Alex's '42 WC53 Carryall Build Details - Cummins ISB170

[Alxj64]

I dread having a vehicle fall off a jack stand. I'm glad yours was a non-event. The frame is pretty darn rigid.

Is it an illusion, or are the two spindles different? The seal contact area looks much wider on the clean spindle.

And I love the gray color for the chassis. It will make it easier to see all the cool stuff going on under the body.

Yea, I've had this truck fall off worse than that actually. I had a VERY large buddy of mine come over and despite him already being a bigger guy, his method of sitting down, because he thought it was funny and had broken several chairs, was to just basically collapse. Well, he tried pulling that BS onto the passenger's running board on this truck, but the boards weren't bolted on but were sitting on some blocks to mock up next to the truck that was just on stands up front. Well, when he sat down, the boards dumped him so his body weight went sideways against the truck and pushed it off of the jackstands. Sitting supported on a tube and a sling was my ISB170 and Allison 1000 combo. When the frame went sideways it dump the truck off of the jackstands, which dropped the oil pan onto some blocks below but the engine rolled over onto its side and it gouged the intake horn and cracked a fuel fitting (that luckily was getting replaced anyways) but I lost my cool and he hasn't actually been back in my garage since. He was a non-contributor to the project anyways.

The spindles are the same, it was just an illusion. The second one was in worse shape than the first.

I think the grey is going to be cool for this truck. I might even have the hood numbers stenciled back on the hood and rear gate, and have the HQ number put back on the bumper, but in another tone of blueish grey so that it is only visible up close, kind of ghostly even. Not sure yet. If this poweder matches the paint colors well, then I can have parts like the wire grill and headlight wire guards done in Powder and then just have the bigger sheet metal parts painted. This will protect things from chipping and such.

This week in the evenings, I have been working out the design for my front axle shaft seals; this is going to be complicated, just like everything else on this build.

[Greg Coffin]

I dread having a vehicle fall off a jack stand. I'm glad yours was a non-event. The frame is pretty darn rigid.

Is it an illusion, or are the two spindles different? The seal contact area looks much wider on the clean spindle.

And I love the gray color for the chassis. It will make it easier to see all the cool stuff going on under the body.

[Alxj64]

Also, I blew apart the front axle and am working on it to get the front brake lines plumbed, the inner axle seal flanges and sealing web plates built, and also I need to order my custom axle shafts. It will use Dutchman 4340 Chromoly 30 spline 14 bolt sized shaft ends at the diff but with 1480 Dana 60 universal Joints. The outer stubs will be Chromoly 35 Spline and I have a set of early Spicer forged 4340 drive flange style hubs (not cast segmental drive gear like the Warns) that were re-broached to fit the 35 spline stubs.

The Dana 60 donor axle was very rusty and as such I am having to clean up a lot of rust scale off the parts of the outers. I put the spindles in the lathe and cleaned them up too. They were all gouged around the edges where the axle didn't want to come apart and the guy I bought it from had used chisels and a ball peen to break it all down because he wanted to keep the original 30 spline stub shafts so I agreed to let him fight the thing apart in exchange, well he made a mess of it. Ohh well. I'll buy some new lower kingpin caps because these are just too far gone and bent from him trying to pry them out of the knuckle. The grease fittings are broken off, etc.

I also think I decided on my paint color... Its that Anvil grey that a lot of guys are using lately so I need to hurry up and get the truck done. However, I was able to find a poweder coat color that is nearly, if not exactly, identical to the paint color. I had some old pieces of scrap done in it so that I can make sure I like it. The paint color changes color in the differing daylights so I'd wager its pretty good at being a "Battleship Gray" for the truck that has battleship floorboards.

Ohh, also I started on my floor template too for the deckboards. I didn't take any pictures but am hoping to get rolling on that this weekend too. Going to re-saw some of the boards to use for the floor since I don't have enough original length boards, I'll need to use a veneer. Also, these boards have chunks missing, holes in them, etc, so it'll be a scavange to get enough "good" solid material out of them for this floor, BUT its going to be awesome!

[Alxj64]

The Carryall tattoo has my thinking....One day I may get my first tattoo

I tend to only get them once I've thought about it for a long time. This one wasn't on a whim, and it took forever for me to isolate an artist that I was confident in doing it and doing it well. I've known this girl for a few years now and she is actually one of my wife's former models from her photography business.

