Category: Welding

Floor Progress


This is the floor three years ago, after I used a wire wheel to remove the rubberized coating the PO brushed on. You can see how much rust damage there is.


This is the day I cut the old floorpan out.


Here I’ve needle-scaled the frame underneath and sprayed it with encapsulator, wire-wheeled the edge of the floorpan, and sprayed it with weld-through primer.


This is after welding the steel pan in along the edge of the seat support and transmission tunnel.


Here I’ve got the rest of the perimeter welded in and sprayed with primer.


This is after the entire floor and toepanel has been welded in and ground smooth. The sheetmetal got wire-wheeled and cleaned with acetone, then sprayed with etching primer.


Here’s the seat support recent and adjusted to fit, sprayed with etching primer inside and weld-through primer on the edges.

Posted on   |   by bill   |   Leave a Comment on Floor Progress  |  Posted in Travelall, Welding

Floored, Part 2

Here’s an update on the floorpan project in the Travelall, starting with a detour to Brian’s garage where Bennett and I worked on the carburetor in an effort to get the Hudson running right. We pulled it off, put it back on, and he was able to get the car out of the garage and turned around so that the exhaust was pointed out the door. Then it started running poorly again. So we pulled the carb back off and found a bunch of water inside. I got under the car and drained about a half a gallon of gas out of the tank but found no water in the pan. Bennett cleaned the jets and reassembled the carb, and we put it back on the engine. This time we were able to get it to run reliably enough to take a test drive, and Bennett had a big smile on his face.

Back in my driveway, I transferred a paper template to cardboard and test-fit it in the truck, making adjustments until everything sat in the cavity just right. Then I transferred that to metal, cutting out of 18 ga. steel and repeating the process until it fit in the cavity, butting up against the edges of the original floorpan. I was originally thinking I might try to rent a beadroller and replicate the corrugated channels in the original floorpan, but time and money killed that plan quickly. So I got the welder out, dialed it in, and started tacking the floor in. Over the next three nights I got it welded solidly in place, and cut and bent a second section for the toeboard moving upwards to the firewall. That section took some more time to get in place, and I burned through a few places, but with the aid of a copper welding backer I was able to fill those areas and grind it all flat. Underneath I put a section of 1/2″ bar across the pan to take the place of the original corrugation and welded the perimeter of the pan.

I’ve got a small section bent and ready to weld in at the base of the A pillar, which will seal up the cab corner, and then I have to revisit the seat base triangle and adjust the bends there (or bend a new one) to replace the original.

Posted on   |   by bill   |   Leave a Comment on Floored, Part 2  |  Posted in Friends, Travelall, Video, Welding

Video Update

Here’s the latest update I posted on YouTube, covering the day Bennett and I put the replacement axle back in the Hudson, a whole lot of fuel pump fettling, and the first day I spent cutting the driver’s floor out of the Travelall. I’ve already got two days’ worth of footage in the queue for the next video, and I’m hoping to get that one posted by the end of this week in an attempt to get my viewing numbers high enough to monetize the channel. I also pulled the trigger and changed the name of the channel from my decades-old handle to Dugan Heavy Industries to consolidate the brand. And I let my old oldlinestatebinders domain lapse, because I wasn’t using it and I’m now in money-saving mode, so that website will go away for good.

Posted on   |   by bill   |   Leave a Comment on Video Update  |  Posted in Friends, Travelall, Uncategorized, Welding

Floored, Part 3

Wednesday evening I got back outside as soon as the whistle blew and started welding the floor in. It’s a tedious process but if you’re patient, you can make it look pretty good. I hopscotched around the perimeter and filled in the trans tunnel and seat base side, using a flap wheel to grind down the tall welds so that I could see where I needed to fill in.

The seat base side is pretty much done, and I now have to fill the two sections of the trans tunnel side where the pan was corrugated. I put some tack welds in along the rocker side, but I’ll probably go underneath and weld the bottom of the new metal to the old under there, then fill the joint with seam sealer. When that’s solid, I can take measurements for the toepanel and start fabricating that piece. Currently, it’s raining, so I have to wait for the weekend to continue.

Taken in January 2009, right after I bought the truck and before I installed bedliner on the floors.

All of this progress has me inspired to finally tackle the rust at the base of the A-pillars on the Scout; it’s been that way since I’ve owned the truck, and I’d love to bite the bullet and clean those areas up. I’ve got the replacement sheet metal from SSS in one of my parts bins in the basement, so it’s just another project sitting there waiting for me.

Noting the dwindling amount of welding gas in my tank, I found that Tractor Supply has the cheapest refill pricing in the area—$72 to exchange for my 80cu. tank—but I have to drive all the way up to Aberdeen, as none of the local stores around Baltimore handle gas. Go figure.

