was.  How I missed it way back when I dont' know.  I spotted tiny bit of rod bearing babbit squirting out the side.  I took it apart and found some barley tights rod nuts but journal looked pretty good, the rod looked pretty good.

I measured the journal ok and the cleaned up the rod and journal with some ultra fine emery cloth.  I bought a new set of .20 rod bearings and replaced them all.  They all plastigauged in spec.  A new battery, some new gaskets on the carb, new fuel lines, new fluids and ...presto...running y-block!  Rebuilt the master cylinder and put in new brakes and wheel cylinders, changed all the fluids (trans, overdrive, rearend and of course brake fluid)...presto... rolling down the road under it own power!  Thanks for listening to my long winded story.  I'm just excited!  Below are a couple recent photos and an old photo of the photo shoot with Truckin' Mag.

Thank you guys for your interest and the positive responses.  Moonshadow, my wife likes Hot Rods, muscle cars and old pickups so she was real happy to see it running.  She also liked my dad a lot and understands the sentimental aspect the truck holds for me.  My oldest daughter appreciates it because her husband helped me out a ton to get this truck on the road again.  My youngest daughter likes old pickups too but is not really into it too much. She is happy for me though.

I called my brother after I got mine on the road again and told him he needed to get his pickup going before 2013 so we can call Truckin' Magazine up and have a 30 year anniversery article written.  He has 4 kids at home and doesn't think he will be able to do it.  I'll keep on him. though.

Again thanks for the positive responses, I appreciate it.

Sometime in the future I'll have you build another engine for this one.  With two trucks on the road now it splits the limited truck budget in half.  But with both on the road it doubles the driving pleasure!  See you this weekened and we can talk aobut it.