In case anyone’s curious, this is how Patterson’s vacuum reservoir is setup. Based on what I’ve read, a reservoir was important if running dual wipers. The vacuum begins at the manifold, then winds down under the body.

It winds up underneath to a reservoir tucked in between the frame and the spring for the parking brake.

This is a close up look at the TRICO valve on the reservoir.

This is a not so perfect illustration of how it mounts. Because of the support channels on the floor of the body, the reservoir had to be shimmed down about an inch. The solution was a set of three nuts between the body and the reservoir. Continue reading →

I pulled the head on Patterson last night. I don’t see any cracks in the block nor do I see any obvious signs of coolant, though there might be a tiny bit of residue on the tops of pistons 1 and 2. My initial reaction is that coolant is entering the oil elsewhere. The engine does appear to have a recently replaced water pump. Anyway installing that incorrectly would result in mixing coolant and oil??

The first two photos show how the pistons and head gasket looked right after pulling it. 

Then after pulling off the gasket and vacuuming up the dirt:

The head gasket:

The bottom of the head: