Category: Travelall

We May Have This Beat

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Quick Update

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

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

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

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

Broken Brakes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

New Friends and Priorities

I had a very nice fellow contact me through the YouTube channel when he spied the tailgate from the Green Travelall in the background of a recent video, asking if it’s still available. We traded a few emails and then talked via phone on Saturday morning. He’s got a Travelall of his own, and it’s been sitting for a while, but he said my videos have gotten him inspired to pick things back up again. He’s based in Michigan but drives east quite often, so we’re going to try to meet up somewhere to make a deal. It’s always cool to hear from people who like the videos (sometimes it feels like I’m doing them for myself only) and I’m happy that my low-key self promotion has yielded new friendships.

As I do in the middle of each week, I’m going to make a list of stuff to tackle next:

  • The first and most important job is going to be sorting out the brakes on the Travelall. I want to solve the sticky brake issue once and for all so I can drive the damn thing long-distance without fear. So the order of diagnosis will be to pull the drums off, starting with the driver’s front, and:
    1. Back the adjusters way off so that they’re not so grabby.
    2. Check each of the cylinders to make sure they’re moving both directions freely and not leaking.
    3. Bleed the system again.
    4. If all else fails, I’ll replace the long line going from the prop valve back to the rear axle, which is the only one that hasn’t been touched.
  • Then I’m going to pull out the buffing wheel and run it with some cutting compound on the hood to see if I can add a little sparkle to some of the remaining paint, as well as pull off some of the peeling clearcoat. That might church up the truck a little bit.
  • Check the wire to the fuel tank sender and see if it’s still connected. I’d like to have my fuel gauge working again.
  • While I’m behind the dashboard, I’ve got to ground the light on the right side of the panel, and add some light-blocking material around the edges of the panel.
  • Wire the electric fuel pump in to the ignition circuit more permanently. Right now it’s running off alligator clips, which is janky.
  • Sort out the vacuum lines on the 800. They are currently all over the place and disconnected in a way that makes no sense to me, and I suspect this is the reason the truck is dying on acceleration—much like the Travelall did before I hooked the main vacuum line back up to the carb. Unfortunately, I don’t have a Scout 800 service manual and 3 of the 4 service manuals I do have don’t cover the 196 engine at all, while the fourth only briefly talks about the carburetor and provides no vacuum line diagram.  The interwebs have been no help so far either, but a deeper search is in progress.
    • I fooled around with this Thursday evening: There were two hoses in question teeing off the side of the manifold. The first was a narrow black hose that was just long enough to reach the vacuum advance port on the distributor. I put a fitting together from my spares and connected it back up, and we’ll see if that helps any. The second was a larger red hose that led to the PCV on the valve cover, which I’d removed to get the cover off. With this hose plugged the engine wanted to die, but I figure I’ve got to adjust the timing with it connected to get the engine running properly, so I hooked it back up for now.
  • Wire the electric fuel pump up with an inline fuse to the ignition circuit on the 800 as well. I don’t see mysef springing for a mechanical pump anytime soon—and a rebuild kit for the one I have is three times the cost of a new one—so the electric pump will do for now.
  • Pick up another tube of TankWeld and keep chasing the leaks on the fuel tank down. I’ve got the major holes filled but I’m finding new pinholes here and there.
  • Stop out at Brian’s place to run up Peer Pressure, drop off my generator for him to look over, and grab my spare PCV valve and tow straps from the truck.

I’m hoping to get the Travelall sorted out so that I can drive her across the bridge to Brian’s place next week for some EV work, but that’s going to take a series of 5-10-50 trips locally to shake out the bugs. Alternately, I’ll ferry the OG-V over to swap it for the Scout, weather permitting.

