Progress – Page 9

Major Surgery, Part 1

I’ve got time this coming week to focus on getting the Red Bus cleaned up and out from under the canopy, so I’m going to take as much advantage of it as I can. The big focus is to get the rusty areas under the cowl cut out and replaced, everything rustproofed, and then to replace the cowl and install the new windshield. I figure I can get the first part knocked out if I’ve got all the tools and time next week, so I’ve been stockpiling supplies. Today was 80˚ and sunny, so I figured I’d get a head start.

I started by pulling the four bolts on the hood hinges off and taking that off completely. Then I took the two fenders off—I’ve had them hung with one loose bolt since the first day I took them off—and put everything behind the truck. I dragged a folding table out and started walking tools out to the truck. When I was ready, I started drilling all of the spot welds at the base of the cowl out with a set of Harbor Freight bits. After about ten minutes I figured out a good method and I made pretty short work of it. After about an hour I had all the welds out around the base, including the sections hidden by the doors. Then it came time for the point of no return: removing the windshield.

This was actually much easier than I thought, and only took one cut around the edge of the rubber gasket for the glass to come loose. What I found after I got the glass out amazed me: the entire perimeter of the windshield frame is clean. And not East-Coast-it’s-covered-in-surface-rust clean, but original red paint clean. All of the Scouts I’ve ever pulled the glass out of (four? five?) have had some kind of rot on one of the edges, including Peer Pressure. This one is mint. And now I’m going to attack it with a spot weld cutter.

That process actually didn’t take long either, and after about three hours’ work, I had the cowl up and out, safely stored on the driveway behind the truck. What I found underneath was both better and worse than I’d hoped for. Both cowl edges are, predictably, pretty crispy. The driver’s side is worse than the passenger’s. At some point someone got in there and stuffed some kind of thick painter’s putty or other heavy gunk behind and around the vent chimneys, which both protected them and collected moisture, further weakening the metal.

I figured I’d start with the bigger hole, knowing I could look at the other side for a guide to follow, so I started doing exploratory surgery on the passenger’s side. After cutting away the area around the vent, I was able to pull that out and clean up the area around it. I had to cut a section of the overlap off and I’ll have to fashion a new drain vent, but I planned on adding a lip on the new metal that will go down over the vertical edge and give me enough material to weld to.

That strange gasket thing in the photo above is the collector for the heating unit, which I’m going to have to disconnect and pull out tomorrow in order to weld directly above it. I’ve been putting that off because it’s messy and I don’t want to completely fuck up the heating ducts under the dash, but I can’t avoid it any more (and it needs to be overhauled anyway).

I started building cardboard templates for the new metal and got the flat section that provides the floor of the vent laid out. Then I drew out and cut the vertical back wall of the cowl that will wrap around to the door.

From here I have to figure out where the round vent itself will go, cut that out of the center, and either build a new round structure out of 20 gauge steel or see if I can cut and weld new metal to the existing metal, which came out mostly in one piece. I’d prefer to not have to rebuild the whole thing on this side, so that’s what I’m hoping for. I might not get that lucky on the other side.

I left off with a metal section cut and ready to be bent. What I have to do tomorrow morning is go out for a 3′ length of angle iron to act as the top of the vice for my metal brake. With that I can start bending this metal to the proper angles and start fitting it into place.

Posted on August 19, 2023 | by bill | Leave a Comment | Posted in Travelall, Welding

Weekly Roundup, 8.13

I was away for most of the last week and a half, but I did get some time before we left to rough in the new brake line I was sent by the Scout Connection a few weeks ago. Saturday afternoon after we returned, I got tired of laying around the house and decided to go out and finish welding up the patch I’d started two weeks ago. Overall it went pretty well; I think I would have done it completely differently in hindsight, and I bet I’ll have to go back and cut it out at some point, but for now it’ll hold.

On Sunday I wanted to tackle the biggest hurdle the project has thrown at me so far: bleeding the brakes. I bled the master cylinder and hooked it up to the main lines, then had Finley come out and pump the brakes for me while I opened the line on the rear wheel. When nothing happened where I was, I looked underneath and realized the system was leaking at the distribution block: I hadn’t gotten it connected correctly. So I jacked the whole front end up and got underneath to really diagnose the situation, and after staring at it for a while I sorted out what was going on: I hadn’t tightened the soft line down enough to the block. So I disconnected it at the master cylinder and spun the whole hose to really tighten it down. With that done I hooked everything back up and had Finn pump the brakes on all four corners while I bled dirty brake fluid out of the lines. When I’d gotten that done, I put the wheels back on and lowered it to the ground. Then we did the clutch system and got that bled out. With that, the brakes should be 90% done. I’ll have to re-bleed them at some point in the near future to get the last bubbles out, but it’s enough to stop the truck once I get the clutch issue sorted out. It’s been a long learning process, but I sure hope I don’t have to deal with brakes again for a while.

