Category: Progress

Lit, Part One

A redneck truck in a redneck shack

I snuck out to the garage after doing the dishes last night and messed around with some of the electrics, inspired by the fact that the license plate light actually worked. Within about a half an hour, I pulled both of the taillight buckets, swapped them out for some better examples in my spares, cleaned the wiring contacts, and got them both working. The front running lights are in worse shape. I had to pull the front bumper off to access them, and found that it weighs a metric ton. It’s made out of 1/2″ thick C-channel and I would hate to be the car on the other side of it in an accident. One of the buckets came out easily but the other is held in with a rusted screw which needs to be extracted.

Finally, now that I can open the driver’s door all the way, I hit all of the retaining screws with penetrant, pulled them out, propped the door up, and screwed it in tight. It now closes almost cleanly, but the door striker needs to be taken apart and lubricated.

Posted on   |   by bill   |   Leave a Comment on Lit, Part One  |  Posted in Electrical, Scout 800

All Spark, No Joy

I put in another day of work on the Scout 800 to try and breathe life into the engine over the weekend (and before the snow fell), and I was met with failure at almost everything I tried.

When I left off last week, I was looking at an engine that would crank, a distributor sending spark to the plugs, and a carburetor backfiring when I sprayed it with ether, which told me the timing was way off. So I started the new day by cranking the motor over until I felt air coming out of the #1 cylinder, which indicated the compression stroke. I pulled the distributor back out, lined it up properly (rotor pointing at cylinder #1) and re-stabbed it, then verified I was getting spark at the plugs. I also pulled the coil out of the Travelall and dropped that in, figuring that maybe the used coils I had weren’t providing enough power. But no amount of cranking, fiddling with the wiring, adding the battery from the Scout, or fooling with the carb got the engine to catch.

At this point, I think it’s one of a couple of things:

  1. It’s not getting enough power. The engine turns over VERY slowly. I replaced the positive battery cable with a new one and cleaned up the negative cable connection on the block, so I don’t think it’s a delivery issue. But my jumper cables didn’t seem to be transporting any power anywhere, which was frustrating. (I have one heavy-duty set that’s probably 40 years old from the repo lot and a cheap set from HD that I got to help jumpstart a van in a Wegman’s parking lot a few years ago.)
  2. The starter is either bad or not getting enough juice. I have four spares and for love or money could not get any of them to respond, but now that I think about it, I wasn’t jumping them the right way. Luckily, this should be easily remedied this evening.
  3. I’m not getting any compression in the cylinders. I have no doubt that the rings are pretty frozen after 10 years of sitting, but if I was feeling strong wind from cylinder 1 when spinning the crank by hand, I have to imagine there’s some compression. David dropped my compression tester off this weekend, so that’ll be the first thing I check out before pulling the starter.

During the day, I took a bunch of breaks to think over next steps. This keeps me out of trouble and away from going off half-cocked and getting myself in trouble. One of the things I did was to pull the old bias-ply spare off the tailgate, jack the truck up, and put it on to see how it looked. I actually dig it a lot!  The original wheels are skinny—16×6″, which is perfect for a set of military-style pizza cutters which would look period-correct on this truck. I’m pretty sure I saw the other two up at Dan’s place behind the garage, in which case I’ll grab those next time we’re up there. In the meantime, the white wagon wheel spare I got with Peer Pressure turns out to be the exact same size and backspacing as the wagon wheels already on this truck, so I’ve got five of those now.

I also found a couple of 5/16″ bolts and used those to fasten the rear of the cab top to the truck. There are only two at each corner right now, but it’s got five mounting points across the bulkhead, so I’ll add more later on. I can’t figure out, however, how the front of the top  is supposed to attach to the windshield. I assume there are holes that go down into the windshield frame, but the top hangs out over the front of the windshield frame far enough that I don’t think it fits right. More investigation is warranted here.

Here’s the running total on this truck so far:

Item Cost
1966 Scout 800 $500
Lunch for the recovery crew $85.00
Curved points $7.00
Battery cable $33.37
Carb Rebuild kit, fuel pump $46.30
Total $671.67

Meanwhile, I ran the Travelall up with the intention of taking it for a test spin after torquing the U-bolts down tight. But I had the same problem that popped up last week: the engine bogged down and died on acceleration every time I got on the gas. I limped it across the street and then right back into the driveway, and looked things over: the clear fuel filter right after the pressure regulator was filled with crud. So I replaced that and parked the truck, then pulled the carb off to hose it out with brake cleaner. I have no idea where I’d be getting crud in the fuel from, but it’s pretty obvious I’m going to have to empty the tank and check it for dirt again.

