Category: Travelall

Sunday Evening Update

I was really hoping I would be able to break the clutch free on my own, but it just didn’t happen.

With the new battery in place, the truck fired right up and when it settled in the Sniper brought the idle down to a reasonable rumble. I let it warm up for seventeen minutes and then shut it down. After setting up some cameras I followed the steps for breaking the clutch free: Put it in low gear, step on the brake, and bump the starter. I did this repeatedly with no success.

Then I figured I’d add more torque to the formula, and hooked a tow strap up between the Scout and the Travelall. Putting the Scout in low gear, I gave it about ten good tugs, enough to pull Darth forward about ten feet, but the rear wheels were still locked tight. I really don’t want to break anything, so at this point I accepted the fact that it needs to go to the transmission shop.

So I moved on to some other projects. Breaking out the sanding gear, I smoothed out the skim coat on the rear valance, prepped it, and shot it with IH rattle-can red. It now looks worlds better than it did when I got the truck.

Then I ran out to the Home Depot and pulled the trigger on a sheet of 3/4″ oak plywood for the rear bed. I’ve been looking and considering multiple different types of lumber for the rear floor: marine-grade plywood, pressure-treated plywood, and composite board used in boats. The first is difficult to find in this area; the second tends to warp over time and is hard to paint, and the third is exorbitantly expensive.

So, I figured I’d go with dependable hardwood. With a couple coats of heavy duty primer, and a good thick shot of undercoat, I think it’ll stand up to the elements pretty well. I need to figure out what I’m going to do with the inside bed. There are two options: I could cover it with rubber matting, the way the factory did it in 1963—I have a link to rubber flooring available on Amazon that someone else used in their truck. The trick there would be knowing what to use for adhesive. The second option is to polyurethane the wood, and add strips down to protect it. This option would make it a little more difficult to sleep on the floor, but might be cheaper in the long run. I cut the plywood to fit and laid it into the truck and was very happy with the results. I’ve been staring at that crappy uneven floor for two years now, and it really cleans up the interior of the truck.

I installed the cardboard glove box insert I got at Nationals. This took a lot more effort than I assumed it would: I had to remove the defrost vent and hose and figure out how to insert it through the glove box opening to get it in place. It actually doesn’t fit as well as I was hoping it would, but it’s better than having an empty hole in the dashboard.

Sunday evening I dug four sets of window cranks/handles/escutcheons from the green truck out of my bins and cleaned them all up. A trip to ACE hardware yielded three springs for behind the escutcheons, and I set up three of the four doors with proper handles.

So I’m at sort of a crossroads. It’s probably going to take a while to get the truck into the bay at the transmission shop. In the meantime, I can continue fooling with the Sniper, but I’ve got a lot of research and learning to do before I can make any major improvements there. And, it really helps when you can drive the truck around to help program the computer. There are a bunch of small jobs that can be done, but I can’t dig into anything huge.

Posted on   |   by bill   |   2 Comments on Sunday Evening Update  |  Posted in Travelall

Saturday Morning Plans

So remember back in May when I said I thought the alternator was bad? Turns out that was fine, but my battery was sick. I’d swapped out the starter last weekend but found that the battery itself was boiling itself when hooked up to the truck.

I pulled it out and let it cool down overnight. The next evening I got underneath and re-connected the wiring to the starter to make sure it wasn’t shorting out on itself. This made the engine much happier, after I dropped the battery from the Scout in,  it fired right up. I connected the old battery to the tender and let that top off while I was doing some other stuff, and when it measured 13V I put it back in to give it a shot. I got one crank out of it and then it died quickly, which told me it was irreparably sick.

Going on a tip from a Youtube channel I follow, I learned that Costco sells Interstate batteries for $100 less than the auto retail stores. I grabbed one Thursday night and dropped it in the truck. It fired right up with no complaint, and after shutting it down, an hour later the battery and its cables were comfortingly cool to the touch.

I don’t know what happened with the previous battery, but the signs were there months ago when I wasn’t getting much of a crank out of it. I guess there was a parasitic drain on it somewhere, and when I put the starter in one of the wires was shorting out, which cooked the battery to the point where it became a boat anchor. I’m going to watch this  new one carefully to make sure it doesn’t get sick like the last one did, because batteries are expensive.

In the meantime, I can tackle a couple of things this weekend: first and foremost is attempting to break the transmission free. This is going to involve running the engine up to temperature, which is fine in any case; another good data log will help me get back to the real job of testing and tuning the EFI system. I dove into the training videos the other night, and realized I have a lot to learn to get this thing running optimally.

