Not a build as much as a resurrection?

[jim lee]

Just got back and the head has a .003" twist to it. Technically I think that's actually in spec. but I left it at the shop to be "flattened" just in case. Sadly that took the project from running this evening to Monday.. Grr..

-jim lee

 

[old_man]

If you haven't put the head back on yet, get a spray can of CopperKote and coat the gasket on both sides. It is old school but it has worked since before the rig was built. Make sure and check the block and head for flatness.

I rebuilt my first gas engine 57 years ago and my first diesel 55 years ago.

 

[jim lee]

Yeah, I'm going to CopperKoat the metal side. The other side already has something sticky applied to it. This time I read the directions and it actually says to use something like CopperKoat on the metal side. I didn't do that last time. I also didn't re-torque the bolts last time because.. The military manual (From 1943) says not to re-torque the head bolts. Now that I think about it, I'm betting that's so they don't re-torque them every time they look under the hood. This time I will re-torque them. Also, the head is getting surfaced. Threads were and will be chased again. Also getting a new set of head bolts.

I even checked the valve adjustments again..

So we'll see what we see.

-jim lee

 

[JPMike]

Sweet build. I love these old Dodges.


Sent from my iPad using OB Talk

 

[jim lee]

[PART I]

​

Last time we’d tested the seatbelts and that was a big success. The engine and driveline were rough though. The engine seemed, on the way home, to be rougher than usual. I just put the throttle down and took the rig home. Better broken here and now then in the middle of nowhere on the trip. Next morning the machine would barely run. Being in denial, my usual go to, I tried to drive it around the block. “Maybe its flooded? It’ll clear up.” Its wasn’t flooded, I’d broken the engine.

I could hear a tap tap of what sounded like a loose valve tappet. Didn’t I just adjust those?

Testing compression showed cylinders one and two with zero compression. Classic blown head gasket symptoms. Head gasket or not (maybe something horrible like busted block) I had to dig into the engine and have a look.

And there we have it, ablown head gasket. This leads to a bunch of questions. I replaced this only about a year ago. What did I do wrong to have it fail so soon?

I asked why head gaskets on these engines fail online on the Power Wagon forum. Got quite a lot of interesting info. I even mentioned it on the Overland forum and got some good info over there as well.


A lot to think about and a lot of stuff to check.

Back digging into the valves again.

I reopened the valve galleys and found that many of the valves were looser than I thought I’d just set them. This actually has me a bit stumped. The only plausible reason I can think of is, that I was able to get the crank in better positions for doing the adjustments this time around. I mean, with the head off I could watch the pistons and valves going up and down, so getting the correct positions was really easy. Last time? I did do a bit of guessing.

Also, knowing the way things work with this machine, you have to “restore” things. It doesn’t seem to ever really settle for a simple “repair”.

Sand blasted valve cover.

Readjusted valves, new (store bought) gaskets on shiny “restored” valve covers. We’ll see how this works out.

Superstitious you say? Ha! You try working on one of these. We’ll see if you don’t start seeing ghosts too.

This time we’ll clean up the carbon as well.

Carbon cleaned up, gasket surface cleaned up, mounting holed run through with a tap. (Cleaned up).

The head was at the machine shop getting what little warp it had (.003” twist, not too bad) smoothed out. Basically they just set the head on a big belt sander and use that to flatten it.

I spent the time waiting for the head to be ready, cleaning parts and buttoning up as much as I could. I was in a big hurry because a bunch of kids and friends were coming to drive army trucks in the local parade.

Head, ready to go back on the engine.

I suspect someone dropped it at the machine shop. There was a couple nicks on the edge that had to happen after it had been machined.

I took a file and smoothed them off. Then it was a bunch of bolting things back together. Hoping everything works for running the machine on the 4th.

Why did the last head gasket blow? Two things I came upon.

First the military manual said something about not re-torquing the head. So I didn’t. It bugged me, but I didn’t. Re-torquing head bolts is standard practice whenever you replace your head gasket.

Second was the torque spec itself. It wasn’t till I was just about to bolt down the head and was talking to John Bizal about head bolts, that it came to me. John was saying that my carryall should have studs and nuts holding the head down, not bolts. I told him that it was actually an M37 motor, not the original WWII carryall motor. “Oh yeah, then it would have bolts.” Then I thought..

“Wait a second, the nuts on a motor with studs have fine threads. The bolts would have a course thread. Different threads, different torque settings.”

I checked the manuals for both trucks. Sure enough they were different. Using the carryall book from WWII, they called for about 52..57 ft lbs. The correct setting for an M37 motor with bolts? 65..70 ft lbs. I’d under torqued the head bolts by a bunch!

Made it to the parade!

Typically the kids get Theodore, the M37, and the adults get Franklin, the Carryall.

Doing the parade thing.

After the party was over and the guests went home, I was back on my never ending quest to smooth out the driveline of this machine. It was starting to really bug me how the amount of roughness and noise seemed to vary over time. Something was odd about that. So last Friday I decided to go on a long-ish run to get the truck really warmed up and get a handle on whatever was going on. I ended up running down to Don Olson’s store to see what was going on, and if I could get an ammo box from him. Its about a half hour drive from home. He did have the perfect ammo box and also... Was heading out to the Arlington Air Show to camp out with a bunch of Army truck people. Really? And would I like to go along?

Completely new experience for Julie and myself.

Met a group of Canadians that drove their Army trucks down from Canada. They also did about half of the WABDR route we’ve been getting ready for.

Really? Now I feel wimpy.

We were quite impressed! Great group!

Camping at the Airport.

Doing fun airshow things.

