Minor adjustments?
Lets try some PR work... We have two Army trucks. An M37 painted up like an Army truck and this Carryall painted, greenish. Now, people wave and smile at the M37. I’ve had mothers, that I’ve never met before, ask me to take their kids for rides in it. And oddly, its a chick magnet as well. It’s the most bizarre thing. You drive it, and you are Mr. Popular.
Now the greenish Carryall? I get the feeling that when driving that machine, many people are just seeing a homeless drug addict. That or else its just invisible. I’ve had Julie tease me by singing bars from Aqualung when I’m driving it. “..greasy fingers smearing shabby clothes..’
Stars! Stars should transform this machine from a homeless carriage to an Army truck in the eyes of the masses. Lets give it a go. I’ll paint some stars on it.
I’d ordered star stencils from Vintage power wagon some time ago. They turned out to be really easy to use. Two thumbs up on these guys.
First star. Now, my idea was to make the stars look like they’ve been there all along.
So first of all, I painted them very lightly. Basically fogged them on from a longish distance. Next, I wiped them with a rag with a little paint thinner on it to loose major bits. Finally I sanded them some to “fade them”.
Now compare this to the picture at the top of the page. I think the effect turned out pretty well.
Always been there.
Ah, now notice the pinkish line on the right side of the tailgate? Another experiment is stuffing rags between the tailgate and the body when closing it. This goes a long way in silencing the incessant banging of the tailgate because it fits way too loosely.
Just this afternoon I noticed a light oil spotting all over back here. Gotta look into that. Sigh..
I’ve gone through the carb a couple more times. I’ve talked to the people that I bought the rebuild kit from. I’ve found some assembly errors and corrected them. I can actually see one of the errors in that picture.
The truck starts ok, idles ok, has ok power, runs ok.. But really nothing works vey good. I’m having nothing but trouble finding info for this oddball carb. I’m considering replacing it with something more common.
We’ll see.
Discovered the fuel pump was leaking all over. This kinda’ freaked me out for a bit. Did the diaphragm fail? Do I need to rebuild this?
After leaving and doing other things for a day I came back to this and had a good look at it. Where is fuel was leaking from? Turns out the large cap on top was loose. Snugged it up and we were good to go again.
Mother’s day.
Julie’s good at picking activities that everyone can at least tolerate. For mother’d day she decided we would ALL take the Carryall on the ferry over to Friday Harbor for a picnic.
On the Ferry over..
Friday Harbor. This like the tourist hot spot for the San Juans. I guess its kinda’ like our Key West up here.
Cruising around San Juan island. Its really pretty out there.
We had plenty of time, ‘till we did the math. We then realized we had 20 minutes to setup, cook, eat and be back on the road to the ferry. With no room for mechanical issues.
Good Lord!
We were actually able to setup, grill fish tacos, cleanup and go in time. Then it was 45mph all they way back to the ferry line.
And we made it back in time for our Ferry home. Whewh!
The ferry ride home. That’s Shelby (youngest) in the picture.
Everyone had a great time. Huge success!
Next day Julie and I took Franklin out camping by ourselves.
This was another deal where we’re getting experience in easy close to home camping. Also we’re putting hours on the truck to work out the bugs in it as well.
This might have been the first time camping without kids for what? Over 20 years? It was.. Oddly fun. Actually we had a fantastic time! The odd bit was we didn’t expect to have such a good time. We were so focused on stuff, me on the truck and logistics, her on everything all the time. We got out here, everything stopped.. Suddenly we felt like we were in our 20s again.
Did have one issue though.. Its about three am, I gotta’ go out and hit the can. I’d like to do this as stealthy as possible. So I think, “Don’t crawl over Julie. Just open up the tailgate and slip out that way.” So I quietly open up the tailgate, slip.. BANG!BANG! Both tailgate chains snap! CRASH!! The tailgate falls down and flop! I fall out of the back of the truck.
Julie’s all “What the H*LL was that!?”
“I broke the tailgate and fell out of the truck..”
“Really? Well, I guess the entire campground heard that one!”
Right. So now, we’re feeling ok about using this machine for a camper. Next, how well is it going to work off-road? That’s what it was designed for in the first place.
Today we tested it running down dirt roads for the first time. How does work off-road? TERRIBLE! Good Lord! What have I gotten myself into?
We’d just pulled over so Julie could get some snapshots. I’m checking stuff and Allie is getting her balance back.
At any speed at all, we fly around inside like jumping beans. On one bump I went down and Allie, next to me, went up, her hip was just about at my eye level.
We are literally stuck in 1st gear off-road.
Are the springs too stiff? I assume so. It hits bumps with a pretty hard bang. I don’t think the shocks are doing much at all. The old style spring seats are just horrible! And I paid so much for them! They are like sitting on bump amplifiers. They literally launch you into the ceiling (repeatedly) on every chuck hole. Not having seatbelts isn’t helping things any either. And I’m betting the body is doing some leaping on and off the frame as well. At least it sure sounds that way riding inside this machine.
What a nightmare! What am I going to do?
