Category: Progress

Weekend Recap

Looking through the Sniper install instructions, it’s looking like the most complicated part of the whole thing is going to be dealing with the fuel tank. Essentially, I’m going to need to empty it completely, drop it again, let it dry out, fill it with water, and drill a hole in the top for a return line. Fuel injection requires a return line to the tank for somewhere to put the extra gas, so I have to sort that out. Thankfully, the kit comes with all the hardware required, so that isn’t an issue.

The next puzzle is figuring out where to put the fuel pump and prefilter. Because the fuel tank is under the passenger frame rail and the fuel outlet is directly behind the passenger wheel, the fuel line routes up through the passenger wheel well and up to the fuel pump, only about 2 1/2 feet in total length. The pump and prefilter aren’t small, and when they’re mounted together they’re about 18″ long. I really don’t want to mount the fuel pump right next to the wheel, so I’ve gotta find a different place to put it. Ideally, it would go inside the frame rail, but that means I have to reverse the direction of the fuel outlet, and find a way to loop the fuel hose around without kinking it. The extra added problem is that the exhaust pipe is on the passenger side of the truck, about 8 inches away from that frame rail, so whatever goes on there needs to have heat shielding.

The obvious solution to this whole problem would be to cut the receiver hitch off the back of the truck and hang a new gas tank under the center of the rear floor. Of course, I’d have to figure out how to plumb a new filler line and solve a bunch of other problems that I’m not ready to face. So that’s out.

While thinking all of the stuff through, I scraped and wire brushed the inside of the frame rail under the passenger side, hit it with rust converter, and then coated it with rust encapsulator. Both frame rails need this treatment, as I’ve done almost all of the outside edges, but because it sits so low to the ground, it’s really hard to get to the inside.

Stalling for time, I spent Saturday afternoon trimming out the already butchered original radio faceplate for a single DIN-sized radio  head unit from the Scout. Then, I repaired the wiring and mounted it in the truck along with a set of old school carpeted truck boxes we got from the repo lot thirty years ago.

On Sunday, we had plans to help our friend Brian install a two post lift in his new garage across the river in Chestertown. I met up with Bennett at a park-and-ride where he was waiting in his 67 Mustang with a seat full of parts and a warm coffee. From there, we caravanned across the bridge to Brian’s house. The plan was to drop the Mustang off at Brian’s so that he could install electric steering in the Ford like he did in his Scout 800.

After getting a little coffee and taking the tour, we started by sorting out all of the pieces and parts of the posts of the lift. We hefted  the first post onto dollies and moved it into position. With three of us, it wasn’t too difficult to push it up and sit into place, and Brian drilled the holes in the concrete to set it. Thankfully, the concrete only got poured a year ago, so it was easy to drill into. Then we moved the second post in a place and assembled the crossbar to hang between the two posts.

The weather was absolutely perfect for working outside and by lunchtime I had changed into shorts. The instructions that came with the kit were lousy, and didn’t explain which hardware went to what. This would not have been a problem if all of the hardware was the same size, but we had to guess between sizes for different applications. Once we sorted all that out, we hung the equalizing cables, electrical line, and hydraulic lines. While Brian was sorting out the wiring for the hydraulic pump, Bennett and I hung the four arms off the lift shuttles and set the pads in place. We left the entire thing anchored in the ground and ready for electrical hookup, which Brian is probably going to finish this week.

Bennett and I packed up my Scout and we headed back west with the sides rolled up in full Safari mode, enjoying the cool evening air. We stopped for a tailgate dinner of gyros right before we hit the bridge and made it back to his house as dusk was falling. I got word in his driveway that my niece and nephew were waiting with the girls at our local ice cream stand, so I hightailed it back to our neighborhood for a chocolate shake with the family.

Posted on   |   by bill   |   Leave a Comment on Weekend Recap  |  Posted in Friends, Fuel Injection, Trip Logs

Back to Life

Getting Darth started and running has been at the top of my list for the last month, and it’s been postponed by bad weather. Jen was out of town this Saturday and I wanted to take advantage of that—she hates the exhaust fumes—so I got to work as soon as I could. The first issue was fuel. Last weekend I had her running off fuel I poured in the carb but I couldn’t get her running long enough to pull fuel up into the filter. The other issue was that the negative battery cable had given up and was getting hot to the touch almost immediately after cranking, so I swapped in a new one.

I started out yesterday by hooking my electric pump up to the hose right below the filter and verifying that the pickup wasn’t blocked. With that setup I got her idling roughly off the boat tank, having to stay next to the carb to alternately adjust the choke and accelerator. I backed the idle screws out a quarter and then a half turn with no effect, and kept her running for about five minutes before shutting her down. The idle is more of a gallop, which definitely points to fuel issues, and it’s different than when I had her running last year. The good news is that the exhaust is clear—there’s no white or blue smoke.

