The WC53 Carryall thread .

[Bruce in BC]

Hinge tricks

Take a long rod that has the same diameter as the hinge pin . With the door off the rod should go through both hinges on the door . If not tweak the hinges until the rod will go through both hinges . Repeat this process with the hinge halves that attach to the body . With the doors mounted the rod should still line up . If the hinges are alined the doors and hinges will last much longer than if they are binding .
Those doors look pretty darn good to me . The skins are a whole lot straighter than when you started . Well done .

[Bruce in BC]

Nailed it .

Every once in awhile I nail something dead on . I have a bit of a rep that I think exceeds my ability and even my knowledge base but lately I have been batting 100 . Which just adds to my rep in their eyes . I keep saying " You had better check that ", or adding " I am not sure " or anything else I can to lesson their opinion , because I know how much I do not know and may never learn .Anyway there are a couple of guys who drop by my shop and pick my brain . Generally I can point them in the right direction or even lead them to a source for something . For about a month now one of the guys has been asking help on a Dodge he is building . He ordered a bunch of parts from the states from one dealer and I happened to mention who I thought would have made them . This is before they arrived . Sure enough he gets a big crate of parts that is supposed to be a drop in package and I get a call to come by . Sure enough I recognize the parts and say what year they mimic and who I think made them , at this point the fellow pulls out about 5 different cardboard boxes and points to the labels , I had them all correct .
The problem is the parts do not fit his car without some major tweaking .

One major issue was the steering box . The frame is boxed and also has a second brace that flairs out to the radiator . After about the 4th time the fellow dropped by my shop I went to his and told him to hang the box where he wanted it and I would drop by and check things out . We got clearance for the exhaust and then adjusted for a spark plug . We then adjusted for the drag link to run parallel to the tie rod . We then had to toss out the bracket that came with his "kit " and come out with a mounting method of our own . This involved taking a hole saw and drilling three holes on one side of the frame , then drilling three more holes on the inside of the frame , then two more through the bracket . All the holes had to line up . All the holes had to be evenly spaced on three planes . The three rods had to go through the holes and then bolts would go through the holes in the rods . The bolts are 7/16, the holes in the rods are 7/16 .
It took about two minutes of filing and the bolts and rods where square to the box and could be spun home with my fingers . I have never had anything slide together so easily. The owner is happy . I am happier than the owner. The whole thing looks OEM and cleaner than I thought possible.
The upside to this? I cut some little bits of plate to finish off one of my running boards for the Carryall. Every one of them fit first time. Next week I am getting the boards hot dipped in zinc. Another experiment on the carryall . Having a bit of fun in the shop lately, some jobs no longer feel like work .
So that is what I call "nailing it". It is a great feeling when everything falls in place. Even better when a few others are beaming when it happens .

No it was not a Carryall, but it is a Dodge, it is old and we do put newer boxes on our Carryall and the process got me back swinging in the shop.

You guys take care out there.
Bruce up in sunny B.C.

[Gordon Maney]

Great work!

[Alxj64]

I'm jealous of the success!

Wow Bruce! Good on ya for sure! I am stoked that you are having such good luck! I think you may be having a good go for the sake of both of us as I am logging on to mope about how I feel overall defeated lately. My day job had been keeping me swamped with work and overall exhausted compounded with an eye opening near death experience... that promoted me to take a few days off of work last week with full intention and desire to stay locked in my garage and working on the Carryall. Only thing I accomplished was realizing how heavy the truck was when I rolled it out so I could work on everything else except for the Carryall. That, compounded with the fact that I think my project finances seem to have fizzled out and with Christmas barelling down the pipe and another hard year for the economy means I'll be crying the blues and shaking my pockets for change.

Additionally, the whole deal on saving that other Carryall appears to have fallen through. The title is all wrong for the truck, the seller is hard on the price, and I'm short on cash flow and my buddy who wanted it bailed on me.

So, I am glad to read someone is doing good on their project because I am certainly not feeling any good vibrations around my shop lately. Maybe I do just need to take a break but its sad because it just means my timeline will get pushed back that much further and I really really really want to drive this truck!