Interesting thing happened on the way to the Airshow. We were going along at our 45 mph cruise, following Don in his giant 5 ton Army truck. At one point I realized, the truck sounded and felt.. Fine? This is the first time I think I’d actually relaxed while driving the carryall. The first time I wasn’t listening as hard as possible to every little sound. Maybe I’m hearing scary monsters because that’s what I’m sure I’m going to hear? Maybe the driveline is actually ok. Should be, its pretty much brand new.

I’ve decided that for now, I’m going to stop sweating about the driveline and just call it good. Time to move on to other issues.

We hit Nuttys Junkyard for a burger on the way home from the Air Show.

Very popular burger joint! That place was hoppin’!

Pretty good too.

My new ammo box all installed! This is the one Don gave me. I also borrowed the canvas bucket from the M37. May need that on the trip.

Why did I want this ammo box? Because I really wanted somewhere outside of the truck to store the Jerry can spout.

Fits perfect with room to spare for other goodies as well.

 

[jim lee]

(( PART II ))

Back to my old arch nemesis, the leaky fuel sender.


I’d decided to try a neoprene gasket in place of the cork one.

So after carful cleanup, I re-installed the sender with it’s new gasket.

Topped off the gas tank to find..

It still leaks like a sieve. Not only that but now it always says empty.

What have I done now?

I had one more untested fuel level sender. Time to give it a go. I wouldn’t show anything more than a half tank, although the tank is now full. What’s going on here?


Would you look at that? The mounting screw hits the level arm! In fact I’d seen this on the first sender where I’d tighten it down and the fuel gauge would drop.

So I re-bent to level arm to pass around the screw..

Still not working right. Then it finally dawned on me. The hole in the tank and the level arm interfere with each other!


I reached my finger into the tank and felt the thickness of the bung that the sender bolts to. Its thicker than the distance from the plate to where the arm is mounted.

The gas tank’s hole’s edge matches up with this gasket. Its also too close to the side. And there is not enough room to re-bend the arm to fit.


The bearing for the arm is too close up n’ down and too long side to side to fit with the tank.

I’m nearly out of time and I’m again, completely stumped!

So I shut off the garage lights, washed my hands and wrote this blog.

Then its off to bed to sleep on this.

P.S. All this is to get ready for The WABDR this july. Yikes! Next week!



-jim lee

 

[HappyOurOverlanding]

[PART I]

​

Last time we’d tested the seatbelts and that was a big success. The engine and driveline were rough though. The engine seemed, on the way home, to be rougher than usual. I just put the throttle down and took the rig home. Better broken here and now then in the middle of nowhere on the trip. Next morning the machine would barely run. Being in denial, my usual go to, I tried to drive it around the block. “Maybe its flooded? It’ll clear up.” Its wasn’t flooded, I’d broken the engine.

I could hear a tap tap of what sounded like a loose valve tappet. Didn’t I just adjust those?

Testing compression showed cylinders one and two with zero compression. Classic blown head gasket symptoms. Head gasket or not (maybe something horrible like busted block) I had to dig into the engine and have a look.

And there we have it, ablown head gasket. This leads to a bunch of questions. I replaced this only about a year ago. What did I do wrong to have it fail so soon?

I asked why head gaskets on these engines fail online on the Power Wagon forum. Got quite a lot of interesting info. I even mentioned it on the Overland forum and got some good info over there as well.


A lot to think about and a lot of stuff to check.

Back digging into the valves again.

I reopened the valve galleys and found that many of the valves were looser than I thought I’d just set them. This actually has me a bit stumped. The only plausible reason I can think of is, that I was able to get the crank in better positions for doing the adjustments this time around. I mean, with the head off I could watch the pistons and valves going up and down, so getting the correct positions was really easy. Last time? I did do a bit of guessing.

Also, knowing the way things work with this machine, you have to “restore” things. It doesn’t seem to ever really settle for a simple “repair”.

Sand blasted valve cover.

Readjusted valves, new (store bought) gaskets on shiny “restored” valve covers. We’ll see how this works out.

Superstitious you say? Ha! You try working on one of these. We’ll see if you don’t start seeing ghosts too.

This time we’ll clean up the carbon as well.

Carbon cleaned up, gasket surface cleaned up, mounting holed run through with a tap. (Cleaned up).

The head was at the machine shop getting what little warp it had (.003” twist, not too bad) smoothed out. Basically they just set the head on a big belt sander and use that to flatten it.

I spent the time waiting for the head to be ready, cleaning parts and buttoning up as much as I could. I was in a big hurry because a bunch of kids and friends were coming to drive army trucks in the local parade.

Head, ready to go back on the engine.

I suspect someone dropped it at the machine shop. There was a couple nicks on the edge that had to happen after it had been machined.

I took a file and smoothed them off. Then it was a bunch of bolting things back together. Hoping everything works for running the machine on the 4th.

Why did the last head gasket blow? Two things I came upon.

First the military manual said something about not re-torquing the head. So I didn’t. It bugged me, but I didn’t. Re-torquing head bolts is standard practice whenever you replace your head gasket.

Second was the torque spec itself. It wasn’t till I was just about to bolt down the head and was talking to John Bizal about head bolts, that it came to me. John was saying that my carryall should have studs and nuts holding the head down, not bolts. I told him that it was actually an M37 motor, not the original WWII carryall motor. “Oh yeah, then it would have bolts.” Then I thought..

“Wait a second, the nuts on a motor with studs have fine threads. The bolts would have a course thread. Different threads, different torque settings.”

I checked the manuals for both trucks. Sure enough they were different. Using the carryall book from WWII, they called for about 52..57 ft lbs. The correct setting for an M37 motor with bolts? 65..70 ft lbs. I’d under torqued the head bolts by a bunch!

