Author: bill

Progress, Large and Small

I’ve had a week scheduled for a while now where I could both burn off hours of accumulated PTO and strip the green truck of all its good parts. The trick with scheduling stuff like this weeks in advance is that sometimes the weather screws you. Last year I lucked out with the cowl welding project on the red truck, so I was hoping I’d be lucky again this year.

Starting on Saturday, I was able to make some serious headway. After a dump run I stopped in at the Home Depot and got some wood to build two window storage boxes from the one I originally built for the Ohio glass: I want those two panes to be as well protected as possible. I’ve still got to get a couple of thriftstore blankets and some pipe insulation to protect the edges.

The first thing I did on the truck was to get into the engine bay and drain the master and clutch cylinders of any remaining fluid. It came out thick and brown, which was not surprising. After messing around for awhile I realized the clutch cylinder had to come out first, as the pot was in the way of the bolts holding the whole mount onto the firewall. I disconnected the clutch pedal and pulled the cylinder off. What’s cool is that it’s stamped with an IH logo, as are all of the bolts. Then I took the hood completely off to be able to get to the remaining bolts on the master cylinder, disconnect the linkage, and pull that out. I then pulled the plate off the firewall and mounted both cylinders back up to it so I know where everything should go. While I had the hood off I pulled the air cleaner and drained it of most of the oil. I rigged up a gravity drain overnight to get everything out of it. Then I disconnected the linkage on the carburetor and pulled that off; it too was held in with four IH-stamped bolts. I put that aside and covered the intake with two sheets of cardboard in case anyone wants to try to revive the engine. The carb got a vacuum and then I blew out the remaining crap with the compressor. It’s another 2-barrel Holley, exactly like the one I’ve got on the Red bus, so I set that aside for a rebuild.

From there I took the inner fender skirts off, exposing the power steering assembly, and pulled the frame bolts out from the box. Three of the four hydraulic hoses were impossible to get off cleanly, so I cut those and drained them into a pan. Then I took the pump assembly off the motor and set that aside. I had to sort out how to disconnect the steering column from the box, but I also had to figure out how to get the steering column out of the truck. The original plan was to get the PS assembly off the truck and store it inside; if someone wanted to haul the truck away for parts I’d leave it as part of the package but if all I could do is scrap it, I would keep it and try to resell it.

Then I moved inside the cab and started looking over the dash mounts. All but one of the screws holding the front edge came out, and both of the mounts on either side of the base came out. I couldn’t figure out what else was still holding this thing in place. I pulled the glovebox cardboard out and the defrost box came out smoothly. I spent a lot of time perched on top of the seat mounts and perforated floorboards trying not to slice my back open peering up under the dashboard.

At this point it was getting cold and I had plans for the evening, so I cleaned up, covered the truck, and called it a night.

On Sunday I started by building the crates for the windows, and with some help from air tools and the utility saw they went together pretty quickly. Then I climbed back into the truck and continued doing battle with the dashboard, using the scrap from the crates as floorboards. After getting a set of finicky bolts out at the perimeter of the windshield I went underneath and started freeing up as many of the structural bolts as I could find. After spending the majority of the afternoon under the dashboard, I finally got the whole assembly free and lifted it out of the truck. Then I pulled the pedal assembly/steering column support out for use as a backup later.

Monday was another beautiful day to be outside, and I went back to the steering column to try to understand how that unit was supposed to disconnect from the power steering pump. While puzzling on that puzzle I spent most of the day buzzing around the truck pulling other stuff off: the interior trim above the windows that hold up the headliner, both headliner sections above the dashboard and rear lift gate, which will serve as templates for a replacement; armrests and hardware attached to the rear passenger section; door strikers and hardware, etc.

I did finally figure out how to remove the heater assembly from the rear wheel well, which came out in one piece but clearly saw better days. It’s put together in such a way that it looks homemade. Water entering the wheel well from the cracked window rubber above had soaked the bottom of the unit and rusted it out pretty good, but I’ll bring it to Nats to see if anyone is interested in it as a template for reproduction.

