Monday, May 29, 2017

Being able to fire up the engine in the first few days kinda’ forced me into thinking about what really was the plan for this machine? Up until now everything was so far away. Years of frame-off restoration etc. etc. Well maybe, if I could get it running kinda’ reliably.. Or running at all. Maybe it would be fun to take it out and play with it? Heck, it shouldn’t be all that hard.

Lord! Not all that hard? Would I ever learn?

Whatever, lets start by bleeding the brakes. Err, where’s the master brake cylinder on this thing?



That’s the master brake cylinder down between & below the brake and clutch petal. Your looking through the driver’s floor at where the steering column clutch & brake petals come through. The shiny square headed plug is where you need to add brake fluid.

Looking in the engine compartment from the open hood, you need to remove the aftermarket horn to see the steering box that is covering the brake master cylinder. (Where you add the brake fluid.)

Who designs these things?

The brakes wouldn’t pump up. Master cylinder was shot.

Fine fine fine, lets get a new brake cylinder. Hit the local parts shop. They actually found ONE in their system. I order it.

Problem one : The pressure port is threaded wrong. After returning it, I find that through classic parts dealers it’ll take a week or more to get a replacement. In the end I go back, pick it back up, buy a pipe tap and just rethread it myself. $^%&^%$!

Problem two : Once I finally wrestle the thing into its mounts and plumb it in, it blows brake fluid all over. Turns out some Bozo at the factory put the wrong pipe plug in one of the unused pressure ports. That took a couple days to completely figure out and fix.

Ok, now we seem to have a functional master cylinder. But there’s no fluid getting to the front wheels. This burns a couple days to track down that the hose from to frame to the axle is shot and closed up solid. This also includes the complete destruction of the right front hard brake line causing a rebuild of all the brake lines on the front axle.

At some point I bought a vacuum brake bleeder tool. It was not effective.

Now the left front brake wheel cylinder blows out. NAPA finds they have ONE of these in their system I can get it tomorrow. Good!



Tire’s off, drum is.. Held on by three impossible to remove screws. I burn days trying to get the ^%$@& drum off. Buy impact wrenches, buy larger screw drivers, buy impact screw drivers, buy snake oil in a can. Get frustrated and attempt to use the impact wrench bits with the air impact gun. Brake many impact bits and just generally make a total mess of things.



Success at last! The online boys told me to forget the three screws. Just pull the drum with its hub and bearings attached.

And that’s what I ended up doing.

The wheel bearings were supposed to be lubricated with grease. Inside the hubs is something like greasy oily slime. Denial, it’ll be fine.

Side Note : Old Dodges use EIGHT sided nuts to hold in their wheel bearings. So there’s always chisel marks on them where frustrated mechanics have been using chisels to tighten and loosen them.

Extra side note : For the non-mechanical. These are the ONLY eight sided nuts I’ve ever seen. Every nut & bolt I’ve ever seen is SIX sided. All tools are for SIX sided nuts & bolts.



Ok, we can finally install the wheel cylinder. Now these have one big side and one smaller size. No problem, pull off the rubber dust covers to see what size.. HEY there’s a ROCK IN HERE! Seriously, from the factory, some other Bozo stuck a rock in under the dust cap. All the parts guys tell me that car parts have dropped in quality. I’m beginning to agree with them.



New wheel cylinder installed. Larger piston side to the rear. Now its time to replace the drum.

Once the drum was re-installed, we begin to bleed the brakes and.. Brake fluid everywhere. The copper crush washers on the new wheel cylinder weren’t holding pressure. Burn some days looking for a source of these little guys. Oddly harder to find than I’d thought. Maybe people don’t use them anymore?

Wheel cylinder sealed up start the bleeding process again and - Poof! The brake line to the rear wheels blows out. ^#%%%&&*!!


Now what? It seems that some time in this vehicle’s past it must have been dumped into a creek/river. The driver side frame rail was packed with old dirt & gravel. Its never been cleaned out, so it held in the water and rotted out the brake line that it encased.

Spend a day using a screwdriver as a chisel and an air hose to blow out the debris. I clean out the entire mess.

Those are my electric goggles.

Now I had to make up the brake line that went from the master cylinder to about the gas tank where the rubber line to the axle attaches. More parts and time..



By now I’m getting insanely frustrated by not being able to really get anywhere. Weeks are drifting by and I was kinda’ hoping to go camping with the kids using this machine.

Time to take a break and tackle something easy. The glovebox door was missing and the previous owner gave me a nice replacement. Its only four screws, I’ll install that.

And of course the bloody screws didn’t quite line up. I ended up tying a block & tackle to the tree next to the truck so I could run a rope through the door and pull hard enough on the hinge to line up the screws. Took me hours!

But it works now. Whewh!

I built and installed the rear brake line and bled the system again. Everyone was at home, phones poised to film video, waiting for the big fire up and test ride.

It wouldn’t start. Tried and tried and it just wouldn’t fire. No spark? I’m flummoxed. Julie pipes up with. “Maybe its the starter?” We all look at her. Does she not hear the starter cranking away? She continued, “That’s what always seemed to be the trouble with our cars when they didn’t start.”

I’ve been married to Julie for ~ 25 odd years? In that time I’ve learned much of the ways of of “Girl logic”. I believe its closely related to the old “Its a million to one chance.” Meaning, completely illogical but its bound to happen. So, when she came up with such an absurd statement, I remained silent and waited..

And right then, the starter failed.

I went into the house and did something else for awhile. Then I slept on it.

What broke on the starter? I ripped into the starter the next day. Pulled and rebuilt the high current switch. Nothing. Was this a day? two days? I then sat there looking at the starter thinking. How they are built, how they work, what could fail.. Then it came to me. I picked up the hammer and whacked the starter on its side. Zingg! All fixed!

My theory : Its old, it has a dirty commutator. Some spots are worse. So a hammer blow may just break the brushes through the dirt to the current.

Starter is fixed, why won’t it start? Sleep on that one too. Decide its a fuel starvation issue. Why? Pour gas down the carb and it will start and run for a bit. Rebuild fuel pump. That was a job in itself. Can’t get it to prime, so I hook a vacuum line to the fuel line and force prime the system. That works really well, got to remember that trick.

Still no luck. Sleep on it.

Got it! There is a rubber section of the fuel line where someone removed the original fuel filter. Maybe that piece cracked and the fuel pump can’t suck past it? Unlike vacuum pumps, fuel pumps can’t suck very well. I went to check the line and it looked ok. ‘Till it broke in half in my hand. Replace rubber line, hit starter and the machine fires up!



And, as I’m sitting there feeling good about solving the puzzles and getting the machine running again, I wonder what the yellow/brown arc is coming from the engine? OMG! Its motor oil!

It didn’t touch Franklin, nor the driveway but ALL of it drenched Theodore our M37. I think its some sort of truck/truck posturing going on here.

Find the busted oil line. Its the rubber part that goes to the oil pressure gauge on the dash. Make up new line and replace the old one. Another day of work running for parts pulling things to bits re-installing.

And finally! First drive for this machine in about 40-45 years? I start backing down the driveway, step on the brakes and.. The rear tires lock up. The brakes won’t release! I manage to get the machine back to where I started about 3 feet.