Not a build as much as a resurrection?

[jim lee]

And then?

The next morning Julie and Alex woke up all raring to do something. We’d talked a lot the night before and, although we could have continued on by dragging the truck along on its front axle. It just didn’t seem like the right thing to do. That and, I was completely spent.

So Julie and Alex went off to go tubing down the river, while I took a long nap in the back of the truck.

Good lord! Once I’d given up finishing the WABDR, I’d lost control of the trip. They made go.. Hiking! How exhausting! How do they do it?

They make it look so easy.

Coolin’ our heels in the river. I gotta’ admit, it was really pretty out there.

Some cool waterwheel thing. You can’t see it very well in this picture. But it was still some pretty neat machinery.

Happy hour at the KOA, hanging out by the power plug charging our machines and snacking. Alex brought a bunch of Stargate Atlantis episodes and they were pretty fun to watch.

Playing around with NeoPixel strings. They put out a LOT of light!

I’d like to set up some camp lights with these. Hopefully for next time.

We got in touch with our son, Dan and had him bring our “modern” pickup truck.

He stayed for a night and we treated him and his buddy to a “Traditional German Dinner” in Leavenworth.

Umm.. We found that we are not fans of “Traditional German cooking” if that was really what it was. I think/hope the Germans cook better than that in Germany.

Interesting that this was some of the most enjoyable times of the trip. We were finally able to relax, see the sights and get some rest.

Trying to do the WABDR in six days was just too fast pace for us. Well, for me. I had no idea when we started what pace we could comfortably do. Now I have a better idea.

We learned a lot!

Three tote kitchen system? Two thumbs up!

The 5 gallon beverage cooler. That was a seriously great thing to have along. Fill it with ice, dump in a gallon of spring water and you are good to go for a day or so. Two thumbs up!

My oversized Hydroflask water bottle. When I bought it I thought maybe I’d made a mistake by getting such a big one. Used it all day every day. LOVED it! Two thumbs up!

Chase car? Saved our butts. Two thumbs up!

The camping table setup? Never ended up doing dispersed camping, so we were not able to test it. Maybe next time.

The CB walkie talkies? They were completely worthless! We tried and tried to use them, but they never worked further than maybe two hundred feet.

The truck? Its a really good size for a camper. Comfortable to sleep in and is really handy for breaking the ice and meeting people. Almost too handy. You have to teach yourself to slow down to really get it to perform. Major parts are old, suspect and few and far in between. The differential that failed was theoretically a new part. It had a little more than maybe 1,000 miles on it when it failed. I don’t know why it failed. That’ll have to wait ‘till I pull it apart and see. The vapor locking? I’ll have to figure that out as well.

The fuel gauge did not leak. Didn’t work either. It showed full or empty. Back to the drawing board on that count.

The cool WWII canvas bucket strapped to the Jerry can. This is such the common accessory with the army truck boys. Being tied to the Jerry can strap made it a complete pain in the neck. I ended up tossing it in the back of the truck. I assume its still back there somewhere.

Spare tire covering the driver’s door. Yes, it was a bit of a pain. But it wasn’t nearly as bad as I expected it to be. Packing the tire inside was much worse. You get used to it and it was extremely nice to have a spare when we needed it.

The WABDR map. Don’t rely on it by itself! Its little more than a “serving suggestion”. It has good information, but if Julie hadn’t brought along her Washington atlas, we would have been completely sunk. The WABDR map is missing a LOT of detail.

None of the people that signed up with us online made it to the trip. And, seeing how little we knew about what we were doing and how much we had to shoot from the hip, maybe that wasn’t a bad thing? I fear we would have just been in the way of anyone seriously doing the WABDR.

The truck’s packed away back in its garage. Its still nice out and Julie actually has her own 4Runner. She wants to do a road trip into Canada tomorrow..

-jim lee

 

[CR-Venturer]

That thing is absolutely sick. I LOVE vintage vehicles (vintage anything, really) . Bravo to you for resurrecting this treasure!

You also deserve a medal for putting up with the continual mechanical disasters of the thing, wow! You must have the patience of Job.

 

[jim lee]

Battle of wits

​

Wednesday, August 8, 2018

We brought the truck home and the first order of business, after a lot of napping, was to deal with the failed differential. What went wrong? Where can I get a replacement?

