Category: Progress

Weekend Update

I got the driveshaft back for the Travelall on Thursday. They wound up completely rebuilding what I brought them: they put a new yoke on either side of a larger driveshaft and connected that to the original slip shaft from my truck. The old driveshaft was 2 1/2″ in diameter and this new one is 3″ so there’s some extra beef. I hit it with some self-etching primer and black paint on Friday afternoon and let it cure in the sunlight. Saturday morning, after running some errands, I crawled under the truck and put it back in. This was straightforward, and when it was done I took her for a run around the block. I wound her up as fast as I could close to the house and it looks and feels like the vibration is gone—which is excellent news. I felt so good about it, I took the truck out three times over the weekend to run errands.

Then I put the Scout up on jack stands and started tearing into the hub on the passenger side in order to swap the rotors. All of the videos that I have seen talk about taking the faceplate off, then pulling a snap ring out before removing the outer section of the housing. None of the videos show exactly where that snap ring is, and I don’t see it on my hub anywhere. I pulled the driver’s side off to see if I was missing something, but that looks exactly the same as the passenger side. My spare hub is a completely different design, so I can’t use that as a baseline. So I put the whole thing back together to cogitate on it a little longer.

Doing some organizing in the garage during the weekend, I went looking for some weatherstripping and stumbled on something I forgot I had: a used speedometer cable from the green truck. As soon as I saw it, I wanted to slap myself in the head, because it would only make sense that I would save something like this. Brand new, these cables are $60, so this was a great find. I cleaned the grease off it, filled it with silicon spray and put it in the truck. The needle hops around a bit, but it’s working, and the odometer spins, which is great news, because now I can track gas usage again.

Another quick thing I looked at were the locks on the lockbox under the rear seat in Darth. I’ve had these finger-tight since I put them in, and now that the truck is on the road I need some secure storage. Both sides have needed adjustment since I put them in. The driver’s side needs a new slot to be cut into the side of the box for proper alignment with the key, and the passenger side needs a longer catch made for the lock mechanism. I think I’m going to draw up a design and have SendCutSend cut me two new ones instead of trying to cut and fabricate one here. Along with that, I have two modifications to make to the C-series cupholder I designed—I want to increase the diameter of the cup cutouts by at least 1/2″ to allow for some rubber bumpers around the edge, add a little more height to the gusset at the bottom, and have them cut the two bolt holes for the seat hoop. So I’ll gang those two orders up and maybe save a little on shipping.

Posted on   |   by bill   |   Leave a Comment on Weekend Update  |  Posted in Brakes, Repairs, Travelall

Wednesday Musings

Back at work, I’m sitting through some training sessions for new operations software and multitasking while they go through stuff I’ll never need to know, so I’ll list out some updates here while I’m thinking about them.

I dropped the driveshaft for Darth off at a shop in Baltimore on Monday. The quote to fix it is a bit more than I was expecting, but I’m not going to find one of these just laying around a junkyard, so you gotta do what you gotta do. The shop caters to the large trucks in this area and the guy I talked to was sitting in front of an industrial lathe the size of my car, which gave me a good vibe.

The next big thing I want to tackle are the front brakes on Peer Pressure. I can’t find a shop around here who will touch her— I keep hearing, “We don’t work on anything over 20 years old,” which makes me nervous for the 19-year-old CR-V in our driveway, but I digress: I’m gonna have to figure this out myself. There are YouTube videos, of course, in varying degrees of quality, for removal and installation, and I’ll have to study these for a while before attempting this myself. I think the only thing I’d really need is a large 2-1/16″ socket to take the big retainer nuts off, and I found one on Amazon for $14 which will be here Friday.

Something I’ve been curious about ever since I got the new PT Cruiser seats is a little switch on the driver’s side. I’ve never known what this thing could be, so I did a little sleuthing this morning and found that the seat height is adjustable.

Which makes me wonder if it’s locked in a higher position than normal. I’m gonna put 12 volts to the switch and see if it will go down at all.

 

Posted on   |   by bill   |   Leave a Comment on Wednesday Musings  |  Posted in Repairs, Seats

Braked

Well, this weekend was a journey. Mostly a good one; a lot of good stuff got accomplished, and I spent a bunch of time with friends, but it wasn’t without its challenges.

We had a workday scheduled at Brian’s place in the country to work on Heavy D, Bennett’s long-sidelined pickup waiting for welding repairs, a windshield install, and re-assembly of the front clip. The last time I was out there I’d bent and formed a complicated section of metal to weld to the front of the firewall but Brian’s commercial welder was too strong to work the sheet metal without blowing through it. We were also going to help Brian move his pickup around and place the bed on the frame to free up space, and see what other stuff we could get up to.

