Walkaround

I had beautiful weather on Sunday to spend time going over the truck and cleaning up the garage for our workday next weekend. The garage is swept and the workbench is mostly clean. All of the tools are put away and the fridge is clear for cold beer.

Outside I opened the Travelall up and started going through it, trying to answer some questions I’ve had. This time I took my GoPro out with me and shot some video; this walkaround contains most of what I found.

• There are no interior door locks on this truck. The rear doors have no locks I can find at all, and the front doors lock with a key—but there are no pulls or latches inside the truck. That’s going to make security interesting. The ignition key goes to the PO’s old boat, and just happens to fit in the cylinder.
• The gas tank looks to be in good shape. There are no obvious holes or leaks I can see. It’s held in with three straps and looks like it would be reasonably easy to drop and clean out. There’s also what looks like a drainage hole at the rear. At some point the entire rig was undercoated, and that likely saved things from dissolving.
• Both cowl vents are crispy. I pulled the cowl cover off to get into the vent area and put the borescope down there; they are both surrounded by debris which I vacuumed out but I think they’ll have to be cleaned and addressed immediately if this is going to stay outside. I’ve got an idea for a temporary baffle made from thin sheet steel and secured with seam sealer; it’ll depend on how well I can get my hands inside the cowl.

• The rear wheels came off easily, and the drums look fine for what they are. There are brake lines that join to a T fitting and head up to the front, so I’ll have to chase down where they go and see if they make it up to the master cylinder. I haven’t opened that yet, but next weekend I can dive into brakes.
• The A/C system looks pretty simple to pull out. The belt to the compressor goes to its own pulley, so it should be easy to cut that, unbolt the compressor, pull all the hoses out, and remove the dryer can.
• The Kelsey box under the dash appears to be a brake controller unit, which I’m happy to disconnect and remove.

• The top was repainted at some point; from the looks of things it left the factory red, may have been painted white at some time, and then was painted red again.

• The front cowl is in lousy shape. There’s rust-through on the passenger side next to the marker light, and the marker bucket itself was filled with dirt and leaves. The metal around the edge has dissolved so there’s only one hole to screw into, and there’s no ground anywhere.

So for the workday next weekend I’ve got to run out and pick up a battery, new plugs and wires, and a set of points for the distributor. My focus is going to be getting it running; anything on top of that would be gravy.