While I had two wheels off the ground, I took the opportunity to swap the fourth rim to the driver’s front and put one of the original three on the back rear. What I found kind of shocked me: the original rim sits the same distance away from the inner edge of the wheel tub as the new rim did. The only difference between the new rim and the others is that the holes for the wheel studs are thicker and the studs don’t extend through as far as the others, which means there isn’t as much of the lug nut on the stud. I think I’m going to invest in a set of ET (extra thread) lug nuts for the whole truck—I just need to find someone who has 5 left-turn nuts in the size I need.

Posted on August 14, 2023 | by bill | Leave a Comment | Posted in Repairs, Travelall, Welding

Welding, Take 1

Sunday broke cool and sunny, and Jen was headed down to her father’s place for the day, so I thought I’d take advantage of the opportunity and try out a welding project to get my feet wet. Revisiting the truck, there’s a section on the base of the back step that’s rusted through from where water got into the truck and was trapped between the steel and the wood platform put in decades ago. It’s not a terrible amount, but just enough that I wanted to cut it out and weld fresh steel in place.

Saturday evening, I hit the Harbor Freight for some new sheetmetal tools, including a pneumatic metal nibbler, a third angle grinder, a smaller 3″ cutter, and a bunch of consumables. The angle grinder was on deep discount and it’s always good to have several of these so I’m not constantly swapping one disc for another. Now I’ve got a dedicated wire, cutter, and grinding wheel on standby.

At the truck, I jacked it up and took off the rear wheel for better access. I found it was easy to cut three sides of the rectangle but I had to use a grinder to shape the far side straight, as there was no easy way to get the cutoff wheel in there. I also realized the corded 3″ cutter isn’t very good for anything: the body of the tool is so big and bulky it doesn’t allow for any access to small or hard-to-reach locations, so I’m going to return that and buy a 3″ pneumatic extended cutter instead.

Then I used the nibbler to cut down some 20 gauge steel, realized it wasn’t the same thickness as the body on the truck, so I used a cutoff wheel to form a piece of 16 gauge that worked much better. I bought a simple Harbor Freight metal brake from the estate sale a few months ago but I realize I still need three things that it didn’t come with to make it work: a 3″ by 14″ piece of flat bar for the brake fence and a set of clamps for fastening the subject metal in place. I’ll have to buy the bar somewhere and use C-clamps when it’s time to really start bending metal. So instead I went with the tried and true method of clamping the metal tightly in a bench vise and pounding the shit out of it with a hammer.

Then it was a lot of fitting and grinding and fitting until I had the metal in the right size and shape, with a 90˚ bend at the bottom to match up with the underside of the body. I dialed the Eastwood welder in for 16 gauge steel and tacked a few sections in. Once I had it in place, I went around and filled in the gaps, then ground everything flat and smoothed it out with a flap wheel.

When that was done everything got coated with Eastwood Rust Encapsulator for insurance. Note the dust from grinding other surfaces on the interior of the truck; there was about a pound of metal dust to vacuum out when I was done.

I also put a copper backer on the holes the PO drilled in the floor, filled them in, and ground them down. Nice to have those closed up—there are a ton of small holes on the rear doors from the half-assed upholstery install that need the same treatment.

The other side didn’t look as bad as the driver’s, but when I started doing some exploratory cuts I realized it’s in about the same shape. Some more careful cutting and hammering and shaping of some flat steel produced a good patch, which I tacked in place. It’s going to take more work on this side, as the vertical part of the step folds under the floorpan, so I’ll cut and fit another section of steel and weld that flat on the floor. But overall I’m really really happy with the results so far.

I really like this welder and I’ve found it very easy to use now that I’ve dialed it in properly. I’m feeling much better about tackling the cowl vent project—that’s going to be a week or more of cutting and welding and shaping; far beyond this in terms of complexity. But at least I know I can melt metal together after I’ve cut it apart.

