Category: Progress

Ruminating

The weather was kind of garbage this weekend, which put a literal damper on a lot of the things I wanted to accomplish. I was able to install a set of 6,000 lb. cargo hooks in the back of the Travelall to accept a set of seatbelts for the back seat, which I’ve been meaning to do for a while.

These hooks replace the original round IH cups that came with the Green truck (my truck never had these, falling outside the federal seatbelt mandate) which were very deep, and which I couldn’t come up with a method of attaching to anything solid.

The new hooks come with a stout metal plate that bolts underneath, so I don’t think they’re going to go anywhere. Now I have to add the female belts to the wheel wells, which will require a custom fabricated backing plate.

Meanwhile, a nice fellow in Michigan reached out to me several weeks ago after seeing the Travelall liftgate in one of my videos; we traded emails and a couple of calls, and made some plans for him to buy some parts. Then my local Travelall friend Tyler showed me a picture of a truck he picked up locally and asked me if anyone I knew was interested. I passed the word along to Bill, and he sounded very interested. So I wrapped two trips up into one on Sunday: I drove out Tyler’s way to buy a new (used) Mirra desk chair and then stopped at his place to look over the truck. After sharing the video and my opinion, Bill is going to buy it, which is a great deal for both people (and I don’t feel tempted to buy it myself and risk my marriage). My intention was to drive Darth, but after I got her out onto the Beltway and up to 60mph, the front of the truck started vibrating badly. So I think the plan will be to replace the tie rods and then find someone who can do an alignment for me.

I dragged the 800 back out of the garage, put some oil in the cylinders, and tried to fire it off again, but didn’t have any luck. I cleaned all the plugs and verified that I’ve got spark, but the #1 cylinder is still only making 75psi of pressure. I’m going to pull the carb off this week and clean it out, and I’ll give it another try maybe this coming weekend, but I’m beginning to think this truck will be a winter project—and I’m considering swapping it out with the Scout II at Brian’s place. I want to drive Peer Pressure this summer, and I’m still focused on making Darth Haul a runner, so the 800 is a distraction. Plus, nobody knows more about cranky engines that won’t start than my friend Brian, so there’s that added benefit. I’ve just got to get it over there.

Posted on   |   by bill   |   Leave a Comment on Ruminating  |  Posted in Friends, Seat Belts, Travelall

We May Have This Beat

I think I’ve got the brake situation on Darth Haul pretty much licked—but it’s going to take a little more adjustment before I’m happy. When I last wrote about this, I was waiting on a master cylinder from Rock Auto. I wound up installing that, and as I took the 2-year-old unit off the firewall, I found that the pushrod for the clutch fell inside the firewall, while the pushrod for the brakes stuck out into the engine bay by an inch or so. This pointed at the cylinder being pressurized as I hit the brakes, but not able to release all of the pressure when the pedal was let back out, thus building up over time as I drove and braked.

So I unscrewed the adjustable pushrod and lopped about 1″ of length off of it, and put it back in the truck. I found that I’d taken off way too much and that I wasn’t getting any brakes at all. So I measured the threaded side of the pushrod, then bought a couple of 7/16 bolts with 20 pitch thread and used an angle grinder to fabricate a new pushrod.

After spinning a jam nut down on the threads, I put it back in the truck and gave it a test, but found I wasn’t getting enough brake, and needed more length. So I fabricated a third pushrod and installed that one, and this time I got some stop in the pedal. It still needs some fine tuning—I’ve got to stand on the brakes to stop quickly—but after a 15-mile drive the wheels were cool to the touch and the truck wasn’t struggling against itself.

Now I’ve got to do some tightening up on the front suspension. The tie rods and bushings are all toast, so I have to order new hardware for all of that, as well as pick up a working grease gun (both of the units I have here, circa the repo agency from 1988,  seem to be broken) to lube all the important bits.

Brendan left me a couple of goodies up at Dan’s place a few weekends ago, so I made the most of the trip by hauling a load of broken concrete from our backyard up to the landfill on that side of town in the Scout. His place is right around the corner, so I quietly backed into the side field so as not to disturb his family. Brendan dropped a proper 16″ IH wheel in the driver’s seat of the blue 80 for the Travelall and told me to just take the rollbar out of that truck. I was able to get one of two bolts out with a wrench but had to resort to a portable cutoff wheel to get the other out. With that, the bar was free, and I hauled both parts back to Peer Pressure to head home.

The wheel is exactly what I needed. I’ve got three originals on the truck but the fourth is one I got from a guy on Marketplace, and while it fits the truck, the mounting boss is a different size than the others so I can’t mount a hubcap on it. I wire-wheeled the whole thing, sprayed the outside white, and mounted it on the truck.

With the hubcap on it really brings out the white in the top and makes the truck look sharp. I liked it so much I used the playing card trick to spray the rear wheel white as well. Something else to look into are different tires; the ones on the truck are technically for a trailer, and I’d like to have the right kind of rubber on the truck. It’s an odd size so it’s going to take some searching to find the right thing.

