Well, look who’s internet famous for fifteen seconds. I responded to a request for feature subjects among subscribers, and figured I’d throw my hat in the ring, considering I’ve got two decades of photos and video of my trucks. It hasn’t generated a whole lot of comments as of this writing, but maybe it’ll have a longer tail.

Date posted: January 10, 2024 | Filed under Sightings | Leave a Comment »

It’s January and currently about 44˚, so there isn’t much getting done outside on the trucks in an unheated garage. In the interest of keeping my motivation level up, I suppose I should recap the events of 2023, as they were pretty eventful for the Dugan IH Barn (or whatever I’m calling this assemblage of vehicles).


March 2023


December 2023

So from the top, in rough order:

Wow, writing it all out like that really helps put things into perspective.

Date posted: January 3, 2024 | Filed under Inspiration, Travelall | Leave a Comment »

Here’s a quick breakdown of the repairs to my spare fender. I started with an order to SendCutSend for a set of new laser-cut steel donuts for the outside and inside edges, as well as three 1/2″ strips to bend for a flange to connect both. I welded the outer flange in first because it had a slight curve, then built an inside section and tacked that in place. When I saw that it would collect rain the way I’d built it, I used a second donut and strip to mount flush to the outside edge and tacked it all in place. Next was welding a small patch in at the bottom, where water and mud pool and rust the metal out from the inside.

While that was cooling I sanded the top layer of blue paint off the fender to reveal some past damage and Bondo, which was not unexpected. I skimmed some Bondo over the two welds and sanded everything down, but the fuel mount area is going to need a lot more attention. I’m looking around for alternatives to off-the-shelf Bondo and have found that Evercoat products seem to get good reviews, so I think I’ll buy a gallon of that in the springtime to continue bodywork projects.

Date posted: December 31, 2023 | Filed under Repairs, Travelall, Welding | Leave a Comment »

Well, it’s been a pretty eventful year here at the Dugan IH Barn. I didn’t actually drive the Scout a lot during the summer due to the exhaust leak, and for that reason we didn’t take the truck to Nats. Looking at the main to-do list from the beginning of last year, the two accomplishments were the installation of a new battery tray and the unplanned but welcome return of working windshield wipers. I haven’t moved the mirror up the A pillar and I haven’t gotten the spare engine on a stand yet; what I’m going to have to tackle first is a new exhaust leak coming from somewhere.

Looking through the Scout fuel/mileage notebook and doing the math, I put a total of 1346 miles on her this year.

Total Yearly Miles Miles Minus Nats
2015 580 580
2016 276 276
2017 315 315
2018 1768 631
2019 1972 836
2020 1195 1195
2021 3177 2041
2022 2932 2932
2023 1346 1346

On the Travelall list, there was a lot more success. The next big items are re-upholstering the seats and installing them; in the springtime when it’s warmer I’m going to bite the bullet and have her towed down to the mechanic to sort out the clutch/engine issues that are just a bit beyond my skillset.

Date posted: December 30, 2023 | Filed under To-Do List | Leave a Comment »

This is from the summer, when I took delivery of a spare C-series fender with a hole cut out where the fuel filler port should be.

Here’s where the fender stands today, before I strip the rest of the top layer of paint off and clean up the welds with a skim of Bondo.

Date posted: December 29, 2023 | Filed under Travelall, Welding | Leave a Comment »

I had a little time on Saturday to try and get together with Bennett between advent activities, so I threw some tools in the Scout and headed over to his storage lot. His plan was to get the Hudson running smoothly enough to swap it out for his other vehicle and drive it back to his house, which is only about 2 miles away. The last time he’d run the car he had some issues with the carb, so we got to work testing it to see what the issue was. We narrowed the culprit down to the accelerator pump and commenced to pulling the top half of it off; it’s an Edelbrock copy of an AFB carb so a lot of it was familiar to me from working on the FiL’s Chrysler unit. We spent a good bit of time trying to get the check ball out of the accelerator circuit with some duct tape and a dental pick. When we’d gotten those out he blew the lines out with carb cleaner and we reassembled the whole thing. Working with the idle linkage we got the engine to run a little better, but it was still very rough compared to how it ran in the summertime. He felt good enough about it to make the journey home, so we strategized our strategy and set to work.

I backed up to his trailer and pulled it out so that he could drive the Hudson off and swap it with his Scout. The Hudson was bucking and fighting him so he had to tinker with the idle circuit a couple of times, but it still wanted to jerk into gear or lock the brakes on him almost immediately. I walked back to his truck to put his glasses on his toolbox, and as I turned around I was horrified to see him rolling away on the ground from the Hudson as it took off backwards in a lazy circle on its own, the driver’s door open. I could only watch as it glanced off the tow hitch of one camper and then the door collected the next one in line, pinning the car in place as it bent the door backwards on its hinges. Bennett couldn’t get into the driver’s side so I threw open the passenger’s side door and killed the engine with the key.