Then, after lunch, I battled the rear bumper, which was held on by bolts so seized with rust I just skipped the heat/penetrant method and went right to the cutoff wheel. It took a couple of hours but I did finally get it off, and then I cut the mounting brackets off after that. Being out in the sun that afternoon took a ton of life out of me.

Tuesday I ran out to Harbor Freight for some spot weld cutters and got to work removing the panel above the tailgate to replace the chewed-up panel mine came with. After practicing on the cowl last summer I knew what I was doing and it came out very easily. When I jumped in the red truck to compare the two it was only then I realized the size is different between barn door and lift gate trucks. Oh, well. I also took the aluminum window channels around the lift gate area off and any remaining interior trim and headliner elements, which I can use for templates later.

In the morning I gave the Scout Connection a call and followed up on the wiring harness saga; apparently the truck they pulled the harness from had been VIN-swapped and they went with an earlier model. Dave said he found another with the correct harness and that they were working on it as we talked. They’ll send that one to me and I’ll send this one back to them. That was a relief.

Then I moved up front to try to work on the power steering gear to get the column off the truck, but still could not make it work. With some oven cleaner, I sprayed down the outside of the air cleaner and power steering reservoir, let that soak in, and hosed off all the grease. The air cleaner took a bit of work to scrub clean but it’s pretty amazing how the oven cleaner cut through all that crud.

Wednesday I pulled all the hardware off the doors in preparation for removing and storing them, as well as getting all the bolts loose. It should just be a quick hit with the impact gun to pull them all off. Then I soaked the hinges on the tailgate liberally in penetrant and then put the big breaker bar on them. Surprisingly they came out easily. At that point the big issue was how to get the tailgate off without dropping it on my feet. I put two ancient truck speaker boxes underneath and slowly slid it back until it dropped off, then disconnected the brittle wiring from the harness and then hefted it up into the back of the truck. It’s all in one piece and someone may be interested in saving it, so I’ll hang on to that.

I continued fucking with the power steering box for the rest of the afternoon, going so far as to get all the bolts off the Pitman arm (which did nothing) and removing the cover at the front of the steering box (which also did nothing) but still couldn’t get the column out of the truck. By 5PM I was running on fumes, so I cleaned up the driveway and tucked the trucks in for the night.

Thursday I texted Brendan up at IHScout.com to see if he wanted to make the drive to pick up the carcass, and after mapping it out, he declined. So I’m not going to worry about one of my next moves: I’m planning to cut a section of the rear fender out to replace a rusty part on my truck. I may get clever with the cutoff wheel and take the whole fender directly below the window and around to the light if I can make it into some kind of wall art. We’ll see. I’m going to check with another local IH guy to see if he’s interested, and if not, I’m going to call around for a scrapper to haul it away.

Friday I pulled the rear bench out of the back to strip down the seat portion, which was almost completely gone when I got it. However the frame is in much better shape than the one I got from Ray, so I cut away the remaining fabric, cut off the hog rings,  sanded the parts that would go up against fabric and then shot it with some rust converter. While that was drying I cleaned the back of the seat off with some 409 and then tucked it into the back of the Red Bus for storage. At this point I’ve got two complete bench seat pairs ready for Jeff—the ones I got from Ray last summer and these new two. He’s been worried the patterns he sewed might not fit the seats I’ve got, so I’m going to haul all four of them up to him and we’ll choose the best of each lot to work from.

Posted on   |   by bill   |   Leave a Comment on Progress, Large and Small  |  Posted in Travelall

Saturday Wrenching

I put another solid day in on the green truck in an effort to get it parted out and moved along as soon as possible. The focus for this day was to get the rear tailgate down and prepped for removal, the seats pulled out, and the brake system drained and removed.