Made it to the parade!

Typically the kids get Theodore, the M37, and the adults get Franklin, the Carryall.

Doing the parade thing.

After the party was over and the guests went home, I was back on my never ending quest to smooth out the driveline of this machine. It was starting to really bug me how the amount of roughness and noise seemed to vary over time. Something was odd about that. So last Friday I decided to go on a long-ish run to get the truck really warmed up and get a handle on whatever was going on. I ended up running down to Don Olson’s store to see what was going on, and if I could get an ammo box from him. Its about a half hour drive from home. He did have the perfect ammo box and also... Was heading out to the Arlington Air Show to camp out with a bunch of Army truck people. Really? And would I like to go along?

Completely new experience for Julie and myself.

Met a group of Canadians that drove their Army trucks down from Canada. They also did about half of the WABDR route we’ve been getting ready for.

Really? Now I feel wimpy.

We were quite impressed! Great group!

Camping at the Airport.

Doing fun airshow things.

Interesting thing happened on the way to the Airshow. We were going along at our 45 mph cruise, following Don in his giant 5 ton Army truck. At one point I realized, the truck sounded and felt.. Fine? This is the first time I think I’d actually relaxed while driving the carryall. The first time I wasn’t listening as hard as possible to every little sound. Maybe I’m hearing scary monsters because that’s what I’m sure I’m going to hear? Maybe the driveline is actually ok. Should be, its pretty much brand new.

I’ve decided that for now, I’m going to stop sweating about the driveline and just call it good. Time to move on to other issues.

We hit Nuttys Junkyard for a burger on the way home from the Air Show.

Very popular burger joint! That place was hoppin’!

Pretty good too.

My new ammo box all installed! This is the one Don gave me. I also borrowed the canvas bucket from the M37. May need that on the trip.

Why did I want this ammo box? Because I really wanted somewhere outside of the truck to store the Jerry can spout.

Fits perfect with room to spare for other goodies as well.

It's looking great. That is a lot of love you're putting into it.

Sent from my SM-G960U using OB Talk mobile app

 

[jim lee]

​

Time is running out for preparations before our big cross state adventure. At the end of the last installment I’d once again been defeated by the gas gauge. Time to reqally dig in, its been a year or more I’ve been fighting with that stupid thing!

To recap: The arm came out too far and interfered with the side of the hole in the gas tank. Also, it interfered with the mounting screws. The real problem was that, with the bearing sticking out so far, there was no room left to bend the arm. There was actually no way it could fit. (These issues were the same with all three senders.) Dumb design!

Fine, being completely desperate, I decided to rip one sender unit apart and see if I could modify it.

First I straightened out the arm completely. Next I lined up the arm at the half way point and cut it next to the bearing. But only half way through. (See picture) That allowed me to fold it down as close as possible to the bearing. I could feel the arm beginning to break as I folded it down. But that didn’t really matter.

It was Ok that the arm was half broken. All I needed was to have it hold well enough for me to solder it.

The distance to centerline is now as short as possible. But still its not going to fit. I selected this sending unit of the three because its bearing had already been knocked loose. This allowed me to slide it in maybe a 1/32” or so further.

The bearing was also bent down a little bit. That also helped in clearing the hole edge.

Another view of the folded and soldered arm. The two washers at the end of the bearing move with the arm, so I was able to solder to the outer one. This should make the joint a bit stronger.

With the bearing moved in a tad, I chopped up a front end spindle shim and used a couple pieces of it to shim the bearing in place. I also soldered the retaining washer on the far side back on in its new location.

This was about all I could do to move the arm closer to the center.

Next was dealing with the suspected leaks.

You do realize I’m making this all up as I go along don’t you? Reconfiguring this gadget wasn’t just a shot in the dark, it was the full clip!

The top cover after soldering and cleanup.

All the gauges have a rivet poking through the side. This rivet is a direct leak to the fuel because the chamber with all the mechanicals is flooded with fuel.

Dumb dumb dumb..

So I soldered it up. (Blob on the left.)

This was the sender with the split casing I’d epoxied earlier. And, epoxy does NOT like heat. The soldering turned the epoxy patch into chalk. Off came the epoxy and I soldered up the end with the split casing as well. (End at right) The bottom of end stamping was not actually attached to the base. It is now!


The end result to all of this was : The arm now goes straight down from the bearing instead of at an angle. So it no longer interferes with the mounting screws. Also, the arm is closer to the center line. It no longer interferes with the side of the gas tank hole. And, the obvious leaks have been soldered up.

Time to re-assemble the sending unit. I needed a gasket to go between the two halves. Time to start cutting.

Another lesson learned. Never use an old cork gasket for your pattern. They shrink. The new gasket didn’t fit at all and I had to do it all over.

I installed the sender and it actually worked! Better than that, for the first time ever IT DOESN’T LEAK!!

I’m so happy! Wow, what a job!

Speaking of leaks..


There is a leak somewhere on the roof. We noticed it when the big snow block on top of the roof started to melt during the Yakima trip. I suspect the bead where the van side was welded in. I needed a quick and dirty fix.

All the suspicious areas got a thick coat of Hammerite. That should seal up any pin holes left by the welder.

Yeah, I know. Remember, I said quick and dirty!

I got this cool carb..

But I need to change out the airhorn and deal with installing new shorter studs..

Sigh.. I guess I’ll leave this for later.

Finally I broke down and made a gasket for the voltage regulator. I’d been using a strip of masking tape to shield it from water runoff.

Tacky tacky.

Changed the engine oil, the transfer case oil and the gearbox oil. Transfer case had black bleck. Gearbox had some shavings. Engine had some sludge.. And the front differential had no drain plug hole? Odd? I’ll have to look into that after the trip.

