Category: Travelall

Weekend Update, 11/18

Saturday was kind of a bust, even though I had sunshine and some reasonably warm weather. I’m currently stalled for want of a welder, so I use the morning to knock out some other minor stuff. I got two more lengths of interior U-shaped weatherstripping from Amazon, and applied that to the two passenger doors. While I was doing that I ran the nylon brush around as much of the leftover adhesive stuck to the inside sheet metal as I could reach before my batteries died. Clearly I’m due for some replacements. Then I got the weatherstripping in, which is a good feeling.

The only welder available for rent was at a Home Depot across town in Dundalk, which just happened to be my hometown Canton location. I reserved a Lincoln Weld-Pak for 4 hours and dragged it home to find it was set up for flux-core wire with no gas attachment. Playing a hunch, I spooled some of my leftover wire into the unit to find it wouldn’t advance—exactly the same problem as my Eastwood. So I drove it all the way back and got a refund. But I couldn’t get my 3 hours of sunlight back, which sucked.

So I cleaned up the rest of the interior weatherstripping, ground out and covered some sketchy spots with Rust-Stop, and then drilled holes in the seat box for mounting to the truck. By 6PM it was completely dark so I had to call it, but not before I covered the newly drilled holes with paint.

Sunday morning I got back outside and installed the seat box temporarily. Everything looks great; I just need another warm day to touch up the paint and shoot clear coat over everything. I’m actually wondering if I should shoot it the same gray as the door cards. Then I cleaned up more of the interior sections, using the nylon brush to get rid of all of the leftover adhesive from the upholstery.

As I got around to the rear section, I examined the panel over the barn doors. The previous owners had gone crazy with a 1/4″ drill bit and a hammer to install a bunch of marker lights on the edge of the roof, and what they left looks terrible. So I busted out the spot weld cutter and drilled out all of the welds I could find, and it came out pretty easily. The steel underneath is unpainted and speckled with surface rust. And the panel itself is in rough shape. I pulled the one I removed from the green truck down and compared both; I figure I can use sections of the green panel to fix the red one. It’s probably way too much work to put into a panel that small, but it’ll be a fun winter project I can tackle when the weather is bad.

After hitting Harbor Freight to pick up a full-body Tyvek suit, I covered myself in PPE and scraped all of the insulation glued to the roof. It was pretty easy in most spots but they went overboard with the adhesive in a couple of places. I switched to a wire wheel on the angle grinder and went over the entire roof to clean it down to bare metal.

There’s only one spot where the metal looks a little rough, and it’s right where I would expect: right around the hole drilled for a light above the front seats. It’s not bad enough to worry me, so I’ll slather it in Encapsulator. It’s now ready for a wipe down with acetone, and then I’ll spray the rest of it with Rust Stop. After that, I’ll start installing heat matting.

In the basement I have the bench seat sitting on a small desk waiting for hog rings and pliers; all of the foam and padding is here, so I’m waiting on my brother-in-law, who offered me his leftovers. That’ll be a great Monday Night Football project.

Posted on   |   by bill   |   Leave a Comment on Weekend Update, 11/18  |  Posted in Paint, Travelall

Small Victories

It’s been dry and mild here in Maryland for the past three weeks. Sunny, uncharacteristically warm weather yielded three weeks to enjoy beautiful changing leaves; usually there’s one day of beautiful color, it rains, and the trees are gray and naked until March. There’s also been lots of dry sunlight to work on the truck in shirtsleeves. The forecast for Sunday, however, was for rain, so I decided to visit the local pick & pull for some parts before everything turned into cold soupy mud. I was on the hunt for an electric steering unit from a 2009-2013 Toyota Corolla, and the app told me they had two on the lot. I carried in a metric-based tool roll and impact driver, and found the first car after a few minutes of confusion. Someone had already pulled the dash mostly apart, and most crucially, pulled the lower linkage from the bottom of the steering unit. The second Corolla on the lot didn’t have electric steering assist at all. So I consulted the website for alternatives and found a donor 2009 Nissan Versa several rows over that hadn’t been touched. It only took me several minutes to deconstruct the dashboard to get to the motor, and after a half an hour I figured out how to get it detached from the wheel, off the dashboard, and on the floor. Then I put a socket on the bottom of the linkage and with one mighty pull, got it disconnected from the car.

Back at the house, I laid it out on the bench, tested the motor on 12V power, and verified it worked. Laying it out on the floor with the two columns I’ve got, I’m not sure if I can use either one to make a new unit, but I think the one from the green truck will be the best candidate. Most likely I’ll cut the shaft at the bottom to disconnect it from the power steering unit at the bottom and find a way to construct one good unit out of the two. We’ll see.