Pulled out the broken differential. Sure enough the pinion was locked solid. Everything looked somewhat cooked and there was almost no oil inside.

Where did all the oil go? I’d just filled it maybe a week before we left on the trip. From the looks of things, the oil blew out.

Anyway, time to find another differential. I called Don and he said he had some. Cool! Lets go have a look.

Here we are. Bottom shelf, both front and rear axles from a WC53, just like mine!

I’m in luck.

Don’s place is like a candy store! I swear he leaves this stuff out on purpose, just to tease me.

It was over 100 degrees out, I was coming down with food poisoning or something. We had to get the axle out of where it was buried. Then pull out the differential to see if it was any good.

It took pretty long to get it apart, as always with old stuff. I had to take a LOT of breaks.

The housing was full of oil slop, some water, brown goo, sludge.. All in all though, the gears and stuff looked fine. Just needed some cleanup.

Don even threw in a set of 1940s gaskets. I was good to go!

He also threw in the rest of the axle. Remember the fork lift? There was no way I could get that bloody thing out of my truck. For now I’m stuck with it in there. And, what timing, two of the kids are moving and need to use the truck.

Wonderful.

My “new” differential. The kiddies are all grown up, but that wagon is still going strong! Way better than a wheel barrow.

Don kinda’ threw in the drain pan as well. Or maybe I should get him a new one. This one took it hard.

Part of me wanted to send this out to be professionally rebuilt. More of me, wanted to just go drive the truck. In the end I washed everything out with about a gallon and a half of diesel oil.

It looked like it was going to be ok. Everything felt really smooth.

Now remember Don gave me some 1940s gaskets for this installation? I got everything ready to go, called Guy to help lift it into place and... The 1940s gasket split at one of the studs.

“Oh, rats.. Sorry Guy, I suddenly have to order new gaskets. Maybe we can do this another day?”

Vintage Power Wagon had the gasket, I ordered extras. I also ordered a gasket for my leaky oil pump. My FIVE hole oil pump. See the gasket? SIX holes?

In any case, messing about and looking closer at the gaskets, I notice something odd about the cover plate gasket.

Look closely. The gasket has pulled inside the casing. How odd is that?

And looking around in back, its poking out of the casing as well?

What the heck?

At this point it was obvious that I needed to pull the cover plate. I originally wasn’t going to pull it. Why should I? Just whip out the old differential and bolt in the new one. Easy peasy.

So off it came. And this uncovered..

Somehow the cover gasket split down the center. Half of it squished out the cover plate and the other half squished into the inside of the housing.

I have never seen anything like this before. I’ve no clue as to what could cause something like this.

I’m pretty sure that this is where all the oil went.

So, all in all, it was a good thing that the old gasket broke. Because, that got me to look closer and find the failed cover gasket.

”New” differential is in. Filling with 2 1/4 quarts of gear oil.

When the differential locked up and we had to pull the axle and drive shafts, about half the U-Joint cups fell off. We were able to gather them up and save everything. Now it was time to clean them, reassemble, and install the driveshaft.

While all of this has been going on, I’ve taken the blown tire down to our local Les Schwabtire store. Why them? Because they don’t fear split rims.

This is the tube that failed. It tore up around the stem. There was no damage at all in this area of the “boot” (Protective rubber ring inside the wheel). The Shwab guy thinks that it was just a bad tube that failed.

All ready to go! Julie and I hop in the truck to test out the new gears. Its not running so well and it just reeks of gasoline. We make it home, but gas is flowing down the sides of the carburetor and running all over. See the pool of gasoline in the intake manifold?

It ran when parked.. Only a week ago! What in the world can have gone wrong now? I pulled the carb, tore it apart, couldn’t find a thing wrong with it. A little rust powder but not a lot.

Cleaned it up, reinstalled, tested, flooded.

Left the garage and slept on it.

What could suddenly change like that? Float level? Not really. Fuel pressure? Maybe, if something jammed the regulator spring?

I’d been suspect of the old fuel pump for awhile. Why not just swap out for a new one and see if it fixes the problem? NAPA had an almost identical pump as the one that was in there. Cool! Order one of those.

Jack up truck, pull off wheel, pull off inner fender. After two valve jobs I’m getting this routine down.

