Recap 2023

Well, it’s been a pretty eventful year here at the Dugan IH Barn. I didn’t actually drive the Scout a lot during the summer due to the exhaust leak, and for that reason we didn’t take the truck to Nats. Looking at the main to-do list from the beginning of last year, the two accomplishments were the installation of a new battery tray and the unplanned but welcome return of working windshield wipers. I haven’t moved the mirror up the A pillar and I haven’t gotten the spare engine on a stand yet; what I’m going to have to tackle first is a new exhaust leak coming from somewhere.

Looking through the Scout fuel/mileage notebook and doing the math, I put a total of 1346 miles on her this year.

Total Yearly Miles Miles Minus Nats
2015 580 580
2016 276 276
2017 315 315
2018 1768 631
2019 1972 836
2020 1195 1195
2021 3177 2041
2022 2932 2932
2023 1346 1346

On the Travelall list, there was a lot more success. The next big items are re-upholstering the seats and installing them; in the springtime when it’s warmer I’m going to bite the bullet and have her towed down to the mechanic to sort out the clutch/engine issues that are just a bit beyond my skillset.

Posted on   |     |   Leave a Comment on Recap 2023  |  Posted in To-Do List

Crunch

I had a little time on Saturday to try and get together with Bennett between advent activities, so I threw some tools in the Scout and headed over to his storage lot. His plan was to get the Hudson running smoothly enough to swap it out for his other vehicle and drive it back to his house, which is only about 2 miles away. The last time he’d run the car he had some issues with the carb, so we got to work testing it to see what the issue was. We narrowed the culprit down to the accelerator pump and commenced to pulling the top half of it off; it’s an Edelbrock copy of an AFB carb so a lot of it was familiar to me from working on the FiL’s Chrysler unit. We spent a good bit of time trying to get the check ball out of the accelerator circuit with some duct tape and a dental pick. When we’d gotten those out he blew the lines out with carb cleaner and we reassembled the whole thing. Working with the idle linkage we got the engine to run a little better, but it was still very rough compared to how it ran in the summertime. He felt good enough about it to make the journey home, so we strategized our strategy and set to work.

I backed up to his trailer and pulled it out so that he could drive the Hudson off and swap it with his Scout. The Hudson was bucking and fighting him so he had to tinker with the idle circuit a couple of times, but it still wanted to jerk into gear or lock the brakes on him almost immediately. I walked back to his truck to put his glasses on his toolbox, and as I turned around I was horrified to see him rolling away on the ground from the Hudson as it took off backwards in a lazy circle on its own, the driver’s door open. I could only watch as it glanced off the tow hitch of one camper and then the door collected the next one in line, pinning the car in place as it bent the door backwards on its hinges. Bennett couldn’t get into the driver’s side so I threw open the passenger’s side door and killed the engine with the key.

After making sure he was OK (I thought for sure he’d been partially run over, but he’d just slipped on wet leaves as he was running to jump inside) we assessed the damage. The door is pretty well fucked; the tongue of the trailer was driven directly into the window crank and pushed the whole thing forward and down. We tried to take it off at the hinges, but the 70 year old Phillips-head bolts didn’t budge, even with my impact driver. So he pushed it forward a bit and I put my Hi-Lift jack underneath to try and lift it back to where it would line up with the opening. We got it closer to being closed but it’s basically trashed.

Reassessing our options, we set about reversing what we’d just done and pulled the Scout back off the trailer to make way for the wayward Hudson. With the idle being so sketchy and the brakes locking at every touch, I suggested we use the winch to get it all the way up, and Bennett agreed. With that complete he backed the trailer into the spot with the practiced ease of a man who’s dragged old cars out of fields for 30+ years. We secured the car with tarps and a cover, made sure everything was chocked down good, and headed for home.

By this point it was fully dark—the solstice was yesterday—so I was a little alarmed to see him slow down right after leaving the lot, get out, and start futzing with the lights on his truck. It turned out his headlights had cut out and he had two miles of very dark roads to navigate. After messing with the fuse block and main light switch to no effect, we decided he would follow me back to his house and we’d hope the cops weren’t paying attention.

Luckily they weren’t, and he made it back home without a present from Johnny Law. I aimed Peer Pressure for our house and was lucky to avoid major holiday traffic. I’m noticing, however, the telltale signs of what I think are another exhaust leak. It’s been getting louder and louder the last couple of weeks; I’m going to have to hunt down which side it’s on and see what’s happening over the break.