Then I’m going to sand and paint the valance panel over the barn doors to finish that project up; even in primer it looks so much better than it did all chewed up.

 

Posted on   |   by bill   |   Leave a Comment on Saturday Morning Plans  |  Posted in Travelall

Crossed Wires

The good news is that I installed a brand new starter on the Travelall this weekend. The bad news is that the battery might be screwed. Let me explain:

I’ve known the starter that came with the truck was going to need to be replaced since I bought the truck. It’s made a funny noise at the end of the start cycle the entire time I’ve had it, and lately it’s been showing its damage by heating up the battery cables after just a few uses. So I bought a new one on RockAuto and made plans to swap it out. I put the canopy over the front of the truck,  jacked it up onto stands, and started the difficult task of removing the old one. It’s in an impossible location: between the frame rail and the engine, and directly over both the front axle and Y-pipe from the manifold.

Once I’d gotten that out, I bench-tested the new one to verify it was working correctly, then hefted it up into place to bolt it up to the truck. When that was done and I was reasonably sure I had all the connections correct, I moved forward, pulled the mechanical fuel pump off the truck, and replaced it with a steel block-off plate I made last weekend. There’s no reason to have a useless pump  leaking oil everywhere.

I had to mess with the electrical connections a couple of times to get the truck to wake up, and I got it to start quickly and easily twice before trying to bump the transmission free, with no success. But then the truck refused to start—the electrical system refused to do anything at all, actually. I went out and found that the battery was hot to the touch, so I pulled it out and set it on the ground. It remained hot for hours afterwards, which leads me to believe I crossed wires on the starter somehow.

Update: verified. I pulled the battery out of the Scout, dropped it in place, hooked up the ground, and touched the hot lead to the battery: the starter immediately tried to engage, which means something is screwed up with the wiring. I did verify that the two extra wires are going to the right poles on the solenoid: the 12-12 wire goes to the R terminal, and the 14-12 wire goes to the S terminal. So I’ll have to get back under the truck, take the wires off, verify they’re all clean and not shorting on each other, and re-install.

Bench-testing the old starter confirmed my suspicions: it still works, but there’s a terrible noise at the end of the cycle when the gear retracts back into place—it sounds like the unit is grinding as it spins down.

In better news, I sprayed the two hubcaps I got at Nats with oven cleaner to remove the red paint; as it turns out there was a layer of red over black over white, but it all came off easily, and with a detailed scrub with some OOO steel wool I got both of them sparkling again. They look so good I’m kicking myself for not having bought four.

Finally, I took advantage of a coupon code and bought an EFI tuner training course so that I can properly tune the Sniper on the Travelall. I asked the IT guys at work if they had any decommissioned laptops I could buy, and they just gave me one they were going to e-cycle. It’s a 2021 Dell that’s got plenty of horsepower to run the Sniper software; it was gratifying to load the config file and see it in full color on the machine. From what I’ve seen in the videos so far, I’m probably going to have to spring for an extra cable to connect the laptop directly to the carb in order to make tweaks in real time.

Posted on   |   by bill   |   Leave a Comment on Crossed Wires  |  Posted in Electrical, Fuel Injection, Repairs, Travelall

EFI Progress

Saturday afternoon was free of commitment, so I made a plan Friday night. I’m still working backwards with the EFI to try and diagnose the fuel/air mixture issues, so I thought I’d try to replicate the success I had two weekends ago by swapping the old carb back on, run the engine up to temperature, and then slap the Sniper back on to see if it would begin learning.

The first thing I did was download updated firmware to the SD card and updated the handheld and computer in the carb. The original file was six years old, so I figure they’d made a lot of updates since then.

I set the worktable up in the driveway, hauled all of the tools and hardware back out, and set up a camera. Pulling the Sniper off and putting the old carb on is easy at this point, and while I was there I removed the clear fuel filter I’d installed after the first two on the EFI fuel line. I strapped the boat tank to the bumper, connected the battery leads to the electric pump, and filled the float bowl. It only took two turns of the key to get it to light off, and with one adjustment I had it idling happily. I let it run for about ten minutes with the cap off the radiator, and then noticed it began bubbling, so I put the cap back on. I’d topped  the cooling system off with about 3/4 of a gallon last week so I wasn’t afraid to run it this time.