First things first, though: it was warm enough to get the pressure washer out and start hosing the whole thing down. Most of the dirt and lichen came off easily, and some more of the green paint gave way to the red underneath. I got a ladder out and cleaned as much of the dirt off the roof as possible—it’s making the fuzzy inside part of the car cover filthy.

With that done I put the battery back in the truck and lowered the window as much as I possibly could, and then tried the latch—which worked! The gate came down hesitantly. I think the hinges were full of rust and they didn’t want to budge. When that had come down I was able to use the impact hammer to loosen all but three of the bolts holding the inside cover on, and cut those off with the grinding wheel. With the panel open I could see how the door was assembled and mostly what I’d have to do to get it off—I think it’s going to be the hinges mounted underneath the rear deck, which means I have to get the bumper off to access them.

Next I wanted to get the heater box out of the cab, so I cut the bolts off the firewall and disconnected the hoses coming to the engine, which were dry as a bone. The box fell inwards into the cab, and I spent way too much time trying to get the rear cover off the box to disconnect the control linkage when I should have just started with an Allen wrench to pull the knobs off the dashboard. Eventually, I did this, and they all came out much easier than I figured they would. I labeled everything and hauled the box to the tailgate to look it over: it’s rough. I don’t know if I’ll be able to refurbish it, but I might give it a shot with Brian’s metal brake, maybe this winter.

After some lunch, I put a mask on and cut the cover off the front bench seat, vacuuming off years of dust and mouse poop, and made it so I could access the mounting bolts underneath. I don’t have an intact bench seat so I was surprised when the seat portion just popped up and off the frame. With that out of the way it was easy to pull the seat out and put it in the driveway.

After that was out, I got the IH-branded seatbelts off the floor. Two screwed right out but the other two (the ones mounted directly over the existing gas tank) required the grinding wheel. But they all came off in one piece, and now I’ve got slick IH seatbelts for the front bench.

Cleaning up after myself, I must have shoveled about five pounds of rust out of the cab. The cowl vent on the passenger side is so much worse than the one on the Red bus ever was. I don’t know if there would be enough there for me to repair, honestly.

I still had the power washer out in the driveway so I cleaned the bench seat frame and blew a bunch of mildew off the seat, then set them both out to dry.

Toward the end of the day I knew there was some rain coming, so I started the cycle of heat/penetrant on the pressure fittings going into the brake cylinder, eventually getting one to come off cleanly, one to give me a little bit of a fight before it let go, and twisting the third into a pretzel before it gave way. I loosened the bolts on the firewall and was about to find a way to drain both that and the clutch cylinder when it started to drizzle.

Sunday our Easter plans got changed at the last minute so I spent some time in the yard, clearing leaves out from under the porch and clearing out the greenhouse, which were both way overdue. I pulled the Scout out of the garage to access tools, and while I had it in the driveway I took some advice from Bennett and tightened up the bolt to the exhaust manifold on the passenger side, which had come very loose. And magically, my loud exhaust leak was gone!

I pulled the bench seat out into the sun of the driveway to dry off, and late in the day mounted it in the Red bus. For the first time since I bought this truck, I was sitting in the proper seat behind the wheel, and it felt really good! Things like that keep me motivated for sure.

I then spent some time in the garage moving things around to make room, taking some pictures of the Hollywood doors for Bennett, who said he’d be interested in them (which is great, as I need to make space for four Travelall doors shortly) and measuring the box I made for storing the spare rear glass. I’ve got to run to the Lowe’s for more plywood to build out proper crates, and then I’ll be ready to cut the glass out and store it carefully.

This evening I’m pretty wiped out—tired and sore. But I got a lot accomplished, and I’m getting closer to the finish line; the big question is where I’m going to store all this stuff.