While I was at the Hobo Freight I picked up a bottle of cutting compound and a couple of orbital pads, and gave it a try on some of the red paint with the worst oxidization. It took some experimentation and practice, but after a little while I had the original paint as shiny as it’s going to get, punctuated with areas of rattle-can IH Implement red covering repairs I’ve made. I did the entire passenger rear quarter up to the point where my sheet-metal repair starts (and the spray paint is fading) and both doors, and it looks worlds better. It’s not going to save the peeling clear coat but it’s better than it was.

Posted on   |   by bill   |   Leave a Comment on We May Have This Beat  |  Posted in Brakes, Purchasing, Travelall

Quick Update

Lots to write about, but not much time this morning:

  1. The Travelall brakes are still broke. I believe it’s the master cylinder at this point, so I’ve ordered a new one from Rock Auto, which should be here Wednesday. I replaced the entire hardline setup last week as well as the softline on the passenger side (which I’d overlooked two years ago).
  2. The 800 is not starting. I tested it from the key forward, and the coil is getting power but is hot to the touch, which tells me it’s toast. So I’ve got a new coil coming this week as well.
  3. Peer Pressure, as usual, is running like a top. There’s a whine from the power steering pump, which is leaking slowly, and the exhaust on the passenger side needs to be tightened again, but she made it over and back from Chestertown with zero issues. She is my rock.
  4. Project Slowflake is making progress! I spent two days with Brian mounting the power unit to the transmission (the custom aluminum adapter plates are SEXXXXXXY), welding supports up to the front battery tray, and re-configuring the PMU location for the thirteenth time—but we got it sorted. Stay tuned for updates there as well.

This video is two weeks behind, but should begin to catch up on the progress:

Posted on   |   by bill   |   2 Comments on Quick Update  |  Posted in Brakes, EV Swap, Friends, Scout 800, Travelall

Broken Brakes

Sometimes you have a workday where everything seems to fall in place and work correctly, and sometimes you finish the day where it feels like nothing was accomplished. This weekend was mostly the latter. I spent just about the entire weekend on the brake situation in the Travelall, and as of right now I still don’t have anything to show for it.

I started by doing a short test run to get the truck warm, and then brought it back to the driveway to check the drums. The driver’s front was the hottest, so I put the entire truck up on stands and pulled all four wheels. Each drum was warm to the touch and didn’t spin freely, which told me they weren’t releasing properly. So I bled them starting at the far corner with my daughter’s help, put the wheels back on, dropped it onto the ground, and did another test run.

After the second run the drums were still hot, which pointed to a possible problem with the master cylinder. When I originally replaced it, I bled it on the truck instead of the bench (rookie mistake), so I figured maybe there was air still trapped in the cylinder. I rigged up a bleed tube, disconnected the brake system, and bled it out again. I did get some air out of it before it went clear, so I figured maybe I was home free. After dropping it back on the ground, I bled it at the wheels again and prepped it for a test run.

Sunday morning I took it back out for a drive, and back in the driveway I found that the driver’s front drum was still hot to the touch. This was frustrating, but I kept my cool. I figured I would replace the only two elements that still exist from the original brake system: a long hardline going from the prop valve to the rear axle and another going across the front of the frame to the passenger front wheel. As I’ve bled the system the fluid has been coming out dirty, so there’s a good chance there’s some crud in those lines that isn’t letting the pressure release.

I tackled the long line first, and was lucky to have just enough left to reach— it’s 9 feet in total—so I ordered another length of 1/4″ line from Prime and got to work heating and cooling and heating and cooling the fittings. The rear fitting came out relatively easily but it took an hour of patiently working on the front fitting before I felt brave enough to put a wrench on it. While that was happening I pulled the old line off and used the needle-scaler to remove surface rust on the inside of the frame rail behind the mounting points, and hit it with Rust Encapsulator. Then I put the new line in place, double-flaring the ends, and tidied up the wiring on that side.

Up at the prop valve, I decided to split the line and slide a box-head wrench up to the nut so that I was getting all the contact area possible, and then with one mighty heave, it came loose. After that it was relatively easy to double-flare the other end and tighten it on the valve.

By this time it was getting dark, but I worked until about 8PM heating and loosening the nut on the other side of the valve and pulling all of the retaining clips off of the frame. While I was under the truck I tidied up the wiring on the passenger side and found that when I’d re-connected the gas tank sender wire I never covered it with anything (there was an unused section of heat shrink tube on the wire, so I had all the best intentions) so I cleaned those connections for testing later.

The front line is going to take hours, I suspect. It’s in a difficult location to get to. The end of the line is mounted up on the frame behind the tire, right next to the starter, so there’s little room to move. I suspect I’ll have to remove the starter and spend a lot of time heating and juicing that line as well.

If this isn’t the issue, the way I see it there are only two things left that could be the problem: the short soft line going from the master cylinder to the prop valve, or the master cylinder itself. I’m thinking I’m going to order the soft line just to rule it out (it’s pretty cheap in any case) before spending $80 on another master cylinder, just to make sure I’m not firing the parts cannon prematurely.

Posted on   |   by bill   |   Leave a Comment on Broken Brakes  |  Posted in Brakes, Travelall

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