I did take a little time to install one of the new cupholders on the bench seat, and I’m really happy with the way they turned out. I think this looks fantastic. The only thing I want to add now is a hole in the center of the drink crossbar to add a small rubber bumper of some kind to dampen vibration between it and the trans tunnel cover.

Posted on   |   by bill   |   Leave a Comment on All Spark, No Joy  |  Posted in Progress, Scout 800, Travelall

Stocking Up

In another example of late-stage capitalism, a huge conglomerate of auto parts manufacturers has been imploding over the last couple of months after the company failed to meet its debt payments—debts racked up by purchasing more companies. This means that known brands like Raybestos, Autolite and Anco are shutting down completely. I use parts from each of these manufacturers on my trucks, so I’m going to spend some money I hadn’t budgeted to stockpile some parts: brake shoes, cylinders, wiper blades, and spark plugs. Brake parts are some of the hardest things to find these days, so I ordered a spare set of Raybestos shoes for the Travelall, a set of Autolite 85 plugs (good for all IH engines) and a set of Anco wiper blades for the Scout II.

Saturday morning broke sunny and warm. The temperatures by 11AM were over 40˚ with a forecast in the mid-50’s, so I made a beeline for the driveway and got to work installing the passenger side spring pack on the Travelall. At first things went very smoothly, and I was thinking I would be able to wrap the project up in a couple of hours, but hubris had gotten the better of me. I had to clean up the threads on both shackle bolts (I’m re-using the originals because they’re nonstandard shoulder bolts pressed into the fang mount and shackle). Once I’d done that I was able to get the rear shackle in place but the front fang took a bunch of time, clamps, and adjustment to wiggle into place so that I could get new bolts secured.

Once that was done I tightened up the U-bolts on each side and started the truck up to get it up to temperature. My intention was to take it for a quick spin around the block, but I found that it was stalling on acceleration. I’m not sure if it’s an issue with the accelerator pump or something else, but it was getting dark and I didn’t want to strand the truck out on the street somewhere, so I pulled it back in the driveway to diagnose later.

On Sunday I had a little time after doing some house projects and set up the MIG welder to assemble three C-series cupholders I got from SendCutSend. These are the Version 3 design, made from 14 ga. steel with wider openings for drinks, a revised curve around the front edge, and a simplified drink stand underneath. I’m pretty happy with these, although I’m going to make one final modification to the drink stand, but these three will go out for powder-coating and then I’ll see if I can market these to the Light Line dealers as premade units.

Posted on   |   by bill   |   Leave a Comment on Stocking Up  |  Posted in Design, Part Numbers, Travelall, Welding

Cold-Weather Updates

Taking full advantage of another day off, I returned to the garage and plugged in the space heater, for as much as that’s going to heat an uninsulated shack put up in the 1920s. Regardless, three layers of winter clothes helped cut the chill back and I found that when I kept moving, I stayed plenty warm. The first order of business was to move a bunch of large body panels and other spare parts into the greenhouse. I desperately need more room in the garage, especially in the winter months, and so moving a bunch of big bulky body panels out there really freed up a bunch of space. And, having the other panels that were stacked behind the garage now under cover helps me sleep a little better. All of the shelves and bins got reorganized, and I finally unboxed my new TIG welder, which is smaller than I thought it would be. I can’t wait to get a bottle of argon and start noodling with that.

With that done I warmed up Peer Pressure in the driveway and pulled the battery out of the Travelall to do some more electrical testing in the 800. I wanted to trace the wiring back into the dash to find the fuse panel, so I started at the bulkhead connector in the engine bay, isolating the two 14ga. blue wires that carry the main power to and from the ammeter on the dash. The connector was covered in grime and dirt, but a shot of electrical cleaner got rid of most of it. I unscrewed the two leads, wirebrushed everything, and connected it back up.

Inside the cab I pulled the glove box out after cutting the rusted screws off to allow better access to the wiring, and hosed more of the bolts down with penetrant. After I got a constant 12V there with the key on, I pulled the dash panel back off and looked for power there. I got nothing at the ammeter, the next link in the chain, so I pulled a replacement from my spares and put that in. The original unit in this truck was an aftermarket Stewart-Warner so something had happened with the original one at some point.