Posted on   |   by bill   |   Leave a Comment on Floored, Part 3  |  Posted in Travelall, Welding

Floored, Part 2

After spending an entire day behind my desk, I ran outside at 5:20 to continue fitting a flat sheet of metal to the floor of the truck. I’d set up the cardboard template, fit that, traced it onto a sheet of 18 ga. metal, and cut it out on Monday, but wasn’t able to get it fit properly before I had to close up shop. Thankfully, the work I did with the cardboard paid off, and I only had to trim two sides by about 1/8″ before it fit right in.

I talked a big talk about creating some kind of press to add a dimple for the floor support, but threw that completely out the window and started tacking the metal into place. I put butt-weld clips in place and tacked the perimeter in on the trans tunnel side and in front of the seat base before it got too dark, and I’m pretty happy with how it looks so far. Next I’m going to drill some holes for plug welds along the rocker and on top of the cab mount and add those. When that’s in place, I can cut and bend the section for the toeboard, which is going to require some finicky geometry.

I have to say, it felt really good to get the welder out and melt some metal.

Posted on   |   by bill   |   Leave a Comment on Floored, Part 2  |  Posted in Travelall, Welding

Floored, Part 1

I decided to use my Saturday to bust out the angle grinders and start cutting the driver’s floor out of the Travelall. Knowing I usually underestimate how much time it’ll take to complete any project, I made a conscious decision to take my time and do it as right as I possibly can. Starting with the triangular seat support, I pulled the entire front bench out and drilled out the last five spot welds. Some gentle tapping with a hammer and careful grinding with a cutoff wheel, I was able to get it out in one piece.

Next, I went around the perimeter of the ‘patch’ that had been scabbed in and ground out the rest of the original welds, except for the one behind the gas pedal, which was impossible to reach from any angle. I finally gave up on getting it out in one piece and cut across the flat section, which came out easily, then bisected the toeboard section and cut it out in sections. When that was clear, I cleaned up all the edges and got them ready for welding. And while the frame underneath was exposed, I cleaned it up with the needle scaler and a wire wheel, then sprayed it with Rust Stop.

Laying in the paper template I cut a few weeks ago, I scribed out the edges of the patch and made notes. Originally, I was going to try to do it all in one piece, but I think I’m going to do it with two—the flat section and the toeboard section. And the good news is that the rust under the triangular support ended there—it doesn’t go under the seat, although the base of the seat support is a little crispy. I’m going to pretend I didn’t see that, and leave it as is.

The other thing I did was disassemble the spare (unrebuilt) fuel pump so that the diaphragm was visible, and bolt it into the truck. With the engine running, the diaphragm was working as it should, which means there’s nothing wrong inside the engine. I know the rebuilt pump will draw manually, so the only other variable is the boat tank I’ve been using to test with. I’m going to swap in the rebuilt pump and stick a regular fuel hose into a regular fuel tank and see if it’ll draw out of that.

Posted on   |   by bill   |   Leave a Comment on Floored, Part 1  |  Posted in Repairs, Travelall, Welding

Workday

I organized a workday with my local truck buds while Jen was down at her Dad’s house on Saturday, and I think we did really well with the projects we wanted to tackle. Because of scheduling and timing, I offered up my driveway for the event, which meant we broke the local record for number of Internationals in one place at one time. Bennett pulled up in Heavy D with a plan to drop the driver’s side gas tank, which has been peeing Peer-Pressure style for the last couple of months. David drove his ’68 pickup over—the longest he’s driven it on the road so far—with a loose plan to tackle a couple of different projects. My intention was to swap a new power steering pump into Peer Pressure to try to fix a constant leak.

After our customary shoot-the-breeze over donuts, we all got to work. Bennett got me started on the pump and then moved to Heavy D, while David started cutting metal to fabricate a set of tank straps. I was able to get the pump out pretty easily (save one mount, which uses a bushing to surround the bolt) and used a $20 Amazon tool to get the pulley off the old pump and press it on to the new one. With that done, it was simple to re-install, fill the reservoir, prime, and do a test run. There were no leaks, and I called it good.

Meanwhile, Bennett had to pull his driver-side fender off to get to a couple of the bolts to his tank, but once that was done, dropping it went quickly—so fast that I didn’t get the chance to help him out. He and I then hooked up my timing tools to David’s pickup and using his ears, the RPM meter, and a vacuum gauge, he was able to smooth out the idle and make the engine run much better.

We had a little less luck on Darth Haul; without a timing light (I have purchased two from H-F and they have both died quickly) it’s hard to get the idle correct, but we used the same combination of vacuum and RPM to try to smooth out and lower the idle speed. I’m getting a lot of dieseling at shutdown, and I suspect that maybe the plugs are too hot, which will be the next thing I check.

