Category: Travelall

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.

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Weekly Update, 7.7.23

It’s been a slow week for the fleet because I was focused on preparing for the Fourth of July long weekend and I’m now in New York for a funeral, but I have made some progress here and there, mostly informational.

For the Scout, I posted a detailed thread on the Binder Planet with an accompanying video, and by all accounts the experts believe I’ve got a leak in the manifold gasket somewhere, which will require pulling the manifold off the block and replacing at least the gasket and at worst the manifold, if it’s cracked.  So I’ve got that part on order and it should be at the house this weekend. This is a job for professionals, so I’ll make an appointment and have a mechanic tackle that one—getting bolts out of the engine block is something best left for people with experience and patience. If that is, indeed, the problem, I’ll be immensely relieved.

The Travelall is now sitting under a canopy I bought for my first Scout back in 2003, which means I can tackle pulling the windshield out without worrying about rain. I put the canopy up for the Fourth of July parade every year as it provides welcome shade for the family, and when the parade was done we all simply picked it up and moved it over the truck. Back in 2003 I picked the 20′ canopy knowing someday I’d own an 17′ long Travelall. It looks janky because the winter winds that whip up between the house and garage picked it up and blew it around, bending several of the poles. I’ve got to see if I can find a way to bend them back into shape.

Meanwhile I’m on the hunt for what has turned out to be a very specific and rare proportioning block for the brake system. I disassembled it last week when I had the truck up on blocks, and after getting frustrated, I cut the soft line going up to the master cylinder and spun off the fitting. The soft line was completely gummed up inside, as I’d suspected. Calling around to the IH experts what I learned is that nobody makes this part anymore; most guys will try to find a used unit in good shape. Super Scouts didn’t have one but IH Parts America might; they’re going to call me back with an update.

The plan to drive up to Rhode Island for parts is coming together, and the seller has unearthed a whole bunch of extra stuff he’s collected over the years, which include both a rear and a front Travelall bench seat. They’re both in well-used shape, but a winter reupholstering project sounds fine to me; Jeff from the Binder Planet (who sold me the mirrors) makes new upholstery covers that I can install myself. I’ll need to get a set of hog ring pliers to do the job properly, but the method is exactly the same as stretching a canvas, silkscreen, or window screen (funny how learning one of these jobs trains you for the others). Ray (the seller) has some extra door and hood hinges, two barn door windows, seat tracks, door hardware, and other spares it’ll be  super handy to have, and it’s always easier to refurb spares and swap them out than it is to take them off for weeks at a time. I’ve got a full-size SUV reserved forthe trip (but now I’m considering switching that to a pickup) and a hotel room in Rhode Island for the overnight stay.

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A Guy Named Puddin

There’s a guy on YouTube who started a channel a couple of years ago, and kicked it off with the purchase and overhaul of a ’68 Travelall. He’s got a lot more time and experience than I do, so he swapped powerplants and put a modern front suspension under it, but there are a lot of good videos with specific repairs he made that I’ve found helpful and inspiring.

The front teardown:

Building floorpans:

New floorpan and seat mounts:

Rear floor fabrication and install:

Upgrading the wiper motor:

Hidden storage boxes under the rear bench:

Small details:

Some random assembly work:

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Weekly Roundup, 6.30

I’m anxious to diagnose the issue with the Scout, because I want to know what ‘s wrong but also because I want to drive her. I went out after dinner Monday night to check the timing to see if it was advanced or retarded, which could be the cause of my mystery sound. I had an old yard sale Sears timing gun that I hooked up to the battery and #8 wire (Scouts use the #8 wire instead of the more commonly used #1 wire on most GM/Ford products) but I got no light from the gun at all. On the bench I broke it down to reveal old capacitors and components that had probably fizzled out during the first Bush administration, so I hit the Harbor Freight for a new unit.

Back under the hood I cleaned off the timing marks and chalked the pulley. When I set the gun to 0˚ and ran it, the chalk hit at about the 15˚ mark—but I hadn’t run the engine or disconnected the vacuum advance yet, which meant the reading wasn’t entirely correct. It was getting dark by this point so I shut her down and put her back in the garage to avoid the rain forecast for the evening.

Thursday evening I went back outside to give it a second go; this time I was able to plug off the vacuum advance and get things ready for a proper diagnosis. While I was getting a wrench on the hold-down bolt, I was holding the distributor body and it spun under my hand with a little bit of pressure—which told me it wasn’t tight for a while. When I put the gun on it, the chalk showed up at about 15˚advanced, so I spun it back to 5˚ and listened to the idle settle down.

