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Okie dokie. Made it down South to visit the fair and made a side trip to trade seats with HevyHauler (thanks Grant!). He got the nicer one of the two, but at least I have a solid base to work from now instead of the couple bucketfulls of iron oxide thats left of the original!

Pulled the beast up in the drive today and eyeballed the carb. Looks like I have a bad float level or similar issue regarding the needle valve. Have fuel seeping out of the cover gasket leading me to believe my over-rich issue isn't jetting. I can hope it's that simple anyway! Regardless, seems like a good time to tear the carb down, drop it in the untrasonic bath and get a rebuild kit for it.
Also noticed a fuel seep at the hardline connecter under the cab, and being an old VW fan I am leary of any thing that can be described with the words "fuel" and "leak" in the same sentence. So, gotta fix that too!

The land owner is havin some work done out back, was watchin them bring in loads of sand today wonderin what a hoot it would be to see thier faces when I pull up and ask if they needed an extra truck. :p
Once I get the carb issues out of the way and she's running strong I may pester the manager about moving some of the odd things around here he doesn't have the equipment for in exchange for leaving me alone about my truck for a while. Never know, might just work!

Oh yeah, and as if having two project cars isn't enough, my 2000 GMC is bein a butt as well. Getting a couple minor issues fixed at the shop and they find that my knock sensor is bad. The durned thing is located in the air gap under the intake so the tech reaches around there to see if maybe it's just unplugged and finds, of all things, a rats nest!
So, we dunno if the sensor is bad, if it's unplugged, or the rat chewed the wires. but lookin at the cost to get it done vs. the cost to do it myself,... Yep, looks like project # 3 (vehicular anyway, I have MANY others) is on the boards now!
Oh, joy!

Bout ready to bang my head with this bogging/hesitation issue. Runs pretty good when cold, horridly when hot, makin me nuts! :hammering:
Ah well, I'm hoping I can get some insight on the engine & drivetrain forum. It's probably something simple I'm just too distracted to find and will make me feel like a total tard. :punch:

Did get the grille and bumper painted and mounted. Put in the hood insert and the one fender emblem I have painted. Looks pretty good! Photos soon!

At my 500th post, I was thinkin maybe I should do something different. I've been looking at my old beast wondering how I will ever make progress on it at this pace (being broke kinda eats it), but then I was looking through my webshots album and found it's easier to see just what I have accomplished at this sanils pace. I bought her in November '06, and got her into the shop in January and thats when the real work began.

So! For your viewing pleasure, I give you, the change to date:
The exterior look is still rough, needs alot of work but it's gone from this , to this .
Under the hood has been the largest change. The old engine was a greasy ball or parts that amazed me it even ran, the new engine is a beutiful peice of work. And the Engine bay has gone from this , to this .
None of this shows the complete rewiring of the truck from scratch, the completely new brake system (with the exception of the drums, shoes and rear cylenders), the rebuilt and reshod parking brake components, and the work done on the lift pump & ram.

So after looking at it, even working a couple hours here, a day or two there, I have made a lot of progress on this beastie of mine.
Now if I can get the new carb from Jaguar and get the thing running properly, we can have some fun & go scare some people! :p

Nice job it's coming along nicely, I know all about the broke part it seems like I only get two weeks of steady work then I sit around for a week. BTW the seat worked out nice in the 64 thank you and hope the trade works out good for you too.

Good to hear Grant, I'm glad it fit. Still in the process of cleaning up this one, needs some work but I'm sure I can fix it up and make it workable again.

I recieved a shiny NOS Holley 1904 carb in the mail today from Panther, goin to get the fittings for the fuel line and install it Saturday.
Thing has been in a box since my dad was a kid, yet looks pristine and appears to be fully functional. I lucked out there, big time!
Thanks Panther!


Hopefully I'll have a post soon about it running better if not perfectly.

Did the swap Saturday. Had to elongate the holes in the base as the studs were slightly wider than the holes on the carbs. No big thing, just used the gasket as a template and went to work, would have been easier if I could remeber what I did with my milling bits,...
The fun part is after all that work I did on my air cleaner to clean it up and convert it to a paper element, I cant use it! This carb uses the flange connection, not the slip on. Wouldn't bother me so, but I just sold one on Ebay! Ack!!

