The WC53 Carryall thread .

[Bruce in BC]

thanks Alex

At present the winch is grounded to the frame . I have two ground wires at a better grade than what Warn provides . It will change , but a later date . The issue is the connection from the wire to the frame . There is not enough contact area . At this point I need some closure , so once something is done I am avoiding redooz .

I spent several hours rewiring the control box . The plug that sticks out of the box is now coming out of the rad shroud under the front fender . This was necessary because of interference with the grill . Pictures will follow.

My original plan was to put the controls in a ammo box - but that changed once I put a ammo box up front because it did not look right . I suspect the winch will be under a canvas bag . Going out to work on it in five .

Your comments about old steel sure ring true . The steel in my frame is different than the stuff I welded in . Only time will tell if cracks are going to form .

Bruce

New folks ... bring them on .

[Bruce in BC]

this little mod is a time saver

I made it possible to remove the top of the radiator shroud and pull the rad or service the front of the engine without going through the hassle of pulling the whole front end .

(1) weld 3/8 NF blind nuts into the shroud .

(2) remove the fixed nuts from the sides of the shroud

(3) notch the front shroud as shown . This is to get access to the two front nuts . Look carefully at the photo , you can see part of the notch outlined in grey primer

(4) The rear nuts are installed using a foot long extension and socket . There is a gap behind the front fender support and this gap is used to access the bolts .

[Alxj64]

So the other night, I found locally-ish a pair of brand new 325 XMLs. I show up to buy them and the seller shows me that they still have wheels on them and didn't feel like messing with them. Sadly it was only two, because it turns out that these wheels are also Aluminum Hutchinsons. They are off of a Stryker LAV armored vehicle. Looking at them, it would be SUPER easy to cut out a hubcentric adapter plate to conver these wheels over to the original power wagon wheel pattern, or to 8 lug, or 5 lug, or whatever! Like I said, shame I only have two of them. Since I already have a set of regular hutchinsons I'll have no reservations selling these. Bruce, you think you can find two more maybe?

[Bruce in BC]

Alex thanks for thinking about me .

Considering where I live and how hard it is to get the simplest common thing , like a rod end . The chances of coming up with 2 more wheels is about zero . Shipping might be an issue too . Even if I had something shipped to the boarder it costs me about 200 bucks to get there and back in fuel and ferry costs . I no longer have access to a lathe but I am thinking about saving up for one , machining around here can be prohibitive .
Once my truck is on the road I plan on going for a long holiday down to the states . Summer of 2014 . Along the way I may pick up some spare parts - like some wheels if they fall in my lap . But I think I will hold off and get the 8 lug ones
Might cruise by your way and say high .
I do have a relative in Portland ....
Might be a good thing you do not have four of them .
Are they DOT stamped ?
that set that i missed in seattle went for 600 or 650 . they were for sale for over a week ..... never saw the ad till after they sold .

You take care

Bruce

The winch is in , the grill is almost on , tomorrow the hose adapters .

[Alxj64]

Considering where I live and how hard it is to get the simplest common thing , like a rod end . The chances of coming up with 2 more wheels is about zero . Shipping might be an issue too . Even if I had something shipped to the boarder it costs me about 200 bucks to get there and back in fuel and ferry costs . I no longer have access to a lathe but I am thinking about saving up for one , machining around here can be prohibitive .
Once my truck is on the road I plan on going for a long holiday down to the states . Summer of 2014 . Along the way I may pick up some spare parts - like some wheels if they fall in my lap . But I think I will hold off and get the 8 lug ones
Might cruise by your way and say high .
I do have a relative in Portland ....
Might be a good thing you do not have four of them .
Are they DOT stamped ?
that set that i missed in seattle went for 600 or 650 . they were for sale for over a week ..... never saw the ad till after they sold .

You take care

Bruce

The winch is in , the grill is almost on , tomorrow the hose adapters .

More pictures of that big ol' winch stuffed in there! And yea, these are marked as DOT rated. I've got my feelers out for another pair of these stryker wheels as I know they exist. I think they would look best matched with the power wagon 5 lug pattern honestly, rather than the 8 lug, and with the amount of Backspacing they have, they would fit better on the power wagon axles too. I figured I'd throw you the option first... don't be surprised if you see me toss em up on Ebay though because I wouldn't be surprised if there is someone else out there also looking for two more of them.

I'm a long way from anywhere close to you distance wise, but if you are ever down here on the East coast, it would be great to say hi. I am planning on having my truck done by Summer of 2014 as well. Maybe meetup somehwere? I've got a long way to go, but once I am done with the body work, I can FLY with the drivetrain stuff as thats more my forté.

