The "Daily Routine" build and more - cars, house, and sundry funs

[Lockleaf]

NOW with more TAllHOE!

 

So I mentioned in another thread that I had purchased yet another toy.  I bought a 1971 International Travelall.  Thats right folks.  I've gone cornbindin'.  Maybe its the country air from moving to a small town.  I bought it for a song and a dance because it didn't roll and featured a major floor delete.  It had no rear axle, and only one hub on the front axle.

 

 

This is the day I picked it up.  It took about 3 hours to get it loaded out of this guys back yard, raining the entire time.  In Utah, it never rains for that long at once.  It was sliding on leaf springs and dana 44 diff covers basically.  and one wheel.  Rear window is missing.  Rear window motor is missing.  Those motors are rare as hens teeth, so I will have to retrofit something else probably, like maybe suburban motor from the 80s.  The window is flat glass so I can have that cut from safety glass easily enough.  All the doors open and close solidly, no sagging.

 

That was in February this year.  And then it just sat while I figured out my plan.

 

 

Since the spare truck rims I have are all 6 lug nissan bolt pattern, I decided my best bet was to remove the one existing hub, and throw 6 lug at this thing.  The existing axle is a dana 44, so I picked up some junkyard chevy hubs that would fit and got those on the front.  My goal was cheap as possible roller so I could get it off my trailer and still figure out the rest of the plan.

 

 

[Lockleaf]

Also, I just want to note that I love the ridiculous paint on this thing.

 

 So, I picked up the hubs for cheap, and then I found a 1995 chevy 1500 rear axle for dirt cheap.  It was complete minus brake drums, $40.  Perfect.  All I would need to install it was to move the spring perches.

 

When I picked up the motor, the guy offered me the whole set of rims/tires, two of which were already mounted on the axle.  I said sure and loaded it up.  For $40 I got the axle and a set of 90's 15 inch rims with 36x14.50s, very tired, mounted on them.

 

 

I've never done spring perches before.  But since all I was looking for was a roller, I figured I could make it work.  Heres the axle as I prepped to relocate the perches.

 

 

My only cutting option was a grinder, so I went to town as best I could.  I ended up cutting into the axle repeatedly, which I am sure is a bad thing if I were to put this in full use.  But again, I wasn't worried, this is only a "make it roll" axle.  I slid up under the side of the Travelall and measured center to center on the leaf springs as best I could.  I got 39.5 inches.  Here you can see how far I had to move the spring pads in on each side.  The dark lines are the original welds.

 

 

And welded in 

 

 

With the axle as ready to go as it was going to be, It was time to try and slide it in.  I dragged the T-All up out of my back yard to the driveway.

 

 

Then things got sketchy.  I couldn't use a jack to get this thing high enough to install the axle, so I ended up holding the back end up with an engine hoist and just trying to jam some wood in places to keep from dying.

 

 

Later I was holding it much higher than this.  But I survived.  I had to slide the axle under using furniture dollies.

 

 

 

I couldn't get u bolts that would fit for less than $50 and days out, so I again went the "only good enough for a roller" route.

 

A Piece of scrap steel and some grade 2 bolts oughta do the job.

 

 

Sitting on a rear axle for the first time in who knows how long?  20 years or more by the way the guy I bought it from talked.

 

With the front hubs also swapped out, it was time to unload.  You can see the front end was so heavy it was tipping the trailer the wrong way to unload.  I have a winch on the trailer, but you can't winch a car off the trailer if its rolling in to your tow vehicle.  So I parked it on a hill going in to my back yard.

 

 

Using the winch, it rolled off pretty well.  Until it didn't.

 

 

Well, dammit.  That stupid hitch was a bane when loading this thing, and it's no better now.  Luckily I still had one of those Dana 44 diff covers to act as a ski.  I pulled the thing back up on the trailer a little, set the diff cover under the hitch, and it skated on that until the tires were on the ground again.  Then I drilled a couple holes in the front cross brace, bolted up my tow bar, and put this in the pasture with all its friends.

 

 

Here it will sit until my plans come to life.

 

[Lockleaf]

Random details on the vehicle.  It has a 345 c.i. engine, a T18 manual 4 speed transmission, and a dana t18 twin stick transfer case.  I have no idea if any of it runs.  There are no driveshafts at all.  Heres the floor.  You can see that they cut out a great deal of the floor pan for some reason.  And what isn't cut out here is actually wood, because the metal has rusted away.

 

 

rear cargo area is totally separated from the body.  Below is the drivers side of the cargo area.  You can see there is basically no connection to the body all down the side, and its even worse across the rear by the tailgate.

 

 

Spec plates

 

 

Most the interior is there, it even has the frame and foam for a third row in it, which was uncommon.  That may actually be a scout bench back there though, but I could still make use of it.