After making sure he was OK (I thought for sure he’d been partially run over, but he’d just slipped on wet leaves as he was running to jump inside) we assessed the damage. The door is pretty well fucked; the tongue of the trailer was driven directly into the window crank and pushed the whole thing forward and down. We tried to take it off at the hinges, but the 70 year old Phillips-head bolts didn’t budge, even with my impact driver. So he pushed it forward a bit and I put my Hi-Lift jack underneath to try and lift it back to where it would line up with the opening. We got it closer to being closed but it’s basically trashed.

Reassessing our options, we set about reversing what we’d just done and pulled the Scout back off the trailer to make way for the wayward Hudson. With the idle being so sketchy and the brakes locking at every touch, I suggested we use the winch to get it all the way up, and Bennett agreed. With that complete he backed the trailer into the spot with the practiced ease of a man who’s dragged old cars out of fields for 30+ years. We secured the car with tarps and a cover, made sure everything was chocked down good, and headed for home.

By this point it was fully dark—the solstice was yesterday—so I was a little alarmed to see him slow down right after leaving the lot, get out, and start futzing with the lights on his truck. It turned out his headlights had cut out and he had two miles of very dark roads to navigate. After messing with the fuse block and main light switch to no effect, we decided he would follow me back to his house and we’d hope the cops weren’t paying attention.

Luckily they weren’t, and he made it back home without a present from Johnny Law. I aimed Peer Pressure for our house and was lucky to avoid major holiday traffic. I’m noticing, however, the telltale signs of what I think are another exhaust leak. It’s been getting louder and louder the last couple of weeks; I’m going to have to hunt down which side it’s on and see what’s happening over the break.

Date posted: December 23, 2023 | Filed under Friends | Leave a Comment »

I set up and sent off a care package to Jeff J. this morning, containing a couple of paint chips, two snips of vinyl from the original seat covers I bought from Ray this summer, and a down payment for two new seat covers. We talked a bit on the phone on Saturday and set up a plan; he’s got a bunch of other orders in line but he’s waiting on special-order vinyl so he thinks he can fit me in around those other jobs. The stuff I want is pretty basic and should be easy to lay hands on—it’s just lightly pebbled black and light gray. I went to Lowe’s and looked through their paint samples to find something close to the gray of the door panels and found a swatch one shade lighter and one three shades darker.

I’d like to go with the lighter to set off the black as much as possible, and for these I’m actually going to reverse the pattern so that the light color is on top and the seats are black.

The other thing that showed up was a set of new metal from SendCutSend, which will be used to add the filler hose opening on my spare passenger fender. In order to make the minimum order amount I doubled up on everything, so I have some pieces to practice on—especially the 1/2″ strip that needs to be bent into a perfect circle. I’m going to need to find a 4″ diameter pipe to use for forming somewhere. There’s actually a scrap metal dealer up in Pennsylvania who has box tube and other metals I need for the bumper mounts; I think I’ll add that to the list of purchases when I head up there.

Date posted: December 19, 2023 | Filed under Seats, Travelall | Leave a Comment »

Baltimore has its own peculiar accent, and I have spent the last thirty years perfecting my impression of its odd mixture of southern, West Virginian, DelMarVan and redneck patois which makes oil sound like oll and sink sound like zink and leads to interesting sentences like Dose crabs smell turrble, lake dere spereled. Amboolamps is a favorite of the Lockardugan household and we use it whenever we can, along with po-leese and farfarter.

In any case, this Travelall ambulance showed up on Marketplace last week to be parted out, and I contacted the seller to see if any of the sheet metal was worth saving; he told me it was all junk. If it had been closer it would have been worth a road trip up just to look over (and possibly to save the rear set of doors for spares) but Massachusetts is too far away to entertain that idea and I think he wants to sell the whole thing together.

The interesting thing here is that additional section they installed between the two doors to lengthen the truck—from the looks of things that metal was some of the first to start breaking down. This would have been an amazing truck to save about ten or fifteen years ago. Dat’sa shayme, hon. 

Date posted: December 16, 2023 | Filed under Travelall | 2 Comments »

It’s been very cold in Maryland the last couple of weeks, and with the short amount of daylight we’re getting there isn’t a whole lot of time to get anything done on the trucks while it’s warm. The Travelall has been under a snug car cover for the last couple of weeks and the Scout is snoring in the shed, both hooked up to battery tenders. I don’t see much happening on the trucks themselves until after New Years, because we’ve got to source a second daily driver with the loss of the Honda at Thanksgiving.

I have been in touch with Jeff J. about seat covers, however, and we’re formulating a plan for him to sew me new ones based on the pictures I sent up. I’ve got a source for foam identified, and when we get past Christmas I can place an order for supplies to work on them inside. I also checked in with Brendan B. about the power steering gear he offered me, and we’ve got that set aside for after the holidays when I can get up there to pick it up.

The other thing I think I’ll work on is the spare drinker’s side fender, which I got with a large hole cut out where the fuel filler used to be. Other than that, it’s in great shape, so I’m going to pull the trigger on some new metal from Sendcutsend, clean up the area, and spend some time welding a new fuel filler assembly in place.

Date posted: December 9, 2023 | Filed under Future Plans, Travelall | 1 Comment »

Date posted: November 27, 2023 | Filed under Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »