[davem815]

It's been a while since I worked on the truck, but made more progress this month.

The engine would start and idle OK, but did not run good under power and rpm's on the road. I had dropped the distributor in, but not set the timing because is started up and idled OK.

Before I could tune the engine, I needed to get the exhaust quieted down. I had patched the original Y pipe and bolted on a muffler I pulled out of the scrap bin at a muffler shop when we had my son's truck exhaust reworked. It worked for getting the engine running in the shop, but needed to be fixed to make it drivable. I added a new muffler and short exhaust pipe behind the Y pipe. It dumps behind the cab. I reworked my repairs to the Y pipe with muffler wrap and muffler putty. I tightened both Y pipe to manifold donut connection to eliminate leaks there. It's now quite enough now to drive. This will work until I get the truck far enough along that I can drive it to the muffler shop for a new exhaust system.

Now that the exhaust is quite, I tunned it up with new plugs and wires, set the dwell, set the timing, tightened carb down to seal vacuum leaks and adjusted the carburetor. The wife walked in and could not believe how smooth it was idling. It runs good at speed now, maybe just a little tweaking.

Next up was an air cleaner. I thought I had the right air cleaner for the engine. The 307 air filter did not fit, so I exchanged it for one the fit the air cleaner. Then I figured out the air cleaner was for a 350. I found the 307 air cleaner and pieced all of the misc. parts from the old and new engine together and have a complete air cleaner now. I just need to clean the dust off, the paint is good.