Trying to be accurate, I pumped in exactly the amount called for in the military service manual. I guess my pump, pumps more per pump than it’s supposed to pump.

Because I had the same issue with the transfer case.

What a mess!

This reminds me. I also needed to adjust the hand brake. This includes removing the entire floor of the cab to get to it. That’s a bit of a pain! Anyway, its done and off the list.

I’d seen these odd steel plates in carryalls before. Who knows what they were for? Mark handed me this plate when I bought the truck from him. I tossed the useless thing in the side yard and forgot about it.

Well, during all this last minute stuff, I was reading the Military manual for the truck and came across “Tool storage”. “Really? I had no idea there was tool storage in this machine.” So I looked it up.

Tool storage under driver’s seat. “So that’s why nothing holds the cushion down.”

Tire chain storage behind the right rear fender. “What? Wait! That’s where that weird plate fits..”

And, after a couple hours straightening out the poor bent up thing, drilling some new mounting holes in the shiny new floor..

A touch of sand blasting to clean off the worst rust (We’re in a hurry here.) We now have a nifty tire chain storage locker. Pretty cool!

It only holds one set, but that’s a far cry better than none!

I figured for this Overlanding thing, I should get a CB radio. What’s easier to install than a hand held?

I got two so I could give one to our Daughter Alex. She’s bringing her 4x4 on this trip with us.

I wanted to bring along shovel and a pickax.

But, not like this.

Much better!

In the final version I use two straps.

The pick handle won’t allow movement to the right side and the shovel wont allow it to the left. The straps lock them together and to the grill.

There is a Camp Kitchen thread in the Overlanding forum. Everyone’s showing their kitchen setups. Fancy fancy! All the way from pull out refrigerators to a fork tossed into a door side pocket.

I kinda’ like cooking, so I wanted some stuff and a quick and simple way to get started. Someone posted they used a three tote system, or something similar. That sounded good, and I could implement in a hurry. So that was what I chose.

Blue - Cold.
Red - Pantry.
Grey - Cooking tools n stuff.

When we did the Arlington air show we realized we really needed a table. Hence the picture at the top of the page.

(( END PART I ))

 

[jim lee]

(( PART II ))

Finally we were told by many that airing down your tires is the ticket for a better off road ride. And to make this feasible, we needed an air compressor.


There is a zillion 12V air compressors out there. And at extremely low prices. I found one where about half the people were complaining about how much is cost and the others were happy with it. (Typically I only read the bad reviews. More fun too.)

We’ll see how it works out.

The plan is to leave tomorrow. Heading up to Leavenworth to meet up with another carryall owner that has a spare tire arm for us. Install that and get the spare out of our bedroom. From there, head down to “Bridge of the Gods” on the Oregon border and off on our wild adventure.

Wish us luck.

P.S. If your reading this and are thinking “Wow that sounds fun!” Come along, its open to everyone.

-jim lee

 

[Smileyshaun]

awesome work man !!!

with a lot of the smaller air compressors turn them on b4 you hook it to the tire, it keeps from overloading the pump and blowing a fuse or burning the motor up. I've had a harbor freight one for about 5 years and never had a issue with it pumping up 33s and 35s even some 37s . it's slow but I figure it gives me more time to do a walk around on the rig , eat a snack , hydrate .

 

[Phildirt]

​

Time is running out for preparations before our big cross state adventure. At the end of the last installment I’d once again been defeated by the gas gauge. Time to reqally dig in, its been a year or more I’ve been fighting with that stupid thing!

To recap: The arm came out too far and interfered with the side of the hole in the gas tank. Also, it interfered with the mounting screws. The real problem was that, with the bearing sticking out so far, there was no room left to bend the arm. There was actually no way it could fit. (These issues were the same with all three senders.) Dumb design!

Fine, being completely desperate, I decided to rip one sender unit apart and see if I could modify it.

First I straightened out the arm completely. Next I lined up the arm at the half way point and cut it next to the bearing. But only half way through. (See picture) That allowed me to fold it down as close as possible to the bearing. I could feel the arm beginning to break as I folded it down. But that didn’t really matter.

It was Ok that the arm was half broken. All I needed was to have it hold well enough for me to solder it.

The distance to centerline is now as short as possible. But still its not going to fit. I selected this sending unit of the three because its bearing had already been knocked loose. This allowed me to slide it in maybe a 1/32” or so further.

The bearing was also bent down a little bit. That also helped in clearing the hole edge.

Another view of the folded and soldered arm. The two washers at the end of the bearing move with the arm, so I was able to solder to the outer one. This should make the joint a bit stronger.

With the bearing moved in a tad, I chopped up a front end spindle shim and used a couple pieces of it to shim the bearing in place. I also soldered the retaining washer on the far side back on in its new location.

This was about all I could do to move the arm closer to the center.

Next was dealing with the suspected leaks.

You do realize I’m making this all up as I go along don’t you? Reconfiguring this gadget wasn’t just a shot in the dark, it was the full clip!

The top cover after soldering and cleanup.

All the gauges have a rivet poking through the side. This rivet is a direct leak to the fuel because the chamber with all the mechanicals is flooded with fuel.

Dumb dumb dumb..

So I soldered it up. (Blob on the left.)

This was the sender with the split casing I’d epoxied earlier. And, epoxy does NOT like heat. The soldering turned the epoxy patch into chalk. Off came the epoxy and I soldered up the end with the split casing as well. (End at right) The bottom of end stamping was not actually attached to the base. It is now!


The end result to all of this was : The arm now goes straight down from the bearing instead of at an angle. So it no longer interferes with the mounting screws. Also, the arm is closer to the center line. It no longer interferes with the side of the gas tank hole. And, the obvious leaks have been soldered up.