Total Scout 800 costs to date:

Posted on   |   by bill   |   Leave a Comment on New Friends and Priorities  |  Posted in Scout 800, Travelall

Weekend Recap, 23 March

This weekend was Travelall-focused, mainly, because I wanted to get her running properly now that Peer Pressure is stored at Brian’s house. The engine was running but bogging down on acceleration, which pointed me back to water being in the gas, so the first thing I did was disconnect the fuel pump, point it into a bucket, and let it run for a minute. When that gas had settled, there was indeed water at the bottom, so I started draining the tank into buckets again. collecting about 7 gallons and filtering it through an old T-shirt into another bucket. By the time the gas ran clear I had about half a pint of water collected, which certainly would explain the issues I was having. With that done, I mixed in a half a bottle of HEET and replaced the gas, then ran the pump again to make sure there wasn’t any more water. Then I took her for a test drive. The stumble was gone and she ran well, but the idle was very high.

I plugged in my garage-sale engine tester and vacuum gauge and brought the idle screw way down to hover at about 700RPM, which is a much happier place to be. On the second test drive, she ran like a dream. I took her for a longer trip but found that my brake issue is back: longer trips heat the drums up, which tells me there’s a blockage in the lines somewhere. This is puzzling because I’ve replaced all of the soft lines—usually in cases like this a soft line has swelled internally so that when pressure is applied it’s forced through the blockage but doesn’t have enough power to go back the other way. So I’ve got to figure out what’s going on there.

Before
After

While I was waiting on the tank to drain, I sprayed the engine bay of the 800 with oven cleaner and hit it with the pressure washer. When I was done I’d blasted about five pounds of dirt and grease off of the truck, and found that I could see the firewall, engine block, and suspension clearly for the first time. Another thing I’d done during last week was to take one of my spare valve covers, wire wheel it, and spray it with IH Implement Red. After replacing the original, the engine bay looks 13% less redneck.

With the engine a little cleaner, I pulled the truck forward and drained the oil. It came out black with a little water at the bottom—but this could have been from me spraying it with the PCV valve open. I took a sample for Blackstone Labs, pulled the cartridge-style oil filter off (first time I’ve ever dealt with one of these) and put a new one in. Then I refilled it with Rotella diesel 10-W40. Hopefully that will help clean the engine out a bit.

I also pulled the driver’s tank out of the 800 last week to find it’s in slightly better shape than the passenger side, so I spent $12 on some fiberglass screen patches and a tube of TankWeld and started glooping it on the visible holes after wire-wheeling the edges. After two liquid tests I found I still had some pinholes, so I’ve got to keep working on it.

Meanwhile, here’s a recap video from two weeks ago:

Posted on   |   by bill   |   Leave a Comment on Weekend Recap, 23 March  |  Posted in Scout 800, Travelall, Video

Video Update: 3.13

Here’s the latest video in the Travelall series, covering my attempts to get her running again, involving an afternoon pouring gas into and out of buckets, multiple test runs, carb tuning, and lots of fuel system plumbing. But: it’s on the road again.

On deck for this weekend:

  • Tune the Travelall. She’s running, but could be running much better. This video covers how to adjust a Holley carb with a vacuum gauge and tach, which is exactly what I need to do next.
  • Wire-wheel the 800 tank & prep for TankWeld. This is all dependent on H-F actually having some wire wheels, which they’ve been out of for the last two months.
  • Pull the brakes off the 800 and prep for replacement. I’ve got a set of wheel cylinders and soft lines on their way from RockAuto, and I have a new kit full of threaded brake connectors in hand; with this stuff I should be able to rebuild the front brakes, including bending new hard lines.
  • Finish cleaning the frame on the Travelall. Now that she sits a full 2-3″ higher off the ground, it’s easier to get underneath and needle-scale the parts of the frame that I missed the first time around.
  • Paint the frame. 
  • Install the floor in the Travelall. I’d love to put this in for the last time, now that I know I’m going to keep the axle the way it currently is for the time being.