Anyway, got the carb on and all hooked up, and it ran. ran like crap, but ran,...
OK, so I'm a bit disapointed here, but I note that it idles smooth and isn't smoking like it was. A test drive revealed a better run up but lots of backfiring.
So I figgure I'll recheck the timing and upon hooking the timing light to #1 wire I find no spark, same deal on #2. So I fiddle with it for a bit, change the wires, swap my caps, all that fun stuff, turns out the plugs were bad. Didn't have more than 20 hours on them and they died, not fouled, just died.

I will never ever buy another Champion plug in my life, NGK or Bosch all the way.

Since I'm retiing from the canoe club next summer, I've been going through a miltary to civilian employment transition class all week (man, this sucks, I haveta WORK for a living again!) and have been too busy to work on the truck. So finaly had the time today to change the plugs. Fired it up, tweaked the linkage and the timing a bit, then it was off for a road test.
Seemed a little shaky at first, so I was taking it easy on the throttle, & then she started running fine so I rolled into it harder. She shudders a bit then roars to life and we're off! I ran it up through the gears a couple times and she's running GREAT! Pulls hard, revs smooth, & I'm pretty flippin happy as you can imagine.

So I took it for a test run around the block (about 4 miles, country block yanno. ), and decided the gas was a little too low so I headed to the gas station. About halfway there, and thankfully past the busy intersection, it ran dry.
Whoops!
Good thing about having the glass bowls on the pump and filter, I can see if I have a real issue, or I'm just out of gas. Our neighbor was kind enough to bring me some fuel and I limped her to the gas station to fill up, then back home with no more problems. Practiced running it up through all 8 gears a few times before putting her to bed again, not too hard, but I need practice & haven't even tried running it down through them yet.

She sure is fun to drive, a little scary too, but it's still new to me. After class tomorrow I'm gonna roll her out for the local car clubs' weekly drive in at the pizza factory and let them see it. She's been long overdue for some exposure.

You've brought your truck a long way. Full salute to you. Was pretty surprised to learn that the champion plugs crapped out though. Heard nothing but good about them in the past.

Right on GEAT NEWS Freq will be looking forward to hearing how here run to the pizza factory went. I have never liked Champion plugs have put Champions in a good running motor for routine tune up and had theme not work. I have always liked AC's never had a problem with them and they fit the buy American bill.

I talked to people about what was goin on, and when I said the word Champion, each and every one said "ahhhhh, there's your problem".
Evidently I'm not the only one that's had issues with them. I wonder what up with that, they used to be the poo.
Ah well, so long as the AC plugs work out I'm happy, if not I'm getting a set of NGK.

The run to the pizza joint was pretty uneventful, everyone was inside coz of the cold winds, only had one person ask me about the old girl. Still, had a lot of stares when I rolled her in. Managed to get a spot right in front of the doors too.
Ran great and I'm starting to get the hang of shifting up and down with the rear end and tranny, makes those slight hills a bit easier to tackle anyway. I need to get the vents re-asslembled so the heat stays in the truck tho, got a little chilly on the drive home! Also thinkin about goin by the local sand-box and see if I can get them to drop a couple scoops of sand in the back to test the lift, just wanna make sure it can push up a load should I need to use it.

All in all a fun drive, looking forward to doing it more often.

Head to the local pit and get a load of 5/8 or 1 1/4 minus for your driveway and give spreading some rock a shot. It will coast you about $8 to $10 a ton your truck should weigh about 9,000 lds and should work fine to about 24,000 but don't do it without buying tonnage you don't need a ticket for 18,000 over weight that would be a big one. You can buy tonnage by the month the quarter or the year in Washington State.
Feel free to call me if you want to know more or don't feel comfortable trying a spread we can make a dump trucker out of you. Then we will put you in an 8 axle truck and trailer

Hah! I've actualy been thinkin about gettin my CDL, always seems to be a need for dumps around here, roads choked with em!

Truck is only rated for 16K, altho I think my paid tonnage is 12K, Have to look at my registration and have it corrected when I renew next month.
Dont have anywhere to spread gravel, altho I might have a freind up the road that could use some rock in his driveway. If I remember seeing this done right, I just shorten the chains so the gate pops about 2", then tilt and start rolling out as it dumps. All about learning the proper speed to get the right depth huh?