Time to re-assemble the sending unit. I needed a gasket to go between the two halves. Time to start cutting.

Another lesson learned. Never use an old cork gasket for your pattern. They shrink. The new gasket didn’t fit at all and I had to do it all over.

I installed the sender and it actually worked! Better than that, for the first time ever IT DOESN’T LEAK!!

I’m so happy! Wow, what a job!

Speaking of leaks..


There is a leak somewhere on the roof. We noticed it when the big snow block on top of the roof started to melt during the Yakima trip. I suspect the bead where the van side was welded in. I needed a quick and dirty fix.

All the suspicious areas got a thick coat of Hammerite. That should seal up any pin holes left by the welder.

Yeah, I know. Remember, I said quick and dirty!

I got this cool carb..

But I need to change out the airhorn and deal with installing new shorter studs..

Sigh.. I guess I’ll leave this for later.

Finally I broke down and made a gasket for the voltage regulator. I’d been using a strip of masking tape to shield it from water runoff.

Tacky tacky.

Changed the engine oil, the transfer case oil and the gearbox oil. Transfer case had black bleck. Gearbox had some shavings. Engine had some sludge.. And the front differential had no drain plug hole? Odd? I’ll have to look into that after the trip.

Trying to be accurate, I pumped in exactly the amount called for in the military service manual. I guess my pump, pumps more per pump than it’s supposed to pump.

Because I had the same issue with the transfer case.

What a mess!

This reminds me. I also needed to adjust the hand brake. This includes removing the entire floor of the cab to get to it. That’s a bit of a pain! Anyway, its done and off the list.

I’d seen these odd steel plates in carryalls before. Who knows what they were for? Mark handed me this plate when I bought the truck from him. I tossed the useless thing in the side yard and forgot about it.

Well, during all this last minute stuff, I was reading the Military manual for the truck and came across “Tool storage”. “Really? I had no idea there was tool storage in this machine.” So I looked it up.

Tool storage under driver’s seat. “So that’s why nothing holds the cushion down.”

Tire chain storage behind the right rear fender. “What? Wait! That’s where that weird plate fits..”

And, after a couple hours straightening out the poor bent up thing, drilling some new mounting holes in the shiny new floor..

A touch of sand blasting to clean off the worst rust (We’re in a hurry here.) We now have a nifty tire chain storage locker. Pretty cool!

It only holds one set, but that’s a far cry better than none!

I figured for this Overlanding thing, I should get a CB radio. What’s easier to install than a hand held?

I got two so I could give one to our Daughter Alex. She’s bringing her 4x4 on this trip with us.

I wanted to bring along shovel and a pickax.

But, not like this.

Much better!

In the final version I use two straps.

The pick handle won’t allow movement to the right side and the shovel wont allow it to the left. The straps lock them together and to the grill.

There is a Camp Kitchen thread in the Overlanding forum. Everyone’s showing their kitchen setups. Fancy fancy! All the way from pull out refrigerators to a fork tossed into a door side pocket.

I kinda’ like cooking, so I wanted some stuff and a quick and simple way to get started. Someone posted they used a three tote system, or something similar. That sounded good, and I could implement in a hurry. So that was what I chose.

Blue - Cold.
Red - Pantry.
Grey - Cooking tools n stuff.

When we did the Arlington air show we realized we really needed a table. Hence the picture at the top of the page.

(( END PART I ))

I like the tote/cooler system. Simple and cheap. I'm trying to find that happy medium between "overlanding" and "overbranding", plus my truck is a daily driver and I don't need slide out drawers and roof top tents to get to work haha. Can't wait to see pics from your trip.

 

[Tinker]

Great work & thanks for sharing all your work!

I should really stop drooling over these vintage truck builds or one of the local Deuce 'n a Half trucks for sale in my area are going to have a new home

 

[jim lee]

We're off..

Back in the kiddie raising days when heading out on a wild adventure, the morning of the departure Julie would grab frozen sausage biscuits and nuke them for everyone. They were quick and easy, we all kinda’ liked them, so no fuss breakfast. That turned into a family tradition. I woke up to sausage biscuits this morning.

The truck is packed, pets are taken care of, fuel in tank. We’re ready to pull out. As always, Julie is excited to go on an adventure, I’m.. a bit worried.

We didn’t make it more than a couple miles from home before trouble struck. I’d adjusted the handbrake too tight and it overheated. Back to the barn, rip out the entire cab floor and readjust things.

Sigh..

We made it to Arlington. Maybe 40 miles or so from home. Pulling out of stoplights on highway 9, the engine started cutting out.

What the heck? What could possibly be going wrong now? Of course I went from worried to massively stressed.

The engine troubles would come and go like the ignition was being switched on and off. This got me thinking that, with this heat? (This is the hottest weather we've ever driven this machine in.) Maybe the coil was dying? It was probably over 75 years old. So we bought a coil and I swapped it out in the parking lot.

Didn’t help.

Possibly some sort of fuel issue then? Vapor-lock? Possibly the fuel pump is getting weak? The truck would go for awhile, I’d think “Maybe its ok..” And then it would act up again. I was thinking we should head home and Julie urged me to press on.

In Monroe, another 20-30 miles along, we found a NAPA auto parts store. I bought enough bits to cobble together an electric fuel pump setup. They actually carried a fuel pump for this engine, but it would take a day to get it. We didn’t want to wait so, carrying our kit of parts, we headed up highway 2 into the mountains. If it gets too bad, we’ll turn back.

We made it to Skykomish, Barely. This is where we saw that the gasoline was bubbling in the fuel trap. Now I’m pretty sure its vapor lock.