Total costs to date:

Item Cost
1966 Scout 800 $500
Lunch for the recovery crew $85.00
Curved points $7.00
Battery cable $33.37
Carb Rebuild kit, fuel pump $46.30
Spare plugs, wires, used starter, coil, fluids $0
Soft brake lines, two wheel cylinders $68.47
Total $740.14
Posted on   |   by bill   |   Leave a Comment on Video Update: 3.13  |  Posted in Scout 800, Travelall, Video

A Weekend of Progress

I’ve had the Travelall off the road for about three solid months now, busy with the spring pack swaps while waiting out the snow. In that time I wasn’t starting her up that often, and with the engine surgery on the 800 taking up a lot of time through the last two months, it’s been on the back burner. However, after getting the springs installed I was keen on taking her out for a test spin to see how things felt. The problem was, I couldn’t get her running long enough to get out of the driveway. She started easily, as she always did, but as soon as I got on the gas, the truck died. I could keep her running for short stints but any attempt to get underway stalled out the engine.

So I went down the rabbit hole of pulling the carb and cleaning it out, figuring it had gummed up over the holiday. Re-installing it, I found I was having the same issues, so I started draining the tank after finding a lot of garbage in the fuel filter. As I got down to the bottom of the tank, I found a whole bunch of water—maybe a half a pint worth. That would certainly explain the issues with stalling. I also found some small plant matter in the gas as I used an old pillowcase to filter it into a 5-gallon bucket. I poured the gas off the water and put the contaminated liquid in another container to turn in at the county landfill.

Another test run showed that there was still an issue with the carb, so I pulled the bowl and metering block off the front and broke them down to find the needle was clogged with more of that plant matter. Once I got the engine buttoned back up, a new fuel filter installed, and the bowl filled, the truck ran better—but was still not at 100%. I fooled with the idle mixture screw, the metering screws, and the timing, and got it running well enough to take a solid spin around the block, but she needs some more tuning to be in good shape: my messing with the timing has the engine dieseling on shutdown. And I need to figure out how to secure the fuel tank from water intrusion. My guess is that the used fuel cap I have is not sealing and rainwater is seeping down into the tank.

The takeaway from the test drive is: She feels good! The springs definitely add some spring to the suspension. All my futzing with the axles didn’t seem to have much of an effect on the alignment, because she drove pretty straight and true. One other thing I wanted to do was find out what the axle ratio is once and for all, so I jacked up the rear, marked the driveshaft and tire, and spun the tire one revolution while watching the driveshaft. It came out to 3.73, which is different than the 4.10 gears on the lineset ticket.

Finally, I drilled a small hole in the V3 cupholder and installed a rubber grommet I found at ACE Hardware, which keeps the metal drink stay from clanging on the transmission tunnel cover. Problem solved. The only thing left is to draw out some felt or rubber wings to attach to the underside of the cup cutouts to keep drink containers from rattling around.

While I had it out, I stopped and took a comparison picture of the spring packs before and after:

Meanwhile, I’m making slow progress on the 800. During the week I pulled the master cylinder off the truck, brought it downstairs to the vise and let the piston soak in penetrant for two days. Then it only took a couple of taps on a 14mm socket with a hammer to push the piston down and free up the system. I cleaned up the bowl, wire-wheeled the linkage, and put it back in the truck.

Then I pulled the wheel off the driver’s front side and spent time hitting the fittings with heat and penetrant—to no success. So I destroyed the soft line in an attempt to remove it, freed up the distribution block (which is basically just a 5-way brass block, super scientific) and reviewed the hardware. The pads are wasted: the front has about 1/32″ of material while the rear is down to solid metal, which means the rotors are scored pretty good. However the cylinders and other hardware looks fine, so I’m going to get the front brakes working good enough to drive around the house, and then I’ll worry about spending money on fixing things.

Putting the Travelall fuel regulator on the boat tank hose, I let the fuel pump run and found that it wasn’t flooding the bowl anymore. But I wanted to see how the mechanical pump looked, so I pulled that off. It was, like the rest of the truck, encrusted in grease and mud, but after a bath in oven cleaner, it came out looking shiny and new. It’s an Airtex 6857, which isn’t made anymore—which makes sense, as it features two vacuum outlets, presumably for windshield wipers. It’s also nothing like any of the other pumps I’ve got, so the next step is going to be soaking it in gas to see if I can free up the diaphragms and re-awaken it.