Posted on July 30, 2023 | by bill | Leave a Comment | Posted in Travelall, Welding

Weekly Roundup, 7.28.23

It’s been a quiet week on the project front; the heat outside has made things hard to accomplish after work.

That being said, I had a little free time last Friday and figured I’d try assembling the front bench to see if I could figure out how it worked. With a little trial and error, I was able to understand how the base and the rear go together, and measure for some hardware. The big question mark is how the seat attaches to the base itself. I remember Ray mentioning something about bolts coming up through the base into the seat but I can’t for the life of me understand how or what on the bottom of the seat they mate with. But knowing how the base is aligned makes a huge difference in the angle of the seatback.

The next step for this part will be grinding rust off the larger parts of the bare frame I’ve got and preparing it for foam, and then disassembling the seat. Having it in the truck, I realize the gray matches the steering wheel and dashboard, and I like how the black wraps around the top, down the sides, and scallops around the edges of the base. I’m leaning further towards having Jeff basically just match this pattern if possible. I did take a little time to wire-wheel the surface rust off the floors and shoot it with IH Red Rust-Stop, just to say I did something.

Last Monday I found a local metal supplier close to my town and attempted to navigate their website to figure out how much a sheet of plate steel would cost; eventually I gave up and called them. Surprised at how low the cost was for a 4×8’ sheet of steel, I ordered one and got off the phone. Later that day I realized I had no easy way of getting a 4×8’ sheet of steel home with the truck at the garage and no place big enough to easily store it, so I called back and canceled the order. Looking elsewhere, I found Onlinemetals.com and used their site to order three smaller (and more storage-friendly) sheets of 18 and 20 gauge steel. The sheet of 20 showed up Wednesday and it’s as beefy as I figured it would be; the 18 is still somewhere in transit. I went back and ordered a sheet of 16 gauge just to be safe, which will hopefully be here next week.

I heard back from IHPA on Tuesday, who couldn’t find the Travelall brake part I needed, but they pointed me to the Scout Connection. I called over there and within two minutes Dave had the part in hand and was taking my credit card information. From what he described it sounds like the right element, and I’m hoping it’ll be correct when it gets here later this week—I’d LOVE to get the brakes finally sorted and working, and then move on to the clutch.

Thursday I went to get the Scout from the shop it was sitting at for two weeks; they dicked around and never looked at it until I called and bugged them. In the meantime I struck up a conversation with a fellow Scout owner from Annapolis who recommended his mechanic, and I’ve got an appointment with him in the middle of August to drive it down and have him take a look. For now, it’s good to have my girl sitting under cover in the garage again.

Posted on July 28, 2023 | by bill | 2 Comments | Posted in Purchasing, Seats, Travelall

Weekly Roundup, 7.21.23

I had to make some space in the garage on Sunday after we got back, and took the opportunity to break out the wire wheel and clean off both seat bases.

After a coat of Rust Encapsulator I brushed on some black chassis coating and let them cure.

Monday we dropped the Scout off at a mechanic for them to replace the manifold and gasket.

Out in the garage I looked over the two seat bases and test fit them in the truck. The rear base will need some bracing but it’s definitely usable. Then, looking for someplace to store parts, I hauled the rear bench out and put it in the truck. It’s really not in bad shape at all, and it looks right at home in there.

The new door cards, behind all of the grease and rust, were originally the same gray as the ones in the truck. I test fit the drivers side to test a hunch, and I was right: there are two holes present to mount an armrest behind the door handle which line up with the door cards. So I’ll have to keep an eye out for those in the future.

I started cataloging parts and identifying what they are. Two of the door assemblies are clearly from a later truck, and they’re both for the right side, so I’ll see if I can resell them at some point. The rear door hinges are in good shape, and I started soaking them in PBblaster to remove various bolts from the assemblies. The glass went up into the attic. I’ve got to pick up a third bin for spare parts and keep working on storage solutions. One thing for sure is that the two PT cruiser seats left over from the Scout are going to the dump instead of taking up space.

Thursday after work I went right outside and decided it was time to lose the platform and old seats. I don’t have a ton of free space in the garage, and what better location to put it all than in the truck. Plus, I wanted to see what the floor looked like underneath.

First the seats came out; they were held in by eight bolts each, and the four rear inboard bolts on both seats were inaccessible underneath, so I had to use the grinder to cut them off. With those gone it took a little while to free up the platform and pull that out; underneath I found decades of dirt, one mouse nest, and some garbage.

After donning a mask and cleaning all that out I disassembled the rear platform base and the extender on the back step.

The floors are all in fantastic shape. The worst part is on the driver’s rear step by the door: water was probably getting in through the door seal and pooling between the wood and the metal. I should be able to cut that part out and weld new metal in. Under the driver’s seat there’s mainly surface rust which can be ground out pretty easily, and a few other small areas that can be cleaned up.

And when those seats are gone, I’ve got to figure out how to get a 4×8′ sheet of 18 gauge steel home from the supplier in Elkridge next week. I purchased it over the phone Thursday afternoon for pickup, and hopefully I’ll have the Scout back by the end of the week. With that and a $30 pneumatic metal nibbler I should be able to start welding things back together on the truck.

Posted on July 21, 2023 | by bill | Leave a Comment | Posted in Inspiration, Purchasing, Seats, Travelall, Video

Road Trip Parts Haul

When I first posted on the Binder Planet about the red bus, I got a lot of good feedback and an offer from a nice man up in Massachussetts to come get a Traveall rear bench seat that was taking up space in his barn. Filing that away in the back of my head, I kept an eye out for seating that was closer to home, but it’s rare on the ground pretty much anywhere east of the Mississippi and north of Georgia. When I got back from Nats I reached back out to him, and a plan was hatched. He followed up with more pictures of stuff he’d dug out of his barn, including a front bench and a bunch of smaller parts. We settled on a date and a price, and I made plans to swing up there for a pickup.

I rented a 7-passenger SUV figuring I wouldn’t know how big all this stuff was, and I’d never fit it in the CR-V—plus, I wanted modern amenities and CarPlay to get me through New York City. This was probably the best decision I made on the whole trip. Hertz gave me a shiny silver Ford Explorer with three rows of seats, and it took me a couple panicked minutes before I figured out how to fold everything flat. Once we got it back to the house, I threw some tools, tarps and bags in the back and Finn and I hit the road. We were smart enough to get up and past New York City by 1PM, which put us in a strange dead area of Conneticut north of Stamford trying to find something to eat. We found a Chipolte and powered up, then got back on the road eastward.

I-95 through Conneticut is a disaster. It’s two lanes with a very picturesque view of the Sound to the south, but everyone is driving at 15 miles an hour for no visible reason for pretty much the length of the state. Once we’d gotten past New Haven it opened up a bit, but that was pretty frustrating. I’d found a cheap-ass motel in Stonington, CT over the border from Rhode Island, but when I was looking I didn’t realize its proximity to Mystic, which we had to drive through to get to our destination. We checked in to the room to find it about one step above an hourly hot-sheet truck stop, grimly left our stuff on the desk inside the door, and went back into Mystic to walk around the town.

Mystic is beautiful and quaint and filled with touristy shops selling either expensive local jewelry, expensive preppy boating clothes, expensive beachwear, or expensive gift items. Peppering the storefronts there were very busy bars and restaurants, and the streets were filled with people. We parked a few blocks off main street and walked our way back in, looking through all the stores that caught Finn’s eye. On our way back outside we heard the bell for the drawbridge ring so we walked up and watched them raise it with huge concrete counterweights to let river traffic pass. It was a beautiful place to walk off some of the road. Finn was tired at that point so we jumped back in the car and headed back to the hotel room to hang out before going to sleep. You can tell you’re in a quality establishment when the A/C is running at 65˚ but the room is still damp and smells like mildew.

Saturday morning we drove back into Mystic to get a bite of breakfast and hit the road for Rhode Island. Ray, the seller, was meeting us at a shopping center and we pulled in right behind him. We shook hands hello and loaded up the Explorer with all of the parts (surprisingly, it all fit neatly inside) and then shot the breeze for about 45 minutes. Ray is super cool and we traded IH stories for a while, then said our goodbyes so I could hit the road.

Here’s the back of the Explorer stuffed with rusty parts.

On the way back West I swung up into Mahopac and we stopped to get some lunch with my High School friend Jeff at a cafe in town. It was great to see him and catch up; that alone would have made the trip worthwhile. By 3PM the cafe was closing and I knew we had to hit the road, so we said goodbye and pointed the Ford south. With one stop in Delaware and a half an hour of heavy rain in New Jersey we made it back to the house by 8PM with a little over 900 miles added to the odometer.