It took a while to get the new one on (25˚ with no gloves on cold metal makes for fumbly fingers) but after I cleaned all the other connectors, I connected the battery back up, waited for any visible smoke, and turned the key to ACC. I still got nothing on the panel, but I turned it off and back on and accidentally went past ACC and felt the starter bump! Elated, I tried it one more time, heard the starter catch, and saw the ammeter move, which means the broken link is now fixed. I’m still not getting any other electrics—the light switch isn’t working, for example—but if the starter is working, that’s a huge win.

Under the truck, I could only move the crank bolt a little bit, so I got under the transmission and pulled the flywheel cover off. It’s much easier to access than on Peer Pressure which is a good thing—I can get a flywheel wrench on it with no problem.

Saturday morning I drove the rear leaf springs from the Travelall down to a very sketchy industrial section of Baltimore to be worked on. The guys there told me the best thing to do is add two helper leaves instead of trying to re-arch them, so they’ll go from 7 leaves to 9 if I’m understanding them right. They’re going to replace all of the bushings and provide me with four new U-bolts to mount the springs back up to the axles. I have to go and source four bushing bolts for the body, even though the ones I pulled off look to be in good shape.

Posted on   |   by bill   |   Leave a Comment on Cold-Weather Updates  |  Posted in Electrical, Scout 800

Saturday Tinkering

The weather was reasonably warm (~40F˚) on Saturday, and I had some stuff to catch up on out in the garage, so I got my cold weather gear on and got to it.

  • The rear axle on the Travelall has been a mystery for a while, so I wanted to do some research on it. I jacked up the back of the truck, put it on stands, and pulled both of the rear wheels off. Measuring from mounting surface to mounting surface, the rear axle is 60.75″ wide, which equals a “narrow track” Dana 44. Then I scrubbed the ID tag on the axle enough to reveal what looks like the numbers 3.73–which is a surprise, because the LST says it should be a 4.10. A 3.73 axle is a little more highway-friendly, but I’d like something even lower. I think I’m going to have to jack it back up and measure out the revolutions to be sure of what I’ve got.
  • I finally got both of the latches for the rear lockbox installed and working. I’d ordered thicker and longer catches from SendCutSend, and after a little filing they fit on the locks perfectly. Now I want to find a simple way to build a tray inside each  for organizing tools and spare parts.
  • I blew the dust out of the gauges in the Travelall so that they’ll show up a little better at night. I did find that the right-side gauge light isn’t working, which might be the reason some of the other lights are acting funky. I have to consult the wiring diagram to see what circuit that lives on, and why it’s not working (everything tested perfectly before it was installed).
  • I moved the trucks around to see what kind of space I’ll have for the Scout 800, and it looks like I can tuck it in behind the Travelall and in front of the garage without blocking the doors.
  • Finally, I reorganized the available floor space in the garage, which was getting crowded.

We’ve had two bouts of winter weather so far: last Monday they pre-salted the roads and delayed school 2 hours for what amounted to a cold rainstorm. On Thursday we actually got about 1″ of snow, and the plows came through to salt everything. So the trucks will be off the roads until we get a good heavy rainstorm and things dry out, which is both a bummer but also means I can get started pulling springs out of the Travelall.

Posted on   |   by bill   |   Leave a Comment on Saturday Tinkering  |  Posted in Progress

Back and Forward

When we last left off, I was rebuilding the original Carter glass fuel pump that came on Darth Haul. I did that two weekends ago but had to wait on re-installing it around work and the weather. At lunchtime last week I ran outside and put it in, filled the carb bowl with gas and started the engine, keeping an eye on the fuel pump. After three tries it wasn’t pulling any fuel.

I brought the spare from the green truck inside, tore it down, and cleaned that one up. I replaced two of the rubber valves and put it back together, and the valves worked when I tested them. On Saturday I swapped that unit in and repeated the process, but it wasn’t pulling fuel either. I brought the original back to the bench, preloaded the main valve properly, and swapped it back in the truck, but it still wasn’t pulling fuel. Frustrated, I gave up, ordered an adjustable pressure regulator on Prime, and turned to other things.