I have huge air bags on the front of the rear axle. A lot of the time they are left around 15lbs and depending on the load I will raise the pressure to 30lbs. The springs are 96 dodge 1/2 ton and super squishy. Going forward there is no axle wrap, and the truck has climbed some steep grades with both transfer cases in low. But going backward there is axle wrap and the truck can start to bounce.
I can see myself adding a anti wrap bar. But how beefy it will be is open to a few tests. I do crawl in it, but more as an expedition vehicle than to show off what I can thrash.
I saw some ant wrap bars on a military Volvo, they were a single bar with rubber eyes at both ends.
Hoping to put mine back on the road this week.

Bruce

Good to hear Bruce! And you've got the doubler case in yours as well. That single bar is okay but it actually can invoke some weird anti-squat values into the rear suspension if the bar is placed in the wrong location as it effectively turns the leaf springs into a version an indeterminate 4 link; that is to say, that the front half of the leaf is acting as the lower 4 link bar and the anti-wrap single bar is acting as the upper 4 link bar. However, the rigidity of the spring pack itself throws some problems into running the numbers through a regular 4 link calculator. I may just end up going the single bar route if it comes down to it or fitting this big massive plate bar under the truck afterall. Not really sure at this point.

In other news, something scary happened as THE TRUCK FELL OFF ONE OF THE JACKSTANDS and somewhat tested the rigidity of the frame. Both front corners of the truck are supported on "dummy" struts that are rigid in compression but not in tension. I had the rear of the truck supported on jack stands under the rear frame horns, and then I went to lift the front, take the tires off, and place it on jack stands to work on the axle. Well as I am setting the front of the truck down I hear what sounds like a jackstand fall near the back of the truck and the truck does this little twitch. I didn't think much of it and figure maybe something leaning fell against the jackstand. I walk around to the back of the truck and the driver's rear corner had slipped off of the jack stand and was hanging in air, WITH the weight of the rear axle hanging off the truck. This effectively is more of a torsion scenario than if the truck was crossing a ditch and hanging the left rear tire off the ground, because, well, it was. Attached is a photo of the frame deflection, and that is by not allowing the front of the truck to adjust in any amount of suspension movement, which it would in real life. NOT TOO SHABBY. I don't think a factory C-channel frame would have stayed anywhere NEAR that rigid.

[Bruce in BC]

rear axle wrap.

I have huge air bags on the front of the rear axle. A lot of the time they are left around 15lbs and depending on the load I will raise the pressure to 30lbs. The springs are 96 dodge 1/2 ton and super squishy. Going forward there is no axle wrap, and the truck has climbed some steep grades with both transfer cases in low. But going backward there is axle wrap and the truck can start to bounce.
I can see myself adding a anti wrap bar. But how beefy it will be is open to a few tests. I do crawl in it, but more as an expedition vehicle than to show off what I can thrash.
I saw some ant wrap bars on a military Volvo, they were a single bar with rubber eyes at both ends.
Hoping to put mine back on the road this week.

Bruce

[Matthew Welcher PWA]

The Carryall tattoo has my thinking....One day I may get my first tattoo

[Alxj64]

But you were planning on towing with it, and have a motor designed for low end towing grunt. You understand this stuff better than I do but seems to me your most likely issue would be trying to yank that airstream out of a muddy camp site or similar such situation, sure the air bags would be helping for weight but probably not as helpful for wrap.

This is true... Hmm, I guess I'll just have to get the springs under it and see just how stiff they are. I guess I can run this bar for now and then later on build something that has the same geometry but looks better.

Also, this happened. I'll always have one Carryall with me at all times. So many straight lines of various weights, small numbers, and the hidden lines done in a grey ink, this girl Nailed this piece! She is in Norfolk Va for now, and is super humble. You can stalk her work as marenatattoos on Instagram.

[Desoto61]

But you were planning on towing with it, and have a motor designed for low end towing grunt. You understand this stuff better than I do but seems to me your most likely issue would be trying to yank that airstream out of a muddy camp site or similar such situation, sure the air bags would be helping for weight but probably not as helpful for wrap.

[Alxj64]

Alcan springs are being made as I type this. Very stoked on getting a softer spring pack built that I can run on this thing and then use the air system to adjust the load capacity as needed. I built that weird anti-wrap bar a few years back and now I kinda don't like the thing.. Dunno what to do. Not sure if I'll need it yet but if I do, I need to have the brackets attached to the axle before I send the housing off for powder coat. Hmm. Spring over with soft springs, however the load cap adding shocks are mounted to the front and have some leverage too so I am wondering if they can help manage the torque wrap? Pinion cranks up under forward acceleration load. I guess I just need to drive it and see what happens? I am not crawling with it, nor racing with it, maybe a little spring wrap will be my warning sign to let out of the throttle... Thoughts?