You will want to put the box in the air till the load rest against the tail gate with the back of the tuck at your starting point and the and the PTO still engaged put the truck in low and let out the clutch wile tripping the gate. As the rock dissipates slowly raise the box to keep it about 2/3rds the way up the tailgate.
Remember if you are rolling too fast and push in the clutch the box stops going up too.
It will take a little practice but when you get good at it you can paint a driveway with your truck and it will take very little raking and grade work to get a finished product. In fact the ground you start on will take more prep work than the rock you spread will take finish work.

Took the beast in to the airfield today, when I got home I raised the bed to drain the water out where it pools in the box and frame. While the bed was up I noticed there was steam coming off the input bearing housing on the rear end.
Oh Joy!
Not real hot, but letting me know it's not gonna last forever without a rebuild. It's a little sloppy back there so it's on my to-do list anyway. That and I need to dismount the rear axle and springs so I can get the axle realigned, it crabs bretty badly goin down the road. I can never se the cars behind me on the right side mirror, altho I suppose having a wide view out the left side isn't a bad thing, I'd just feel better if it was all lined up properly.

Haven't masnaged to get to the gravel pit while someone was actualy there yet, they keep odd hours around there. But eventualy I'll get this thing full of rock and see what we see.

Good news is it's running like a champ, cold blooded at first, but all the important parts still work great. This time of year tho, I really need to get those door seals installed and get the heater fan fixed!

OK, time for an update!

1st order of business:
I have torn the seat down to parade rest and begun the fun of RUSToration. Joy! the pan was a complete loss, so I removed it and went into town to the air-conditioning and heating place where the guys were kind enough not only to sell me some galvanized steel, but even put the larger bends in it I'd have a bit of a hassle doing with hand tools.
I also took a combination of the springs that were in the seat I got from HevyHauler, & the springs from the original seat to make a complete spring assembly. Coated the whole thing liberaly with a chemical conversion coating and painted it. Once I get the lower fram and pan together I can attach the springs to them and start getting the padding and cover together.
I cleaned out an old uphosltery shop down the street, the equipment I got from them was real handy in the assembly, and I picked up the padding I need as well. Still debating wether or not to recover it, the covers I have are in fair shape if a little dirty, no tears or cuts tho.

I did score a good heater from E-pay, still, it doesn't kick out the heat as well as I'd hoped. I'm tossin around the idea of modifying the hoses a bit to get better water flow to the heater as it seems to bypass most of it at the fittings. But hey, at least it clears the windshield now!
I had a neat little dash mounted fan speed switch by the ignition, but it decided to explode on me. I still have the deluxe heater controls, so I tried the speed switch on that. It works in low and medium, but not hi. I'll just toss a new fan switch in it later on and call it good.
The door seals are gonna have to wait till I get the hinges and doors fixed up, in the mean time some adhesive backed storm gaskets for home windows and doors keeps the cold air down to a more tollerable level.


Haven't taken her back to the shop for the rear end work and springs as of yet. I helped our room mate out with the down payment for her new POS F@$d, to repay me she signed over her old beat up POS F@$d and I'm currently fixing it up so I can sell it. I'm hoping I can get at least .35 cents out of it but am doubtful. I have sold it twice, for $3,800 and $4,000, to some guy from craigslist, just wish it was real money!

Ah well, time to get back to actin like I work around here, so they can continue to act like they pay me.

Been relegated to night shift which cuts into my time at the hobby shop, less than 2 hours a day isn't worth waht is costs to keep the beast there so I still have her at the house. Buggin me too since I'm runnin out of time to play anyway, and I have some issues to attend to. Have a manifold on the way that needs some cleaning and finish work, then it's goin on. I also have noticed the water pump makes some noise and seems to be dripping from the weep holes, so that will need rebuilding or replacment. did get the new step panels in, need to get those spliced into the cab soon as well.

Have been tinkerin around here & there while I wait for the time to really work on her, and came up with something neat to put on the door. May have some graphics made up of this: Old 'N Slo Transport Co..
Gettin those on each door in black on an orange oval to match the current paint, & maybe one for the tailgate as well. It's an idea anyway.