When it was good and hot I shut it down, capped off the fuel, and pulled the 2300 off the engine. The Sniper went back on easily (I hadn’t disconnected anything) and I connected the electrical leads back up to the battery. Crossing my fingers, I fired up the engine and smiled as it started idling smoothly—faster than I wanted, but smoothly. I let it idle for a while and recorded a couple of log files for diagnosis, then shut it down to see if it would start and run consistently, which it did.

Then I tried to use it to bump the clutch, where you basically put it in middle gear, stomp the brakes, and start the engine. The force of the starter is supposed to break the clutch away from the flywheel. But my starter is very sick, so I couldn’t get it to budge. I shut the engine down and let it cool off for the evening.

Sunday morning between showers I walked back out and tried a cold start. This was the real test: to see if the Sniper unit had learned anything. I said a prayer, turned the key, and it fired right up—but more importantly, it idled smoothly and a lot slower than it had when it was warm. I did hear the fuel pump whining on the rail when I gave it gas, so I have to ask the pros whether or not that’s normal. I took another data log and saved it to my computer, and buttoned the truck up as it began raining.

The other thing I noticed was that the engine is leaking at the mechanical fuel pump location, so I fabbed up a flat steel block off plate out of 16 ga. steel for when I get under there and pull the pump off.

That’s about all I can do this week with our trip to Nats coming up; I haven’t heard back from the transmission shop yet, but I’m going to call on Monday to see if they can give me a time estimate, and that will dictate my travel plans.

Posted on   |   by bill   |   Leave a Comment on EFI Progress  |  Posted in Fuel Injection, Travelall, Video

Musical Carbs

I had a plan going in to Sunday morning, after sitting back and thinking about all of the symptoms I’ve been facing with the carburetor. Typically when i’m working on mechanical or computer problems I’ll diagnose things backwards until I get to something I know is working. Then I move forward until I’ve identified the fault. On the carburetor, I knew that the engine spark timing was off, and the only good way I know to adjust that is to loosen the distributor while the engine is running and spin it slowly until the idle smooths out. 

I figured the best way to do this was to put the old Holley 2300 back on the engine and work through the problem mechanically. Unbolting the Sniper from the engine, I put it aside, resting on some cardboard, and disconnected all of the wiring. I pulled the old  carb from one of my spares bins and swapped it onto the engine, plumbing it to the boat tank through an electric fuel pump. With a couple squirts of 50-1 gas in the throat, the engine fired right up but sounded very choppy and died off after about 10 seconds. I got a couple of backfires out the throat of the carb—a sure sign of bad timing.

After verifying this was consistent behavior, I got it running long enough to get out to the distributor and slowly twist until the idle smoothed out and the throttle picked up. Then I tightened the mixture screws (they were wide open from last fall, when I was battling the dead condenser thinking it was a fuel issue) and adjusted the throttle until it was idling happily by itself. 

Relieved, I let it run for about 10 minutes and shut it down, figuring it was warmed up enough to give the Sniper a hand. The learning feature in the Sniper control unit kicks in after the engine is warmed up past 160˚, and that was what I was shooting for: I wanted it to learn how to adjust the fuel/air mixture and self-meter. Friday evening I’d pulled the water neck open and examined the thermostat that was in the engine. I figured I’d find something crustier than a wino’s beard but the passages and thermostat looked almost brand-new, which was a pleasant surprise. I put a new 180˚ unit in and closed it back up.

I hustled around the engine and got the Sniper back in place in about 10 minutes, verifying I had reconnected the electric leads to everything, said a Hail Mary, and fired it off. It started immediately, and ran a lot smoother than it originally did—but was still hunting for the right fuel/air ratio, surging and fading. I let it run for a couple of minutes, noting that the temperature was reading 178˚ but knowing that the radiator wasn’t full, and shut it down after watching the Learn setting on the control unit struggle to balance things out. 

I tried to restart after a couple of minutes but the battery sounded tired, so I hooked the tender back up and let it cool down. The Sniper says it’s reading 14 volts when the engine surges, but I’d bet the alternator is dead so I’ll source a new one after I verify its condition. 

So: I know that the timing on the engine is set more correctly than it had been. I know that the Sniper will start the engine and run more consistently than it had been. I know I probably need to adjust the timing settings in the control unit again to better match the engine, and I know that the water passages are clean—but need more coolant.