Tightening that off, I noticed some smoke coming off the manifold on the passenger side, which makes me wonder if there’s a leak between the manifold and the block. I’ve been smelling something from the engine for a while, and I wonder if that could be the culprit—it would certainly explain the additional noise.

Meanwhile, my oil sample is safely in the hands of Blackstone as per the USPS’s tracking service. Going on past experience, it’ll take 2 weeks or so to hear back from them on what the oil can tell us. I’ve got a new Fuel-Pro gasket sitting behind my desk for the next major step: dropping the pan to see if there are any chunky bits at the bottom.

While I had the timing gun out, I figured I’d throw it on the Travelall for giggles to see what the timing looked like there. I’d solved the high idle issue I had before by re-connecting the PCV valve on the back of the valley pan, but because I’d cranked all of the idle screws in all the way, I had to spin them back out. The engine is running sloppily now, loping around like it’s not firing correctly, and the exhaust is abhorrent—the girls flipped out because it quickly filled the house. I’ve got to get this thing mobile quickly so I can move it away from the windows to properly work on it. In any case I couldn’t get a good enough look at the chalk before I was forced to shut her down. New PCV valves from that era are hard to find, but I think a new one will help out immensely.

While I was digging around in my parts bins I pulled the two mirrors out and mocked them up on the side of the truck. They look great! I’ve got to go back through my reference photos from Nats and see how other owners mounted the top mounts to their doors; I’ve got a very small vertical area to work with and I’d prefer not to mess up the mounting surface for the weatherstripping, which may be my only option.

DSCF0553

At the bottom the two holes pre-drilled for the old mount aren’t wide enough for this setup; I can easily drill a new hole and add a backing nut inside the door. I think what I might do is (with my new fancy welder) cut a small thin plate, weld two shallow bolts to that, drill holes through the door, and feed the bolts through the holes so it’s as flat as possible.

Another thing I noticed was that there are three dimples in the passenger side windshield frame for where a sun visor would have been mounted; I think this thing was as stripped-down as possible when it left the factory.

I’m talking to a guy from the Binder Planet who offered up a rear Travelall seat back in February, and who has some other assorted barn door parts left from a project. He’s able to meet in Rhode Island, so I think my plan is to rent a pickup and drive up there over a weekend, stay the night somewhere local, pick up the parts, and drive back the following day. If I time it right I might detour up to Mahopac to say hi to some high school friends on my way back home.

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No Brakes

I got a bunch of stuff done on the Travelall but at the end of the weekend I didn’t reach the goal I was hoping for. Having the rear floor removable has been great; I pulled it out on Sunday and heated the balky rear brake line, then clamped it with a set of vice grips and separated it from the main line. Because I’d stripped the fitting on that line, I cut a quarter inch off and re-flared it, then connected it up with a new soft line to the splitter block. With that done, I figured it was time to fill the reservoir and bleed the brakes. I started on the passenger rear line and used a $25 Harbor Freight vacuum tool to try and draw fluid into the line, but had no luck. I tried the driver’s rear and was able to pull a bunch of old crud from that line, but still had no luck bringing new fluid in.

I then tried bleeding the clutch slave, but had no success there either. Pressing the pedal down results in bubbles from the bottom of the reservoir but I don’t get any pressure built at all.

On Monday I pulled the driver’s wheel off and tried bleeding that line, figuring I’d diagnose a blockage in the old hard line out back, but had no success. I didn’t bench bleed the reservoir before putting it on, which I only learned about after I’d installed it, so I’m going to pull the connections off and bleed it while it’s mounted to see if it’s working correctly, then diagnose from there. I’ve got enough hard line to replace the long run along the frame rail, and that’ll probably be the next step.

The other bit of progress on Sunday was the installation of four new shocks at each corner; the originals were rusted to oblivion. Once again, all the bolts came off with little to no effort and inexpensive new shocks went on easily.