Well, the ol girl has officialy told me to "fix it or forget it!"
Took her out a couple times this weekend and noticed a bit of oil in the driveway under the rear end. After the last run into town I looked under there and it was dribbling out,...
Great!

Seems that my drive shaft oil seal has given up the ghost and I need to change it out. So, time has come to pull the rear axle apart, no more putting it off.
It's a factory 2 speed (electric shift w. planetary gear reduction) I know I'll need the seal, and most likely the input shaft bearings since the housing gets warm when I drive it. Probably going to need carier bearings for the diff as well. Anyone had to rebuild this particular model of rear end recently, and has any inputs on where I might get replacement parts? I'd appreciate the inputs.

Ah well, now I just have to find the time to do this. Workin on it for an hour and a half a day isn't an option right now, but thats all my current shift hours will allow. Joy!

Did some work on the truck this last week. Still need to get the rear end done, but other than getting my help post sent to the parts wanted forum, I have also started workin 12 on/12 off, so time is a serious factor now. So there she sits, poor 'ol beast.
However, I did get the original seat put back together. Took the seat I got from HevyHauler, parts from my old seat, and some parts that needed to be hand made and it's all set.

Here's the Jeep seat and interior before I started.
Here's the seat bottom without the mounts, shows the new pan I made for it.
And a top view showing the finished springs with the denim cover hog ringed on, awaiting padding and seat cover.
Here's the finished product installed in the truck, my first attempt at a tuck-n-roll seat cover. Came out pretty good considering, did a good part of it at home, but the assembly work was done on the heavy machines at work.

After I got the seat in and bolted down I started on the floor covering. Not gonna finish it off till I get the rust fixed, but needed to block off the drafty holes anyway. So I made some boots for all of the levers and the shifter, cut the padding into fitted sections, sewed the boots to the padding, and here's the results!

Pretty good amount of work there, and a couple more steps in the right direction. Took it for a drive around the block, seat feels good, much different than the Jeep seat for sure. Next step is seat belts, I like them myself, and neither my wife or my roomie will ride in her w/o them.

1st car show os the season is comin up too, have to get Tater and the Bomber ready for that too.
Lots to do, yep, sure is.

Hy Freq2002, can you tell me if your diff. is flat across the top and bottom, or round. My maintenance manual says the 370 series could have the "corporation" diff. or an Eaton E13600

From what I have been able to tell it's the Eaton rear end with the round cover, still need to clean the gunk off to get the part number off the housing. The Corp. rear end has similar innards but a different shift motor mount and elongated cover, so I'm relatively certain it's the Eaton that was available from 55-57.

Boy, sure miss your posts in-between. Always nice to see how you're doin'. And apparently, your doin' pretty DA*! well, at least to judge by the fine seat and interior work.

As always, color me impressed. Find more time - you're audience NEEDS you!

(Then send ME some of the extra time!)

-Michael

Man I'm tryin, but this Navy thing is gettin in my way! Jerks messin with my wrenchin time, gettin tired of it. But soon I'll be REtired and I might have more time then.


As for the beast, I got her into the shop Friday and tore the drivers side rear axle spring down. Some schmuck had attempted to repair a broken bolt that aligns the springs by welding some all-thread to it. Did not work so well, the head sheared off (& was hammer welded into the alignment hole) and the axle slipped forward about 3 inches. Needless to say, the pins, bushings and shackle are toast,... After a good round with the wire brush and a coat of WD-40, I dropped them all off at Motor Trucks to be repaired yesterday.