My plan was to drive Darth Haul out there for her first short-distance trip, so I worked on the engine timing and fuel system on Thursday. I was having issues with the fuel pump pulling debris from the saddle tank up into the pickup and clogging it, so I rigged the boat tank up with a length of hose and put it on the passenger floor. After loading up my tools, welder, and welding bin, I hit the road at about 9 and took my time getting out there. Brian’s place is about 20 miles away, and I took back roads to avoid any high-speed sections. The truck did very well! Shifting is smooth, the engine is strong, and the brakes worked well. I noticed a vibration at 40mph and heard some rubbing in back, which foreshadowed later events.

At Brian’s house, I helped he and Bennett to clean out Mr. Hanky, because our friends Chad and Liz were coming down from Pittsburgh to possibly buy it. Bennett has had it up for sale since Nats in order to free up cash and space for a cleaner Scout, and they’ve been in the market for another project for a while. They arrived at 11 and he showed Chad the truck while we caught up with Liz. By 1PM the deal was done, and we helped them load the trucks up with a pile of extra parts. It was bittersweet to see Hanky drive away, but it’s great to see him going to a good home—it reminds me so much of selling Chewbacca to Carolyn to give to Brian—I know they’re going to do a great job reviving him.

After moving Brian’s pickup and freeing up a bunch of floor space, we had pizza delivered for a late lunch and then set to work on Heavy D. The first big task was to re-install the windshield, and luckily the rubber was designed exactly like what I put in Peer Pressure, so I knew how to align it in the channel. Between the four of us and with judicious use of glass cleaner, we got it in place and then used plastic putty spreaders to guide the edges into the channels, then fold the locking flap over.

With that done, I set my welder up and put the patch in place, ground it down, and got it ready for paint while Brian and Bennett started hanging fenders. Within about an hour we had the truck put mostly back together and ready for a test fire. The carb was mad at being ignored for a year, and didn’t want to run properly, so Bennett will have to go back and diagnose that. By 5PM we wound down and set course for home. I took Bennett back to his place, but noticed the truck working harder as we drove. Stopping for gas I found all four wheels hot to the touch, which told us the brakes were dragging. By the time we got to his house the passenger rear was smoking slightly. We pulled the wheels off and cooled them down with a hose, then banged the drums off with a hammer. The pads were all the way extended, which meant that the system wasn’t releasing pressure. It was getting dark, so he gave me the keys to his CR-V and I drove that home after parking Darth in his driveway.

The next morning I got there at 9 with all of my brake tools and fluids, and we started troubleshooting the system. After tearing apart and rebuilding the rear drums three times, we tested the master cylinder upstream and verified it wasn’t the lines above either axle. So we disconnected and bench bled the master until it looked clear, then connected everything back up to test. It looked like the brakes were grabbing and releasing, and a test drive verified this. While under the truck I also noticed a huge dent in the driveshaft, which explains the vibrations above 40MPH.

I packed up my tools, extended my sincere gratitude for Bennett’s knowledge and time, and set course for home. She ran well and didn’t feel like she was struggling the farther we went. The brakes and clutch felt good, and I got her home with no problems. The wheels were hot when I checked them after parking it, but not scalding as they had been before. It may take another bench bleed to really kick the issue, but for now, I’m happy she’s back in the driveway.

Posted on   |   by bill   |   Leave a Comment on Braked  |  Posted in Brakes, Friends, Purchasing, Travelall, Trip Logs

Beauty Shot

I did some quick troubleshooting yesterday with the timing and found that my timing gun was set to 10˚ advanced, so the truck is still way ahead of where it should be. It’s also dieseling when I shut it down, which tells me the timing is way too advanced. On our truck text thread the other day, Bennett gave me some things to check over:

  • Time it with vacuum advance disconnected and plugged. Done. It seems happiest when it’s waaaay advanced.
  • Are they the correct spark plugs? And gapped? Yes!
  • How’s the points gap? The gap looked good to me, but it’s hard to get a gauge in there with the condenser and mechanical advance in the way.
  • Have you set the dwell? This one I need to do some more research on. Two weeks ago I tested it and found that it was at 26˚ when it should be 30˚, so some adjustment is required there.
  • Does the timing mark jump around when you add throttle?  No, it’s smooth, which is a good sign.
  • Spray carb cleaner around the carb base and ports to test for vacuum leaks.  I didn’t get to this one.
  • Does the timing mark advance as you add throttle (with vacuum plugged) to test mechanical advance. Check—working as designed.