Beyond all of that, I’ve got a list of parts to look for in Ohio this weekend. Most of the Light Line vendors bring trailers full of good stuff, and often there will be good sheet metal from out West to pick over. I thought I’d set up a deal for a Travelall front bench seat from California, but the vendor has ghosted me since last week so I have no idea if they’re bringing anything or what to expect. They’re also supposed to have a regular (non oil-bath) air cleaner housing for me. Among the other items I’m on the lookout for:

  • Rear passenger glass — this is pretty self explanatory. Unobtanium, but I am ever hopeful
  • A C-series driver’s front fender in better shape than what I’ve got. My fender is repairable but is quickly gaining weight from all the bondo, and the bottom section is much worse than the passenger side.
  • A C-series front cowl. I think these rusted quite commonly, so this might be a hard one to find.
  • Front turn signal buckets — Mine are both swiss cheese. I’d love to find them with the pigtails too.
  • A 14″ International badge for the back door.
  • A Travelall badge for the passenger rear quarter — these are expensive these days, but there are a few vendors who might be able to hook me up.
  • C-series sun visors — I haven’t been able to find these anywhere, although I know they exist.
  • A 16″ 4.5×5 lug steel wheel
  • A steering wheel with no cracks — not necessary but I’ll keep an eye open
  • Rear Taillights — These aren’t in bad shape, but if I could find new lenses that would be great.
  • 4th IH hubcap — I’ve got three, one is dented and the other is in decent shape. I’d like all four, preferably.

Finally, I’d driven down to my Father in Law’s house on Saturday to get some work done—mowing his lawn, edging the whole property, cutting the bushes back, and installing a new mailbox. On my way home, I decided to stop at a salvage yard I’ve been spying on for twenty years at the foot of the Solomons bridge. There’s been a unique antique British sedan there for months and I figured I’d peep it out. To my surprise, parked behind the sedan was a gray Scout of unknown origin that I’d never seen.

A closer inspection revealed it had been completely covered in gray bedliner and it was sitting on two flat tires. Covering anything other than the bed is a bad idea; I’d bet the inside sheet metal is crispier than fried chicken. I looked it over a little and presently the owner of the yard pulled up in his parts wagon; he was super nice when I mentioned I had a Scout and we got to talking. He’s putting it together for a customer but they’re waiting on parts. Then we talked about his sedan, which was a Triumph Mayflower that he’s had for decades. It was getting late, so I snapped a few pictures and headed on my way.

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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.

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Three Day Weekend

Saturday morning we got an early start on the day. After a walk downtown for some coffee with Jen and Hazel, I stopped back over at Steve’s house to talk with his wife, who walked us back to the carriage house and directed me to a couple boxes of leftover parts from the truck, as well as the original carpet set. We had a lovely time chatting and while I was in the garage I gave her money for a pneumatic sander, needle scaler and metal brake sitting on the floor. She then showed us his old workshop in the basement, which had actually been open during the estate sale, and pleaded with us to take some of the stuff that was left over. I found a nice Craftsman three-drawer toolbox with some tools inside that I also gave her money for.

Back at the house, I continued working on the passenger side brakes. Here the soft line didn’t want to come off the connector inside the frame rail without threatening to bend the hard line, so I left that on and finished up the rest of the drum around it. With that greased up and sealed, I pulled both front fenders off and continued pounding out dents and smoothing things over with Bondo. I’ve resigned myself to the fact that this truck is going to be a 20-footer, but eventually I’ll find better C-series fenders and paint them to match. I also ran the old gas through the tank into a pail and strained the dirt out through a coffee filter. It came out much cleaner than the last time, so I figured I was getting close. Then I pulled the brittle feed hose off the gas tank and plumbed a new line inside the frame rail up to the fuel pump.

On Sunday I took the Scout down to the local Cars & Coffee to meet up with both Bennett and the buyer of my old A/C equipment. He brought his Mustang down, as his Scout is still in the garage. I struck up a conversation with a local Citroen 2CV owner and got the full tour of his car, which is fucking amazing; the buyer of my A/C stuff stopped over and I helped him carry it over to his ride, a bright blue early ’80’s Ford Ranger with a 4-cylinder Perkins diesel. He’s the new owner of a D-series pickup that he’s slowly rebuilding; he’s hoping some IH parts will help. Combined with this and a couple other sales, I’ve got a solid chunk of cash to carry to Nationals for rare parts to pick, which is awesome.

After I got back home, I let the dog out and got to work. One last flush of the gas tank revealed next to no dirt, so I sealed that back up. After running out for supplies and gas, I filled the tank and turned the key to reveal: nothing. No sound from the starter. The solenoid on the firewall clicked, and the trailer brake system is still powered, but there’s something going on with the key again. I pulled the barrel out of the dash and wiggled the connectors to no success; I’m going to have to work backwards from the starter to see if it’s getting power but not working anymore. If that’s the case, I’ve got three more in the garage I can swap in.

