The WC53 Carryall thread .

[Bruce in BC]

A bit of this and a bit of that

IMG_1255.jpg
Look what followed me home today. I checked the serial number after the purchase and found out that this lathe is older than me. It was made in 1953. I suspect i paid too much for it but I managed to get it local and not pay for the ferry or shipping . Lots of bits , face plates and a few milling parts as well. This is a Colchester student , 9 inch throw and 36 inch bed. looked big in the shop I got it from and by the time I wrestled it into my shop it seems to have shrunk. It is 5ft long and 2.5 ft deep. Any tips on how to level a lathe? I need a manual for it too. As an aside the lathe cost me $2200 which might be high for this age of lathe, but I figure if some of the young bucks on the thread can have a lathe , so should I.
IMG_1256.jpg
This is a manifold that will direct the air for the ARB lockers and the two rear air bags. I was going to drill holes and run the lines through a grommet in the floor but the more I looked the less I liked that idea.
I made a mistake and drilled 4 holes on the wrong side of the bracket. Instead of building a new cleaner looking manifold I wimped out and put plugs in the holes. A bit of black paint and I called it good. There are for more fittings that go through the firewall. these will be connected to the air valves.
The clothes peg is an old timer trick for holding wires in place while running circuits. Hopefully it will not be there 10 years from now.

take care out there
lets all stay on the right side of the dirt
Bruce

[vtunderground53]

That Sir, is a nice looking lathe. Those old ones are built to last, always a good investment. I would suggest a level on the bed rail and a couple steel shims or washers as needed. My Dad usually has some steel wedges laying around for moving things up or down. Careful of fingers. My lathe is stored at his place as I haven't barn space right now. Have fun with it Bruce

I'm happy everyday I wake up to look at the green grass instead of its roots.

[Bruce in BC]

Dodge WC53 roof insert panel

I cut the roof panel out of a 1998 Dodge Caravan. my intention was to glue it to the inner flange and hammer in some rubber molding where the original holding fit in the channel. I cut the roof over size with the intention of scribing in the panel and trimming to fit. Orientated with the front of the caravan panel on the carryall roof the panel fits quite nicely. I rotated it 180 degrees to see how it fit and it fits with absurd accuracy. My issue is I cut the roof oversize to fit the inside of the channel . Turns out the roof is such an accurate fit you could glue it in place and cover the channel. I cut the roof a tad small to do this easily. I will take some pictures showing where to make the cuts on the carryall roof. In essence you are cutting out as much of the caravan roof as possible. If you take care when doing the cuts all you will need to do is do some light sanding to get the panel ready to glue in place. When I say that it fits I am serious about how accurate it fits. Absolutely no gaps along the ages and the loft is dead on. The loft is perfect from front to back and from side to side. I do not like the fat squarish ribs in modern automobile roofs, but with a fit like this I can live with them.
Now will someone find me a trunk or hood skin that will fit a carryall tailgate.
Take care out the folks.
I am disappointed that I did not cut the panel a bit bigger but am happy to have found a skin that fits so well.

best regards
Bruce

[Alxj64]

Wow Bruce! You've been steady at it! I'm quite impressed and very happy for you! Keep at it!

Young buck with a lathe... hmm, I feel like that was a wrench tossed in my direction but I will tell you that last night when I got home from work and found out certain parts I need to get my trail Jeep back on the trail still had not shipped (NEVER DEAL WITH 4 Wheel Parts) I spent about 3 hours on my little Atlas Lathe and Clausing Mill to turn out some parts to make it on an upcoming trip. That machine you have there is a very stout and heavy machine for its size, which is a great thing. There is no replacement for shear mass in the older machines like that. The rigidity will afford you good sharp and clean parting and more rigid turning and boring with less chatter or tool skip. Your price was not bad at all for such a name brand heavy machine since it looks like it came with a 4 sided tool block. I've recently added an Import mfg. Aloris replica tool post for mine. As with most import stuff I upgraded it out of the box but its a snazzy time saving goodie.

Roof skin looks like it worked out for a superior fitment! Thats great! I'll never look at one of those ugly old Caravans the same ever again.

Ahh, my seat. I haven't sat in it more than 2 minutes since it went in due to working on other "spring projects" but believe me, when May gets here I am planning on spending some serious time in my Garage working on the WC53. It feels comfortable thus far but obviously only time will tell. I am working out the details on the tilt adjustment linkage so that will help with the comfort management. If its miserable, it will just give me more excuses to stop along the way on my trips to get out, stretch, and take pictures of the Carryall at X, Y, or Z location.

[Bruce in BC]