But she’s still not running correctly, so more diagnosis is required. And until I get the mechanical fuel pump fixed and installed, I’m going to need to wire the electric unit into the switched power fuse panel, because I keep forgetting to turn the damned thing off when I shut the truck down.

In retrospect, I’m very happy I decided to remove the Sniper and go back to the basics, because I would have been smashing my head against the wall for months trying to diagnose software when this a mechanical problem to begin with.

Posted on   |   by bill   |   Leave a Comment on Beauty Shot  |  Posted in Carburetor, Travelall

Darth Update

Last weekend, I pulled the Sniper out of the engine bay and tucked it safely away in a box in the garage. The mechanical fuel pump is back on the truck, but it gave me a fight the last couple of days—it wouldn’t prime, and it sits uncomfortably close to the engine mount. Thursday morning I bypassed it with an electric pump and fed the carb directly. Once it fired, the engine tried to run away on me, so I reset the mixture screws to baseline. That’s when I found a huge vacuum leak at the back of the carb. After sealing that up, it settled into a decent idle. I set timing back to about 10°, which feels a lot more reasonable, dropped the hood, and took it for a spin around the block. The choke cable still needs to be hooked back up, but once it warmed up it drove fine. Heavy throttle still causes it to bog, so there’s more tuning ahead, but it’s already a big improvement.

I do want to pull the electric fuel pump off. Now that the lines are primed I want to hook the mechanical back up and see if it will pull fuel; if not, I’m going to pull the trigger on a rebuild kit for the original unit, which fits the truck better in any case.

Meanwhile, I painted the new plywood panel for the rear bed with a marine oil-based primer, countersunk the bolt holes, and rolled on two coats of Raptor Liner front and back. I have some fresh hardware in hand to put it in more permanently, although I have to go back out to get more bolts—the ones they used are an odd thread count for their size.

Lastly, I tore down a spare rear door to salvage the good glass, cleaned the tracks, and swapped it into the red truck. Once I knew the steps, the job was quick and straightforward. While I had the door apart, I pulled the handle, chased out a bit more rust, skimmed it, and gave it a fresh coat of paint.

Posted on   |   by bill   |   Leave a Comment on Darth Update  |  Posted in Carburetor, Travelall

Carburetor 101

I’m spending a lot of time going back and refreshing my carburetor knowledge, which means I’m reading a lot of articles and watching a bunch of videos. I’m going to do a link dump here so I can close a bunch of browser tabs.

Posted on   |   by bill   |   Leave a Comment on Carburetor 101  |  Posted in Carburetor

Laboring

Labor Day weekend we had absolutely nothing planned, so I took advantage of free time and mild weather to focus on getting Darth Haul running reliably. Saturday morning, after walking the dog and having breakfast with the girls, I went out and set up all of the diagnostic equipment I’ve collected for carbureted engines: a vintage dwell/tach/volt gauge, a vacuum gauge, and a  timing light. I hooked the boat tank up to the engine and painted marks on the flywheel and timing marks with a white Sharpie, then ran it up to temperature. Messing around with the distributor, I found that it was happiest running at over 20˚ of advance, which is definitely not the way it should be. Anytime I brought the timing back down to a comfortable 10˚ the engine got choppy and began to die.

I put the light on the Scout just to see where the baseline for a smooth-running engine was, and verified that was at around 8˚, which is what I remembered from the service manual. No amount of distributor adjustment could get it to calm down. Puzzled, I zeroed out the carb and adjusted the mixture screws and the idle to get the engine to slow down, and was happy to find that the stumble at acceleration was gone. At idle I was pulling 20 inches of vacuum pressure. With the engine running better (but not timed correctly), I took it for a spin around the block and was happy to find it didn’t stall out once. I also noticed the speedometer isn’t working.

At around this point my Harbor Freight timing light died, so I had to run out and get a replacement. Strangely, it took a while to get the truck to start when I got back; I’d left it at 10˚ or so, and had to adjust it a bunch before it would catch again. I continued messing with the timing but couldn’t resolve the issue. Stumped, I stepped back and cleaned the truck up as much as possible for Cars & Coffee the next morning: I swapped out the old wood floor in the back for the new one, swept out the dust, and cleaned all the windows.