I stashed it all in the garage after we got home and vacuumed out the back of the Explorer to avoid any cleaning fees. Overall the Ford was a perfect road trip vehicle; we got 29.5 MPG the whole way, and I never once had a problem with the technology or the car itself. (Five stars! Would recommend).

This is the contents of a box of parts, spread out. From top left: Two panels for the doors that go behind the main door cards. The blue rails go on the seat bases—these are the seat tracks. The two rusty gear/spring assemblies are extra hood hinges. The black geared arm at the bottom is a window scissor mechanism.

From the other box of spares, starting in the upper left: a spare rearview mirror, two short and one long door mechanisms. In the center are the ashtray for the back of the bench seat, two door lock assemblies, and the smaller red piece is a door catch. The two red L-shaped pieces bottom left are lower hinges for the barn doors, and two door lock assemblies.

This is an extra set of door cards for front and rear Travelall doors. The fronts are drilled for a set of armrests, something my truck doesn’t have. At this point I’ve now got three fronts and two rears. One full set will get bead blasted and painted the correct IH interior color.

This odd item is the platform the rear seat sits on and hinges forward from. It’s in rough shape, so I may not be able to use it. You can see how the piping is bent on the ends—I may not be able to pull that back out. That black rubberized coating is giving me PTSD flashbacks.

This is the worst part. What I’ll probably do is take measurements from this and build a newer, stronger box from square tubing, then enclose that with a hinged lid for tool storage, using this video as my inspiration.

Ray zip-tied the two seat catches to the base here—these bolt on to the wheel wells and hold the rear setback in place. I don’t have these and my truck was never drilled for them.

These are two spare rear barn door windows with used gasketry. I’m sure I could have new ones cut, but it’s great to have originals on hand instead. (The line on the left side is a reflection of our telephone wire).

Here’s where it gets interesting. These are two front bench seatbacks. The top one is complete with vinyl upholstery, but it’s disintegrating. The bottom is just the frame and springs, all in one piece. The square in the center is the mount for an ashtray, accessible to the passengers in the back seat. They’re both rusty but complete, and all the hardware is present.

This is the front bench seat bottom. Clearly the driver’s side has seen some wear. It’s torn and the foam is both swollen and disintegrating. I’ll have to replace all of that, which isn’t a huge deal.

Here’s the front and the back seat bases. Both of them are bent (Ray was apologetic) but I can use the back one for a template and I think I can straighten out the front. Again, I don’t have any of this stuff, so I’m just happy for the spares.

Here’s the rear seat, with a closeup of the material color. When I talk with Jeff J. about replacement material, I’ll have to see if he can match this pattern, because I kind of dig it. This bench is all in one piece, although it’s pretty worn; once I understand how to rebuild the front seat I’ll move on to this one. For now, I could install this in the truck as-is and it would probably work fine. The hinges and pins are present and the scissor works just fine.

While I was in Mystic I got a call from Jim at Super Scouts, who told me a bench seat he’d heard of and gone to recover was actually that of a D series; I thanked him for the info and told him about the brake distribution block. I’m still searching for a replacement, and the guys at IHPA are supposed to get back to me sometime this week. With that, I’m stalled on the mechanical stuff, so I’ll probably reorganize the garage to fit these bench seats and start cleaning up the skeleton frame for paint.

Posted on July 16, 2023 | by bill | Leave a Comment | Posted in Friends, Purchasing, Seats, Travelall, Trip Logs

By The Hair On My Chin

Apparently, on June 26, Vermont closed the title loophole I used to get the Travelall registered. From an article on the Autopian:

Some people, as I predicted long ago, were using Vermont to register stolen cars. It seems some people were also registering vehicles in Vermont to avoid having car insurance and to avoid having a driver’s license. I wasn’t even aware Vermont was sending plates out to unlicensed drivers. Overall, it sounds like a lot of people were causing the state a lot of headaches.

I, of course, am a licensed driver, I was not trying to avoid car insurance, and I did everything I could to make it easy on the Vermont DMV—I just needed a way to get a title for a 60-year-old-truck that had been sitting in a backyard for 10+ years. This was bound to happen (really, the whole process was too good to be true) but I’m glad I snuck in under the wire.

Posted on July 7, 2023 | by bill | Leave a Comment | Posted in Progress, Travelall

Saturday Workday

I had a bunch of stuff on my punchlist to knock out after spending most of the week in Washington DC at my day job; by the time I got home each night I wasn’t in any shape to face the garage. When I’d gotten home from Ohio I kind of threw everything from the Honda in there on the Scout, so I knew I had at least a half a day of organizing to do before I could get any work done.