[Desoto61]

Now you're tempting me, as if I didn't have enough expensive things to buy lately. Plus there's the sequestration thing still hanging over my head, but still, I do want to do a more modern wheel & tire combo...

[Alxj64]

Now you're tempting me, as if I didn't have enough expensive things to buy lately. Plus there's the sequestration thing still hanging over my head, but still, I do want to do a more modern wheel & tire combo...

Still gotta find two more of them though, but if we can, it would be entirely possibly to make a hub center plate that bolts to this wheel through those giant lug pattern holes and then has the PW wheel pattern in the center.

[Desoto61]

Still gotta find two more of them though, but if we can, it would be entirely possibly to make a hub center plate that bolts to this wheel through those giant lug pattern holes and then has the PW wheel pattern in the center.

Wouldn't be the first piece of unobtanium I need/want. I may have finally found someone that can get me the right input gear for my PTO. Chelsea Parker no longer makes it since NV no longer makes the transmission it goes to.

I have been leaning toward doing as someone else had done and having the BUDD centers welded into a set of 17" rims. But I haven't looked into who can do that, preferrably around here.

What size are they?

[Bruce in BC]

Going to have to buy some stuff

Batteries - I was thinking about Optima but they no longer have the rep they once had , Exide batteries seem to be cheaper and there is one local store that has them with what looks like a no cost 5 year replacement . Then there is the Odessy battery which around here seems to be more expensive than the Optima . I notice a few folks have decided to run with the old acid style batteries and change them every 6 years or so and say they come out ahead .
So what are you folks running in your Carryall and what size ? The 31 series which is 13 inches long will not fit

Wish list
(1) lengthen front drive shaft
(2) onboard air compressor ... electric Thomson ??
(3) Go to a different speedometer - GPS ?
(4) 300 amp buss bar
(5) big honking 300 amp battery switch
(6) rebuild kit for my turbo - It wiggles way more than it did last time I wiggled it - maybe the oil drained away

[Chris Olson]

[QUOTE=

Wish list
(1) lengthen front drive shaft
(2) onboard air compressor ... electric Thomson ??
(3) Go to a different speedometer - GPS ?
(4) 300 amp buss bar
(5) big honking 300 amp battery switch
(6) rebuild kit for my turbo - It wiggles way more than it did last time I wiggled it - maybe the oil drained away[/QUOTE]

1- Pat's driveline (Surrey -Port kells)
2- H2 hummers with air suspension = Stock thomas 12v compressor (ELCAM- Burnaby)
3- Autometer electronic with a pulse generator on the transfercase (Mopac-Langley)
4- Polar Battery -Boundary rd Burnaby
5- same
6- ADP distributors Port kells also

Sounds like a day trip is in order :)

[Bruce in BC]

Thanks Chris

Got a quote on a Thomas air compressor TA 4101 , new airless , 12 volt ..... $991.90 . I think I will pursue other options . Will try Elcam but the hummer compressors are the wobble type and use oil , might as well use a york or sanyo , but I am looking for dead simple ....
As to the drive shaft , the smart thing to do may be to leave it out and once the truck is running drive it over and have them look at it . The angles are a tad steep and I do not have a Dodge front slip yoke that mates to my axle .
No shop time today .


Bruce

[Alxj64]

I'm not help on the batteries myself, but Saturday I was at the Tractor Supply Co. that just opened across from my house (literally, two blocks and a two lane street outside of neighborhood) and was drooling at their inventory of Exide Bat-trees. They seem fairly priced and have some decent CCAs. I also was considering the industrial long skinny ones, and stack those together to give a more "military Heavy Duty" look when you open the battery box, but then again I don't know if I want all that weight hanging off the side of the truck. I've had weird experiences with the Optima's in the past, regarding Jeeps and such so I typically avoid them. It seems I hear people complain more about an optima than bless it, regarding price, charge, or CCA. I have a friend getting ready to put an Odessy dry cell in his "Monsa-Truck" (Think Dennis Anderson's "King of Sling", ie Monster Truck/mud truck hybrid) and that thing is stupid expensive but the battery is going to need to crank a stupid high compression engine and will see minimum recharge time with the engine running.