Bennett had to take off at that point, so David and I ran to get a slice of pizza, and then I got him set up with my MIG welder to assemble his tank straps. I gave him the basic instructions and put the first one together, then handed him the welder. He was really psyched to get some practice after I had the settings dialed in, and when he finished, we ground the welds down to make the metal as smooth as possible.

By that point it was a little before 5PM, so I loaded some tools into Darth and followed him back to his house, just to make sure he got there OK. I also got some half-decent footage of two red Internationals on the road together, which was pretty cool.

Posted on   |   by bill   |   Leave a Comment on Workday  |  Posted in Friends, Travelall, Welding

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

Fuel Injection Update

With the exception of one stupid fitting, the Sniper is installed on the truck, the fuel tank is back in place with a new sending unit and return line, and the hoses are (hopefully) routed in a way that will feed fuel to the engine reliably. This was not without struggle, and required a lot of problem-solving.

First, I was having issues with electrical continuity in the original fuel sender. I could measure resistance at certain points in the swing of the arm but it wasn’t consistent and no amount of adjustment was working reliably. I was afraid the issue might be my $9 Harbor Freight multimeter so I splurged on a fancier $25 model and got the same result. Doing some research, I learned that there are new senders available, but only for the 15 gallon tanks installed on pickups, which are a different size than the 19 gallon tank I have. I did track down a forum post from 2007 which claimed that a sender from a 1957 Thunderbird would fit with minor modifications, and the pictures seemed to show something very similar to what I already had. So I took advantage of a solid return policy and ordered one from AutoZone with free one-day shipping.

On the bench, when I compared it to the original sender, it looked a little different, but putting both of the units on the bench base and comparing the arc of the center arm, and their length showed that they were roughly the same. The new unit has a brass float and tested flawlessly with the multimeter, so I went ahead and put that in the tank. After cleaning the inlets on the tank out, I sealed everything up and got it ready to put back in the truck. This took a bit of maneuvering, but once I had the hoses in place, I jacked it up and got it into position.

At this point, it was clear I would have to modify the tank straps to allow for the extra inch and a half I had to add between the tank and the body of the truck to clear the return inlet. I cut the brackets off with the cut off wheel, and fabricated some new straps out of 16 gauge steel. After welding the brackets onto the strap extensions, I brought them out to the truck and welded the two sections of strap together. When they were cold, I cleaned them up, painted them, and then got them ready to hang the tank.

This had taken a lot more time that I thought it would. I fed the sender wire over the frame rail, hooked it back up to the wiring harness and fed the return line up through the body mount to the engine bay. Working methodically, I reattached all of the hoses to the fill tube, the vent tube and the fuel line itself. I was very careful measuring and cutting the hose that had come with the Sniper kit and it looks like I’ve got just enough to finish the job. The only thing left to solve is finding a 90° fitting for the fuel inlet on the carburetor, which butts up right next to the water neck on the engine. I’d ordered two 90° fittings and had them sent overnight via the jungle site, but the second fitting is just too long to fit in the space available. So I’ve got a call Holley’s tech support line to see if they can suggest a solution.

At this point, everything is complete, minus that fitting. When I’ve got that solved, I can put gas back in the tank, run a bunch of it through the system to flush it, and do all of the preflight checks for the carburetor computer. The other check I wanna do before anything else happens is to pull a couple of the spark plugs and eyeball the cylinders for any sign of water or rust. After draining a bunch of water out of the fuel tank, I’m concerned about it being in the cylinders, and I want to look for any signs of hydrolocking. If there is any water in there, I’ll bump the engine over a bunch of times to clear it out.

In non-engine related news, I did a bunch of work on the rear barn door handle on the bench to fit a door lock correctly in the barrel without having it fall out. What I had to do was take a Dremel and carefully carve a channel out of the back of the lock cylinder to accept a standard lockring. I used the pair of pliers to squeeze it down to be the same diameter as the cylinder, trimmed the outside edges, and then inserted it into the barrel. I was able to get a pair of lockring pliers inside and open it up so that it stayed inside the barrel. I installed it first thing Friday morning and just like that I had a locking rear door for the truck.

I’m sorry, I would have taken pictures but I was hustling pretty much all day Sunday from 10AM to about 7PM to get this done. I was able to get the truck down off the jack stands and under a tarp just as dusk was falling. Monday morning is rainy so I’ll see if I can get back out there on Tuesday to open things back up.

Posted on   |   by bill   |   Leave a Comment on Fuel Injection Update  |  Posted in Fuel Injection, Travelall, Welding