Welding and Seating

We were busy with lots of fun Christmas activities this weekend so my opportunities to work on the truck were limited, but I hit a big milestone Sunday evening. First, I’ll mention the delivery of a brand-new welder from Eastwood, which I was finally able to unbox and use on Saturday evening as the sun was setting. With that, I was able to weld the filler hose bracket onto the front firewall, a captive nut on the bottom of the rocker to mount the fuel tank, and a captive nut on the passenger kick panel to mount the fender skirt properly. After that I found that the fuel hose I’d bought from Amazon—after waiting three weeks for Summit to send me a notification that wouldn’t be able to ship one until 12/28—was 1/2″ too big. I have no idea how I messed that up, but the correct size is on the way.

Returning to the bench seats, I’d started the upright to the rear bench last week but stalled at the corners, as they didn’t resemble the one on the spare ’68 bench I have for reference. But when I returned to the seat portion and realized I had to tuck the fabric behind the metal hinge mounts instead of covering them, I understood how to finish both seats off and how the pattern worked. It took some work but I got the upright 98% finished (I think I might have to try to sew one seam up by hand). Then I consulted a reference photo and connected both seats with refurbished bars and mounted the seat in the truck. I really like the way this looks and I’m excited to get the front seat started.

Posted on   |   by bill   |   Leave a Comment on Welding and Seating  |  Posted in Seats, Travelall

Thanksgiving Picking

Up in New York State to visit my family this Thanksgiving weekend, I reconnected with a guy near my sister’s house who has a lot full of antique iron in some fields off a back road. He’d advertised a Travelette late last year which I was interested in picking over but when the green truck landed in my lap, my plans changed. In February he said he also had a ’62 Travelall panel van in rough shape (he sent me a few pictures) so I figured I’d take a few hours and finally go check it out (the Travelette has since been purchased). I packed my standard recovery kit: tools, torch, PBblaster, impact gun, pry bars, and cold weather gear. I also bought a cordless angle grinder based on previous experiences, but left it in the box in case I didn’t need it.

If you didn’t know where to look for his yard you’d never find it, but what a collection he’s got. He’s heavy into Studebaker, Willys, and old Chevrolet, but there are all different makes sprinkled in. After carefully edging past an ancient Hudson, we cut some brush back and crawled through a hole in the fence to reach the truck.

It was beached next to a dually 50’s Chevrolet truck and a bathtub Nash that was sinking backwards into the dirt. The Travelall was well-used and picked over pretty good, so there wasn’t much to see there; I grabbed marker lights, the rear barn door handle (now I can soak this, disassemble it, and rekey it for the red truck) and the ’62 grille and headlight surrounds, which are in very good shape. The steering column was completely gone as was the manual box, so that was a bust.

I walked through the section I was in and came upon a ’68 pickup with a cap in very good shape. Both doors were inaccessible so I couldn’t get into the cab, and lifting the hood revealed column-shift manual steering, so I didn’t go for that. But the sheet metal on the front clip was in miraculously good shape. Both turn signal buckets were solid and the metal behind them was too, so I talked with the owner and made a deal on the entire nose. He agreed to let me cut it out as opposed to trying to remove all the fasteners (both of the fenders were garbage in the usual C-series way).

So I unfastened what I could, pulled the radiator and drained it for him, and cut both sides out as carefully as possible. I found that my normal-sized 20V batteries weren’t big enough to keep the grinder going for long, so I’ll have to get a pair of larger ones when these are worn out.

After about an hour I had the sheet metal free from the truck but had to cut the bottom mount bolt out to get it around a big homemade bumper. This took several trips back and forth to the garage, where he had my charger on a long extension cord. Then I had to jimmy the clip backwards to scoot it under the top lip of the same bumper. With that out, and a set of perfect taillight buckets, I hauled my finds back to the car and gave him my cash.

He then took me on a quick tour of the collection, where he’s got even more stuff across the street in another field, including a beautiful old cabover IH tractor, several C-series pickups, and a B-series Travelall that used to be a civil defense vehicle. There were rows and rows of Studebakers, a beautiful porthole Buick, Packards and Nashes and a Morris Minor minus its convertible top. The collection went on forever. These kinds of yards are all but extinct up here in salt country, so being able to spend at least five hours there on a snowy Friday was a lot of fun.