Saturday my roomate came along and helped me yank the pinion housing and carrier assebly out of the rear end. In the process I discovered that this rear end is neither the Corp. or the Eaton rear in the manual,...
It's an Eaton, but I'll be durned if I know what one! It looks to be a heavier model, I'm thinkin that the company that did the dump truck conversion swapped a heavier axle in there to up the gross weight. It was 16K from the factory, but seein as the truck weighs 9K and 5 yards of gravel weighs in at 15K, it just dont work.
Anyway, pulled the pinion carrier apart (and managed to muck up the threads on the pinion, thats at the MT shop as well), pulled out the bearings, saw that they all had serious pitting on them, and hence attempted to find workable replacements. Fat flippin chance! One cup is on the East coast, it's bearing is on back order, and the other cap & bearing has been discontinued. They're all Timken parts tho, so I wrote them with the numbers and specs, hopefully they can help me out.
Didn't do anything to the carrier assy and diff, it's actualy pretty tight and I really dont wanna mess with it if I dont have to. Odds are the bearings are pitted as well, but I'll deal with that later, like when I'm not broke from having the spring rebushed. I'll still have to do the other spring pack, so I suppose I can chase down the carrier bearings then. I'm gonna write to Eaton with the P/N's off the housing first and see what bearings it came with before hand & if none are available, they'll just have to stay as is.

OK, Timken tells me the P/N's on my pinion bearings are all the same and they are all available. Nobody else says that, but hey, they make the things, I just need to find a local Timken dealer. Hopefully my local FLAPS can find them for me, I'm expecting a call this morning.

Got the spring back with new pins, bushings, & U-bolts yesterday (& they were kind enough to un-fubar the threads on my pinion). Went in and bolted it all in today. Had to move the axle back a good 2.5" to get it to line up, gonna be odd not havin to drive it sideways! I'll pull the other side later on, but not anytime soon, as it is this side cost me 380 bones I didn't have.

Rebuilt the shifter motor and housing. Got it all cleaned up and re-painted. Thinkin I can get the carrier housing and the pinion housing cleaned up and painted since I'm gonna have to wait on these bearings for a bit yet. Just one less thing I'll have to clean up later.

And now I'm off to the parts-wanted section to ask about those brackets that mount the center grill piece (with the number on it). I lucked into a complete piece on E-pay, but it's for a 500, not a 370. I think I can re-create the 370 logo, but I need at least one complete bracket.

I bet it will drive much better now if the rear axle was moving on the spring pack even a little it was giving fulse steering input.

Yep, it crabbed pretty bad. The only advantage was I had a clear view of the cars behind me through the drivers mirror. Couldn't see anything but ditch out the other mirror, but I liked knowin who was back there. I'll get over that tho, & I'm betting the steering will track better now.

Started wiring the trailer hitch connector (I'm thinkin about renting an equipment trailer & towing the Bomber to the next show) & realized I have to do some circut work in the back since most trailers use combined brake/turn circuts and my truck has them seperated. Oh yay!

A question for those other folks that tow electric brake equipped trailers with thier bolt: Do you use a brake control that runs off brake pressure, or one of the new fangled "inertial" models? I have a controller in my new truck that gradualy applied braking to a preset level as well. Any advice?

What came with the truck is a real old hand controler mounted to the steering column. while I might put it back on for looks, I dunno if I wanna have to actualy use it.

Freq mine is a Draw-Tight Activator II good for up to 4 axles or 8brakes it dose not tie in to the brake lines and works well with my three axle trailer.

My 57 had seperate ciruts for the brake lights and turn signals so I bought a trailer converter at autozone there for the Jap trucks that with amber turn signals and red brake lights mounted it to the inside frame rail of my truck now I have just two tail lights on the truck and they work great this might be something for you to look into

Thanks guys. I'll look around for a decent brake controler, might just get another one like I have in my Sierra.

I already bought a 3 to 2 wire converter for the trailer lights, I'll be wiring it in when I install the connector this weekend.

Still thinkin about cutting a notch in the bottom of the back plate under the pintle and welding in a class 4 reciever. That way I can pull anything I like with it, makes finding a trailer I can use with either truck a LOT easier.
Would also be fun to pull up to a camp site this summer with a lil tent trailer behind the dump truck.

Got her out of the shop today, sittin outside the hangar right now. Kinda odd bein able to drive straight, and I cant see everyone behind me out of one mirror anymore!
Recieved my door signs for the "Old 'n Slo transport co.", will get some fresh pics up of all that fun stuff and the work I did here shortly.
Traded out the truck for my VW in the shop, time to start gettin caught up on the metal work on the rear end. The truck will get bits done here and there, but I've been putting off my previous projects for too long now. But hey, at least all the important stuff is fixed now!