The theory here is to have a unit that doesn’t need a computer or any other input to regulate the motor; with no signal from the CAN BUS, the attached ECU (that silver box) will always provide average power assist and return the wheel to center at any speed in what’s called fail-safe mode; and if the motor fails, it just reverts to manual steering. This is what Brian has on his Scout and it’s pretty slick—and his unit was from a Versa as well. Having driven his truck with both the manual and the power steering I can say it makes a huge difference, which is why I’m pursuing this project.

With my welder down, I had to pivot to smaller projects. As mentioned earlier, I had a bunch of things I wanted to knock out, and I got a fair bit of them done. First, I decided to use locknuts and washers to button up my mirrors. It took some travel to find someone with the correct stainless hardware in stock, but once I had that I got the passenger side closed up and mounted on the truck with little hassle. I’m glad I pulled the driver’s side off, because when I went to take the nuts off the rod snapped on both sides as it had on the other one. This was easy to put together, and it mounted quickly. Now both sides of the truck have refurbished, adjustable, period-correct mirrors.

Finally, I started to hunt down live wires on the rear of the truck. There’s a trailer plug with a tangle of wires hanging below the hitch that I can’t identify, so I turned the marker lights on and tested them for continuity. Nothing seemed to work. Another rusted bulb was hanging under the truck, so I tried that one as well; no dice. Looking up. I remembered there was a mystery wire running out of the rear quarter into the back of the door, and put the test wire on that: power! And turning the markers off killed it. So I put a splice on the wire from the license plate holder, connected it to the mystery wire, and used some new stainless hardware to permanently mount the assembly to the rear door. So that’s one more requirement checked off for a street-legal truck; unfortunately now the headlights aren’t working and the front turn signals aren’t lighting. So there’s more work to do.

Posted on   |   by bill   |   Leave a Comment on Small Victories  |  Posted in Electrical, Junkyards, Travelall

Holding Pattern

I’m in the middle of a couple of projects and I can’t currently make headway on most of them. First up, I’m waiting on some parts for gas tank—Summit is supposed to send me a fuel hose with a 90˚ bend, which isn’t supposed to ship until November 21. There are other fuel hoses available, but none of them are long enough to work. So when that shows up, the tank will be ready to hang back up under the truck.

I’m stalled on sheet metal repairs because my welder is down and I’m waiting for Eastwood to get back to me about warranty parts. Their help desk is backed up this week. I’ve got a couple of things I need this for:

  • The clip for the filler hose needs to be welded to the face of the firewall.
  • Three captive nuts that need to be welded to the inside of the firewall for the inner fender skirts.
  • A captive nut that needs to be replaced for the forward gas tank strap.

The mirror repair is the other thing waiting for a welder; I need to cut a couple of metal strips to weld to the threaded rod that goes inside the housing. When that’s ready I can re-assemble the bad mirror and mount it on the truck. I guess I can cut and thread a second rod to refurbish the second mirror while I’m waiting.

So this weekend I think I’ll work on the electrical system and continue troubleshooting stuff like the blinkers, high-beams and get the  license plate light working, and try to install the cabin light. There is no provision for a door-actuated dome light anywhere, so I’m going to do some research into how that might work.

Depending on weather, I might be able to touch up and clearcoat the seat box this weekend. At the very least I’d like to drill for bolts and get the mounting location dialed in.

But if it does indeed get down to 60˚, I can start scraping the insulation off the ceiling. For that I have to suit up in Tyvek and use a fan to blow the particles out as I go; fiberglas insulation is hateful in any form. I’ve got 70% of a roll of Cool It heat matting that I can start with but I’m going to have to buy a bunch more to cover the whole thing.

One other thing I might do is venture out to my local pick-and-pull and snag an electrical setting setup from a Corolla. I’ve got some instructions and details from a couple of locations as to what I need to get and from which models, and the weather is supposed to be pretty nice (and dry; there’s nothing more hateful than wandering through a swampy junkyard), so it might be a good day for an early junkyard trip.

Posted on   |   by bill   |   1 Comment on Holding Pattern  |  Posted in To-Do List, Travelall

October Update

Here’s a recap of the last two weeks; it’s mainly covering the disassembly of the two spare C-series doors, welding the passenger footwell, cleaning out the gas tank, needle-scaling the passenger-side front fender and frame area, and weatherstripping the two front doors.

In the meantime, I’m waiting for Eastwood to get back to me about my welder. I talked to their tech support line and they’re going to get back to me about the next steps, but it sounded like they’re going to send me a new part after we figure out what’s not working.