Posted on   |   by bill   |   Leave a Comment on Saturday Wrenching  |  Posted in Repairs, Travelall

Missed Connection

I posted the latest update video on the Binder Planet the other day, which contains a review of the wiring harness I got from the Scout Connection, and a couple of friends there confirmed my suspicions: the new harness is from a 1962 model (the last year of the A/B-series dashboard design) where the fuse panel was mounted down under the dash on the firewall. From what my friend Ray tells me there are other differences and most likely this one won’t be compatible with the dashboard on my truck, so I’ve got to get back in touch with them to figure out next steps. At this point I’ve got two spare harnesses—the one I bought from Marketplace, which is actually from a pickup, and the one from this ’67 Travelall in the driveway, which I have to pull out. I’m kind of tempted to pull the one out of the Red bus and send that along for reference; I’ll have to see what they say when I call.

Posted on   |   by bill   |   Leave a Comment on Missed Connection  |  Posted in Electrical

Weekly Update, 3.25

On Wednesday the weather was warm enough for me to go out after work and fool around a little bit under the hood of the green truck. I’d sprayed a bunch of the bolts with a fresh can of PBblaster so the washer bottle holder and jack mounts came out easily, as did six of the eight bolts holding the radiator in place. While I was under the hood I pulled seven of the eight plugs out to see what the cylinders might look like, and found they were all dry with a light fuzz of rust on a few. I put them all back and looked over the brake master cylinder, which is a much larger unit than the meager dual-pot in my truck. The reservoir front was full but the rear was empty, and the gasket looked clean—go figure. I originally thought the brake and clutch shared a cylinder but found a separate, smaller IH-stamped pot off to the right of the brake master with its own plumbing to the slave cylinder. Amazingly there was fluid inside and it all looked clean.

Thursday morning, before my alarm had even gone off, I lay awake in bed unable to fall back asleep, and one of the many unconnected bullet points rattling around my brain read: What’s the Baltimore County code for vehicles in your driveway?

Well, it turns out it’s not good news.

428.1. – Vehicle storage on residential lots.

  1. An inoperative motor vehicle may not be stored outside on a residential lot.
  2. An unlicensed motor vehicle may not be stored outside on a residential lot except under the following conditions:
    • Outside storage (i.e., not within a fully enclosed structure) for a period not exceeding 15 days, unless extended by the Zoning Commissioner, in any calendar year is permitted for no more than one such vehicle per dwelling unit per year.
    • The vehicle may not be stored in a front or side yard unless placed in a driveway or other off-street parking area, and the vehicle may not be stored in a rear yard unless placed at least eight feet from any property line.
    • The owner of the vehicle must reside on the lot upon which the vehicle is stored.
    • The vehicle may not be used or dismantled for parts.

So.

I went out and slapped the modern Maryland tag on the green truck for the time being. I’ll keep pulling it apart from the inside out  and hasten to get it out of the driveway as soon as I can.

Friday evening after work I bundled up and went out to see if I could easily get the front bumper off, with the intention of swapping it for the crappy white one that came on the Red Bus. It’s held on with some ancient mismatched bolts of unknown origin and the frame setup on this truck makes it much harder to access the nuts under the cowl area. I hosed them down with PBblaster and moved on to the battery tray, where I got the side support and second horn out (the horn on the passenger’s side works! so that will get swapped into the Scout) and loosened the radiator enough to lift out once I’ve drained it.

I also transferred the list from my iPad to the window of the truck with a grease pencil so it’ll be staring me in the face each time I go out there and I’ll have no excuse for jumping ahead to something shiny. Let’s see how well that works.

Sunday I had a full day to work in on the green Travelall, and made some good progress with the teardown. The focus right now is getting the front panels ready to remove, so I chased after the problem bolts on the passenger fender (under the eyebrow and up on the firewall). With careful application of penetrant and heat, I was able to get the apron sheet metal off the inner fender, allowing for better access to the firewall. Turns out the fuel filler on this side goes to nowhere; there’s no tank under the passenger side.