[Lockleaf]

No keys, so I removed the key switch and just jumpered across terminals to see if I could start this thing.  All it really took was a little fiddling.  We thought we had no spark at the points, but as we messed with things and checked for voltage, we ended up with spark at the points.  I'm not sure if we did something or just were wrong at first.  Both are possible.  We didn't even clean all the spider webs out of the carb, we just hosed it with some carb cleaner and cranked it over.  It took a couple tries to get the starter to spin, but pretty quick we got it fired up and running.  Stumbly, but it ran without making terrifying noises.  Didn't even feed it fuel, just carb cleaner.  

 

The transmission had been stuck in gear and we couldn't get the shifter to move.   Running the engine freed that up as well, so now we can find all the gears and confirm that it is a 4 speed.

 

Mostly that was all for entertainment purposes.  I don't think the IH drivetrain is staying here.

[datsunfreak]

2 hours ago, Lockleaf said:

Mostly that was all for entertainment purposes.  I don't think the IH drivetrain is staying here.

 

Not the funnest engine, but they are damn hard to kill...  😄

[Lockleaf]

the 345 seems like a perfect engine to turbo charge.  Stock compression is like 8.7:1.  I'd fuel inject it first though.  Low boost 8-10 lbs, come on early in the rpm range.  Wake it up a little bit 😄.  I just dont currently have any vehicles I want to put such a ridiculous beast in to, so this will probably go live in storage as the T-All build progresses.

[datsunfreak]

6 minutes ago, Lockleaf said:

the 345 seems like a perfect engine to turbo charge.,, I just dont currently have any vehicles I want to put such a ridiculous beast in to, so this will probably go live in storage as the T-All build progresses.

 

If you ever weighed one, you wouldn't put it in anything. 😁

 

We had a friend rebuild the 4 cylinder version of that engine for his Scout at our shop. It bent the engine stand. 😄

[Lockleaf]

Very true.  These things are built like tanks.  In every way.  The thing I really want to do is more with the transfer case.  Its a twin stick dana 18, with PTO port which allows for the addition of a bolt on overdrive unit, also manually shifted.  So with a manual trans you end up with this 4 shifter setup that would be hilarious to me.  These pics are from a scout but you get the idea. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was doing research the other day to see what it would take to hook my T18 transmission to a GM engine.  It looks like I would have to get a Ford T18, swap out mainshafts to the IH mainshaft, then redrill the back of the Ford T18 to accept the adapter to the Dana 18 T case.  Then I could modify the front of the Ford case to accept a GM bellhousing.  

 

Lots of steps, but none of them crazy expensive, even when added together.  I think I could retrofit this trans/tcase to work with a GM V8 for under $300 (not including clutch, throwout etc.) So that is a thing I think might be fun to try/funny to build.  Of course, the overdrive unit is stupid expensive, so there is that.  How much is "funny" really worth?

 

 

Edited May 3, 2021 by Lockleaf

[datsunfreak]

19 hours ago, Lockleaf said:

Of course, the overdrive unit is stupid expensive, so there is that. 

 

Could you just step down the diff gears? Or better yet, really big tires?  😁

 

19 hours ago, Lockleaf said:

How much is "funny" really worth?

 

To me, a lot. But I may not be the one to ask.  😄

[Lockleaf]

I'm not worried about the gearing.  I just really want that silly 4 shifters thing... so really its the most ridiculous motivation possible. 😄 

[Lockleaf]

I finally did a big thing at my house.  This thing has lived in a trailer for 5 years waiting for a good home.

 

 

 

I installed a lift! Its a bit tight but it works.  I had to notch the drywall between my bonus room joists to get enough height.  I also had to shorten my garage door tracks and relocate the hanging brackets back, and then move my garage door opener and track up about 3 feet closer to the ceiling.  But the door still works.  I do think I want to make a custom Z bar to connect the motor to the door, which will allow me to open the door another foot or so.  Currently I get about 8.25 feet out of the 10 foot door opening.  With the Z bar, I will get more like 9.25 feet of opening.  No, I don't need that, but I still want it.

 

I also had to modify the lift a little.  The motor was mounted on the outside of the leg, which I don't have enough space to fit it like that.  So I cut the mount off and welded it back on where you see it.  That relocation also meant I had to extend all the hydraulic lines.  I had a local parts store make me up a 12 inch hydraulic hose to go from the pump to the original hose, and I also had to extend the return line by a bit.

Its a Forward Lift DP10A.  I installed a new box and now have 2 220V plugs together, one for the motor and one for the welder.  I wired the lift to a regular household oven plug, since I had that laying around and it makes for a clean looking install.

 

However, there is one issue that didn't occur to me until I wired it all in and it didn't work right.  I have a 3 phase motor on my pump assembly.  I don't have 3 phase power....  So now I'm looking at what will work best, either retrofitting a 1 phase motor to the pump (which shouldn't be that difficult), or just buying a complete 1 phase motor/pump assembly and installing that. 