The old fuel pump never had a gasket. I used some fancy airplane form-a-gasket stuff instead. I don’t think it worked at all. Looks like there was oil dribbling all over down here.

This time everything is cleaned up and the new gasket is getting coated with Gasgacinch. We’ll see how this works.

New pump all installed. Notice the heat shield? Don’t leave home without it!

That reminds me. I need to send a replacement one of these to Adam. He gave me this one.

So, installed new pump, tested, flooded.

Left the garage and slept on it.

Well, its not a fuel presser problem. It has to be the carburetor. Off comes the carb again. Rip off the top of the float bowl. It has to be something to do with the float or the valve or..

“Hey..”

Hold float to ear and give it a little shake. I can hear sloshing inside.

The float sunk! Somehow gasoline has found its way inside the float and now it no longer floats.

Where to find a replacement?

If you recall, back in early June I got my hands on another Carter WA-1 carb. It was in pretty rough shape. Mine seemed to be in better shape so I pretty much put this one on the shelf and forgot about it.

It had a good float in it!

And with it I also saved the paperwork about how to set float levels etc.

Installed new float, adjusted level,tested, It worked! No more flooding.

All our problems are solved. Lets go camping!

Julie & I loaded up to do a three day, two night camping trip to Baker Lake. About a hour and a half drive from home.

Requisite Mt Baker picture from the bridge near the campground.

Exploring the area.

Massive amounts of driftwood. This isn’t the half of it.

Bridge at the end of the lake.

Hiking.

Uggh!

Neat bridge though.

HUGE tree!

Drove over to see the Dam. This is the high side...

The low side. Now that was cool!

Looking up from the low side you see Mt Baker.

Kind of the dominate feature of the area.

Driving across the dam. Julie kept asking, “Are you sure we can do this?”

Back at camp.

Now, I bet your wondering how the truck ran? It ran absolutely wonderful! We put over 150 miles on this trip and it ran flawlessly! The new rear end is smooth as glass and silent! Even when the oil is warm, no grinding, growling or anything. I could not be more pleased. I was actually able to cruise at 47 mph. Unheard of speed for this machine.

There is still a small cutout at the low end of the throttle setting. But I’m pretty sure this is due to the fact that the carb is pretty worn out.

Next day we packed up and headed for home.

Half way home the truck is still running exactly like I’d hoped. Just a light whining from the gear box, no appreciable vibration from the engine.

We pull over to let a line of cars by. 46 mph is great for us, not so much them.

They pass by, I let out the clutch to get going again and.. Nothing but a rasping grinding sound. Julie looks at me and asks “Are there chains in this thing? ‘Cause it sounds like you just stripped one.”

And Franklin was done for the day.

Franklin getting the “Tow of Shame” home, again.

Good thing I have Anacortes towing on speed dial.

Sigh...

Almost forgot. Not only is Franklin broken, I still had that bloody great rear end to deal with in my truck.

There was no way I could lift it. So I pulled it to bits and moved the pieces. First I pulled one axle and brake drum. Then I slid it from the Ford to the M37 to get at the other end. The project took most of the day. The second drum was locked and had to be pulled off etc.

Exhausting, but its done. All the bits are stored around the side of the house.

Little red wagon to the rescue again!

-jim lee

 

[Jedi]

You almost made a complete trip with it... that is progress! Next time those annoyed drivers will just have to deal with the 47 mph speed limit because there is no pulling over to let them by.

 

[CR-Venturer]

I'm tempted to conclude that the thing is an absolute hunk of garbage, and always was, but I think if I actually step back and think about it, the vehicle is, what, 70+ years old? And has suffered probably decades of neglect from previous owners - the fact that it runs at all is pretty impressive. As impressive a vehicle as it is, I have my doubts that my CR-V will be running when it's 70 years old. Good on you for having so much patience and perseverence with it! It does seem you're making progress, so perhaps you'll eventually get to the point where you've restored her to her former glory and she'll run like a top!

 

[M715-CBIII]

I like the vintage steel! i hope to have my M715 out and about like this, but for now the Tundra will be seeing the camping traveling duty.