The radiator came out easily. It turns out there was no coolant in the system at all, so all I had to do was cut the hoses off and the whole unit came out quickly. Later on I’ll rig up some pressurization system to test it for leaks, but for now it’s stashed safely in the garage. The engine still won’t budge, although I still haven’t put a bolt on the crank yet. I pulled seven of eight plugs to see how they looked, and they all came out dry and slightly carbonized. A borescope down a few of the driver’s side cylinders showed a lot of carbon on top of the pistons and some light rust on the cylinder walls. I’ll probably throw some Marvel Mystery Oil down the plug holes to see if I can get the engine to spin, but it’s not my top priority right now (and I’ve got a spare 345 in the garage anyway).

The fender came off after a whole lot of calisthenics and careful use of the cutoff wheel, and apart from the rust at the edge of the eyebrow it looks just as good as the driver’s side. I also loosened the bolts on the inner fender, which all came out easily. The front cowl looks like it’s ready to come out as well—there’s just one heavy bolt at the bottom that ties into the frame that needs to be removed.

I then hooked up the battery from the Red Bus, and saw no smoke or flame from the wiring. A flick of the tailgate window switch moved the window down about 2″ where it stopped in place, so I walked around and shot the tracks with lithium grease, then helped it down as much as possible. Moving back and forth from the switch to the window in that way, I got it to move all the way down into the tailgate. At this point, however, I can’t get the tailgate to release with the latch. I shot it with penetrant and hopefully that will loosen things up; otherwise it’s got a date with a big Phillips-head driver and/or a cutoff wheel.

Finally, I pulled the shiny chrome bumper off the green truck and swapped it for the clapped-out white bumper from the red truck, and that improved things 34%. It’s not in perfect shape; someone put hooks on the bottom side and used it to pull things, so it’s bent up a bit, but it’s not completely twisted like the white one is.

Next up will be getting the heater box out of the cab and the brake assembly from the engine compartment. The latter is still full of clear fluid so I’ve got to find a clean way of draining it without eating a hole in the driveway. I’m going to pull the brass junction block from the firewall and any other hardware I can for that system.

Then I’ll see about getting the tailgate off. Friends from the Binder Planet tell me I should be prepared for how heavy it is; I have no idea what to expect.

Meanwhile, I got a package from the good folks at the Scout Connection, which contained a used, tested wiring harness for the Red Bus. They sent me a harness for a 1963, which looks substantially different than what I’m seeing in my cab. From the layout of the wires and their lengths, it looks like the fuse panel on this one mounts somewhere up under the dash on the driver’s side firewall instead of behind the glovebox door like my truck. The bulkhead connector is correct, and they labeled every single wire, which is awesome for me to base my reconstruction on. Between this new harness, the one I got from Marketplace, and the one I’m going to pull off the green truck, I should have (hopefully) everything I need to swap in a working electrical system.

Posted on   |   by bill   |   Leave a Comment on Weekly Update, 3.25  |  Posted in Progress, Travelall

Parts is Parts, Week One

I had a day of beautiful weather I wanted to take advantage of on Saturday, so I woke up early, walked the dog, and got my chores done early so I could get outside.

A lot of the highlights are covered in the video, but I’ll bullet-point them here:

  • The three spare wheels I’ve been storing under the back porch for ten years, and often considered hauling off to the trash, came in super-handy for the Travelall: they’re the same bolt pattern and they all hold air, so I swapped out the shredded flats on the truck and got it off the ground. There’s still one that’s flat but I’m going to put the one good tire that came with the truck on there and shoot it with some stop-leak. This means that the wheels won’t fit the red Travelall and I can toss them all out when it’s time to get rid of this truck. The green truck now looks 6% less redneck.
  • Jacking up the truck in back to swap said tires, I found that the top leaf in the driver’s spring pack was cracked in half. I may still try to pull those off to have re-arched at some point, but I have to measure them all first to see if they’ll fit the Red Bus.
  • I tore the carpet off the floors front and rear, and found lots of rust underneath. There are two huge sections under the front seats that are completely gone, and giant patches of rust in the back. My tub is definitely in much better shape here.
  • It always takes more time to get parts off a truck than you think. As long as I’ve been doing this, I’m always stupidly  optimistic in terms of what I believe I can accomplish. Putting in a full day Saturday, I got all of the trim off, the roof rack removed, four aluminum sill plates, the visors and rearview mirror, the headlights, tail lights, and both front marker lights. And then I spent two hours getting the driver’s fender off. It’s in excellent shape and should clean up really well, so it was definitely worth it. I got about half the bolts off the passenger side before I had to pack things in; the most painful bolts need to soak in PBblaster for a week or so. Somehow I thought I’d have half the truck apart already.
  • I’m going to have to hook a battery up to try and lower the rear window to get the gate open. The chances of this being successful are about 1000/1. When that doesn’t work, I’ll have to get a thick Phillips-head screwdriver on the 6-8 bolts at the bottom of the inside panel to get access to the motor. The chances of this being successful are 500/1. But the tailgate—and more importantly, the glass—are very much worth the effort. Jeff J. tells me the glass is curved and very hard to find.