Posted on   |   by bill   |   Leave a Comment on A Weekend of Progress  |  Posted in Scout 800, Travelall

Marching Orders

I’ve got two trucks who need some troubleshooting, and I’m trying to keep costs down by borrowing parts until I know I need to buy something. So here’s an ordered list of how I’ll try to tackle this weekend, just to clear my head:

  1. Pull the boat tank from the 800 and move it to the Travelall. Flush out the lines and get the truck running, then pull it out of the driveway and park it facing outwards. This is done. The culprit was the main vacuum hose off the back
  2. Drain the rest of the gas out of the tank now that the plug is on the low side, filter the crud out, and pour clean gas through it until it runs clear. Done. hopefully all of the water is out of it now, but I’m going to add some HEET additive to get rid of the rest.
  3. Hook the internal tank back up and see if it clogs up again. I think we’re in good shape now, although I need a new fuel cap ASAP.
  4. Jack up the rear so the wheels are off the ground, mark a drum and the driveshaft, and count revolutions.
    1. Is it limited-slip or open?  It is limited-slip! Both wheels turn in the same direction.
    2. What is the actual gear ratio on this truck? The ratio is officially is 3.73, which is good for a mixture of highway and towing. I’d prefer mostly highway gears, but this is better than what I thought I had.
  5. Test drive!
  6. Flush out the 800 engine block with a hose. I’m sure it’s completely full of crud. This was somewhat successful. I flushed out the top end but I don’t think I got enough pressure to get everything out of the bottom.
  7. Hook the bottom hose back up to the radiator, and fill the system with coolant.
  8. Pull the mechanical fuel pump off the 800 and compare it to the spares I have here. Will any of them fit? (the original I’m sure is dried out and useless). This is like no other fuel pump I’ve ever seen: there are two inlets and two outlets and the clacker arm looks like it was forged on an anvil.It’s an Airtex 6857, which hasn’t been manufactured for 10 years.
  9. Pull the fuel pressure regulator out of the Travelall, put it in the 800, and see if the carb still overflows. It doesn’t, but I need to replace the shite hose clamps it came with. Looks like it’s sending gas to the carb but not overflowing it, which is a good sign.
    1. If yes: pull the carb off and free up the needle, which is clearly stuck.
    2. If no: run it off the boat tank/electric pump and see if we can adjust the idle a little bit.
  10. Pull both front wheels off the 800 and assess the brake situation.
    1. Are the cylinders garbage? The driver’s side looks good.
    2. Are the soft lines garbage? I basically destroyed the driver’s side soft line and the hard line to the distro block getting it off. Whoops.
    3. How do the pads and drums look?  TERRIBLE.
    4. Get part numbers for the drums and pads, and put them on the future list.
    5. Order soft lines and more brake fittings—We’ll most likely need these at a minimum.
  11. Continue trying to unstick the master cylinder, which has been sitting on the bench soaking in penetrant for two days. Unstuck. I haven’t opened the rebuild kit. It’s now mounted back on the truck.
  12. Check the spare pads in the garage to see if they might fit by some miracle. Nope. They are 11×1.75″, and I need 10×1.75″ for the 800. Rats.
  13. Pull the headlight switch out of the 800, clean it up, and see if it works.
    1. If yes, celebrate!
    2. If no, do any of my spares match? Not at all. This is an entirely new switch from the Scout II and Travelall.

Additionally, now that the salt has been washed off the roads, I have to prep Peer Pressure to go over to Brian’s for hibernation. That shouldn’t be too hard; I just need to pull some spares out of the toolbox and bring the battery tender.

Posted on   |   by bill   |   Leave a Comment on Marching Orders  |  Posted in Scout 800, Travelall