Model56s

I would not have paid more than $8k.

He was asking $14k, significantly high IMHO.

And a little more eye candy. All gauges work. I crawled under it - essentially no rust.

More of my old friend.

My wife has family in a small town in central Vermont. Over the last few years I’ve passed this truck many times on the way from her sister’s house to a larger town a few miles up the road. This truck has been active at the owner’s place since I first spotted it in 2020. On our latest trip to VT last week I saw a For Sale sign leaning on the nearly flawless grill and decided to stop by to look at it. The owner came out of the building in the background and we had a long conversation that included antique tractors since he had a 1935 John Deere in the building that he (of course) restored himself. There are two types of Vermonters - the original self-reliant, down to earth mechanically capable, like John in this case, and everyone else, many of whom are relative newcomers to this pastoral state. I could run an entire thread on “everyone else”. The truck is unrestored, except an engine overhaul. John started it within 2 revolutions and it purred. If I didn’t have two collector vehicles in my garage already, this one would have come home with me from this trip - driven to Missouri at 50mph exclusively on 2-lane blacktop roads over several days. I know a Christian youth horse camp not far from my house that would benefit from this old timer.

Very much agree with Leigh. The similarity between the ‘33 - ‘34 Ford grille and this one is striking.

Try Auto City Classic. They may have an aluminum radiator that could fit your application. I paid $199 for an excellent repro TIG welded aluminum radiator for my 56 Chevy truck. $2100 is many times the cost of a new radiator. I just did a Google search which returned several providers. Hemmings Classic Car also did a story on a radiator manufacturer in the South, I can't recall their name though.

Beautiful shot. Your 65 is stunning enough to flip a GM bigot.

Thanks Terry, I began 3D printing in March 2020 and love the hobby, using CAD applications to make molds for aluminum casting. I’ve been intending to get into scan-to-capture so your post is a catalyst. I hope to be able to use my iPhone.

Time to break out the mini mill!

I had no idea Mary K was active in the 30s.

Thanks! Also, looks like you have a 50 Buick. My avatar shows my 49 Super Sedanette which I bought in February 2012.

Hi Dan, I appreciate the info! It looks like the odometer wheels in your Chrysler might use a different internal mechanism than the Chevy’s. Again, I couldn’t figure out how to disassemble the wheels to see how their ratcheting mechanism works. It’s neat to see the similarity of the Chrysler mechanism using a copper inductive drum influenced by a rotating magnet. Thanks again for posting. As a novice, the only variable in accuracy that came to mind was overall tire diameter, but what you point out is logical. The likelihood is that the Hydramatic transmission speedo drive gear in my truck is correct since it came out of another 55-57 Chevrolet light truck, and my speedo was very likely the original.

I stumbled on this video which explains why the designer used a copper drum with a magnetic bar in the mechanism, so I’ll conclude with this. Enjoy.

Good luck with the project! The lines of mid30s cars are among the best of all time. I’m glad you’re redeeming this piece of history.

Success! The truck is now equipped with a functioning and possibly accurate speedometer, the squealing original that was in the dash. This was bothering me so I didn’t put it off to tomorrow. The squeal came from the input shaft which was difficult to turn on the bench. The needle couldn’t be removed without damaging it, so I worked around it and the disconnected speedo face. I removed and cleaned the odometer cylinder, so the numbers are bright again. I used brake cleaner to clean out the input shaft & tunnel and It spins freely, with the needle moving accordingly. I used a little WD40 on the blade of a small plain end screwdriver to introduce the oil into the shaft tunnel. I’m sure there is a proper speedo lube available. I swapped out the non-functioning speedo for the now-cleaned and lubed original, attached the cable and took it for a test drive. It responded immediately and smoothly registered credible speeds, with the odometer rolling like it should, and making no sound. The only conclusion I could come to from this exercise is that the newer speedo is incompatible with the cable. The only part number on the device was L565 on the cast housing (1st picture on the third post). It’ll take some work to match a new cable to this one if I ever need it. I’ll buy a GPS speedometer app for my iPhone and see how it performs, but this wraps up the effort. Thanks all for following this, and for your comments.

As interesting as it is, that project is a big hill to climb.

Thanks James, the referral is appreciated and along with Mr. Bennett’s fits exactly with the intent of the post to provide some insights. For many years I’ve turned to the AACA forum for education and hope I can return the the favor.

As the speedo responded in my bench test, I think it’s OK. The transmission gear is ruled out since the cable inside the sheath turned in the parking lot so I think it may be the wrong cable. I’ll know tomorrow. Thanks for the thoughtful response.