So I parked that task and moved on to the fenders and the rear floor. After sanding, priming, and mudding each fender, I let them dry. Then I started removing bolts from the rear floor.

Overall most of them wanted to come out, but there were a handful that wouldn’t budge, so I drilled those out and pried up the sheet of plywood. What I found underneath was pretty incredible: all of the stringers are solid, with only a slight amount of rust on the top edges. There were about a thousand mud dauber nests, which all got scraped out, and then I ran the wire wheel over the top sides of the stringers.

The plan is to leave the floor loose so that I can pull it out and wheel off all the rust on the stringers, frame, and axle, and then paint it all with chassis encapsulator. I can also access the brake lines and electrical runs much easier up until they go under the front seats.

Sunday evening I wrapped up as dusk was really falling; I packed up the tools and organized the garage (having a lot of new shelf space in the absence of large parts sure is nice) and took an Advil with dinner to soothe my aching back. I’m sure not 32 anymore.

 

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Weekly Roundup, 5.26

Last weekend was focused on brakes and brake lines. I had a little time Saturday afternoon so I put the front axle on jack stands and pulled the driver’s side wheel off. These drums are different than the rears; the drum is integrated with the studs, which means you have to pull the dust cover off, unlock a castle nut, pull out a lockwasher and the outer bearing, and slide the whole assembly off the spindle. What I found was a very clean spindle packed with new grease, but I couldn’t get the cylinder off the backing plate until I whacked it with a hammer. The brake shoes are an inch larger than the rears and the cylinders are single-piston, so there was some verification needed before I ordered new parts. I also pulled the old clutch slave cylinder off, cleaned the piston, and installed the new one.

Looking at other installations of brake and clutch lines of this same vintage I’m noticing that there are loops of tube directly under the master cylinder before the line heads off in whatever direction it’s going; I’m considering redoing the line to the clutch slave this way. The old line went directly to the slave with no loop—just a strange soft line junction in the middle that crumbled in my hands—so I’m not sure what the right answer is.

On Sunday afternoon I got a bunch of brake parts in from Amazon—two sizes of steel tube, a bender, and a flaring tool along with a pile of fittings. I used the bender to sort of monkey a new cylinder-to-slave line over the other elements in the engine bay, flared the ends, and installed that in place.

Then I put the driver’s rear wheel up on a stand and attempted to replace a hard line from the brass tee mounted to the rear axle to the wheel cylinder. The old one took some effort to get off, but with a liberal amount of PBblaster and some application of heat it worked loose. I’m replacing lines with exactly what was there before, and this line called for 3/16″ tube. To my chagrin the fitting on the back of the wheel cylinder was 7/16″—larger than the fitting I had available for that tube—so I had to run out for new ones. Working backward I figured I’d replace the soft line connecting the hard line run from the front to the tee, but I couldn’t get that fitting to come loose for love or money.

It’s well and truly jammed up, and I’ve rounded the nut trying to get it off. So I can try to cut it off and flare the old tube under the truck, or (gulp) run an entirely new line all the way down the inside of the frame rail.

On Tuesday I connected the driver’s side hardline to the splitter block and moved over to the passenger side; unfortunately I had to cut that tube twice because the first one wasn’t long enough to reach.

Thursday I had a pile of brake parts in hand and tore down the driver’s front drum for the third time to replace the shoes, springs, and cylinder. One thing I didn’t have in hand was the soft brake line, so that’s on order as well as two new adjusting screws (in some hardware kits these are included, but they weren’t in the one I got). Remarkably the soft brake line assembly came off the truck with little effort (some PBblaster and a little heat from a propane torch) which was a relief. I keep saying this, but it’s true: the majority of the bolts on this thing are in really good shape compared to other East Coast trucks I’ve seen and worked on; with only a few exceptions, they’ve all come off easily. I’d put the whole thing together for the fourth  time when I realized that the fittings on both sides of the soft lines were fixed, so I’d have to fasten the section going through the frame to the junction block, then disassemble the whole drum again, remove the cylinder and tighten it while it was loose, then bolt everything back up for the fifth time. But, that side is now done. The passenger side was much crustier than the driver’s side, full of dirt and debris, but now that I have a process down I should be able to knock it out quickly.