Posted on   |   by bill   |   Leave a Comment on October Update  |  Posted in Travelall, Video

Welding and Steering

On Saturday I got back out to the truck in the afternoon following a yard sale and continued metalwork on the truck. I had to finish welding in the floor plate first, which felt like it took more time than last Sunday, then grind down the welds on top and underneath. I was happy to see I had good weld penetration when I was down under the truck, though it makes for tired arms when you’re grinding upside-down for a half an hour.

Then I started cutting smaller sections out of the toeboard that had rusted through, including a triangle-shaped area on the A-pillar. I cut a section of new metal, got that welded in to the toeboard area, and ground it smooth, finishing up as it was getting dark.

Sunday morning I got up, walked the dog, and drove up to Frederick to pick up a steering column from another Travelall, sold by a guy I’d met last year. He’s grafted a Crown Victoria front suspension and Ranger rear on to his ’68, lowering the whole thing onto airbags and tubbing out the rear tires. It’s really cool, even if it isn’t my cup of tea. His work is really nice (he’s a bodyman), and it’s going to be a sweet truck when he’s done.

The column he sold me is a column-shift unit, which may work for what I need and may not. I think I can cobble together one good column out of the two and probably sell the steering wheel at Nats to make some money back. The plan is to get an electric steering unit from a Toyota Corolla and splice it into the column.

I had errands to run after lunch, so by the time I got back outside it was 3PM and I didn’t want to drag all of the welding gear out for just one hour. So I filled the compressor tank, busted out the needle scaler, and cleaned off the frame and undercarriage all the way up to the front axle. By 5PM I had the frame coated with Encapsulator as well as most of the underside of the body shell. That was extremely satisfying. Next it’ll all get a coat of chassis black and then the body will get a coat of undercoating.

Posted on   |   by bill   |   Leave a Comment on Welding and Steering  |  Posted in Repairs, Travelall, Welding

Heater Box

Yesterday I got a late start on the red bus after I had a little trouble with the Scout. I’d driven her to get a haircut and pick up some new bolts for the heater box, and she started immediately in the driveway. When I came back out after the trim, she wouldn’t start. I was a little nervous because Jen was already on the road to Southern Maryland and I was on my own. First I checked for gas, and sure enough I was getting plenty of that in the carburetor. The air filter was clean so I knew that wasn’t the problem. My next thought was that maybe the coil had died so I pulled the spare out of my recovery box and swapped it in quickly. I still wasn’t getting the motor to catch so I did what I should’ve done first and pull the cap and rotor off to check the points. Sure enough, there was corrosion around all of the contacts on the inside of the cap, so I cleaned those off with sandpaper and the top of the rotor.

Replacing everything, I squirted a little fluid in the carb, crossed my fingers and tried starting it. At first she didn’t want to catch, but after about five seconds, she slowly caught and began running. I let her idle for a couple of minutes and then turned her off and started her again to test it out. Thankfully she started right back up. So I continued running errands for the rest of the morning and came home. I have no idea why she would have run so well in the morning but not after she’d warmed up and dried out.

Saturday’s goal was to get the heater box installed in the red bus. After some finagling with the box itself, I connected the cable from the dashboard to the passenger vent, which took a little bit of time because I couldn’t find the retainer clip that went on the chimney. I went through three of my bins before I found a tall plastic container marked “Random Travelall Bolts”. I spread those out on the table and found the clip I was looking for. With that installed, I put the box in place and used three new bolts to mount it to the firewall firmly. Then I made a mess on the driveway hooking the coolant hoses back up. I hooked up the leads to the heater box and tested those out to the switch on the dash; it turns out that switch system is keyed to the ignition, so with the ignition off, it doesn’t work. But the blower motor does fire up, so that’s another electrical question solved.

Next, I took the heater plenum, mounted that back up to the box and attached the defrost cable to the dash control. All of the cables are pretty crusty so it took some WD-40 and some effort to get those to work a little better. Both of the heater hoses are 60 years old and pretty dry rotted so I’m going to have to buy some new hose to hook up to the defrost vents.

Because I don’t want to pay $50 for two small door clips I went to the garage and pulled OEM clips out of my second set of Scout doors. While I had the passenger door free I pulled the wing window assembly out, which is in almost perfect working condition, and swapped it for the less-than-perfect replacement in Peer Pressure. It took all of about 1/2 hour and went extremely smoothly. I dunked the clips in Evaporust overnight and sprayed them with Rust-Stop.

Then I worked on the driver’s side door lock to try to figure out why it didn’t unlatch from the inside, and why the lock cylinder still fell out of the lock. The passenger side worked as it should—I could lock and unlock the door and the cylinder stayed in the lock on that side, but crucially, the inside and outside doorhandles worked the way they were supposed to on that door. There was something wrong with the driver side door mechanism that I wasn’t able to figure out.