We were headed to Adam’s place just past the summit to pick up the spare tire mount so I’d been keeping him updated on how far we’d come.

We got some aluminum foil. I used it to built up some heat shields. Maybe that would help?

I think the foil may have helped. We actually made it to the summit with only one pull over to let things cool down.

Adam met us on the road while we were cooling off the truck. He escorted us to his place.

At his place he gave me the spare tire mount along with a heat shield for my fuel pump. Thank you Adam!

Installing the spare tire mount was a bit tougher than I expected. We had to pull off the diver’s side running board to open up enough room to get it bolted on. By the time we had everything buttoned back up, it was dark.

Later that evening we pulled into Leavenworth. Now Leavenworth, for those that are not locals, is a bizarre 1960s pretend German tourist trap town, in the middle of the mountains. Its actually a really popular place and just crawls with tourists.

They do have gigantic beers and lots of sausages. Had a midnight meal and hit the sack completely exhausted.

Can’t believe we made it this far.

-jim lee

 

[jim lee]

Next day, heading south.

Next morning in Leavenworth. Heat shield installed on fuel pump, spare tire bolted up outside the driver’s door. Driving through this German lookalike town, we felt a bit like part of the occupation force.

The run from Leavenworth to Ellensburg to hook up with Alex (Our Daughter) was uneventful. We figured we had the fuel issues licked.

Not.

What marketing genus came up with a design that looks like a gigantic one star rating?

I snapped this while waiting for Alex to show up.

We started having engine troubles coming up to a roadside lookout point climbing the grade outside of Ellensburg. We pulled over and let the machine cool its heels.

We met a guy here that travels around with a big RV trailer working on road maintenance. He was having similar issues with his modern Chevy Tahoe. I suggested checking his fuel filter for clogging. Maybe our fuel filter is clogging?

And again, closer to the summit, the engine quits. I’m wracking my brain as to why this is still going on. It ran flawlessly all morning. I’m afraid to try any modifications because I fear I’ll break something and just be in deeper doo.

So again, we wait for the machine to cool off.

Up until now, the troubles only crop up while hill climbing. The theory is that everything cools down somewhat on the down hill runs.

I started loosing power as we drove into an active forest fire area. Good lord! What can I do? I can’t climb back out of the area. If the engine fails, I can’t get the truck away from the fire either. When Julie n Alex snapped this picture I was down to about half power and was completely stressed out!

Limped it maybe a mile past the fire area and finally lost power completely. Here we are pulled over again letting the machine cool off.

At this time it seems to me that the problem is getting worse. I’m starting to worry that the fuel pump may be starting to fail. I’m also still thinking about possible clogged fuel filters. So I changed out ours. But when I blew though it, it didn’t seem too clogged to me.

It wasn’t the fuel filter because a few miles later we lost power yet again. This time we were able to find a shady somewhat level spot to park. In final desperation, I decide to attempt installing the electric fuel pump.

It takes maybe an hour for me to pretty much Micky Mouse in the fuel pump. Everything is held together with tie wraps and electrical tape.

I fire it up, and we get fuel pressure. We’re good to go!

But after a few miles everything falls apart again!

At this point I’m kind of in disbelief. I’d figured the electric fuel pump would solve whatever growing problem we were having. It seemed to have no effect whatsoever.

By now we were getting a little used to these stops. Might as well setup camp and relax for a bit.

But this time the truck started and only went about fifty feet. Fifty feet up a narrow section of the road with no shoulders and it died completely. Looking in my mirror I see a semi truck barreling up the road towards us with nowhere to pass! I need to get back to the turn out ASAP!

I hit the clutch and start rolling backwards. Luckily Allie is quick on the uptake. Realizing what’s going on, she kicks her 4Runner into reverse to get out of the way.

We end up back on our turn out, middle of nowhere stuck. Its getting dark and nothing I can think to do gives us any fuel pressure. This includes dumping our spare Jerry can of gas in the fuel tank.

I finally throw in the towel and we call a for a tow. It takes almost an hour for him to get to us, so we have some time to calm down and come up with a plan.

The hotel we are heading to in Hood River is ok with us working on the truck in their parking lot. That was a pleasant surprise. The plan is to tow the truck to the hotel. We can get some sleep and deal with it in the morning.

We did find an excellent Brewery in Hood River that was still serving food at midnight..

-jim lee

 

[jim lee]

Keep on or go home?

Things kept bubbling around in my head that night. Why did the truck run so well on the morning run to Ellensburg? What caused the electric fuel pump to completely fail? Why does it seem like the fuel issues are getting worse? Maybe its related to fuel tank level? Maybe when the tank is full there’s more pressure available at the engine for the pump to use to prime itself? Maybe there’s a leak in the fuel line? I know the line from the tank to the firewall is old and made of soft copper. I also know that the fitting between the pump and the line to the firewall tended to leak in the past. Maybe we’re sucking air when the tank gets less than half full?

Checking the fuel line in the truck, the pump fitting did show signs of leaking. So we went to the local auto parts store and bought a bunch of rubber fuel line and I replaced the line from the pump to the firewall. Hooked everything up, powered up the system and.. Nothing. The electric pump couldn’t pull the fuel from the tank. It just sat there and rattled.

Is the line from the tank plugged? Is the line in the tank plugged? I’m seeing crud in the glass fuel traps. I blew down the line to the tank, I could get it to bubble, but I had to blow really hard. Fine, I’ll just replace the entire line and be done with it! So we went to the local auto parts store and bought a bunch more rubber fuel line and I replaced the line from the tank to the new line at the firewall. All the fuel line is now new. And, when I pulled the old line from the tank, gas gushed out. So I guess the tank is ok.