As for my new parts, the top of this nose is in rough shape, but I should be able to graft the bottom on to my existing sheet metal. The area around the turn signals on my truck is the worst rust besides the cowl vents I repaired last summer, so having some good metal to work with was worth the effort. I’ve got several taillight lenses, a perfect bucket, and several front lenses. And the ’62 grille and matching dual-light surrounds. All in all, not a bad haul.

Posted on   |   by bill   |   Leave a Comment on Thanksgiving Picking  |  Posted in Junkyards, Purchasing

Weekend Recap, 11.24

I spent Saturday down at Bob’s with my brother in law, working to get the Chrysler back in the garage. The engineering problem I faced was how to push a 4,300 lb. car back up a slight incline into the garage, while also moving it laterally by about ten feet. The solution I came up with involved a hammer drill, several concrete bits, lag bolts and barrels, and a cheap Harbor Freight winch with a remote.

After loading up on the supplies, Glen and I opened up the shiny new garage door and set up for the installation. I measured out two holes for the baseplate and had him start drilling while I assembled the winch. After a couple of tries with different bits and an adjustment in hardware which required a return trip to Lowe’s and a stopoff for tacos.

When we got back, the new bits we bought made relatively short work of 45-year-old concrete, and I was able to anchor the winch into the floor. I pulled the battery from the Chrysler and used that for power (it’s been on a tender since I bought it) and we played out the line to the back of the car. The winch wasn’t powerful enough to pull the car by itself, but with three of us pushing, it was the extra power we needed—as well as a safety measure in case the car got away from us. I hauled the wheel over hard to correct the position and then we pushed/pulled the car up about 3/4 of the way inside. With that done, we jacked up each corner and put it on the dollies so that we could push it to the far side of the garage, as out of the way as possible.

Sunday morning I got out to the Travelall and cleaned off the inside roof with acetone before covering the whole thing with Rust-Stop. While that cured, I pulled the driver’s wheel and cleaned the outside face of the driver’s inner fender with the wire wheel. That was covered with Rust Encapsulator, and while that dried I painted the frame with chassis black. And while the can was open I painted the frame on the passenger side where the gas tank will go.

Inside the cab, I used some chalk to mark out where the sound deadener was going to go, and cut a sheet of kraft paper to test the measurements. After some adjustments I flattened the first sheet out and aligned the center with the centerline of the roof, and peeled a little of the backing off to set it in place. It took some work to get everything oriented correctly, and then I peeled one side off to set it permanently. Give or take 1/8″ on either side, I got it aligned almost perfectly; using the long edge to align the second and third sheets, I made it to the back of the truck centered on the rear doors.

By that point it was getting dark and cold, so I closed up the truck and moved into the basement to work on the base of the rear bench seat. After reviewing some how-to videos to refresh my memory, I cut burlap, foam and carpet padding down to fit the seat and attached the burlap to the frame with some hog rings. Then I stretched the cover over the bench as best I could, working to get the scallops in the back edge into place.

Stretching the cover and clipping it in with the hog rings is exactly the same process as stretching a canvas or mesh for screenprinting: start at the middle of each edge and work your way outwards. Again, the trickiest parts were the indents where the seat is scalloped to avoid the wheel wells, but I realized I could compress the whole seat by kneeling on it and used that to pull the fabric around to the attachment bars.

Overall I’m pretty happy with the results for my first attempt. I put the carpet padding on top of the foam, but Jeff tells me it’s supposed to go underneath, which is what I’ll do with the upright part of the seat. For this I wanted it to be firm directly underneath, and I wasn’t aware there was a firmer foam available for the seat when I bought my materials. I’ve got to carefully add some small holes for the four hinge bolts and the bump stops, which makes me nervous, but Jeff tells me it should be fine.

So next up I have to disassemble the upright for the rear seat and prep it for covering, which means I have to hit it with the wire wheel and spray it down with Rust Converter.

I’m headed north to see my family for Thanksgiving, and there’s a junkyard near my sister’s house with some ancient IH iron, including this rusty Travelall panel truck. I’m not sure what to expect, but he says he’s got other IH stuff in there somewhere, so it should be a fun day for bushwhacking. I bought a cordless angle grinder on contingency but I’m going to leave it in the box so that I can return it if I don’t need it.

Looking at the dashboard, it’s a ’62 or earlier, so it’ll be interesting to get a look at the front clip. At first blush the stuff I see that would be worth something would be the barn doors, but they look pretty rough. Just looking at this photo, the things I see that might be worth picking would be:

  • The barn doors, if they’re salvageable
    • if not, the mechanisms—latches, the rear handle, etc.
    • The windows
  • Any of the chrome—the rear taillights, for example
  • the rear doors, if they’re salvageable
    • Any of the interior mechanisms from these doors—scissors, latches, etc.
    • Chrome brightwork, interior steel surround
  • Either of the bumpers, if they’re in good shape
  • Front wing windows, if they’re OK.
  • Steering wheel/column, if I can get it out

I have no idea what the rest of the truck looks like, but I’ll see when we get out there. And even if the whole thing is a wreck it’ll be fun to go looking.

Posted on   |   by bill   |   Leave a Comment on Weekend Recap, 11.24  |  Posted in Junkyards, Seats, Travelall

Survey Results

I’m feeling better and better about my life choices today. Up on Marketplace, there are two Travelalls for sale on the East Coast. The first one is this crusty green ’63 in a state of disassembly:

The good: it’s a barn door 4×4 Wyoming truck. The rear windows are present(?) The bad: the entire front clip has been removed, and the V8 engine is sitting in pieces in the cargo area, as are the seats. It’s missing a bunch of unobtanium trim. And there’s no title. The price: $4900.

The second truck is this dark green ’62 which we’re told runs. The good: It’s got new brakes, fuel pump, exhaust, and alternator. The 4×4 gear is said to work. The rear windows are present(?) The bad: It’s a rusty 3-speed column shift, 6 cylinder engine, with 2-piece widowmaker wheels. And there’s no title. The price: $6000.

Consulting my spreadsheet, I’m still a long ways away from investing that much money in the red bus, all in.

Posted on   |   by bill   |   Leave a Comment on Survey Results  |  Posted in Inspiration

Weekend Update, 11/18

Saturday was kind of a bust, even though I had sunshine and some reasonably warm weather. I’m currently stalled for want of a welder, so I use the morning to knock out some other minor stuff. I got two more lengths of interior U-shaped weatherstripping from Amazon, and applied that to the two passenger doors. While I was doing that I ran the nylon brush around as much of the leftover adhesive stuck to the inside sheet metal as I could reach before my batteries died. Clearly I’m due for some replacements. Then I got the weatherstripping in, which is a good feeling.

The only welder available for rent was at a Home Depot across town in Dundalk, which just happened to be my hometown Canton location. I reserved a Lincoln Weld-Pak for 4 hours and dragged it home to find it was set up for flux-core wire with no gas attachment. Playing a hunch, I spooled some of my leftover wire into the unit to find it wouldn’t advance—exactly the same problem as my Eastwood. So I drove it all the way back and got a refund. But I couldn’t get my 3 hours of sunlight back, which sucked.

So I cleaned up the rest of the interior weatherstripping, ground out and covered some sketchy spots with Rust-Stop, and then drilled holes in the seat box for mounting to the truck. By 6PM it was completely dark so I had to call it, but not before I covered the newly drilled holes with paint.

Sunday morning I got back outside and installed the seat box temporarily. Everything looks great; I just need another warm day to touch up the paint and shoot clear coat over everything. I’m actually wondering if I should shoot it the same gray as the door cards. Then I cleaned up more of the interior sections, using the nylon brush to get rid of all of the leftover adhesive from the upholstery.

As I got around to the rear section, I examined the panel over the barn doors. The previous owners had gone crazy with a 1/4″ drill bit and a hammer to install a bunch of marker lights on the edge of the roof, and what they left looks terrible. So I busted out the spot weld cutter and drilled out all of the welds I could find, and it came out pretty easily. The steel underneath is unpainted and speckled with surface rust. And the panel itself is in rough shape. I pulled the one I removed from the green truck down and compared both; I figure I can use sections of the green panel to fix the red one. It’s probably way too much work to put into a panel that small, but it’ll be a fun winter project I can tackle when the weather is bad.