 

[jim lee]

In the poor thing's defense. Its 76 years old. When I got it, it looked like it had been sitting dead, worn out and forgotten since around 1973. Another bit is that most of the "black art" to keeping these things running has been lost. Sure you can ask online, but you will begin to notice there is a lot of information that's just passed around in circles on the internet. Just because 100 people said so, doesn't make it so. It just means someone guessed something and everyone else copies it. Then of course I'm not the world's best mechanic. Just some guy in his garage trying to make it go. And making a lot of mistakes along the way. The learning curve is a lot steeper than I expected.

The online Power Wagon boys have been giving me grief. They're basically telling me that I should have done a "frame off" restoration. (Tear it apart completely then rebuild everything.) But those restorations typically take years and many of them never get finished. How fun is that? This way, at least, I get to have some fun along the way. Even if some of it is really stressful. And, even if you do finish a frame off restoration, many of those are so fancy you can't use them for more that an occasional parade. Again, how fun is that?

But really, I think its just lazy. I mean it acts just like a lazy horse. As soon as you fix one issue it comes up with a new issue to keep itself fed in the barn.

-jim lee

 

[jim lee]

The disk drive on my computer died and the original Carryall Blog was lost. So.. I’ll start this after the end of what we will now call Part I of the Carryall blog.


When we left off our story last time, Franklin had broken down again heading home from a camping trip to Baker Lake. Everything was going along just tricky-woo when we pulled over to let some cars pass by. When attempting to pull back on the road, the truck wouldn’t move. There was only a somewhat quiet grinding noise. So again it was “The tow of shame” home for poor Franklin.

It was the clutch..

Friday, September 14, 2018

Again Franklin is in the garage for rest and repair. The first order of business is to figure out what broke in the driveline to cause it to not be able to move. I suspect there has been a clutch failure of some sort. The parking brake still works so everything is fine from the gearbox back. I didn’t hear a big bang sound that would typically occur if the main shaft in the gearbox snapped. We’ll have a look at the clutch first.

I pulled off the bottom flywheel cover plate and had a look. Sure enough, I could spin the driveshaft (rear wheels lifted off the ground) and the input shaft of the gearbox would spin inside the clutch. But the clutch plate would not move.

First order of business this time was to make up some alignment studs for pulling and reinstalling the gearbox. The WWII manual said to chop the heads off a couple 1 1/2”? I can’t remember the size now, but a couple bolts.

Second step was to cut a slot in the top for using a large screwdriver on them.

The plan, from the manual, is to replace the two top bolts that hold in the gearbox with these studs. This gives something to hold the gearbox in alignment when sliding it in and out of position.

As per my usual, I pulled out the intermediate shaft and the caps came off spilling needle bearings everywhere. Then it was a hunt to find them all. Clean them all up and reinstall the bits.

Don’t get upset, just deal with it.

Cleaned up, reassemble.

Didn’t get any pix of pulling the gearbox.

I had to pull off the spare tire and unbolt the spare tire arm crossmember. Luckily you don’t actually have to remove the crossmember, only slide it back out of the way.

The other fortunate thing is that you don’t need to pull off the forward driver’s side bracket. This bracket holds the clutch return spring and its nearly impossible to take on and off. And, by not removing it, this leaves a couple bolts holding the spare tire arm. Removing that includes removing the driver’s running board. This would take hours and a second person to help with the arm. That arm weighs a ton!

The studs worked and seem to be pretty helpful.

And this picture? Its an internal chunk of the clutch disk that fell out when everything was pulled apart.

The gap between the plates is where the piece above was supposed to be.

The new clutch plate arrives. This took some time to track down. 10” disk, 1” shaft, 10 flute. It was really common back in the day. There seems to be none left in the “normal” world. Not even cores to be rebuilt. Luckily for us, DC Truck parts had a bunch made. So I was able to get a shiny new one from them.

I saved the old input shaft from the gearbox rebuild for doing clutch alignments like this.

After the new clutch and throwout bearing was reassembled, I grabbed Steve for the big gearbox install. The new alignment studs actually helped quite a bit for getting this back in.

I found the ground strap was falling off as the end had split. So I fabricated a new end and soldered it on.

Quick test ride. Everything seems to work.

But now, checking over things, it turns out the new differential is leaking quite a bit of oil out of its pinion seal.

I’m getting really tired of replacing major driveline parts. So I’m going to fix this before taking this machine anywhere.

First roadblock. Someone mashed the nut over the cotter-pin ends. Both sides too!

Vandalism!