I pulled the electric fuel pump off and tried running it off the mechanical unit with no luck. Figuring something was wrong with the mechanical unit, I jacked up the front end, crawled underneath, and pulled it off. It was full of fuel, and I couldn’t see any issues with it—no leaks or damage. So I put it back on, tightened up the connections, and figured I’d sit back and have a think.

The easiest and quickest solution is to just buy a new pump (and a couple of filters), but before I fire the parts cannon I want to review what I know and see if there’s anything I’m missing. The way I’m seeing it, the next move is:

  1. Replace the fuel filter and see if it’ll pull from the tank. If not,
  2. Put the electric pump on to prime the mechanical pump, and see if that cleans up the idle. if not,
  3. Replace the mechanical pump and see if that pulls from the tank.

That took the better part of the morning into the afternoon, and by then the wind was picking up. It started as a warm day but got colder as a front moved in, so I did some minor stuff inside the cab and then moved to the garage. I cut a new pattern for the bench seat support out of 20 gauge steel, measured and marked everything out, and trimmed it up. Then I screwed my bender into the floor and carefully aligned things up. 20 gauge steel is much easier to bend than 16 (what was I thinking) and in about an hour I had a new support formed, with the final adjustments to be made when I cut the old piece out of the truck.

While I’ve got the girl up on jack stands, I’m going to spray the area between the clutch and flywheel with some PBblaster to see if I can get the two to separate. If by some chance I can free things up, I can avoid a costly tow and transmission job, which I’d love to be able to do.

Posted on   |   by bill   |   Leave a Comment on Back to Life  |  Posted in Carburetor, Travelall

Radio, Radio

Looking ahead to the days when Darth is actually on the road, I was eyeballing the empty hole in the dashboard where a radio once lived, especially now that I’ve got a good power source. As mentioned before I think I threw out the old radio that was with the truck, but I’ve still got a period correct radio from the green Travelall. At first, I thought it was a Ford or Chevy unit based on some very quick research but doing deeper digging led me to a very thorough website with actual pictures and I was actually able to identify it as a Motorola 7SMI, which was standard for Internationals of that year.

This particular unit only had three wires coming out of the back: a black wire ending at one side of a fusible link and two green wires that ended in a terminal connector labeled 22. It stands to reason the black wire was power and I guessed the green wires were for speakers. Much like everything else in the truck, I assumed the whole thing was grounded by the chassis, but none of the service manual diagrams I have for any year showed wiring for a radio at all.

These units were developed at a turning point for car electronics, when things were moving from tubes to transistors and circuit boards, so they are a mixture of the old and the new. This one is filled with old capacitors and sported a phenolic-based circuit board, which was the industry’s first material of choice before they realized it wasn’t resistant to wild swings in temperature and switched to silicon. The 60-year-old capacitors were almost surely fried at this point. On top of all that, it’s only an AM radio.

So the question was: what do I do with this thing? Should I spend hours poring over electrical diagrams, a hundred dollars for fiddly electronic parts, and even more time attempting to desolder and resolder scores of capacitors just to succeed and have a scratchy AM radio that only pulled in rambling religious sermons from Alabama? I think you might know the answer already.

I stumbled upon a YouTube video where a guy gutted an old AM radio and installed a $15 Bluetooth amplifier board on one side, using the knob to act as a stealth controller. This meant disassembling the unit, of course, which bothered the traditionalist in me, but I decided I had nothing to lose.

The electronics on the left side came out relatively easily once I’d cut a bunch of the wires, and I kept all of the stuff I pulled out. Assembling the bluetooth receiver, I bench-tested it and found it paired with my phone almost immediately. So I used some of the leftover metal bracing to bend a new cage for the receiver, widened a hole for the stalk, and mounted it back on the chassis in the empty spot, lined up with the stalk hole. Then I pulled the old stalk pot apart to get the brass rod itself, and machined one side down with a Dremel to fit into the slot on the receiver stalk. With that extra length, the knobs mounted on the front as they did from the factory. Cleaning the whole thing up with some 409 and 0000 steel wool, I made the chrome shine again. Finally, I ganged the power lead to the receiver up with the dial bulb so that the dial will light up when the receiver is turned on.

The only drawback I see is that it’s not very powerful. I’ve spent enough time in 60-year-old trucks to know that you need volume to overcome the road noise, and this unit won’t cut it. So if I want to use it, I’ll have to find an amp of some kind to go between the receiver and the speakers.