Of primary importance was to clean and store the new glass for the Travelall. I bought some 2x3s and used an old 4×8′ sheet of plywood to build a top and bottom cover, then used some pipe insulation and old blankets to cradle and protect the glass from moving around. Some scrubbing with 409 and some acetone got all the dirt and weird black sealant off everything; the glass looks 100% better now.

I carefully boxed it up and stored it next to the blast cabinet standing up with a big set of arrows on the front so I know which side is up (I don’t want to store it with the curved side down).

With that done I reboxed a bunch of Travelall parts that have been overflowing around the garage, hung a new LED light over the workbench, and straightened up the work surfaces. With that put away I had some new room under the workbench, and unboxed a pretty new Eastwood 140 MIG welder I’d gotten on sale before leaving for Ohio. I have to pick up a gas cylinder for it when I get paid. I moved all of my welding gear into one new plastic tub and finally found my old Jalopyrama hat, which has been missing since welding class—sitting in my helmet bag the whole time.

Then I pulled the Scout backwards and drained the oil from the rear plug out into a flat catch pan, looking closely for any signs of metal shavings on the plug or in the pan. Not finding anything there I pulled the front plug and drained off the rest of the oil (the pan is humped to clear the front axle; I’m lucky enough to have a truck pan with two plugs) figuring something might be hiding there—but I didn’t find anything.

I ran a rare earth magnet in the pan and then drained off the top of the oil, being careful to collect anything I could, but found nothing. I figure if I wiped out a cam lobe I’d find all kinds of metal floating around down there—there’d have to be something. Maybe it’s in the pickup or somewhere else, but I won’t know that until I drop the whole pan to see what’s up there. In the meantime I’ve got a sample in a Blackstone container and that will go off to them early next week for a chemical diagnosis; we’ll see what they come back with. But I’m not panicking yet.

Being pretty tired after that, I got some steel wool out and cleaned off the new hubcap I’d bought at Nats to fill out my collection; with a little dish soap and #3 wool I was able to get a pretty good shine out of it. So there’s hope for the other three, although I’m kicking myself for not having bought two to replace the one I’ve got with a giant crease in the middle. Oh well, there’s always next year.

Posted on June 17, 2023 | by bill | Leave a Comment | Posted in Progress

Jump Start

Having tried to start the engine last weekend and met with failure, I paused to think the situation over. On Monday I came up with a plan. Because turning the key wasn’t working anymore, I wanted to know if the starter had gone bad, or if there was a break in the wiring between the dashboard and the starter. When I was sorting out the clutch and brake linkage, I was under the dash fighting all kinds of wires, so it was a strong possibility I’d disconnected or broken something.

Last night I checked over the connections in the engine bay (the battery is fully charged and healthy according to the multimeter) and bent a piece of 12ga wire in half. With the key in the ACC position and new gas in the carb bowl, I jumped the poles on the starter and she fired right up. The new fuel pump immediately began pulling from the tank, and she ran at a fast idle. I let it run for a little while, noting clouds of smoke from the exhaust—residue from preoiling the cylinder when I first got the truck. I shut it down after a few minutes, satisfied the fuel system is working correctly. The fact that it shut down from the key tells me there’s a bad ignition connection on the lock barrel, which should be a relatively easy fix.

Now I’m going to turn back to the brakes, which are the final piece of the puzzle. Once I’ve gotten the soft line replaced at the back axle—I’m considering replacing the hard line from there to the front fender—I can fill the main cylinder and bleed the system. When the brakes are ready and the fast idle is corrected, I can test the clutch and transmission, and hopefully move the truck under its own power.

After that was sorted, I used some fine grit sandpaper to polish the primer on both fenders and hit the passenger’s side with IH red from a rattle-can. It’s bright and shiny and doesn’t go with the rest of the truck at all—the older rattle-can I had went on somewhat flat, which actually worked with the rest of the paint. Neither of these fenders are perfect, but the passenger side looks worlds better than it did before, especially after I wire-wheeled the top and the filler hole before hitting them with rust stop.