[Alxj64]

Also messed with some of my brake hardware. I will put up a post in the materials and vendors section on my brake flex line source. Its kind of cheap but it is PTFE stainless braided. I am going to get some heavy wall heat shrink tube or maybe just some hydraulic line hose sleeve to put over it to hide the shiny look and keep dirt and debris out of the braids. My hard lines are all 1/4
Copper Nickel line. Very easy to work with. Only thing I have found is I think I need to get calibrated on how tight is "tight enough" for my flare connections as I am using a combination of Inverted 45 degree and JIC 37 where I can. The JIC 37 parts are cheaper and easier to find in the 1/4" flavor, and I like the looks of the JIC stuff on this "aircraft / bomber" themed machine.

The next Carryall I build, with that detroit, will have all kinds of exposed hard lines, on purpose.

[Alxj64]

A few small things over the weekend. I had to slow down on parts acquisitions lately because my poor darg is in the need of an expensive surgery and he's like a child to my wife and I.

In the mean time I went ahead and installed some parts that had showed up over the past week; things that were back ordered and things that just needed some more thought.

So the rest of the driveshaft parts showed up, for those that have never messed with a 1350 CV shaft, ie CYBORG LEG, these things can be quite the Pain to assemble by yourself.

I included a generic view looking along my crazy driveline offsets.

[Alxj64]

I believe we should all work together to help keep these trucks alive in which ever fashion suits the owner and the owner's needs.

I was just poking fun at the FB warriors that lack an open mind. They can only see things one way and never take a step back and consider the other uses for things down the road; things are the way there are, and thats the only way they can be. I've seen lots of "Bubba-fied" conversions that are rather smart and an improvement over functionality, just maybe not as "cleanly" executed. After all, necessity is the mother of ingenuity.

Ordered a set of volume adding Reservoirs for the front ORI struts. The weight of this truck, when analyzed, calculates out to require the addition of gas expansion during a hard long hit. So, to avoid having my teeth knocked out, and more so to avoid stresses on chassis, I ponied up some more money into the suspension. Turns out though, I'll be getting the first consumer ready set of these upgrade reservoirs that were specifically designed for heavier vehicles like mine so I guess the fact that I drug my feet so long actually worked in my advantage. Sad thing though is I requested a bit of an appearance change to mine, I wanted the machined grooves removed so that they are all black; this will add a few weeks to the delivery. Ohh well, lots of other things to work on in the meantime... such as:

I also ordered my rear springs from Alcan. They got a TON of measurements from me, weights, etc, and we are looking into changing the eye bushings on my springs to something a little more "comfortable" than just the bronze eye.

I just want to verify the spring PINS ARE 3/4" Diameter, CORRECT?

I am re-using the original mounts and shackle in the rear and am having springs made for a better ride quality and flexibility rather than the super heavy rate springs the trucks came with. I have the air-assist shocks in place that can give me an extra 1100 lbs of load capacity if I want / need it. So, I told Alcan to make the springs nice and squishy and I can adjust my air ride to compensate. The adustment will be controlled by a small series of valves and a self relieving regulator that will be turned on and off. I'll be able to figure out a few pressure settings on the regulator that can be pre-determined for a certain trailer, or certain amount of cargo, etc. The weight of fuel, interior, etc has all been calculated into the spring capacities too.

Moving right along it appears. I still need to pull the body one more time to finish up the firewall, finish up the floorboard, and install some wire loom clamps that are too hard to a drill to with the body in the way.

I need to weld the passenger's side inner body panel back in too. It had to be cut out so that I could straighten out the rear of the truck after it was rear-ended just before I got it.

Very excited! I can now see a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel. Things are nickel and diming me to death but I know it will be worth it in the end for sure! At this point all the little details are investments in quality vs just "parts for a truck".

Thanks to all who have been supportive and helped me along the way. I'm sure I'll be bugging you all for more idea checks, dimensions, and general support.

[W_A_Watson_II]

I believe we should all work together to help keep these trucks alive in which ever fashion suits the owner and the owner's needs.

Amen!

[Matthew Welcher PWA]

To be honest, after speaking with a few of the Power Wagon minds I will be fixing my bed, in a similar fashion to one of theirs', we were also discussing four wheel steering due to the shortened wheel base it would be fantastic for a trip to Moab.

I believe we should all work together to help keep these trucks alive in which ever fashion suits the owner and the owner's needs.

[Alxj64]

I will be un "Bubba Hacking" my 46 eventually :)

Shwew! Good thing! It might not be worth anything to anyone unless its perfectly restored to original, whatever condition at X date in time that might be...

Meanwhile things like a 1/2 ton single cab WC with a 4 link brings 220k, but a perfect numbers matching super rare original 3 door crew brings 176... yea, people really want the originals more...