Distributor Stuck - 233CI

100% agree on the cage nuts.
That's why I spent the extra effort to remove them instead of cutting or grinding them off. Then you have no bolt head and it's more difficult to work them free.
But either way it's a fight.
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Cage nuts are nothing special. Vintage Ford used them and Bob Drake and Denis carpenter sell them.
If you want to spend less, you can get cage nuts from, https://www.auveco.com/product/nuts.html
have at-least 5 different styles of cage-nuts. No, I am not selling.

I wouldn't call them cage nuts, they are welded in threaded hunk of metal,

Not really. They are solid steel nuts and have a sheet metal cage around them as do all cage nuts. You can tear the sheet metal off to replace the nuts but I don't want to do all that if I don't need to.

Getting them is not the problem. Replacing them is.
I always try to avoid damage to original parts if possible.
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Not really. They are solid steel nuts and have a sheet metal cage around them as do all cage nuts. You can tear the sheet metal off to replace the nuts but I don't want to do all that if I don't need to.

Getting them is not the problem. Replacing them is.
I always try to avoid damage to original parts if possible.
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Apparently once again International did design changes within a model production,

these are the welded in round hunks of metal with a flat edge and drilled tapped hole that are on all the KB fenders I have, these are where the bolts that hold the inner fender to the fender screw into, not cage nuts, at least not on my trucks,

My KB-5 has the box body made by York-Hoover Corp., York, Pennsylvania. Date of manufacture is 5-13-48. My truck has the welded-in style of nuts on the inner fenders, not the cage style nuts.

I just dropped off my generator at a local generator rebuilding shop and they are going to convert the 6-volt generator to a 12-volt unit. Said I will get it back in a day or two as he has done several of these conversions.

I am going to swap to the 12-volt negative ground and am in the process of doing just that. What I am going to do is first get the engine running on the 12-volt system. I took a much closer look at the wiring in general and it is in poor shape with the cloth covering exposing bare wiring, several previously spliced & replaced wiring, and black electrical tape holding much of it together. So I have decided I am going to put a new wiring harness in the truck. To do this, I am now going to pull the front fenders/grille/radiator as a unit per the factory manual.

By pulling the nose off, I will be able to easily get to the distributor and can continue to see if I can get the thing broke loose so it will turn as it should. I can also easily get to the wiring/harness much better this way rather than bending over the fenders. I also can do a little sandblasting and metal repair on the nose section just to bring it up to better/preserved condition. Have a new gauge cluster (which I will add the 12v to 6v Runtz reducers) and it looks like the entire dashboard simply unbolts from the cab so it can be dropped down making it easier to do wiring work or any other repairs - which I will post as I find 'em.

I had a hard time understanding the picture of the inside of the box , at first glance I thought it was an empty storage space ,like you were out driving the truck !!?! , That is a VERY cool box truck , the likes of which I have never seen !

Railway Express Agency (REA) can be googled. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railway_Express_Agency They were a large company that moved railroad freight much like Fed-Ex moves packages today. Keep in mind that the railroad was used to ship many products in its day. The box body was built by a well known and big body company called York-Hoover Corporation out of York, Pennsylvania. http://www.coachbuilt.com/bui/y/york_ho ... hoover.htm Essentially, they took whatever truck chassis make and fitted the box from the firewall back, thus you will see Internationals as well as Fords having the same configurations. They also made the first jeep designed bodies for the Bantam company: http://www.yorkblog.com/yorkspast/2015/ ... est-jeeps/

nice truck! hard to find them in that good of shape, seen a few thru the years, rust buckets.

Not sure how hard you pulled and twisted it, but there is a felt seal that sets in a recess in the block to seal the distributor shaft. Perhaps it dried out and is now held by rust. After removing the hold down bolt under the distributor, it should slid out fairly easy. I rotate the motor so the rotor is to the top for referance. That way, when I reinstall the distributor, the slot in the bottom is of the distributor aligned. Whether you need to do this or not, I do.