I test drove the truck with the cluster not secured, just sitting in the dash, and no luck - no needle movement or noise. So I pulled into a parking lot to pull the cluster out enough to disconnect the cable from the speedometer, much easier than it might sound. My idea was to re-insert the cable with the truck moving slowly, thinking it hadn’t mated properly to the square female speedo receptacle. To my surprise I found the end of the cable was almost too hot to handle, so clearly there’s a problem at the end (mating?). I observed the cable end rotating with the truck crawling along at maybe 3 mph, but after slowly reinserting it at that speed still had no luck when I drove off🤔 Since it responded so easily on the bench, I’m thinking the issue is not with the speedometer mechanism but somehow with the cable interface. I’ll remove the cable tomorrow and see what I can see. I’ll also get the needle off the original speedo and go through it.

The first picture below shows the magnetic bar, and a yellow plastic worm gear which is driven on one end by a worm gear on the bar’s shaft. This worm gear in turn drives a vertical gear shaft (seen being removed in the second picture below) that drives the odometer cylinder. These two gear shafts are needed to translate power 90 degrees since the odometer cylinder lies perpendicular to the input shaft. The next three pictures here show just how simple it is to remove the cylinder and vertical drive gear shaft. The cylinder axle is secured to the housing by a brass clip which fits into a groove in the shaft, secure and very simple. The last picture shows the main components laid out. The drum shaft passes through the hole at the center of bar at the bottom of that picture. I couldn’t figure out how to disassemble the cylinder to see how it works. I reassembled these components in the housing, leaving the lubricant in place. Once I verified that both the drum (needle) and odometer cylinder indeed move when I spin the shaft, I put the speedo back in the cluster (just 4 screws and the cable) and installed it in the dash. Unfortunately, this exercise didn’t reveal why this speedometer stopped working after just a few miles, but I do know from using both speedometers that the squeal of the original speedo did not come from the shaft. Also, I can’t get the needle off the original speedo to disassemble and inspect it, but I’ll work on that later - these are so easy to remove that I’d like to have a working spare. I’ll test drive the truck this afternoon and post the result.

This speedo is surprisingly simple and almost certainly differs from others, so please understand the limitations of this example. The speedo cable mates to an internal shaft inside the mechanism, terminating in a magnetized bar. The cable spins the bar clockwise (looking from the face) inside a free-moving copper drum, about 1 1/2” in diameter by 1/2“ deep, inducing the drum to move clockwise on its own shaft. The drum is attached to a spiral hair spring just like those found on a watch balance wheel. As cable spinning slows down and stops with vehicle movement, the spring returns the drum to the full leftward counterclockwise position accordingly until a tab on the drum contacts a stop on its housing, which corresponds to 0 mph. A tiny shaft attached to the closed face of the drum extends just under the odometer cylinder through the speedo face, onto which the speedo needle is press fit, so however the drum moves, so goes the needle. The first two pictures shows the mechanism with the odometer showing I logged 5.7 miles before it gave out. The copper drum is inside the aluminum cylinder. In the third picture you can see part of the closed face of the copper drum, and the hair spring, inside its housing with the odometer cylinder and its vertical worm drive gear removed (an easy process!). The shaft that the speedo needle attaches to can be seen close to the odometer cylinder in the second picture. In the fourth picture the drum housing with the drum still in place has been removed. One end of the hair spring is attached to the other side of the drum and the other end to the housing.

Two years ago I bought a ‘56 Chevrolet panel truck and with a few minor items remaining completed it’s restoration last month. The seller included an extra instrument cluster with all gauges and a newer speedo (not brand new, but showing all zeros on the odometer). The original odometer in the truck registered 89,995 miles, I’m assuming actual mileage. When I got the truck on the road in April the newer speedo briefly registered 10-20 mph then quit working, so this past week I swapped it out for the old one in the original cluster, which worked. But it squealed at speeds above 25 and then abruptly stopped working, so I decided to dismantle the newer one to see what I could do. I was surprised and encouraged to find how simple the speedo was and want to pass this on. I’ll break down what I saw and learned into a couple shorter posts. What I’m going to show won’t be new to many on the forum, but it will hopefully be to other novices like like me.

Check out the plating products from Caswell. You can do this yourself, practice on a couple samples like Legos, etc.

I would have regretted selling this car too, so no surprise the seller is buying it back. If he was following this post he knows what he’s getting. Great project, your knowledge of this technology and ability to execute is impressive.