With a little more time to kill, I got my 3M automotive tape out and finally put the International badge on the rear door. Looking at the rear quarter, I decided I wanted to add the Travelall badge that belonged there too. With the taillight removed I was able to see where the bondo had filled up the original mounting holes and used a chisel to carefully scrape it away to where I could see them. Then I drilled them out and widened them until the posts on the badge fit the holes perfectly. With some more tape the badge went on easily, and now the truck looks even more legit than before. 

Posted on   |   by bill   |   Leave a Comment on Musical Carbs  |  Posted in Carburetor, Fuel Injection, Travelall

Puddin’s Steering Column

The guy who inspired me to build the seat lockbox for Darth just did another video where he swapped in an Ididit steering column to his ’68. His setup was a bit more complicated because his truck is a column shift and he swapped a Crown Vic subframe/GM powertrain, among other things, but he’s a lot more experienced with fabrication than I am.

Posted on   |   by bill   |   Leave a Comment on Puddin’s Steering Column  |  Posted in Inspiration, Travelall

Spark Testing

My plug wires showed up yesterday, which was a surprise. After using the Scout to jump the OG-V (the dome light stayed on for some reason and drained the battery) and charging that up, I put the spark tester on cylinder 3 and turned it over: there was no spark. Then I put the tester on the coil and cranked it again: there was one initial spark and then nothing after that. This is puzzling, and clearly something isn’t configured correctly. But it checks out with what the engine was doing earlier—in previous attempts it would almost catch and then just crank.

Posted on   |   by bill   |   Leave a Comment on Spark Testing  |  Posted in Fuel Injection, Travelall

Lazy Sunday

I had every intention of diagnosing the ignition issues on Darth Haul on Sunday, but the universe conspired against me. The weather forecast was for rain, which I could work around with a pop-up canopy, but Amazon decided the spark plug set I needed for my 8-cylinder engine should only require 5 wires. This from a “guaranteed fit”. Nobody around here had the plugs I need in stock, so the day was literally a wash. I’ve got new plugs on order which should be here Monday, and I can keep troubleshooting after work.

For the last two weeks I’ve been experimenting with leaving the cover off the truck to see what kind of water ingress I’m getting around the cowl vents and the door seals. The rain started Saturday night at midnight and continued on and off throughout the next day. Looking through the cab of the truck at noon, there’s a little bit of water dripping on both sides at the floorboards that I’ll have to track down, but nothing at the volume that was coming in before I cut the cowl out. There’s a small 1/4″ plug in the roof that I didn’t weld up when I repaired that, which is dripping on the front seat; that will just require some butyl or silicone caulk to fix. Finally, the driver’s rear window gasket is leaking a little bit at the very back corner.

The alternative is leaving a cover on the truck all the time, but I’ve found that the cover I have doesn’t breathe very well and moisture gets trapped underneath—to the point where the engine bay looks like it’s sweating. That’s not good at all. So I’m going to leave the cover off for the next month and see if I can stop the leaks enough to feel better about leaving it open to the elements.

Meanwhile, there’s a ticking sound coming from the transmission in the Scout in 4th gear under load. When I tap on the clutch pedal it goes away. I’m going to drop it off at the shop who did the work tomorrow so that they can adjust it for me; I’ve got a couple of long-distance trips coming up which are going to require a fully functional transmission that isn’t trying to eat itself, and I want to get it in as soon as possible to diagnose.

Posted on   |   by bill   |   Leave a Comment on Lazy Sunday  |  Posted in Repairs, Travelall

Wiring Up, Wiring Down

Last night I took advantage of some warm weather to finish installing the second relay in Darth for the Sniper control unit. This mainly involved a screwdriver and a lot of small zip ties to clean up the wire runs and get everything out of the way. I’d already built all the wires and heat shrunk the connections, so all I had to do was screw the relay into the metal panel and then screw that back into the firewall. Then the wires got cleaned up and routed along with the existing wiring.

When that was done, I wanted to see if I was getting spark at the plugs, so I pulled the boot off the #3 plug, and… the connector snapped off the wire. These wires are brand-new, so this is really frustrating. I don’t have a spare set in my stores, so I ordered a new one which should be here this evening. The next steps are going to be:

  1. Checking spark at the plugs
  2. Verifying I’ve got the wires connected in the right order from the distributor to the plugs.
  3. Putting a third, transparent fuel filter in between the stock Holley unit and the carburetor to verify we’re getting gas (I can smell it, but need to verify).
Posted on   |   by bill   |   Leave a Comment on Wiring Up, Wiring Down  |  Posted in Fuel Injection, Travelall