Posted on   |     |   Leave a Comment on Crunch  |  Posted in Friends

Shades of Gray

I set up and sent off a care package to Jeff J. this morning, containing a couple of paint chips, two snips of vinyl from the original seat covers I bought from Ray this summer, and a down payment for two new seat covers. We talked a bit on the phone on Saturday and set up a plan; he’s got a bunch of other orders in line but he’s waiting on special-order vinyl so he thinks he can fit me in around those other jobs. The stuff I want is pretty basic and should be easy to lay hands on—it’s just lightly pebbled black and light gray. I went to Lowe’s and looked through their paint samples to find something close to the gray of the door panels and found a swatch one shade lighter and one three shades darker.

I’d like to go with the lighter to set off the black as much as possible, and for these I’m actually going to reverse the pattern so that the light color is on top and the seats are black.

The other thing that showed up was a set of new metal from SendCutSend, which will be used to add the filler hose opening on my spare passenger fender. In order to make the minimum order amount I doubled up on everything, so I have some pieces to practice on—especially the 1/2″ strip that needs to be bent into a perfect circle. I’m going to need to find a 4″ diameter pipe to use for forming somewhere. There’s actually a scrap metal dealer up in Pennsylvania who has box tube and other metals I need for the bumper mounts; I think I’ll add that to the list of purchases when I head up there.

Posted on   |     |   Leave a Comment on Shades of Gray  |  Posted in Seats, Travelall

Amboolamps

Baltimore has its own peculiar accent, and I have spent the last thirty years perfecting my impression of its odd mixture of southern, West Virginian, DelMarVan and redneck patois which makes oil sound like oll and sink sound like zink and leads to interesting sentences like Dose crabs smell turrble, lake dere spereled. Amboolamps is a favorite of the Lockardugan household and we use it whenever we can, along with po-leese and farfarter.

In any case, this Travelall ambulance showed up on Marketplace last week to be parted out, and I contacted the seller to see if any of the sheet metal was worth saving; he told me it was all junk. If it had been closer it would have been worth a road trip up just to look over (and possibly to save the rear set of doors for spares) but Massachusetts is too far away to entertain that idea and I think he wants to sell the whole thing together.

The interesting thing here is that additional section they installed between the two doors to lengthen the truck—from the looks of things that metal was some of the first to start breaking down. This would have been an amazing truck to save about ten or fifteen years ago. Dat’sa shayme, hon. 

Posted on   |     |   2 Comments on Amboolamps  |  Posted in Travelall

All Quiet on the International Front

It’s been very cold in Maryland the last couple of weeks, and with the short amount of daylight we’re getting there isn’t a whole lot of time to get anything done on the trucks while it’s warm. The Travelall has been under a snug car cover for the last couple of weeks and the Scout is snoring in the shed, both hooked up to battery tenders. I don’t see much happening on the trucks themselves until after New Years, because we’ve got to source a second daily driver with the loss of the Honda at Thanksgiving.

I have been in touch with Jeff J. about seat covers, however, and we’re formulating a plan for him to sew me new ones based on the pictures I sent up. I’ve got a source for foam identified, and when we get past Christmas I can place an order for supplies to work on them inside. I also checked in with Brendan B. about the power steering gear he offered me, and we’ve got that set aside for after the holidays when I can get up there to pick it up.

The other thing I think I’ll work on is the spare drinker’s side fender, which I got with a large hole cut out where the fuel filler used to be. Other than that, it’s in great shape, so I’m going to pull the trigger on some new metal from Sendcutsend, clean up the area, and spend some time welding a new fuel filler assembly in place.

Weekly Roundup, 11.21

Bennett got the Hudson registered last week and sent us some video of a test-drive out on the road, and it motivated me to finish the process on the Travelall. Saturday morning I figured I’d run down to the Motor Vehicle Administration and get the title and plates sorted out. What I didn’t know was that they’ve gone to appointment-only, so I left without getting anything done. Knowing that Vermont closed the title loophole and hearing from friends that it’s now next to impossible to get a title for anything without one, I wanted to get the truck as legal as possible before any further clampdown occurs.

This morning I returned with an appointment time and all of my paperwork in hand, and was first in line at the title window. After looking over my Vermont registration, then taking it back behind the window and conferring with three other people, the lady helping me sent a copy of it upstairs to check the serial against a list of stolen and problem VINs. It came back approved within about five minutes, which surprised the hell out of her. From there it was smooth sailing; she gave me a set of 50-year antique plates and then registered my vintage plates to those, I paid the title fee, and walked out with the registration and a new set of plates. Most importantly, my Maryland title should show up in the mail next week. And with that, the value of the truck just skyrocketed.

Meanwhile, with the weather getting colder and the amount of daylight coming to an all-time low, it’s hard to be outside making things happen. By the time I get out to the driveway I’ve only got about six hours of good warm time to work; at 4PM the sun is low behind the house and the driveway is already cooling off.