  • Jeff also tells me the power steering box on this truck won’t work on my truck; this truck (with IFS) has a boxed frame while mine is channeled, and there are differences in where the steering box goes and how it mounts. Rats. 
  • Also, the front grille assembly won’t fit my truck; the 1965+ trucks had a square opening in the sheet metal while mine is scalloped on the ends. Doesn’t matter, I’m taking it all off anyway.
  • I pulled on the fan blade to see if the engine would turn, and it’s stuck tight. Once I can drain the radiator and pull that out, I’ll have room to see if I can get a socket on the crank bolt and put a breaker bar on it. Maybe I’ll pull the plugs and soak the cylinders in Marvel Mystery Oil; we’ll see.
  • I wasn’t able to get the cowl cover off to put the borescope in to check out the vents down there, but judging by the rusted edges on each side and the pile of debris that fell out when I opened the driver’s vent, I’d guess they’re pretty well shot.
  • I did a fair bit of ADHD scatterbrain picking before I settled down and focused on a few main items. I had actually written down a list based on a strategy of keeping the outer shell together to keep it looking respectable while I take all of the interior parts out, but hubris got the better of me. The driver’s fender is now hung with one bolt. I’m going to do the same with the passenger side, then work on the front clip. Inside the engine bay there are a lot of parts that will stay behind, and I’ll get as much as I can out of there before I start dismantling the interior.

So in rough order, here’s the basic plan:

  1. Get the passenger fender off
  2. Get the inner fenders ready to pull off
  3. Drain the coolant, and pull the radiator out
  4. Remove the heating box from inside the cab
  5. Pull the plugs and put some Marvel Mystery oil in the cylinders; see if the engine will turn
  6. Continue pulling the front cowl off
  7. Put a battery in and see if the rear window will go down
    1. If yes, then open the tailgate and get the glass out
    2. If no, then get a larger screwdriver and try to get the bolts off to open the access panel
  8. Remove the rear tailgate
  9. Pull the rear bumper off
  10. Remove the entire power steering assembly
  11. Pull the brake booster assembly
  12. Pull out the front bench and base
  13. Dismantle and remove the entire dashboard
  14. Pull the steering wheel out
  15. Pull out all internal trim
    1. Ceiling surround channel
    2. Extra ceiling hoops
    3. Armrests, other minor trim
  16. Pull the front bumper off
  17. Take the doors off
  18. Take the hood off
  19. Take the inner and outer fenders off
  20. Maybe pull the good leaf spring off?
Posted on   |   by bill   |   Leave a Comment on Parts is Parts, Week One  |  Posted in Junkyards, Travelall

Recovery Mission

Last week, while considering the two trucks I’d learned about in New York, I got a text from Bennett:

The owner is a friend’s family and they wanted it gone before it collected more tickets from the local constabulary; I told Bennett I wanted it and asked for his help in going to get it. He got in touch with his brother for the towing rig and a plan was hatched.