After hitting Harbor Freight to pick up a full-body Tyvek suit, I covered myself in PPE and scraped all of the insulation glued to the roof. It was pretty easy in most spots but they went overboard with the adhesive in a couple of places. I switched to a wire wheel on the angle grinder and went over the entire roof to clean it down to bare metal.

There’s only one spot where the metal looks a little rough, and it’s right where I would expect: right around the hole drilled for a light above the front seats. It’s not bad enough to worry me, so I’ll slather it in Encapsulator. It’s now ready for a wipe down with acetone, and then I’ll spray the rest of it with Rust Stop. After that, I’ll start installing heat matting.

In the basement I have the bench seat sitting on a small desk waiting for hog rings and pliers; all of the foam and padding is here, so I’m waiting on my brother-in-law, who offered me his leftovers. That’ll be a great Monday Night Football project.

Posted on   |   by bill   |   Leave a Comment on Weekend Update, 11/18  |  Posted in Paint, Travelall

Warranty

As reported earlier my Eastwood welder decided to stop working completely about two weeks ago. I detached and re-attached the hose and gun assembly, thinking maybe some of the wire had bound up inside, but it came out straight and clean. I was at the end of a spool so I put a new one in, and it worked briefly for a few small welds. But the next time I fired it up I got nothing. The unit powered up fine and the fan was blowing but I got nothing out of the gun. I called Eastwood’s tech support and over the course of a week talked to several very nice CSA’s who took notes and assured me they’d get back in touch, but I had to do the legwork. I took the gun apart and tested for continuity at the switch, which checked out fine, and by request I cracked the case to look over the boards inside to see if anything was visually damaged. I didn’t see anything wrong, but yesterday I was finally sent an RMA by email to exchange for a new unit. I was worried about finding a box to pack it in, figuring I’d already recycled the original, but spied it under a bunch of tarps in the garage, holding the pedal assembly and air cleaner from the green ’68 parts truck. It was a bit worse for wear but I taped it up and reinforced the bottom with some 2-ply cardboard, and sent the unit out this morning. In the meantime I’m going to see if I can rent one locally so that I can finish the small welds required to button up the firewall and gas tank, and get the truck off jackstands. 

The Scout is still at the shop; I haven’t heard back from them yet but when I checked in on Monday he said they’d cleaned off the underside, run it up, and put it on the lift to look for leaks. Apparently there are two outlets on the transfer case that are weeping and another leak up front somewhere. So I’m hoping I’ll hear back from them today, and if not I’ll check in tomorrow.

Finally, I reconnected with a guy who had some parts trucks in a yard close to my sister’s place in New York. He still has a C-series Travelall in his field that I’d like to look over, so I’m making a plan to go check it out when we’re up there for Thanksgiving. So I’ve got to put together a recovery kit to bring north with me, including fire and cutting tools. This might be the impetus to buy a cordless angle grinder, actually…

 

Posted on   |   by bill   |   Leave a Comment on Warranty  |  Posted in Welding

Small Victories

It’s been dry and mild here in Maryland for the past three weeks. Sunny, uncharacteristically warm weather yielded three weeks to enjoy beautiful changing leaves; usually there’s one day of beautiful color, it rains, and the trees are gray and naked until March. There’s also been lots of dry sunlight to work on the truck in shirtsleeves. The forecast for Sunday, however, was for rain, so I decided to visit the local pick & pull for some parts before everything turned into cold soupy mud. I was on the hunt for an electric steering unit from a 2009-2013 Toyota Corolla, and the app told me they had two on the lot. I carried in a metric-based tool roll and impact driver, and found the first car after a few minutes of confusion. Someone had already pulled the dash mostly apart, and most crucially, pulled the lower linkage from the bottom of the steering unit. The second Corolla on the lot didn’t have electric steering assist at all. So I consulted the website for alternatives and found a donor 2009 Nissan Versa several rows over that hadn’t been touched. It only took me several minutes to deconstruct the dashboard to get to the motor, and after a half an hour I figured out how to get it detached from the wheel, off the dashboard, and on the floor. Then I put a socket on the bottom of the linkage and with one mighty pull, got it disconnected from the car.

Back at the house, I laid it out on the bench, tested the motor on 12V power, and verified it worked. Laying it out on the floor with the two columns I’ve got, I’m not sure if I can use either one to make a new unit, but I think the one from the green truck will be the best candidate. Most likely I’ll cut the shaft at the bottom to disconnect it from the power steering unit at the bottom and find a way to construct one good unit out of the two. We’ll see.