Sunday’s plan was to lay out the wiring board I set up in the basement and start tracing out wires from the cut-down fuse panel I inherited. I cleaned off a contact on one of the headlight bulb connectors and tried to find connectivity between that and one of the eight black wires behind the dash, but couldn’t trace it. Neither wire in the connector worked, but it was cold and I wasn’t thinking clear enough. I should have traced the wires from that connector to the actual headlight to see where its endpoint was.

After that I pulled the dash gauge panel out and unscrewed the speedometer cable, which was remarkably easy to do. All of the Scouts I’ve ever tried this on have fought me like a dog with a bone, and usually drawn blood. With the panel out of the way I could see all of the wiring behind the dash better, and now I can make some kind of plan to test that stuff out.

While I was thinking about my next move on wiring, I pulled the passenger rear wheel off and hit all of the frame and exposed metal on that side with the needle scaler to remove any surface rust, then brushed on encapsulator to seal it. Pretty much everything under the rear half has been done with the exception of the inside of the main frame rails. For that, I want to get the girl up on a lift and spend an afternoon underneath cleaning everything out, because it’s very hard to reach when it’s on the ground.

I had to stop at about 2 to go out and run errands, so I warmed up the Scout and loaded Hazel in the back to copilot. We had a lot to accomplish, so it wasn’t until about 4 tht we got back home, and by then it was getting cold and I had a pie to bake. So I cleaned up my tools, measured the two bumpers for modified mounts, and put the cover back on the truck.

A post popped up on Instagram earlier this week featuring a blue Travelall in pretty rough shape, offered by Barnes IH up in Pennsylvania. He said it was probably a parts truck and showed a few pictures, and I was lucky enough to see it only a few hours after it went up. I talked to them the following morning about some of the stuff I was interested in—mainly the factory A/C unit, which looks incredible and would be the perfect centerpiece to an A/C upgrade in the future. I also asked about the heater box and the chrome side spears along the body. He told me he had someone down south interested in buying the whole thing and he’d get back to me.

It turned out later that guy bought the whole truck, but they have an entire C-series power steering setup (and inner fender!) available for a reasonable price, so I’m going to jump on that in the next couple of weeks. He said he’s also got a chrome spear set squirreled away that he’s got to check on; this isn’t necessary (my truck didn’t come with it) but A little more bling wouldn’t be a bad thing.

In the meantime, I’m on the hunt for an original C-series A/C unit. Look at how beautiful that thing is. I’m pretty sure I could modify a Vintage Air system to work with a unit like that; the trick is to find one in good shape.

Posted on   |     |   1 Comment on Weekly Roundup, 11.21  |  Posted in Travelall

Rewiring Pregame

I’m slowly mapping out the process for rewiring the Travelall, and every time I look at the wiring diagram I become exhausted and feel like I need to go lie down. A lot of this is basically just understanding the scope of the project and gathering the tools needed to get it done, a lot of which I already have. This video goes into some of the basics and begins with a welcome reminder that this isn’t really that hard, as long as one takes their time and remains organized. He links to a super-handy spreadsheet with some parts links, which are appreciated. He also recommends a labelmaker printing on heat-shrink tubing, but the one he specifies is pricy, so I’ll have to figure something else out there.

So far I’ve got large poster-sized printouts of the early 1960 diagram and the 1968 D-series diagram, and I have to identify the spare harness I’ve got on the bench. If it’s 1963-compatible, I’m in good shape. If it’s not I have to figure out how different it is and rebuild it. From there, the next steps are:

  • Compare and identify the major plug connectors—are the pinouts the same?
  • Trace the main wires back to the fuse panel and label everything
  • Pull the connectors apart and clean all the connections
  • Test each of the wires from beginning to end and replace anything that’s gone bad.
  • Replace any bulb fittings or other special elements

I know Super Scouts has a barrel full of old wiring looms, so I’d bet they have connectors available to buy; I’m going to contact them to see if they’ll sell me the ones I need to complete this.

Update: I looked over the two printouts I’ve got here to identify the spare wiring harness in the basement, and as I suspected it’s a later model assembly, which means it’s not plug-and-play with the one in the truck. From what the D-series diagram shows, the fuse block is completely different and the connectors are all barrel-style while the earlier C-series connectors are square. So, Plan B: I’m going to get a length of wire, solder on a male spade, and set up a continuity test with a multimeter. If I can figure out which wires go where, I’ll use some fancy solder connectors to hook the spare fuse block I’ve got with the wires in the dash. Some of the wires are pretty easy to sleuth out but it’s going to take time to sort out the others.

Posted on   |     |   Leave a Comment on Rewiring Pregame  |  Posted in Electrical, Travelall