[Bruce in BC]

A little more progress

Dropped my running boards of at Silver City to be hot dipped in zinc . Plan is to paint them in red oxide primer, top coat them with some kind of black and have some of the red primer show through the paint.
How hard is it to get ARP bolts in Canada? Near impossible, I need 7/16 NC x 1.5" bolts, ordered them 10 days ago from my local parts store. Turns out there are none in any of the suppliers warehouses. After a bunch of phone calls we found some stainless ones that should work. Just so long as all of ARP's stainless bolts dial in at 170000 PSI. 170000 is stronger than grade 8 .

Most near death experiences are eye opening. Weird thing is some near death experiences you recognize right away and some you recognize years later and I suspect there are a few you are never aware of. Other thing to consider is your reaction, you could get the shakes, you want to barf or do barf because of the adrenalin and others are kind of laid back "whoa that was close" type moments that you never have a second thought about .
Glad you get to sit back and contemplate yours, all in all that is a good way to come out of a close encounter of the nasty kind.

take care
Bruce

yes yes I know ....pictures, we want pictures . 10,000 hits a month we need pictures






These bits were painted ages ago . Perfect parts to have hot dipped . It pays to have a bunch done at the same time, many shops have a minimum fee.

[Desoto61]

Neighbor had his Land Rover frame dipped a few years ago. It's been sitting outside in the wet VA weather since and not a spot of rust anywhere on it, but price and location don't make it a small thing. Kind of like the chemical strip I did on mine at 8-hours round trip you don't go there for small parts.

Wish we had someone who could e-coat dip parts, still trying to figure the best way to get protection back into all the nooks and crannies of my cab.

[Bruce in BC]

Rolled the chassis out of the shop today.

Dropped in the driveshaft to check on the pinion angle and then welded in the perches, airbag mounts and the shock mounts . I jumped from side to side and left it alone several times to cool down . This was in an effort to control warping. Removed a few parts and installed them again and had to move the welding feed above and under the frame to get in the best position . I left the axle in position instead of pulling it out from under the frame, I did not want to spend the extra hours to get it in and out from under the frame .
One modification and two welds and the fabbing is done . Then it gets down to bolting and adding fluids for a test fire . There will be leaks and stuff to contend with and then it is on to a few tweaks on the body .
Yep just how do you get paint on the inside of panels? There are special wands for coating the insides of drums,planes and boats but where do you get them ?
Going to drench a few things in fluid film.

Bruce

edit , temperature is dropping, rain tomorrow.

[Bob Thompson]

Question for Alex

I think at some point you mentioned wanting a drum brake assy. for your Trans.
I just removed an engine and trans from my Step Van Roadster, It's not an Allison although I'm not familiar with all of them. Do you have a pic of the tailshaft assy? If they are the same you can have this one for shipping cost.
I'm fabbing up a caliper mount for my NP205 for my project (Not a Carryall).

[Bruce in BC]

My NP205 is now running a drum brake .

I adapted one from a M37. All it took was a bit of machining on the back of the M37 adapter and it bolts right up to the NP205 . By the time I bought the M37 parking brake, paid for having the brake band relined, then paid for a sleeve I could have bought a disc and caliper parking brake for the same price. As soon as I get my back ordered ARP bolts I will take a picture of the mess for Gordon's mag .
Really appreciate your offer. Helpful hands make the work go quicker.
Heading out to my chilly shop for an hour.

Here is a shot of the mess . Clearances are tight but I think I have access from through an inspection cover in the Carryall floor. At sure hope I have access.

Bruce

[Bob Thompson]

That's very cool Bruce. I've got a couple loose M37 T-cases laying about. I should have scoped them out. I'm using a P-brake from a rough terrain fork truck. I keep forgetting to take pictures of things, I'm just not oriented that way I guess. I'll try to get better about that.
I think Alex is mounting an Allison in his rig and was looking for the drum brake they mounted on the GM vans. I just can't remember which of the forty plus pages it's on in this thread.