Now, when the electric pump looses prime its done. There is nothing you can do. When the original pump looses prime, you can dump gas down the carb, get the engine spinning and get it working again. So I ripped out the electric pump and re-plumbed in the original fuel pump. Then, seeing that the trouble wasn’t the coil, I swapped the original coil back in as well.

Also, by 10 AM it was so hot out I couldn’t touch the front fenders on the truck. Its been hot like this for the entire trip.

Dumped some gas down the carb and the truck came to life. Back in business again!

Do we keep going or go home? Both lay on the same path, so we head home doing as much as the WABDR as we can.

And the truck ran great all the way to the Bridge of the Gods. Right before pulling off the highway we started having some of the same old issues.

We were able to power through it and get over the bridge. We were a couple hours late, but we’d started!

Made it across..

And the truck ran fine for quite awhile. We burned some miles.

Break out the chairs, maps and refreshments, we’ve lost power again.

Running again..

Refreshments again..

Gaining altitude.

I donno’ where we are, but we’re still running.

And running..

And waiting..

I forget how many times we stopped to cool off the machine. It was on and off all day.

We tried to hit every scenic lookout. They were good for taking pictures and doubled as spots to cool the truck.

The day ended at Packwood. We’d actually completed section one of the WABDR. I was amazed we were able to finish a section.

We got in and set up camp late. I had to cook dinner in the dark. Julie brought a “headlamp”. That worked really well for midnight cooking!

We were bushed!

-jim lee

 

[jim lee]

Who's afraid of vapor lock?

​

Up and back on the road. The three tote kitchen system really worked out well for making and breaking camp. Its so simple, why didn’t we think of it before?

Climbing up the next mountain on WABDR section two. Run the truck, cool things down when we need to.

At least there is some shadows for us to hide from the heat in while climbing. Another thing that seemed to really help was to drop down a gear and just run the engine at a more leisurely higher RPM setting.

Plenty to see and not a lot of traffic to worry about.

Sights at about 20 mph.

Cool looking lake. I told Julie to shoot this picture.

And we’re off-road. Climbing and doing switchbacks. The road looked smooth, but it was washboarded and that actually slowed us down to second gear. Around 8 to 10 mph. Any faster and the ride was unbearable.

And of course there is always the vapor lock issue. Here we found a side road off of a switchback in the shade.

While we were cooling off, a pack of Jeeps along with a Land Rover came past. We all waved at each other. We wondered if they were doing the WABDR as well.

Cruising through the mountains seein’ stuff.

Back on the paved road waiting for the current vapor lock to cool down.

While we were sitting here the road repair guy we’d met two days before showed up. “Hey, how you doing!? Etc.” He filled us in on some local road conditions and we chatted for a bit. This actually happened quite a few times on this trip. We'd pull into a gas station and people would come up to me. "We saw you yesterday parked on the side of the road.."

Lunar landscape. We actually hadn’t realized how much there was to see in this state, ‘till this trip.

Maybe traveling at 1930s speeds lets you notice more.

Allie taking a ride in the truck. Julie and Alex swapped back and forth during the trip. They didn’t feel comfortable driving the truck so that was my job.

Hauling a ton of camping.. junk.

Notice the water jug? Don’t leave home without one! Two sacks of ice, a gallon of spring water and you’re set for a day.

Allie taking pictures. This is somewhere near Naches.

In the tiny town of Naches we pulled into Van’s 1885 Bar & Grill. It was the only place open. And the food.. Was amazing! What a great burger!

It was screaming hot and we remembered we’d left a sack of ice outside the cooler in the back of the truck. I wen’t out early to deal with it.

And found..

This.

What the heck? Vapor lock isn’t working for you anymore? You have to pull something new?

Good lord!

Ah! But from reading The Overland bound forum, I discovered onboard compressors and brought one along.

Hook it up, turn it on and I re-inflated the tire. Pretty slick. Take that lazy truck. Going to take more than a leaky tire to stop us!

And as we were standing around thinking thoughts along these lines, the tire blew! POW! SSSSSssssssss...

Now what?

I only had a little bottle jack and that was going to be a bloody nightmare for lifting up he truck. I ended up calling local tow truck to bring a floorjack to us. He didn’t really want to come out, until he heard what kind of vehicle we had. Suddenly everything was easy peasy.

Back on the road looking for the closest Les Schwab tire store. Why Les Schwab? Because they will do split rim wheels whereas most tire shops I’ve found won’t touch them.

Les Schwab was a bust. I’d have to order my own inner-tube and that would take at least two days.

We ended up in a Hotel in Yakima. I was NOT a happy camper that night. It felt like the entire universe was fighting me making this trip. And, spending the night in a Hotel in the middle of a city felt like a complete cop out. Julie and Alex went out for happy hour and I took a nap.

-jim lee

 

[jim lee]

Section 3

Next morning we decided to just move on without a usable spare tire. Maybe something would turn up along the way. The next stop was Ellensburg. We decided to take the river route. First it was a lot prettier and second, no big hills to climb.

The river road between Yakima and Ellensburg. The drive itself was not very eventful. Besides getting lost and doing some backtracking.

In the morning the truck’s engine didn’t start immediately, so it lost prime. Ongoing issue with this machine. I had to pop off the air filter and pour its morning fuel down the carb. I noticed that quite a bunch of it ran out the throttle shaft hole. Poor worn out old thing.

Tanked up on fuel and water in Ellensburg we headed up into the mountains again.

Sorry about the bugs. See the tree line on the mountains ahead? That’s just about where we vapor locked for the first time today.

This time I noticed that the gas in the glass trap bowl was actually boiling. Also, the trap is located directly above the hot manifold. We had time, why not spend it making up a heat shield?

