I’ve had the Travelall off the road for about three solid months now, busy with the spring pack swaps while waiting out the snow. In that time I wasn’t starting her up that often, and with the engine surgery on the 800 taking up a lot of time through the last two months, it’s been on the back burner. However, after getting the springs installed I was keen on taking her out for a test spin to see how things felt. The problem was, I couldn’t get her running long enough to get out of the driveway. She started easily, as she always did, but as soon as I got on the gas, the truck died. I could keep her running for short stints but any attempt to get underway stalled out the engine.
So I went down the rabbit hole of pulling the carb and cleaning it out, figuring it had gummed up over the holiday. Re-installing it, I found I was having the same issues, so I started draining the tank after finding a lot of garbage in the fuel filter. As I got down to the bottom of the tank, I found a whole bunch of water—maybe a half a pint worth. That would certainly explain the issues with stalling. I also found some small plant matter in the gas as I used an old pillowcase to filter it into a 5-gallon bucket. I poured the gas off the water and put the contaminated liquid in another container to turn in at the county landfill.
Another test run showed that there was still an issue with the carb, so I pulled the bowl and metering block off the front and broke them down to find the needle was clogged with more of that plant matter. Once I got the engine buttoned back up, a new fuel filter installed, and the bowl filled, the truck ran better—but was still not at 100%. I fooled with the idle mixture screw, the metering screws, and the timing, and got it running well enough to take a solid spin around the block, but she needs some more tuning to be in good shape: my messing with the timing has the engine dieseling on shutdown. And I need to figure out how to secure the fuel tank from water intrusion. My guess is that the used fuel cap I have is not sealing and rainwater is seeping down into the tank.
The takeaway from the test drive is: She feels good! The springs definitely add some spring to the suspension. All my futzing with the axles didn’t seem to have much of an effect on the alignment, because she drove pretty straight and true. One other thing I wanted to do was find out what the axle ratio is once and for all, so I jacked up the rear, marked the driveshaft and tire, and spun the tire one revolution while watching the driveshaft. It came out to 3.73, which is different than the 4.10 gears on the lineset ticket.
Finally, I drilled a small hole in the V3 cupholder and installed a rubber grommet I found at ACE Hardware, which keeps the metal drink stay from clanging on the transmission tunnel cover. Problem solved. The only thing left is to draw out some felt or rubber wings to attach to the underside of the cup cutouts to keep drink containers from rattling around.
While I had it out, I stopped and took a comparison picture of the spring packs before and after:
Meanwhile, I’m making slow progress on the 800. During the week I pulled the master cylinder off the truck, brought it downstairs to the vise and let the piston soak in penetrant for two days. Then it only took a couple of taps on a 14mm socket with a hammer to push the piston down and free up the system. I cleaned up the bowl, wire-wheeled the linkage, and put it back in the truck.
Then I pulled the wheel off the driver’s front side and spent time hitting the fittings with heat and penetrant—to no success. So I destroyed the soft line in an attempt to remove it, freed up the distribution block (which is basically just a 5-way brass block, super scientific) and reviewed the hardware. The pads are wasted: the front has about 1/32″ of material while the rear is down to solid metal, which means the rotors are scored pretty good. However the cylinders and other hardware looks fine, so I’m going to get the front brakes working good enough to drive around the house, and then I’ll worry about spending money on fixing things.
Putting the Travelall fuel regulator on the boat tank hose, I let the fuel pump run and found that it wasn’t flooding the bowl anymore. But I wanted to see how the mechanical pump looked, so I pulled that off. It was, like the rest of the truck, encrusted in grease and mud, but after a bath in oven cleaner, it came out looking shiny and new. It’s an Airtex 6857, which isn’t made anymore—which makes sense, as it features two vacuum outlets, presumably for windshield wipers. It’s also nothing like any of the other pumps I’ve got, so the next step is going to be soaking it in gas to see if I can free up the diaphragms and re-awaken it.