So I pulled the spare green driver’s door out of the garage, laid it on the table, and continued disassembling it. I started this process back in March, but the weather got warm pretty fast and I put it aside for outside work. Continuing where I left off, in about an hour, I was able to get the entire door stripped down. I put the door latch mechanism back in to test out how the key worked with the rest of the system; it’s a lot more complicated than the one on the Scout and I couldn’t figure out how the key mechanism interacted with the door latch to stop the door latch from working.

Sunday morning I walked the dog and took care of some small errands before getting back outside; it was another beautiful day so it felt great to spend it outside. The first thing I worked on was the driver’s door; I realized pretty quickly that the rod on the back of the lock never made it into the mechanism and thus was spinning freely. D’oh! Once I set it in place, the lock worked exactly as designed, and I felt a lot better. I swapped the refurbished clip in on the passenger side and verified that both doors lock and unlock from each side.

Then I padded the top of the truck and pulled the canopy down carefully. I was hesitant to do this, but I’m going to need as much light as I can get under there, and I can’t have the canopy up forever. The top of the truck really looks good in the sunlight; it’s great to see my work clearly for the first time.

(the water hadn’t dried completely in the photo above)

I put some gas in the carb and fired the engine up for as long as that lasted; she turned over immediately. I really can’t wait to get the fuel system buttoned up for good, but I think I’m going to drop the tank this winter and weld some new metal in on the passenger floor while it’s empty.

I spent the rest of the day farting around with some small stuff; now that the canopy is down I have to finish up the weatherstripping. So I pulled the old rubber off the driver’s door and ran a nylon brush around the perimeter to clean off all the old adhesive, then hit it with some red Rust-Stop. When that’s cured for 24 hours I’ll put new rubber around the perimeter of the door to seal things up.

The biggest win was finding out why the turn signals stopped working: I pulled the instrument panel and found that one of the leads to the temp gauge had come off when I was messing with the bulkhead connectors. Hooking that back up, I got signals back, and I felt immensely better about that situation. So: progress on a couple of fronts that I’m feeling really good about.

Posted on   |   by bill   |   Leave a Comment on Heater Box  |  Posted in Electrical, Progress, Travelall

Of Locks and Boxes

It’s been quiet for the past two weeks. Last weekend we were celebrating a birthday and dealing with a yard sale so all truck things were on hold. This weekend I was down in Southern Maryland busting a trio of brake drums free on the FiL’s 1966 Chrysler to make it mobile again.

Two weeks ago I jacked it up onto a set of Harbor Freight dollies and used my tow strap to pull it out of the garage and on to the driveway, the first time it’s seen daylight since 1980. The dollies were pretty useless on his ancient pitted asphalt so it was a necessity to get it rolling on its own wheels again. In the middle of that operation, my old floor jack decided 4,300 lbs of luxury convertible was just too much to lift, as we ran out to the local Harbor Freight for a replacement. I’ve been eyeballing a new floor jack for months but was holding off on buying one. As it turned out they were having a 40% off sale on the more expensive 3 ton model so I walked out with a beautiful new jack. And after chopping the front drum apart with a $15 angle grinder, we got the drum moving and the car rolling.

I wound up with something in my left eye from the brake drum and got terrible sleep Saturday evening (if I can’t get it out with an eye flush this evening I’m going to visit an ophthalmologist tomorrow) but woke up at 7 to meet a guy in Columbia who wanted to buy my two worst Scout fenders. I was happy to get $100 for them, which was half what I was asking, but I’m happy to have them out of the office and out of my way. And the four remaining fenders will work just fine if I need them to.

In the meantime it’s been raining pretty much nonstop this week, and I was in New York on Wednesday and Thursday. That being said, I had a little time after work on Thursday evening to mess with a new set of lock cylinders for the Travelall; they lock into the barrels just fine, but release when the key is turned to the 8 o’clock position. I don’t have them in the door so I can’t tell if the mechanical linkage to the door mechanism will keep them in place or not, but something tells me this isn’t correct. Which is strange, because they are an almost exact match to the original cylinders.

The Travelall heater box is ready to install.. Sunday I put the motor, heating element and wiring back in the box, drilled new holes for the back plate, and fastened that in place with new stainless screws. Then I used some of the adhesive-backed foam padding from the Scout heater box to fashion a new lip around the top edge to seal up that section. It may need some more work, or thicker foam depending on how the whole thing ages, but we’ll see.

Posted on   |   by bill   |   Leave a Comment on Of Locks and Boxes  |  Posted in Purchasing, Travelall