One of those included a dump run, so I loaded up the Scout and took her out for a test spin—the first long drive after replacing the rotors. This went flawlessly; the brakes feel great. They’re even and smooth, and the truck doesn’t jerk to the left anymore. And most importantly, they’re not cooking the wheel hubs like they were before. I’m going to jack up each side and tighten the bolts one more time, but I think that task is complete.

The regulator showed up Sunday morning so I pulled the hose off the mechanical pump and put the electric pump back on, followed by the regulator and a transparent filter. The engine turned right over and the idle settled down after I opened the choke up all the way. I did three test drives: one around the block, one around the neighborhood, and one to Ellicott City to get my hair cut. The truck ran perfectly, and most importantly the front brakes stayed cool and free, which means my second bleed of the system seems to have worked.

I’m not happy about having the electric system cobbled back in, but I’m tired of futzing with the mechanical system right now, so I’m going to stick with this until the spring and sort out the issues then.

Next up, I’ve got some small things to tackle and then some big ones:

  • It sounds stupid, but I’d like to have dome lights in the truck. The lead for the light exists and it does have power, but I’m unclear as to how the circuit is switched on and off. If it’s anything like the Scout, the light switch on the dash controls the dome circuit (there are no door switches) but it shouldn’t currently be live like it is. I’ve got four original IH dome lights ready to be wired in series—two for over the seats and two for over the cargo area; I just need to read up on the wiring diagram for these. Oh—and this will require…
  • Installing the headliner bows. I’ve got these etch primed and ready for paint, but don’t have a headliner solution in hand.
  • It would be nice to have a speaker wired into the dash for the radio; there’s a spot for a single 4″x10″, but I have to buy something to put in.
  • I ordered some stuff from SendCutSend last week: two pairs of lock latches for the seat box that are slightly longer than the ones that came with the locks, as well as a new improved version of the cupholder mount. The latches should be long enough to actually lock, and I can then store tools and parts in the truck securely. The cupholder is modified to have wider openings for the cups so that I can add rubber sound deadening around the openings, and narrower at the flat section so that it doesn’t collect so much dust. I also added holes for the mounting bolts. This will get welded up and prepped for install this week.
  • The rear floor is completely unbolted from the truck because I want to pull the rear springs out and have them rebuilt. Doing this with the floor out will make life much easier, but I’m going to wait until the roads get salty and I’m not driving her as much.
  • I also want to cut out the crappy floor repair on the driver’s side and replace it with new sheet metal. It’s going to take one flat sheet of 24″ x 32″ steel, with a slight bend at the front side and a gentle lip on the A-pillar. I’m going to have to pull the front bench up and drill out a couple of the spot welds on the vertical bench support to get underneath—the rot goes under the corner support I built this spring, so that’s going to take some careful surgery.

Meanwhile, there’s a good chance the stash of trucks up at Dan’s house includes a 16″ wheel with a 4.5×5 bolt pattern, which I would love to swap for the mismatched wheels on the driver’s front of the truck. There’s nothing wrong with the wheel itself other than it won’t accept a fancy IH dome hubcap like the other three, and I would like to be matchy-matchy before I paint them all white. We’re still waiting on the family to find titles for the two 800’s up there so that Brian and I can buy them and haul them off.

Build Season on YouTube has a great two-part series on reviving a D-series pickup, which is great to see:

Posted on   |   by bill   |   Leave a Comment on Back and Forward  |  Posted in Brakes, Purchasing, To-Do List, Travelall

On Time

I bribed Bennett with a T-shirt. Well, a T-shirt and an R-series doorhandle. Actually, a T-shirt, doorhandle, and donuts.

Realizing I’m way over my head trying to sort out the timing issue on Darth Haul, I figured it was time to bring in the big guns. Bennett has years of experience with all manner of different vehicles, and I figured that knowledge was what I needed to figure out what the hell is happening. I got all of my tools prepared, pulled the Scout forward and was finishing up installing a replacement hydraulic line to the clutch when Bennett walked down the driveway. I already had the engine monitor and my timing light hooked up, and over our first donut I explained all of the symptoms and what I’d done to date. We puzzled over things for a bit, and he wisely suggested starting with the basics: verifying the #8 cylinder was at TDC, then making sure the rotor was pointed in the right direction. We used my compression tester to bump the engine, and then went to the old-school method where I laid underneath and turned the crank bolt by hand until we hit the compression stroke.