Sunday morning I met Bennett over at his storage yard so that we could pull the Hudson off the trailer, park it, and use that for hauling. Before we could leave, we had to replace the hot lead to his trailer winch, which took some surgery and delicate tinkering. Moving the Hudson was pretty easy (we’re used to this procedure by now) so we were on the road north by 9:30.

The truck was at the bottom of a tricky driveway at the end of a fast curve, so I stood outside and stopped traffic while Bennett expertly backed the trailer up the hill (digging the bottom lip all the way up) on his first try. He backed it down the lane to stop at the rear bumper of the Travelall.

She looked worse in person than in the photos (big surprise!) Like she’d been at sea for years and had been beached in a storm. The owners of the house came outside and watched as we busied ourselves setting up the ramps and unloading tools.

The first issue was that it was on four flat tires: two of which were questionable and two of which looked like a dinosaur had been snacking on them. I put my compressor on the “good” ones and got the passenger’s front to fill and hold, while the driver’s side rear would fill and empty at almost the same rate. So: it was up to the winch. We aligned the ramps and yanked the truck backwards up to their edges, and realized the trailer hitch would never clear the deck of the trailer. But we’re pros at this: we stacked up some scrap wood and propped them with 2×4’s to lengthen the ramps and make the angle work better. I put a long board between the hitch and the trailer, levered it over the edge, and we were quickly up on the deck. Turned out the one good tire was bolted to a drum which had frozen, so it was effectively useless.

We pulled it back as far as possible but knew having the engine over the rear axles was dangerous, so we made a plan to flip it around as soon as we found a good-sized parking lot. After strapping it down tightly, we said our thank-yous and I went back out to the street to cover traffic. Bennett got up a head of steam and came down out of the driveway at an angle to avoid getting high-centered, and we were soon on our way.

Down the road we found an empty restaurant parking lot with a couple of steel posts that would be perfect for our next trick: pulling the truck off the trailer, then loading it on facing front. He backed it up to a post which we fastened a strap around, and he gently pulled forward to pull the trailer out from underneath the truck. The front tire—the one with air—still wouldn’t budge. We used the strap to pull the truck backwards to clear the post, and Bennett turned the trailer around to meet the front of the truck.

When we’d gotten the Travelall about 1/2 of the way up the trailer he remarked that he was impressed with how well the battery was holding up on the winch; fifteen seconds later the winch began to sputter as the power dimmed. We dicked around with ratchet straps and a come-along that was definitely not strong enough, and finally unhitched the Ford, pulled it up to the front of the trailer, and used jumper cables to juice the battery enough to get the truck winched all the way forward.

From there it was easy to strap the truck down and get on the road. After a quick lunch at the diner up the street, we drove back to Maryland through howling wind and snow showers to my house, where I’d moved the red Travelall backwards to make room.

Here we used a similar method to get the truck off the trailer: we hooked my tow strap to the telephone pole and the tow hitch on the truck and Bennett simply pulled the Ford forward. We quickly threw a tarp over the carcass to hide its beauty from my neighbor, who is coincidentally trying to sell his house—sorry!—and packed things up. Then we drove back to his storage lot to help get the Hudson back up on the trailer. We got everything covered and strapped down, and took off for home.

I haven’t had a ton of time to look the truck over, but here’s what I see so far:

The outside sheet metal is all Pennsylvania-good. Meaning it has rust in many of the same places the red truck does: in the front fenders at the bottom and over the eyebrows, in the front grille below the marker lights, behind the rear wheels at the bottom of the arches, and in the bottom corners under the taillights (mine is solid here). There’s good chrome trim around the outside which looks like it might all be intact. There’s one good chrome rocker trim on the passenger side—the driver’s side was ripped off at some point. Both bumpers are in excellent shape, and the rear bumper has a set of inset reverse lights. There’s a beautiful roof rack and luggage rail setup on the roof. It’s a single-tailgate model but we can’t figure out how to open it—there’s no handle anywhere, and this truck came without a key. The drip rail is in excellent shape given how long this truck had been sitting. There’s a lovely patina of the original IH green, buffed down to red primer, splashed with yellow lichen across the whole truck.