[Alxj64]

Thanks for lookin out Bob! You too Bruce!

You guys are all way too nice to me! I like it!

I have scraped the idea of the brake on the Allison flange now that I realize how little room there is due to the factory cross member. I am now looking into a venue for attaching my parking brake to the back of my divorced Ford NP205 just like you other folks are doing. I'll probably just go with a caliper type disc mount. Bob, you said you were designing something right? If you need a rotor cut or something, let me know and I can get you something CNC cut out of mild steel. I started to build a T-case brake for my wife's Jeep but never did finish it. The caliper I was using was just a little under par. It was a mechanical caliper for the larger series racing go-carts. Came from Speedway website.

[Alxj64]

Saved another one, someone save me now...

Well, I ended up going to get that truck that Tony found afterall... and I think I got burned on this deal.

This truck is way rougher than the seller described it out to be, as they provided older pictures in the ads and email and claimed them as current, and then all of the larger "extra parts", axles etc, that were promised to be with it were not there when I showed up and he (the seller) was not around when I arrived after driving 10 hours thus leaving his wife to handle the sale and she was a professional at acting out of the loop to handle the sale. It reached the point I was given an ultimatum of "take it or go home" when I asked the second time about the other parts. I developed a rather strong discontent towards western PA after this recent trip. Between the drivers, these sellers, and the road conditions... bad experience. I now find myself with an extra Carryall that I am overly invested in and nothing to do with it other than get it running and turn it into my farm limo. My wife is not fond of the idea given the money thats tied up in it... The friend that wanted it flaked out on me and bought some other project this weekend after I told him that the truck was in worse condition. I arrive home with it to him saying he bought a "race car project" instead and that he is "okay" with me selling the Carryall to get my money back out if it. I told him in many ways other than a pleasant one where he could put his race car and the Carryall. I guess you win some and you lose some. I am trying to figure out a way other than saying "I have two Carryalls" to indicate that I also won this one.






I said to my wife that the dog told me HE wants to keep it around for him to hang out in... she didn't buy that story.

[Bruce in BC]

Haynes has real strong callipers

7000 lbs force . You do not want to buy one new. A source for a used one is the trick . The kind of pressure some of the better made units can exert would be more than enough to stop a Carryall.

Bruce

Off to get my running boards

edit . did you pay in advance? Otherwise I would have walked away. I once had a mint panel loaded and the owner still had not shown up . i needed to leave , had to options, leave with the truck and pay later or unload the truck . I unloaded it. The truck was mint. later the owner wanted to know when i was coming for the truck. i explained that I had made a special trip and he had to go shopping, why would I make a second trip? Guy figured the truck was good enough that I was willing to do what it took to get it, he figured wrong.

You will sell the thing. Pressure wash the it, maybe patch that rear corner. Oh cut that mess off the front too.

Got a ferry to catch

[bobyepsr]

I had just emailed to see what the current deal was the day before you picked it up. I didn't think you were going to get it and saw it was still on cl. The owner said it was going tomorrow but he'd let me know if it didn't. I hope my showing interest didn't influence him in any way. Sorry he turned out to be an ***. I'll bet the extra parts show up for sale soon. Jim

[Alxj64]

I had just emailed to see what the current deal was the day before you picked it up. I didn't think you were going to get it and saw it was still on cl. The owner said it was going tomorrow but he'd let me know if it didn't. I hope my showing interest didn't influence him in any way. Sorry he turned out to be an ***. I'll bet the extra parts show up for sale soon. Jim

I don't think you influenced the situation at all. I think they knew I wanted it enough to drive as far as I did that they had me where they wanted me. I did get a few other things with the truck, just not everything that was supposed to go with it, ie an entire set of axles. Oh well. It is what it is.

It wasn't an entire loss though. One of the friend's that rode with me does RV and Boat Repo work for a living and we were able to snag a Motorhome that was under repo on our way back home so that was atleast one positive side so he filled up my truck when I stopped for fuel since it saved him the round trip and an extra driver's time.