When we found that, we looked at the timing mark on the flywheel and found that where it should have been pointing at 0, it was actually somewhere past 25˚ advanced, which was….very wrong. We verified we were at TDC again, made sure to mark where the rotor was pointing, verified the plug wires were all in the right order, and scratched our heads a bit. Then we tried cranking the truck over to see where the timing was. It was, of course, very bad, and running choppier than it had been before, blowing clouds of white smoke.

Shutting it down, we considered pulling the distributor and moving it back a tooth, figuring maybe the balancer had slipped or the distributor had been stabbed erroneously, but Bennett scratched his head a little more and started looking at the carburetor. We verified all the connections were correct, put a hose on the EGR valve (which was plugged off, as was the port on the back of the carburetor) and started the truck again. This made it happier, and while it was still choppy, it ran a little better. Bennett messed with the distributor while I read out the RPM, but we couldn’t get it to smooth out or calm down.

We then started fooling with the metering jets on the carb, and Bennett was puzzled at the fact that they were only open a half a turn while the engine was obviously running very rich. He then asked me if I knew how much pressure the electric pump was putting out, which I didn’t. He thought about that for a minute and suggested that maybe the electric pump was overfilling the bowl, which was why the engine was running rough. He’d had this very problem in a Mustang years ago, and knew that the Holley 2300 doesn’t like anything above 4 lbs. of pressure. So we rigged up a vacuum feed to the carb with a squeeze bottle full of gas and used that to fill the bowl. That seemed to make a difference, and then we carefully started dialing in the proper metering and the idle circuit. In a couple of minutes, we had the RPM down to about 800 and the engine running smoothly. He put the timing light on it and found that it was only 15° advanced, which was a huge improvement over where it had been before. Letting it idle off the gravity feed, I was amazed at how much better it sounded and smoother it ran.

Grinning, we both stood back and let it run for a bit until it ran out of gas. He had work to do at home, so he took off at about 2 o’clock, and I got Finn to help me bleed the brake system one more time. Then I went to the basement, set up my tools on the workbench, and started rebuilding the Carter fuel pump. This is the original pump off the truck, and should allow for the proper fuel pressure going to the carb. I followed the directions in a YouTube video posted by the company who made the kit, and found it very easy—almost meditative. With the football game on over my workbench and a cold beer next to the toolbox, it was a nice way to spend a Sunday afternoon. The whole pump is now ready to go, minus a fuel filter, which is at the local Napa to pick up. Hopefully tomorrow afternoon it’ll dry out and I can stick it in place during my lunch break.

Posted on   |   by bill   |   2 Comments on On Time  |  Posted in Carburetor, Friends, Travelall

Brakes: Check

After a couple of weeks of fits and starts, I focused on the front brakes of the Scout Saturday morning. I’ve been held up to date by incorrect or missing directions on how to disassemble the locking hubs on the front axle, the roemoval of which is required for getting the rotor assembly off the truck. All of the various service manuals talk about a particular snap ring that needs to come out before pulling the hub assembly out (at the risk of dropping a handful of roller bearings all over the driveway, a terrifying thought) but I could not identify or find this snap ring anywhere. Finally, I decided to chance it and gingerly pulled the hub assembly off—and found that there was no snap ring and that the inner gears came off with the outer assembly.

With this out of the way, it was easy to remove the caliper, pull the rotor/hub assembly off, and pounded the studs out from the back side of the old rotors. With a hammer and socket extension I pounded the studs into the new rotor assembly, and put everything back on the truck. The driver’s side went just as easily, although the locking hub mechanism there didn’t have the same washer/snapring holding the gears to the outer assembly. Looking it over, I don’t think that makes a difference, so I put it back the way I found it (it’s worked just fine for 17 years) and buttoned up the wheels.

Out on the road, the brakes feel very good: they’re even and don’t immediately pull to the left side, which is a huge improvement. There’s a noticable difference in the pedal feel—before, the brakes were very close to the top of the pedal, where now there’s more throw before they engage—but I like that. It’s going to take a little getting used to, but I’m really happy I tackled this and did it myself.

In other news, I posted four new designs to the Threadless store. I’ve been sitting on the two Scout 800 designs for a year or more, for reasons I can’t remember. The Slowflake design is in honor of Brian’s Scout project, and the Dugan’s Beer bottlecap is for myself. I’m noodling with some new ideas for Slowflake after the EV conversion, at which time I’ll create another design.

 

Posted on   |   by bill   |   Leave a Comment on Brakes: Check  |  Posted in Brakes, Design