In my front, I tinkered with the gate some more, and also go those two brand new XMLs mounted on my Hutchinson Border patrol wheels. I think I found a guy with an actual LAV to buy the other two spare ones. I know one thing, pulling that Run-Flat out of that Michelin was a bit of a pain. Ended up going to my friend's shop, chaining two of the sidewalls to the wheel bar on the back of a big roll back, and then hooking a strap through the runflat and connecting that to his F-350 dually. Then using the roll back hydraulics, pulled the tire away from the runflat and thus pulling out the runflat. I wish I had taken pictures but I couldn't because my entire everything was covered in thick nasty black grease that was used on the run-flat assembly. If you've ever seen the "When Nature Calls" movies, it looked like Jim Carey being birthed by the Rhino. At one point we were dragging the superduty across the gravel parking lot simply buy the runflat being stuck inside the tire bead. Pain in the arse.

Edit: Ohh and as for compressors, I am just going to go with a York myself. I am hoping to run the Gabriel Air shocks instead of air bags for adjusting the truck ride and so that being the case I think the york will be better suited and a touch more affordable. More like $500 for head and switch. Plus with my Common rail being a rear geartrain, I have more room in the front for extra goodies like an Air Compressor, A/C compressor, and bigger alternator, so long as I leave room for an intake and intercooler piping. I think my steering cooler and transmission cooler are going to share a location lower down beside or behind the motor with a mini-electric fan rather than trying to sneak those up front with the radiator, A/C condensor, and intercooler.

So a few pictures at the least...

[Desoto61]

Plus with my Common rail being a rear geartrain, I have more room in the front for extra goodies like an Air Compressor, A/C compressor, and bigger alternator, so long as I leave room for an intake and intercooler piping. I think my steering cooler and transmission cooler are going to share a location lower down beside or behind the motor with a mini-electric fan rather than trying to sneak those up front with the radiator, A/C condensor, and intercooler.

I've been dreading having to fit all that stuff too and I don't have the luxury of the rear geartrain, though I don't have to fit a tranny cooler. Looking at the Vintage Air site their condensers are super thin, so I think I can fit it up front, the intercooler and it's piping are what I'm worried about. Plus I have no idea where I am going to fit the compressor.

Fighting the fuel cut-off solenoid right now, it wants to sit right where one of the cowl supports runs to, thinking if I rebuild the bracket to clock it slightly I can keep it in the same location as factory.

As for batteries, I have an Optima in my Desoto mainly because they have almost no idle drain. You can leave them disconnected without a tender for over a year and no problems. No problems in the last three or so years, and that big block has to crank for a while when she's sat for a few weeks. The last battery exploded because the tender boiled one of the cells dry. But I have heard that their quality is not what it once was.

For hard use I still like the AGM batteries but can't speak to the best option. I did use an Exide AGM as a replacement for the battery in my Magnum but that was only a few months ago, and I had to order it which I don't recommend. UPS is not kind to heavy stuff. I have heard good stuff about Odessy.

[Alxj64]

A few more pictures just for the sake of the thread. Don't be too critical guys as I still have some areas to iron out, and there are one or two slightly shallow spots that I may bite the bullet and throw some all metal filler into.



Matches the lower curve fairly well. I think I may need to cut some .065" or 0.95" shims to go behind the hinges.



To the right of the right hinge is the shallow spot. It guess I pulled the sheet too hard or over tacked it along the hinge plate/rib interface. To mount the hinges, I have a 1/4" thick plate behind the skin and saddled by the outermost vertical ribs. I'm hoping this will make the gate as strong as possible to resist twisting.




What kind of chain do you guys use and where did you source it?

[Bruce in BC]

Chain or cable ?

Cable wrapped in canvas is stock , but a pair of straps off a newer pickup truck may work and look just fine .

Tailgate - looks pretty darn good , considering this is your first shot it is really darn good . Structurally welding the skin to the frame makes the tailgate really strong , visually welding the skin makes it hard to get keep it smooth or get it smooth .

(1) Shim out the gate and see how it looks , do not shoot for dead perfect .

(2) blast the gate and epoxy coat the thing inside and out as soon as you can

(3) lay in the filler and shape it as you see fit . At first it will bug you but after a few years you will forget how much you used and a few years after that you will have totally forgotten about it ..... Meanwhile the gate will look better with each passing year

(4) I was at a hard wear store and they had latches that looked like the stock Carryall piece . There are replacement handles for pick up box canopies available too .

Things are looking good with your build .


I am rebuilding my power steering pump . The pump I have has no return lines to the can . Not even one ..... not sure what I am going to do . Add two fitting to the can , add two fittings to the remote reservoir or add a couple of fittings to the inlet hose that connects between the can and the reservoir .