Took a day or so to figure out how to get the bloody nut off. Had to grind away a bunch of metal with my handy dandy die grinder.

Next roadblock. The yoke is not coming off the shaft. At all.

First attempt after trying by hand. Bashing chisel between the shaft and a cross shaft held by the U-Joint retainers.

This didn’t work. Also, I felt really bad about bashing this sideways like this.

Then I realized I had a bearing puller setup that I bought when I was doing the front axle rebuild.

And, everything fit together great. Now I’m in business.

Not in business for long..

The cross member bent and the nut and washer pulled through it. The yoke didn’t budge.

I was able to borrow some puller parts from the local auto parts store.

Adding this to the clamp that I already had, I made up a strong enough puller to actually get the yoke off.

I tested this setup on the old differential to make sure it worked before climbing under the truck.

And this netted me two yokes to choose from. The old differential had almost no miles on it, so there was not much wear on it.

But it was pitted a bunch. Again, the local parts shop to the rescue. They had a sleeve I could use to cover the pitted section.

Next obstacle, how to pull out the old seal? The online boys tend to like drilling out a couple holes and using them to attach a cross plate. I didn’t want to go that way. Seemed like a lot of work and metal chips to me.

Then I found I could force my two arm puller into the seal and I was able to pop it right out. Again, using the old differential as a test case was really helpful.

What to use as a drift to install the new seal? Turns out the 8 sided socket I use for the wheel bearings was a perfect fit.

Then, of course, I had to bash the yoke back on again.

Sigh..

Topped off the oil, found it about a pint low. Good thing I fixed this. I only had about 100 miles on it.

Anyway, ran the truck 30+ miles with no leaks. So I guess for now its fixed.

Sorry about the boring update. Lets hope the next one’s more interesting.

-jim lee

 

[Jedi]

Awesome to hear that Franklin is up and running again!

 

[jim lee]

Camping in the rain

Monday, October 8, 2018

Clutch fixed and suddenly we have a seemingly reliable machine, finally. Above we’re picking up a local batch of dumplings for lunch. Tasty! So now that the machine is running again, its time to rebuild our confidence in it.

Oldest daughter, Alex, wanted to learn how to drive a “crash box”. Here she is getting her driving lesson. She drove us all the way across the island and back to buy a couple crabs for lunch.

Pretty impressive.

”What? Allie got a driving lesson? Where’s my driving lesson?” So, not to be out done, youngest daughter gets her crash box driving lesson.

Julie’s next in line..

Then Julie and I ran the truck up the coast for an afternoon picnic. Everything seemed to work fine, except the headlight switch. The headlight switch gets hot enough to burn your fingers. Something amiss in there.

Headlight switch pulled out of the dash, hanging on its wires. I thought it was the fuse getting hot, but it was the connector to the fuse that was overheating.

The rivet that holds the fuse connector to the power switch had worked loose. This caused a high resistance and all the heat. I could possibly fix it, maybe..

I just bought a replacement. I needed to get this working so as to be able to drive at night because..

Side note: There was always this annoying buzzing, scraping sound coming out of the generator. I was told that this was “Just the way they were”. So I tried to ignore it. Ever since I swapped out this switch, the noise is gone!

Go figure!

We were heading out camping again! This time it was to Kayak point near Stanwood, WA. The weather was iffy and there was a good chance of rain. Also, a good chance of having to drive in the dark. Hence the new headlight switch.

The first night I figured it might rain and that it would probably come at us from the rear. So we used the rainfly from the old tent to cover that end. Looked pretty tacky. But, it was successful and there was no leaking.

Camping in the rain with no shelter but the truck was horrible. So we packed up and ran into town to the local Cabelas camping store. There we found this cool awning. This took rainy camping all the way from misery to enjoyable!

Two thumbs up!

A closer shot of the awning. We’d just got it assembled for the first time. The cooking gear hadn’t been loaded in or setup yet.

Of course, with this new awning, we got cocky and the next night, near morning, it really rained.

And we found that the truck does leak.

We got up before light because we were getting wetter and wetter inside the truck. Made a big breakfast of scrambled eggs and bacon with coffee. Then jammed everything back in the truck and..

Headed home. Look, blue skies!

This was the first time taking the machine off island camping that it made it home under its own power!

WTG Franklin!