The one issue I’ve got is that the faceplate that came on the truck doesn’t fit this radio. The knobs are spaced a little too widely for the existing holes. I could use the faceplate from the green truck but that had a Deluxe dashboard and was covered in black vinyl from the factory. So I could remove that, clean up the faceplate and use it instead. And of course I can find other faceplates at Nationals this year as a longer-term solution.

Update: here are some photos of the cage I build from leftover parts. I widened out one of the existing holes with a Christmas tree bit to accept the stalk of the bluetooth receiver.

Posted on   |   by bill   |   5 Comments on Radio, Radio  |  Posted in Electrical, Travelall

Superbowl Preview

Sunday was a day of tying up some loose ends from the last couple of weeks in between snowstorms. We’re supposed to be getting a major accumulation this coming week so I wanted to get in under the cover, get some stuff buttoned up, and prep it for the weather.

First off, I drilled holes in the cupholder mount and the seat base and installed it with a couple of 5/16″ bolts. I’ve been waiting to do that for a long time, and it really looks good there—even in etching primer. I’m toying with the idea of taking it to be powder coated in black for some added durability.

I grabbed the bracket for the fuel filler hoses, pulled the fender off, and took some time to install it, the new hose, and a refurbed filler cap ring on the temporary fender. It all fit well, with the hose from the tank being maybe 1″ too short on the long side, but it’s good enough to reach the filler neck. So everything is ready for when the good fender gets sprayed and is ready to install permanently.

Then I used some zip ties and a wire holder to tidy up the fuse panel install from last weekend, moving the jumper wire up behind the heater plenum and directing the bundle from the panel upwards and out of the footwell. That made a big difference behind the pedals.

In the garage I fished out a sheet of 18 ga. steel, traced the pattern I built last weekend for the seat mount out, and cut it down with the angle grinder. When it was roughed out, I trimmed the sides down on the bench grinder and prepped it for the brake. I don’t know when I’ll get back out to Brian’s again but that will be another good project to dive into.

Finally, I wire wheeled the last three headliner bows and cleaned them up for etching primer. All five are now ready for a coat of the interior gray I used on the door cards, which will have to wait until springtime.

Posted on   |   by bill   |   Leave a Comment on Superbowl Preview  |  Posted in Electrical, Travelall

Licensed Electrician

I had a windy, chilly Saturday to myself this weekend, and made the most of it in the time I had. There were several things on the punchlist I wanted to take care of, and I got a fair bit of them done.

First up, I pulled the Scout out and idled it in the driveway. While it warmed up, I pulled the old parts out of the back—the flywheel and clutch will go back to IHPA at some point for the core deposit, but I have to figure out how to get it to them. Just mailing the flywheel will cost more than a new car, so I think I’ll plan to meet them at Nats this year to do an exchange.

While that was warming up, I cleaned up the garage a bit to make things easier to walk around. It’s really getting crowded in there. When that was done, and after the space heater had taken the chill out, I sprayed a bunch of parts with etching primer to get them ready for paint, and looked through my bins for a couple of things to work on in the basement.

Then I lowered the tailgate on the Scout and spread the contents of my electrical box out to start work on the fuse panel. I’d already made a pigtail on the end of some 8 ga. wire for the battery side, and measured and cut down more to install an inline fuse next to the battery. I found a good place on the firewall to mount the fuse panel and snaked wire in through one of the grommets, then soldered connections to each of the leads from the relay. Looking over the electrical diagram for the truck I found that the heater box was on the accessory circuit, so I wired a lead to the back of the fuse panel and connected it to the relay. With the whole thing grounded, I temporarily hooked up a new 12-volt charging plug to one of the circuits in the fuse panel, connected the battery, and turned the key: Success! By this time the sun had gone down and the wind was blowing cold, so I cleaned up my mess and closed up the truck. But: Success! Now I’ve got the ability to add some more accessories to the truck.

Back in the warmth of the garage, I wire-wheeled two of the headliner bows to bare metal and sprayed them with etching primer. Then I pulled the driver’s seat base down from the attic and brought that inside with the original fuel pump from the truck and closed things up outside.

Down on the workbench, I set up a Hobo Freight spot weld cutter and started to disassemble the seat base. It’s more complicated than it looks, but came apart relatively easily (practicing on Darth’s cowl and both quarter panels of the Green truck gave me a lot of practice). The section I need is a triangular support that sticks out toward the rocker which looks like it would be a rectangle but is actually a parallelogram to match the slope of the floor both front to back and side to side. I took measurements of the seat base and started cutting up some cardboard, making a rough template with some painter’s tape. Then I cut a better version and set it up to lay flat so I’ll know how big a sheet of steel I’ll need to cut. This one is going to be a bitch to bend—tougher than the lockbox lids, because it’s a giant C-shape that won’t fold cleanly under Brian’s brake. I’m going to have to get creative with how I do this.