Inside, it’s a 4-speed stick, and the furnishings are all Custom—it says this on the dashboard. Fabric door cards, fancy steering wheel, padded dashboard, and deluxe headliner. The front bench is shot, and the rear bench had been folded forward, so I can’t see what shape that’s in. Water has gotten into the truck from the driver’s door seal so the front floors and seat are wet. In the far back, there’s what looks like a heat or A/C unit sunk into the wheelwell on the passenger side, and a square toolbox on the driver’s side. The chrome trim for the headliner inside is all intact, and there are two visible dome lights.

A quick look under the hood revealed a V8 with power steering, and a large brake booster, as well as a mount for an A/C compressor. It’s IFS up front, which means there’s no leaf springs for me to grab, but I can definitely pull the rears to have them re-arched.

So, the next steps are to do an inventory of what’s good and what’s not, and start pulling parts off the truck. I have no title and no bill of sale, although the owner said he’d look for the former. Our cursory inspection showed a lot of rust and I’m sure it’s deeper than it looks, so stripping this truck down to the shell won’t bother me too much. Jen doesn’t want it lingering in the driveway, and neither do I, so I think I’ll sell some Scout parts to make room for Travelall parts. I’ve already dug two spare fenders out of storage, and I can sell one set of spare doors to free up a lot more space—Bennett said he might be interested in them, in which case they are his for the asking.

Posted on   |   by bill   |   Leave a Comment on Recovery Mission  |  Posted in Friends, Travelall, Trip Logs

New York Crispy

Two weeks ago, an ad popped up on Marketplace for a Travelette about 20 miles from my sister’s house in New York, and the only picture provided showed a very tired old truck lost amongst a stand of trees. I contacted the seller and he told me a little bit about it, then mentioned he had a Travelall further back in the field, and was vague on pricing. Later in the week, my brother-in-law generously offered to go bushwhacking to check it out, and he called me from the field to tell me what he was seeing. As I suspected, both rigs were New York-tired, meaning they’d lived a hard life on road salt and were well corroded on the bottom.

He sent me a number of pictures of rusted panels and cabins full of leaves and junk. The Travelette would offer a good grille surround as far as I can tell, and perhaps some glass, but there isn’t a lot of good stuff there to go with. The Travelall was a panel van, meaning the rear area where the glass lives is solid metal. But it was a barn door model, and there were some good parts left here and there from the pictures he sent; the ’62 grille and headlight surrounds might be worth some money, and the front clip looked like it was in good shape.

So, if I can make it up there this spring before the whole thing gets overtaken with weeds, wasps and water, I’ll stop in and pick up some of the remaining good stuff before it all oxidizes into the ground.

On Sunday I spent the majority of the day out in the driveway prepping the rear bench seat for upholstery with Jeff. They were still covered with foam and burlap after I’d removed the covers, and they needed to be separated, stripped down, wire wheeled, and covered in Rust Encapsulator. These two seats were an order of magnitude more disgusting than the fronts. Critters had made nests inside long ago (when I took the covers off, it covered the driveway in nuts and bedding) and the foam and burlap had been damp for a long time, so the springs were all covered in surface rust. I took them apart, soaked those bolts in Evaporust, and wire wheeled the outside of the frames. Then I brushed on Rust Enapsulator over all of the exposed metal, and when that had dried, sprayed the rest with black Rust Stop.


May 2023


March 2024

Meanwhile, I sanded the high points off the driver’s fender, skimmed some new mud over top, sanded it again, and skimmed a light amount on top to build up the body line for feathering out. It’s really close—it might take one or two light layers of filler to nail the ridge perfectly, but I can see how it’s a million times better than my original attempt to fix the problem.

Posted on   |   by bill   |   Leave a Comment on New York Crispy  |  Posted in Travelall  |  Tagged