The theory here is to have a unit that doesn’t need a computer or any other input to regulate the motor; with no signal from the CAN BUS, the attached ECU (that silver box) will always provide average power assist and return the wheel to center at any speed in what’s called fail-safe mode; and if the motor fails, it just reverts to manual steering. This is what Brian has on his Scout and it’s pretty slick—and his unit was from a Versa as well. Having driven his truck with both the manual and the power steering I can say it makes a huge difference, which is why I’m pursuing this project.

With my welder down, I had to pivot to smaller projects. As mentioned earlier, I had a bunch of things I wanted to knock out, and I got a fair bit of them done. First, I decided to use locknuts and washers to button up my mirrors. It took some travel to find someone with the correct stainless hardware in stock, but once I had that I got the passenger side closed up and mounted on the truck with little hassle. I’m glad I pulled the driver’s side off, because when I went to take the nuts off the rod snapped on both sides as it had on the other one. This was easy to put together, and it mounted quickly. Now both sides of the truck have refurbished, adjustable, period-correct mirrors.

Finally, I started to hunt down live wires on the rear of the truck. There’s a trailer plug with a tangle of wires hanging below the hitch that I can’t identify, so I turned the marker lights on and tested them for continuity. Nothing seemed to work. Another rusted bulb was hanging under the truck, so I tried that one as well; no dice. Looking up. I remembered there was a mystery wire running out of the rear quarter into the back of the door, and put the test wire on that: power! And turning the markers off killed it. So I put a splice on the wire from the license plate holder, connected it to the mystery wire, and used some new stainless hardware to permanently mount the assembly to the rear door. So that’s one more requirement checked off for a street-legal truck; unfortunately now the headlights aren’t working and the front turn signals aren’t lighting. So there’s more work to do.

Posted on   |   by bill   |   Leave a Comment on Small Victories  |  Posted in Electrical, Junkyards, Travelall

Holding Pattern

I’m in the middle of a couple of projects and I can’t currently make headway on most of them. First up, I’m waiting on some parts for gas tank—Summit is supposed to send me a fuel hose with a 90˚ bend, which isn’t supposed to ship until November 21. There are other fuel hoses available, but none of them are long enough to work. So when that shows up, the tank will be ready to hang back up under the truck.

I’m stalled on sheet metal repairs because my welder is down and I’m waiting for Eastwood to get back to me about warranty parts. Their help desk is backed up this week. I’ve got a couple of things I need this for:

  • The clip for the filler hose needs to be welded to the face of the firewall.
  • Three captive nuts that need to be welded to the inside of the firewall for the inner fender skirts.
  • A captive nut that needs to be replaced for the forward gas tank strap.

The mirror repair is the other thing waiting for a welder; I need to cut a couple of metal strips to weld to the threaded rod that goes inside the housing. When that’s ready I can re-assemble the bad mirror and mount it on the truck. I guess I can cut and thread a second rod to refurbish the second mirror while I’m waiting.

So this weekend I think I’ll work on the electrical system and continue troubleshooting stuff like the blinkers, high-beams and get the  license plate light working, and try to install the cabin light. There is no provision for a door-actuated dome light anywhere, so I’m going to do some research into how that might work.

Depending on weather, I might be able to touch up and clearcoat the seat box this weekend. At the very least I’d like to drill for bolts and get the mounting location dialed in.

But if it does indeed get down to 60˚, I can start scraping the insulation off the ceiling. For that I have to suit up in Tyvek and use a fan to blow the particles out as I go; fiberglas insulation is hateful in any form. I’ve got 70% of a roll of Cool It heat matting that I can start with but I’m going to have to buy a bunch more to cover the whole thing.

One other thing I might do is venture out to my local pick-and-pull and snag an electrical setting setup from a Corolla. I’ve got some instructions and details from a couple of locations as to what I need to get and from which models, and the weather is supposed to be pretty nice (and dry; there’s nothing more hateful than wandering through a swampy junkyard), so it might be a good day for an early junkyard trip.

Posted on   |   by bill   |   1 Comment on Holding Pattern  |  Posted in To-Do List, Travelall