Finally, I soaked the fuel pump in oven cleaner and washed it off in the shop sink. It cleaned up well, but needs a rebuild kit. It’s an old-school Carter 3405 with an integrated filter in a second chamber; originally this would have come with a glass sight bowl, but the one I have is silver. If I have some extra time I’ll see about getting a rebuild kit and replacing it on the engine.

Posted on   |   by bill   |   Leave a Comment on Licensed Electrician  |  Posted in Electrical, Seats, Travelall

Chasing Daylight

The forecast for this weekend was for warmer weather on Sunday, which was great news. I got a very late start though, because we had a lot of family and house stuff to take care of first, which meant I only had a couple hours of daylight to work outside.

before and after

First, I scraped off the blobs of silicone and welded up the driver’s side of the transmission tunnel. This side had been drilled out in three places, probably for some kind of radio mount and the associated wiring, so it took a little more time because I had to cut out three round plugs to weld in place. I used 16ga scrap steel to match the body shell and quickly had the patches tacked in. With patience I welded them all the way in and ground things smooth. With some rattle-can IH red it’ll look like new. I figure if I’m going to be featuring my fancy cupholder in pictures to try and sell a couple, I’d like for the truck to not look completely like shit. I don’t know why I didn’t do this over the summer when I welded the passenger side up.

The second thing was to sand down a second application of epoxy to the spare steering wheel. This was to smooth out some low spots left after the initial application. The whole thing needs a careful finish sand to get it extra smooth before I shoot it with primer, but I’ve got to replenish my sandpaper supply first.

Finally, on the bench in the basement I’ve got all the parts collected for an auxiliary fuse panel: the fuse box, a relay and pigtail, 25 feet of 8 gauge wire with ring terminals, and an inline fuse block. I soldered a ring terminal to the end of the wire with a propane torch, and today I’ll measure it out to install the inline fuse and the rest of the wire, as well as figure out where the fuse block will live.

Posted on   |   by bill   |   Leave a Comment on Chasing Daylight  |  Posted in Electrical, Welding

More Light

This may sound like a simple thing, but simple things are giving me joy in a dark time right now: I’ve got working brake lights. After spending the time and money to source a new wiring harness, pull out the dashboard, swap in the wiring, and replace everything, I was much closer to a street-legal truck:

  • All four running lights work.
  • The headlights work.
  • The turn signals work, after some grounding issues.
  • The dash lights all work.
  • The heater works.
  • The license plate light works.
  • The truck starts from the key.

But that wasn’t everything, and there was one major roadblock:

  • The brake lights didn’t work.
  • The high-beams cut off the running lights; this isn’t a dealbreaker.
  • There is wiring for a dome light, but it’s constant power right now—there’s no way to turn it off.
Brake test

Doing a little research, I realized I’d swapped the old brake light switch from the original brake master onto the new one, and most likely it was broken or clogged. I found a new one on Amazon (after some dedicated research) and swapped it in this afternoon. In two  minutes, I had working brake lights.

So next up, I’m going to sort out the dome light situation, and wire three in parallel—two over the seats, and one for the rear cargo area. And as I mentioned before, I’ve got a plan for an additional fuse panel with switched power for more accessories.

Posted on   |   by bill   |   Leave a Comment on More Light  |  Posted in Electrical, Travelall

Snow and Welding

Here’s a video recap of the last two weeks. It’s been kind of slow because of the weather, but I’ve tried to keep busy with some mostly) indoor projects. I’m very pleased with the cupholder project, and I can’t wait to get back out and finish welding on the valance panel.

Posted on   |   by bill   |   Leave a Comment on Snow and Welding  |  Posted in Travelall, Video, Welding

Welding Practice

Here’s what I got back from SendCutSend last week, in the form of three laser-cut and brake-bent sections of 16 ga. steel:

And here are the pieces assembled and welded:

I had to trim the top section of the parallelogram just a hair to get it to line up with the underside of the main cupholder, but other than that, the whole thing went together as smooth as butter. Welding things up took about an hour after I’d squared it all, and I wire-brushed everything down in preparation for paint. I ran out of time before I could take it outside and test-fit everything, but I’m stoked with the progress so far.

Posted on   |   by bill   |   2 Comments on Welding Practice  |  Posted in Travelall, Welding