Been slavin away at the VW for a few days, makin a lot of progress on the rear end, then it's on to the roll bar and interior panels. Took a couple days off to deal with other things (goof off) since I'm pretty much out of work now. not retired yet, but wont have to work for them again till my retirement date of 31 July.
Now to find a real job,... joy!

ANYway, I did get a couple photos.
Here's a shot of the fresh spring hung on the axle. All new hardware and bushings, just need to drop the other side later on and have it redone as well. But with the cost of the last one, might be a while,...
Here's a shot of the new door signs I had made ( closer shot ), they turned out real good. I'm most likely going to trim them out so there's about an inch of orange around the white when I get to the paint. They work fine for now tho. The passenger door doesn't stay on too well, too much bondo on the door, so it's on the front of our dish washer now. But the drivers side is on tight and I keep it up.

The real fun news is I put her to work Yesterday for the 1st time. Only other load it's hauled since I had her is 700lbs of trash to the dump. But here she is loaded with around 3 tons, two large stumps, roots, and dirt at a local quary before I dumped it out. She trundled along without a complaint, shrugged off one load and went back fr this bigger on just as easily. The kid with me, my friends son, hasn't ever ridden in an old beast like that and was amazed at the loooooow gears in her. Ate up hills and the muddy bumpy roads in the quary like nothin.
Goin back today in a few hours to haul some more out, hopefully they have figgured out how to dig stumps with the back hoe a bit better and will have them all out this time. If not, thats OK, it's fun to watch!

Cool I dig the pictures of her working that is what these truck were built for.

We hauled several more loads today, blew out the passenger side board on one tho. It was bowed out a bit from this monster stum that took up so much of the bed we could only fit the one in there. When it started to slide out it shifted over more and busted the board and then it got stuck! So we have this huge stump stuck on the top edge of the bed, half hanging out, and it weighs so mugh the bed is stuck fully raised.
I almost managed to get it pried out with the larger piece of the side board, but we ended up using aloader at the quary to get it out. I have a shot I'll upload later of the hung stump. Was very comical really. Just affirms that I need to weld some tabs on the top of the side to support the boards in the middle. had thought about it before, but now I'm certain! Need to do some welding anyway as that stump caused some damage to the rear board slot anyway.

But still, we moved a lot of stuff this weekend, put the old beastie to work and she ate it up. It was fun too!

Oh, and when we were fueling up the truck, we ran into one of our local bolters as well. Crazy stuff!

I love the "old and slow" signs you had made!

So Do I

Thats how I'm advertising my lil side business too. See no reason to be all serious about makin a business out of of a rig that cant do serious hauling (limited weight for now and distance vs. fuel capacity kinda sucks), so a funny name kinda fits.
Now all I need is an old beater tractor with a loader & maybe a back hoe, a trailer, and I'm good to go.

Don't underestimate the work your old truck has left in her with a few well thought out upgrades and good maintenance practice she is still capable of earning you a good living.
With you coming up on a retirement from the Military it may be a good idea to get something going now you may want a bit better than an old beater tractor.

Hevy> Yeah, tell me about it. I've been looking at the possibilities all around, just got back from a hiring conference the other day. Hope I get called back for a position with Boise Cascade, but the reality is I SUCK it interviews. So, bein able to make some extra change with my old beastie cant hurt!
I was thinkin along the lines of an old Ford 9N with a bucket if I can find one, they're strong lil buggers and parts aren't as hard to find as most. I was lookin at an '05 Case with a bucket and a mower not long ago as well. There's a used equipment place nearby that has a bunch of excavators like the one you have, but the prices are what's killin me right now.
Another big thing will be my towing capacity, combined gross weight limitaions, and of course paying up my registered gross weight. I'm workin on it tho!

If you get an excavator look at ones between 10,000 and 18,000 pounds with a thumb if you learn to be proficient with it you can get a lot done in a short time with one.
A good operator on a good sized Minnie will bring $55 to $95 an hour but you need to learn to make every move count. Your truck is worth $60 an hour if you have good knowledge of material suppliers and dump sites it is all about making your time count. A good rule of thumb is if it cost you $12 a yard at the pit sell it for $24 and it will be a good fare price