Saw a car that was so hungry, it was eating its own bumper!

There are three leaks. Two are from roof seams that I didn’t seal up last time. So I taped off the rest of the roof seams and went to town with the sealer. This is not so much of a repair as just a stabilization.

These two hit exactly over where I stashed my pants and right in the middle of our sleeping bags about two thirds of the way down.

Blek!

This one is a little bit scarier. Sadly this is behind all the window hardware and interior bits.

This leak fills up the area where Julie’s pillow sits. So I can’t just ignore it.

I almost put duct tape over it. Now I kinda’ wish I had.

The water runs out from under this forward window. Time to dig in..

As I begin to rip into this area I find the design is to let the water run down the sides of the window into this “window box”. From there, I assume, it drains out somewhere.

But the bottom of this box is completely missing. The outer side, or what remains of it, is that rusted strip hanging there.

The outer plate that I removed holds the cranking mechanism. All of the weather stripping came out as dust and fluff.

Above the windows were rats’ nests. The rear window’s nest was the bigger of the two.

The interesting bit was when I started to clean out these nests I found they were actually chewed up books!

The rear one was a Perry Mason novel.

I looked up Perry Mason novels.

The Perry Mason novels and short stories by Erle Stanley Gardner, published from 1933 to 1973.

The front one seems to be some old book on baseball.

Knowing nothing about sports, I looked up John McGraw

John Joseph McGraw, nicknamed "Little Napoleon" and "Mugsy", was a Major League Baseball player and manager of the New York Giants. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1937. While primarily a third baseman throughout his career, he also played shortstop and the outfield in the major leagues.

This stuff could have been hidden in here at the factory! I wonder if someone stole somebody else’s books and stashed them in here?

But the real deal now is. How in the world am I going to...

• Get the remains of the window box out to get at the holes in the wall?
• Fix the holes in the wall?
• Get/Build a new window box?
• Put all this back together?

-jim lee

 

[CR-Venturer]

Man oh man! Franklin is nothing if not interesting, isn't he?

I would think that the window repairs ought to be fairly easy for someone with a welder and the skills to go with it. Maybe someone from OB can help you out.

Love this thread! Hope Franklin gets fixed up and rides again soon. :D

 

[Robert Fullen]

I just read your thread and I loved it! Keep it up! The wagon will be brand new before you know it! I love old stuff like this snd when you build it like you have you make a connection with it and know every sound, every smell, and when something isn’t working you know it! And usually know what to do when it breaks down because you have done it before! Great job!

 

[Rooster & Donna]

Wonderful thread! Keep it up and keep us posted!

 

[Smileyshaun]

Those quick shades are awesome for here in the pnw. We have a 10x10 one we use and it's great for setting up first and assembling the tent under it to keep out of the rain then dragging it over by the fire so we can keep warm and dry .

 

[Jedi]

I'm glad to hear that Franklin did mechanically well on the little camping trip. At least you are making some progress. The leaks aren't really a surprise though, right? At 80+ years old even us humans have leaking issues . Time for BONDO and welding. The question is, once you get these holes plugged, where will be the next crack in the dike?

 

[Drifterman]

Love the old dodges there getting rare and great history to your build

 

[RainGoat]

Whew!! Makes my projects seem much more manageable. Kudos to you - PNW weather can make anything a little more challenging. Sounds like your wife is quite the good sport!

 

[jim lee]

Thanks for all the replies everyone! I really appreciate it!

Hoping that tomorrow I can spend some time on this and get the window box cut out. @Jedi has set up an overland picnic for this weekend, and I'd dearly love to be able to take this machine. I'm thinking that we may be forced into taking Julie's '14 4Runner instead. Oh the shame of it all!

And yes, Julie is a really good sport about these old trucks of mine. The deal is she loves to go camping / hiking and she sees them as a way to get more outdoor time. So they are a good thing. Although she is beginning to loose some faith in Franklin's reliability. :)

-jim lee

 

[Jedi]

While I would love to see Franklin there, having you and Julie there in the Toy is almost as good.

 

[jim lee]

Haha! I know, because no one here has actually seen Franklin! Sad really. I feel like the kid that's always making up stories about his toys at home that no one ever gets to see. Everyone probably thinks I've just been Photoshop-ing the images and spinning tall tales.

-jim lee