Alex had some crazy glue and we had a bunch of aluminum foil. I made up a “plate” by folding over a bunch of layers of foil. Then, to reenforce the ends, I folded over some end doublers using the glue between their layers. Once these were complete, I glued and folded them onto the ends of the plate. This gave me reenforced areas to attach the heat shield to the engine.

As you can see it was tied to the air filter and to the gas line. It covered the bottom of the glass trap shielding it from the manifold heat as well as funneling more cooling air around the glass. This may have been effective, because we never had a vapor lock issue again. But to be fair, it never got a comprehensive test.

Up we climbed into the dead burnt forrest. It was bizarre being out here in the sticks running on a paved road.

On and on for hours. The pavement didn’t last all that too long. Then it was an issue of navigation.

We found a clump of trees on the top of the world to have lunch in. Truck’s running well. I open the hood every time we stop now, out of habit.

I wish the pictures could really show what it was like up here. We were right on a cliffside overlooking what looked like the rest of the world.

And then the bugs drove us off..

See? Just doesn’t do it justice.

Like I said before, navigation was beginning to become an issue. Much of what’s up here doesn’t seem to correlate very well to the maps we had.

Now and then we’d find something we could use as a cross reference and get a fix. Like the horse camp here. But those were getting further and further apart.

Map in hand trying to decipher a shot up road sign.

The two dots on the horizen are Julie and I scouting over the ridge. Seeing if we can make any sense as to where we were.

Much pondering and.. “discussion”.

At one point we’d run across the same group of Jeeps that we saw the day before. I was able to ask one of the guys if we were near Wenatchee, where the road was supposed to come out. He told me we were getting close, and they were doing the WABDR as well, as they all blasted on past us.

But the road was getting worse and worse. None of us have very much off-road experience, Alex had none at all. She was getting her little 4Runner through stuff I just could not believe. I watched her go through some ruts that were lifting her rear tires off the ground about a foot. When I took the carryall through, it twisted the body so much it popped open the rear door. I didn’t notice ‘till we stopped for lunch. Leave no trace? I wonder how much of a trail of camping supplies I left behind?

My biggest fear was that the trail would peter out on some cliffside leaving us basically lost and stranded.

Alex messing about on the edge of the world. At least she was having fun.

We’d gotten a pretty good Map Fix and trusting this we went down the road the map showed was the way. But it just got scarier and scarier.

Of course we ended up on some bloody cliffside wondering if we made a wrong turn and if we could back up all the way back up the hillside..

Julie and I looking over the first washout. Is this above our skill level? You can’t see it in the picture, but to the left is your typical “plunge to your death” cliffside.

Seriously one mistake and we’re hosed.

But what if the road just gets worse? Can we get back out?

Alex wanted to try it. So I took a deep breath and jumped in her car to help direct her.

Took two tries on the last hillclimb. The first try, her rear skidded and started sliding toward the edge. We stopped, calmed down a bit, took it easier with a better line and mad it up. Great! My kid did it, now I have to do it. To be honest, I was about wetting myself. Allie took the pictures.

Then I think there was a second washout. We don’t have any good pictures.

If you make a mistake you end up down here.

Somewhere.

Probably upside down.

The third washout. By now I’m just completely freaking out. Then Julie noticed there was a busted up roadblock just ahead of the third washout. This tells me the worst is over. Also, there are fresh tire tracks. We’re not alone. Others have gone through this lately.

Allie and I climbing up out of the third washout. Yes, Allie drove her car through all of them. My poor male ego..

Oh lord! My turn again.

Yaaa!!!

Climb girl! Don’t let me down now!

C’mon!

Whoops! At the end the door blew open again. I wasn’t about to stop.

But we made it!

I was figuring that the worst was over. Feeling pretty good in fact. Within ten miles we hit the main roads again.

The plan was to blast to the end of the section and find a place to camp, it was getting late.

Of course as soon as I relax, disaster strikes.

We’re heading down the highway, I’m up to 45 or more (Warp speed for old army trucks) when I her this “Zzzwingggg POW!” and suddenly the rear end locks up and I’m fishtailing sideways into the oncoming traffic. I was able to cross control to reduce the fishtailing before I hit anyone or rolled the truck. Then I was able to drop the truck onto the shoulder at the end of the last swing.

Burnt rubber and smoke everywhere. My heart was going a mile a minute!

I was lucky in landing the truck. I was way more lucky in that the group of cars we just happened to be in the middle of was the Jeep group that was also doing the WABDR at the same time. They instantly came together “We need to do this and this. Do you have any tools?” I was in shock so bad it felt good to let someone else take the lead. We pulled the rear axles and driveshaft. This allowed me to limp the truck to a campsite for the night.

And that’s where we ended up for the night, at the Leavenworth KOA campground. Time to make dinner and lick our wounds for a bit. We’ll decide tomorrow what to do next.

-jim lee

 

[Graeman]

OMG! I don't know how you are doing this, as I would have thrown a lit Molotov at the vehicle by now and walked away to my daughter's 4runner... Your wife is such the trooper, my wife would have lit and thrown the molotov for me. haha. At your next auto parts stop buy some heat wrap and replace the aluminum foil with the wrap.

 

[jim lee]

Hahaha! They are troopers! The wife actually enjoys the trips and pushes me to do more. Did you see the bit where we got her to go up in a WWII Bomber?

She has her own '14 4Runner and I hear she plans on taking me on a trip up to Canada in it tomorrow. (Going to force me into hiking. A little.)

-jim lee

 

[Graeman]

The WWII Bomber sounds like a fun ride, especially for your wife sitting up front during flight.