Meanwhile, I called around the area and found a mechanic to take a look at the leaky exhaust fitting on the right side of the Scout. For years she had a proper quiet exhaust, but as that fitting has gotten looser, she’s gotten louder. I’d really like to get it fixed, especially for the upcoming trip out west. I had to order the parts from California and I’ll have to bring the truck back to the mechanic to get it properly fixed.

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Weekly Roundup, 5.19

Last Sunday afternoon I started flushing dirt and crud out of the gas tank. I had to blow mud dauber nests out of the fuel feed line which sent them backwards into the tank, and I used the remainder of the old shitty gas to start flushing the dirt out. Using some coffee filters, I strained all of the large particulates out and ran about five gallons worth of liquid through, but it’s still coming out dirty. I haven’t seen any paint flakes or rust in this tank at all, which is a minor miracle; I’m going to run the borescope up into the drain hole and take a look around this weekend.

While I was waiting on the gas to slowly strain through the filter I figured I’d get after some of the dents on the passenger side fender, which I’d pulled off to access the tank. I used a regular hammer on the small dents and a rubber mallet to pop out some of the larger deformities, then sanded the bad spots down and skimmed them with some Bondo. It’s got a second coat on now and it’ll take a couple more rounds before I like it, but it’s a lot better than it was. The driver’s side dents are worse, and that’s going to take some more finessing.

I got a package from all the way out in Idaho on Monday: a 16″ 5 on 4.5 steel wheel similar to other three that came with the truck. When I first pulled it out of the box and measured the backspacing, I was crushed because I thought it was a half an inch too deep for the truck, but I re-measured it after dinner and found I’d made a mistake. I wire-wheeled all the rust off the outside and around the mounting surfaces and got it ready for a date with the NTB in town. With the tire mounted and on the truck, there’s only about 1″ of space between the back of the tire and the inside of the wheel well, so I’m clearly going to have to do something about this before any long road trips. The studs aren’t long enough to accept a wheel spacer, so I guess I’ve got to find another 16″ wheel somewhere.

Meanwhile, I continued tinkering with the linkage to the master cylinder and figured out how to get the clutch pedal disconnected; I left the brake pedal hooked up because I saw that the two rods merely plugged into the back of the box like brake cylinders. With a few careful taps of the deadblow hammer the old rusty unit came off, and I pulled all the old fittings and swapped them to the new unit. Wednesday evening I cleaned the rods up with sandpaper, pressed them into the back of the cylinder unit, and spent about an hour upside down with my head on the floor of the cab threading both rods back into place. Both pedals now provide some level of resistance instead of just flopping to the floor; now I’ve got to buy brake lines, a bending and a flare tool to start rebuilding the runs to the wheels.

On Wednesday I got an email from Blackstone about my oil analysis; the basic gist is that it looks OK apart from a slightly elevated lead level, which could indicate bearing wear, but everything else looked pretty good. My old oil showed highly elevated numbers for things like detergents and anti-wear additives; clearly someone used the high-mileage stuff for the last oil change. My notes in color below:

IHPartsAmerica ran a story on their social media about getting loads of new parts in and running a sale, so I inquired about some larger stuff I need for the truck. They might have a Travelall bench seat, some fenders, and a non oil-bath air cleaner in stock; I’m waiting on pricing.

I got a firm bite on the Scout II windshield I posted on Marketplace, and finally organized the sale Thursday. As we were arranging payment and drop off, he asked if I had any Scout II lift gates or hinges. It just so happened I’d dragged a lift gate from the Flintstone Scout home, so I shot some pictures and we settled on a price. It’s not a ton of money because that Scout was crispy and the lift gate was not spared, but I did get a good T-handle off of it. It probably paid for half the parts I pulled that day, which is pretty cool. And dropoff was only a mile from the house, which was that much cooler.

Finally, I ordered a length of galvanized brake line, the fittings, a flange tool, and a cheap bender from Amazon to start fabricating clean lines to the clutch slave and the rear drums. With those installed I can fill the system with clean fluid and bleed everything out, and after that, move her under her own power sometime this summer. I do know I’m going to need to buy a creeper from Hobo Freight, because I have a lot of under-body work ahead of me between the brake, fuel, and electrical runs.

Posted on   |   by bill   |   Leave a Comment on Weekly Roundup, 5.19  |  Posted in Travelall