Posted on June 1, 2023 | by bill | Leave a Comment | Posted in Progress, Travelall

Weekly Roundup, 4.28

Having solved the starting issue last weekend, I figured I’d better move on to the brake system and start sorting that out. I pulled the wheels off and put the truck on jackstands to get things ready for new tires as well as expose the drums for an overhaul. This truck runs 11″ drums with 1.75″ shoes, which appears to be a somewhat unorthodox combination. I tore the driver’s side wheel down on Tuesday night and cleaned up the backing plate, then attempted to disconnect the brake line with a cheap set of flare wrenches from Hobo Freight; this just stripped the extensively rusty brake line fitting so I cut it off with a hacksaw.

Everything inside this drum was rusty as hell; the self-adjuster was fused into one lump of metal, and the shoes were paper-thin. The new brake cylinder went in easily and the front shoe connected up with the parking brake lever, but I was stopped short at the hold down pins, which were 0.5″ too long. Looking around online it appears that 2.25″ shoes are much more common, so I had to order a new set for the ones I’ve got. And now that I’m looking at the photo, it’s clear to me I put the adjusting screw in backwards, so I’ll have to get in there one more time to fix that.

Another, more alarming discovery, is that 16″ diameter wheels 8″ wide with a 4.5 bolt pattern and 3″ backspacing are pretty rare on the ground; apparently I’ve got three of something that don’t come around often. I put the word about my wheel issue out on BinderPlanet and someone sent me a link to a listing in a Marketplace group I wasn’t already a member of with what look like the wheels I need in Idaho; I’m in contact with the seller and we’ll see how much it will cost to ship.

I had a spare fuel pump in the Scout emergency kit that I put on the Travelall Wednesday night. The old pump had an integrated fuel filter with fittings that hung off the side, while the new one has two long cylinders which hang down off the housing—and which bump directly up into one of the body mounts. After mounting it, I noticed the pump isn’t fit snugly to the engine block. It would be very easy to have SendCutSend make me a metal shim, so I’m not worried yet.

Thursday night I ran out and drained the oil from the engine to get it ready for some Rotella 10-W40 diesel oil (it’s formulated in a way that makes it better for old flat-tappet engines than modern oils) but quickly realized I’d bought the wrong oil filter: the one on the truck has a much thicker nut than the filter was willing to accept, so I had to order the correct one: a WIX 51261. Also interesting was the size of the drain plug: a fat 1 1/8″ nut instead of a 9/16″ like I’m used to. (I’ve begun a list of odd sizes and parts and tools that I’ll have to pack in the emergency kit for this rig.) Luckily I saw no metal shavings on the plug at all. While draining the pan, I collected a container of oil halfway through the pour for a trip to Blackstone Labs, where they do a full chemical analysis of the oil to see what shape the engine is in. With this I can get a sense of how much wear is actually on the rig and if they see any issues with bad bearings or other hints as to its health.

On Saturday I had some time before rainstorms to dig into a box of parts to continue on the brake job: A new set of holddown pins arrived, and while they were still a little too long they worked for what I needed. I spent a bunch of time trying to figure out what Carlson meant for me to do with their version of an adjusting lever, said fuck it, and hooked it up the way it came to me. With the driver’s side done, I moved over to the passenger side and knocked that one out in a quarter of the time it took for the first one. Returning to the fuel pump, I took the unit I had off, shimmed it with three gaskets, scavenged an outgoing metal fuel line from a spare on the shelf, and put it back on. The fuel line now snakes up next to the dipstick tube (which is on the passenger front of this engine, not the driver’s middle) where I can attach a fuel line and run it up the passenger’s side to the carb and not over hill and dale the way it was. I put the new fuel filter on and filled the engine up with Rotella.

So next up is to get the fuel system plumbed and tested from the boat tank, and from there I’ve got to see what shape the actual gas tank is in. I have the new master and clutch slave cylinders in hand, and all the mounting bolts on the truck are soaking in PBblaster. They’ll get replaced next, and then I can push fluid through the lines to see if they’re worth saving or need to be completely replaced.

I’ve got to get Peer Pressure in to a mechanic to look over the power steering pump, but I don’t want to do that without having several of the specialty fittings I need for the Hydroboost setup in hand. I dug out the seller’s information from my archives and ordered a new set; their prices have gone up since 2010 when I got the last pair, but having them is cheap insurance if my mechanic needs to tear the whole unit apart. With those in hand, I’ll get her in for a checkup ASAP.

Posted on April 29, 2023 | by bill | Leave a Comment | Posted in Hydroboost, Travelall