 

They call this lift "versymettric" meaning it can be used in asymmetric or symmetric setups just by how you setup the arms.  Where the lift is located in my garage should accomodate up to 20ft of vehicle length with the door closed, so I should be good for just about anything I want to do.  And I have just enough room around one side to move around the lift leg.  It aint perfect, but I think it should still be pretty awesome once its up and running.

[Draker]

Dude!! That’s gonna be super nice to have. I’m still plugging away at my plans to get one. Gotta build the building first.

[slowlearner]

I have EXTREME hoist envy... heck, I always hoist envy. That's awesome. Well done. 👍

[Lockleaf]

Ignoring the five years of storage, i only have this through random luck.  My brother in law ran the airport hub of a big rental car company at our airport.  The airport decided to expand its buildings and his shop was in the way of that expansion.  So the airport built them a new shop and he gave me one of the lifts from the old one.  So i went and picked it up and it lived in that trailer for the next 5 years.  I would never have bought an lift myself.  I can't even manage to buy a high volume compressor or a tig welder.  But I'm grateful he sent this my way.

[Draker]

Dude that’s great! Way to plan ahead, way ahead. You’re gonna love that thing.

 

I used to turn wrenches for a living. Once you go lift, it’s really hard to crawl around while on jack stands.

[Dguy210]

2 hours ago, Draker said:

Dude that’s great! Way to plan ahead, way ahead. You’re gonna love that thing.

 

I used to turn wrenches for a living. Once you go lift, it’s really hard to crawl around while on jack stands.

 

This is definitely on my do want list.  Haven't been able to justify the cost just yet/

[Lockleaf]

Ugh.  Things.  So the lift came with a 3 phase motor on it (which I originally didn't realize).  After a deal of research, I was only finding single phase motors that matched the existing motor specs in the $600+ price range.  I could buy a whole motor and pump assembly for that much if not even cheaper.  So that is what I did.  I bought some high grade chinesium.

 

That finally arrived, so I mounted it to the lift, bled the lines, popped a return line union that wasn't tight enough, got a hydraulic fluid shower from the top of the lift, fixed that, bled it again, and then ran the lift up.

 

 

YAY! Oh, wait.  Dammit.

 

 

Lift arm runs in to the pump (because I relocated the pump without checking).  Also, the arm lock screw is so long it would also cause problems.  So I relocated the pump to the wall and removed some of the unnecessary for proper use length from the lock screw on the arm.

 

 

I mounted it so it covers only its own plug, which is fine because there is little reason to unplug it. Now everything is ok.  

 

 

First Lift!  With door open, I can get about 4.5 feet of height with this car, maybe a little more.  I left the car up there all night and it didn't fall over, so I think I'm good!

 

I really like this view.  It just seems super cool when I come out of my house into the garage and look over into the third car and see this.

 

 

[Lockleaf]

Its a good thing the lift is ready for action.  I've been having an overheat issue in my turbo Subaru.  Its an odd one though.  It doesn't fit most of the normal symptoms of a head gasket failure, but I've now eliminated everything else I can think of.

 

I drive up a pretty steep canyon for about 20 miles on my way home from work each day.  The issue started on a 105 degree day.  The vehicle ONLY overheats coming up the steepest sections of that canyon.  Its a controllable overheat.  It is entirely load based.  If I go 70 up the canyon, it heats up more than if I do 65, but doesn't spiral out of control.  First I thought I had a pressure leak out the top of my radiator.  So I installed a solid aluminum two core. 

 

 

 

But that didn't fix it.  So I pulled the water pump.  It's in perfect shape, only a year old, installed by me.  No issues.  Reinstalled the pump, installed a new thermostat and both new radiator caps (yes it has two).  Still overheats, but now it even does it when it is only 85 degrees out it seems.

Just because, while I was at it I added foam (all the way around) between the condenser and the radiator to force more air through the radiator.

 

 

Again, problem only occurs under high load, going up a steep canyon.  Except for that time, there is no evidence of any issues.  The cooling system doesn't seem to hold any pressure well, but I have no fluid leaks, and I don't see water being displaced out of the cooling system at all.  I've burped the crap out of it like 4 times, and I'm confident that is not an issue.  I can control fluid temp by turning of AC and by turning on the heater.

 

I even ran a block test with the chemical thingy and it came up negative.

 

Color of fluid, post test, supposed to turn yellow if exposed to combustion gasses.  This is after at least 3 minutes of drawing air through it.  I ran it at idle and I ran it at 4K rpm.  