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Sunday morning I made some coffee and ran the truck up in the driveway before taking it for a spin down the road. I pulled in to C&C and parked it next to a sexy Morgan 8, and I was soon joined by Bennett in his Speedster.

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The Travelall was an immediate hit with the crowd; I got a lot of questions about what it is and where I got it, as well as whether I’d driven it a long ways with the boat tank. We had a good turnout, and at one point I was parked across from an Acura NSX and a McLaren.

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Back at the house I did a bunch of straightening up in the garage, and David stopped by to pick up a bunch of parts I’d sourced for him at Nats and elsewhere. I was able to pass along the passenger fender and 6-cylinder air cleaner from Ohio, as well as a set of metal door cards I got in Pittsburgh, a pair of escutcheons, and the two eyebrow sections I’d cut off the truck in New York. He was super-happy to take delivery, and headed back to his house to get his truck running after a long pause.

One thing he mentioned to me was that he’d talked to a local spring guy about rebuilding his spring packs, and was quoted a  reasonable price to do so. I was VERY intrigued to hear about this, as my springs are also as flat as a board. This would be an excellent fall-winter project, as it would require jacking the truck onto stands and pulling the springs off.

Sunday afternoon we ran a bunch of errands but after getting back home I put my spare door on the worktable and started breaking it down to pull the glass out. What I wound up having to do was take the black inner surround out, pop the clips holding the felt out, and prep the top half to be able to slide the rails and window out as a unit. Both of the screws holding the lower ends of the rails were, predictably, rusted solid, so I hit them with PBblaster but resolved to cut them out with a death wheel. The only angle grinder I’ve got that fits inside the door is the cheap pneumatic one I got from Harbor Freight, and here I was stopped dead by a leaking/broken moisture filter on the compressor. After picking up some new fittings I repaired that after dinner, and got things ready to start on Monday morning.

A few weeks ago, Bennett had gotten a call from a guy who had a mixture of old pickup parts and passed along his info to me. There were some pictures of C-series stuff that I was partially interested in, so after walking the dog and doing some chores around the house I drove a half an hour north to meet up with him. In his garage he had boxes of assorted parts, which I picked through carefully. I wound up going light: a reproduction MT-118 parts catalog for A, B and C-series trucks, a pair of beautiful black C-series sun visors, an ashtray in great shape, an NOS accelerator pedal, and one mirror assembly to pass on to Tyler out in Frederick.

Between odd jobs around the house, I fired up the compressor to notch the two screws at the bottom of the green door enough to turn with a screwdriver, then gently pulled the rails out to free up the glass. When that was done, it was easy to get the glass out. It’s in good shape, and after I wire-wheeled the metal bracket at the bottom, I taped it off and sprayed it with Rust-Stop. Getting the broken pane out of Darth is going to be a challenge, but now I know what I’m doing, and barring any major rust issues, it should be relatively straightforward to swap the glass in.

I also couldn’t help myself and swapped the black visors into the truck. They’re just a little bit longer than the gold ones that came out of the green truck, so they don’t fit into the clips next to the rearview easily. But they look great!

Posted on   |   by bill   |   1 Comment on Laboring  |  Posted in Carburetor, Friends, Purchasing, Travelall

Rear Belt Investigation

Ever since I bought Darth Haul, I’ve been collecting and taking photos of other similar trucks for reference, especially for things that didn’t come with or weren’t installed in my truck. One of the things I’ve currently been trying to sort out are the placement of the rear seatbelts, which were never installed in my truck.

Looking at some of my reference photos, I finally clued in on something that wasn’t installed in my truck—those two recessed mounts in the center of the floor that I found in the green truck. Darth’s tub was drilled for the belts on each side of the seat, on the floor next to the doors, but there was no provision for the center belts. One of the photos showed something that should have been clear as day to me earlier: the center mounts were probably drilled in to the vertical face of the step behind the seat, and the two recessed mounts are for a third seatbelt pair in the center of the bench.

Here you can see the two recessed wells with eye hooks sticking out the top right behind the rear seat.
The belts on this truck look like they’re bolted to the vertical part of the rear step—they come up between the platform and the bed itself.

My bed was drilled for the seatbelts on the sides of the step, but not for the clips on the wheel wells that the seat clicks into, in this same place:

So I’ve got a basic gameplay for the outer belts, but I’d like to know where the two inside belts are mounted on the step so I can put them in the right place—or find one more clip-style belt and use that instead.

Posted on   |   by bill   |   Leave a Comment on Rear Belt Investigation  |  Posted in Seat Belts