 

 

Pre-test fluid color.  Colors were similar enough I did not believe there was evidence of combustion gas in the coolant.  BUT, i don't see an issue unless I'm climbing that canyon and I don't know how to test this while climbing the canyon.  I am also not blowing any smoke/steam, and there is no sweetness to my exhaust, even immediately on startup after sitting at full temp for a few minutes.

So as far as I can see, it HAS to be head gaskets, regardless of the lack of good evidence.  But if any of you have a counter theory, please keep me from tearing this bitch apart needlessly.  So now I get to waste money doing more work on my daily instead of playing with toys.  Stupid car.  I almost regret loving me some subies. But I still really like this car.

Edited July 7, 2021 by Lockleaf

[Lockleaf]

In other news, allow me to introduce project Apocalypse The four horse trailer of doom!

 

My wife has some horses and she also has a 4 horse trailer, with shite for a tack room.  So I'm converting her 4 horse straight load trailer to a 3 horse slant load with a walk in tack.

 

This is the kind of trailer we have (but not our actual trailer because oddly I don't have any pics of it from outside.

 

 

Suck tack room, but ours is even worse.  We don't even have the second door on the drivers side.

 

 

It currently loads like this, two horses in front, two horses in back, side by side.

 

 

 

And the goal is something like this, which is a 4 horse converted to a 3 horse slant.

 

 

The front wall and deck you can see above has now been cut out of my trailer.  There is a step up in the frame, so I had to weld in a crossbeam, then weld the various bits of trailer floor too it and fold the lip over to make a strong floor.

 

 

I've also started framing up the wall that will divide the tack room from the horses.

 

 

 

These photos are taken from the man door at the front, and the wall goes from the left of the man door forward to where the bulkhead used to be on the drivers side at an angle.

 

and while i'm in here doing various things, there is also rust holes to patch. I'm using metal from cutting out that bulkhead to patch the trailer.  I will also be completely shaving/deleting all the doors and flaps around the front of the trailer and flush welding in panels so it looks like it was meant to be a 3 horse from the beginning.  I really didn't do the most amazing job on this, but it will do.  My wife is happy with the results, so that is all that really matters. You can see the seam on the right side of the pic, the whole panel sprayed with a grey color.

 

[datsunfreak]

On 7/7/2021 at 4:00 PM, Lockleaf said:

So as far as I can see, it HAS to be head gaskets, regardless of the lack of good evidence.  But if any of you have a counter theory, please keep me from tearing this bitch apart needlessly.  

 

Fans? Did not see any mention of checking those...

[datsunfreak]

I had a similar problem with my G20 after boosting it, since my big front mount intercooler blocked too much of the radiator's air path. better/stronger fans fixed it. 

 

A lot of modern fans are also multi-speed. Could just be not kicking into high gear (also was an issue on my G20). 

[datsunfreak]

Also, did you make sure all the cooling fins in the condenser are straight and clean? 

 

[Lockleaf]

Condenser fins seem acceptably straight and clean.  I am not running front mount, just the stock top mount intercooler.  Fans are working, but also, the issue has only occurred when I was doing at least 60 mph, so I'm not confident the fans are going to make any significant change at those speeds.

[datsunfreak]

3 hours ago, Lockleaf said:

Fans are working, but also, the issue has only occurred when I was doing at least 60 mph, so I'm not confident the fans are going to make any significant change at those speeds.

 

AC on? 

[Lockleaf]

Yes.  The last time I ran up the canyon in the car, I had the AC on until it got up to about 2/3 - 3/4 of the gauge.  I then shut the AC off.  The car didn't really come down much in temp.  So I kicked on the heater which after a minute, dropped the temp a few needle widths.  But I had to keep the heater on to keep it there, which was still above half.

One of my close friends thinks I'm overreacting and that what I am seeing is merely a result of how blasted hot it is here right now.  Since I've rarely driven the vehicle up that canyon in summer, its true that I don't know how it acts during a normal 90 or 95 degree day.  So it's possible he is right and I don't actually have a problem.  But I noticed only very slight improvement on temperature management when I installed the aluminum radiator as compared to the stock version aftermarket radiator I had in there.  If it were just because of how bloody hot it is, I would have expected a more distinct differential in temperature control.  But again, perhaps I'm simply mistaken.

 

Nothing points directly to headgaskets at this point.  I'm working off two facts.  1) Subaru head gaskets are known to fail. 2) The issue seemed to start pretty suddenly, but it is theoretically possible that it simply started the same day of the first heat wave and I didn't make that connection?  So I don't know what to do for sure.  Driving my Saab Trailblazer with the 5.3 up the canyon yesterday, it definitely got about 4 needlewidths above its normal running temperature, so obviously it is freaking hot enough outside that its having a significant heat soak impact on cooling systems.

So yeah.  Not sure how to proceed.  But I appreciate you helping me poke holes in my thesis so I can find my way down the right track.