Got the roof glued in

took a couple of days to get things squared away.
The stuff no one sees
(1) trim the roof
(2) shape the panel to fit the dip that was on the passenger side. The one that was there from the factory, the dip that should not be there , the dip that is not on the drivers side
(3) Test fit the panel , drill and screw the roof in place, mark the panel location with tape or felt pen
(4) Transport or wrestle the panel to an out side location. Flip the panel and remove the paint where the glue will go. Turn the panel over and clean up the outside edge and remove paint apron 1/4 of an inch from the edge. Wear gloves, do not cut your hand.
(5) Strip a one inch strip of paint from the roof of the Carryall
(6) Now find your face mask, drive to the auto store to purchase fresh carbon filters and dust pre filters which you forgot to buy when you were in the store yesterday
(7) Position the panel on the Carryall, block it above the Carryall by 4 inches and run a bead of adhesive along the roof
(8) Lower the panel in place and then attempt to line it up with the screw holes which are now obscured by the panel adhesive. Screw the panel down, then leave the shop but have all the doors open.
(9) Spend the evening having an asthma attack because you had a reaction to the adhesive despite wearing all protective gear. Avoid emergency by having a real long hot shower and breathing in the steam
(10) Avoid entering the shop for a whole day, but open the doors wide to help clear any fumes
(11) Scrape or remove the panel adhesive that squished out from under the panel. Sharpen one of your best wood chisels and really have at her. !/2 will be sticky and 1/2 will be hard as rock. Toss out 5 or is that 6 pairs of gloves that seem to get gummed up while doing this.
(12) Tack weld around the edge of the panel, this needs to be done at the corners and areas that the screws pulled down to get the panel to fit snuggly.Hit the spots with a wet rag so the heat will not affect the panel adhesive. Stick your hand on top of a red piece of weld spatter, hear it sizzle, ensure that this is the deepest burn you have ever had, stare down the hole and admire the muscle tissue.
(13) Now knock down all the tack welds with a 36 grit disc.
(14) You are now ready for a tiny amount of mud to fill and feather the edge of the new panel into the Carryall body.
This all looks like 4 hrs of work, but to get to this point took 3 days, not counting the day off to recover from the asthma attack.

Tired yet?

Bruce

edit: forgot the step where I added the Caravan roof braces to the Carryall roof braces. They sit on top and the radius is quite close, silly close.

thanks for the encouragement Alex, it helps

[Greg Coffin]

Nice work Bruce, it's crazy how well that panel fits. I sometime have the feeling that there is an elegant solution to a given problem, and that it's just waiting to be found. I think you have discovered one of these solutions with the roof panel. Looking forward to seeing some pictures of the finished installation.

[dieseldude4bt]

Pic's or it didn't happen!

[Bruce in BC]

Roof cross braces

I do not want the roof drumming while traveling down the road. The donor van gave up its roof braces along with the roof.
IMG_1263.JPG
A bit of cutting with a cut off disc made it possible to have two tabs on the top and one on the bottom of the Carryall roof strip.
IMG_1264.JPG
A quick spot weld will hold it in place. There will be one of these above each of the Carryall roof braces. From the bottom it looks stock and more or less just blends in. Gives you an idea how sweet the metal was on this truck. That channel is very clean and there is no rust through any of the compound layers that make up the channel.

[Bruce in BC]

How to double the amount of time to do any job

Create alternate places to put something. Then spend your time trying to figure out the best location to place the thing. Of course you need to figure out the following
(a) advantages of placing the object in that location
(b) disadvantages of placing the object in that location
(c) fabrication time
Once you have those things figured out you then have to come to a decision and just before you do a third option will pop up. Congratulation you have now doubled or tripled your build time.
IMG_1269.JPG

Oh look the compressor is a perfect fit right in an ammo box. It's as if the box was designed for the compressor.
IMG_1270.JPG

and the ammo box could sit on the running board over on the drivers side. This would balance out the weight of the batteries on the passenger side. Downside is the compressor likes to run cool. The ammo box would need to be vented
IMG_1271.jpg
Or just screw the compressor in the space between the batteries and the job is done.
Decisions, decisions….

[Greg Coffin]

Create alternate places to put something. Then spend your time trying to figure out the best location to place the thing. Of course you need to figure out the following
(a) advantages of placing the object in that location
(b) disadvantages of placing the object in that location
(c) fabrication time
Once you have those things figured out you then have to come to a decision and just before you do a third option will pop up. Congratulation you have now doubled or tripled your build time.

That's the story of my life! Trying to find the best thing to do, given what is needed now and what may be needed in the future, drives me crazy! At some point I just have to choose and move forward, or I would never get anything done. But your progress is admirable, and I hope you are proud of all that you have gotten accomplished.

[Desoto61]

That's the story of my life! Trying to find the best thing to do, given what is needed now and what may be needed in the future, drives me crazy! At some point I just have to choose and move forward, or I would never get anything done. But your progress is admirable, and I hope you are proud of all that you have gotten accomplished.

^ So much this! The wiring was the worst. Balancing the options you want with the wires that would be needed with making everything work, while trying to keep it all looking neat, while figuring out where it was all going to go. Uggg, my head still hurts and just this morning while walking into work I kept thinking about another way that I could have done it that probably would have been better!

Of course then I have to try not to forget what that wire was run for, or why.

[Bruce in BC]

Got my fan in.

The radiator cooling fan is installed. Very tight area, the fan had to be off set to keep the engine pulley from contacting the low profile fan motor. there are four circuits running the fan.
(1) power to the fan
(2) power to the water temp sensor
(3) a separate manual control circuit
(4) a dash indicator light.
Now for the silly part. I picked up a after market kit for the fan. afterwards I realized I was not saving time and should have used the bits I had laying around. The relay connector had a centre pole. I elected to use this for the indicator light. Sure enough the light works, only issue is the light is on when the fan is NOT powered and the light turns OFF when the fan is powered. Who ever made up the kit powered the wrong side of the relay. Of course I noticed this once all the wiring was cut to length and tucked way up under the dash.
The only thing to do was cut the indicator light wire and splice it into the fan power circuit or rip out the harness and flip the connectors around. I elected to go the splice route, saving myself about a hour and half of fighting under the dash.
Indicator light might have one issue. When the power to the fan is turned off the fan continues to spin……the light stays on while this is happening. I suspect the fan will spin on its own while driving and this will energize the circuit and the indicator light. Kind of makes the light redundant.

Carry on Carryalling
Bruce

[Bruce in BC]

Another WC53 for sale, actually two of them

This one looks decent, in Paso Robles Craigslist. The second one looks a bit rusty, hard to tell what that paint is hiding.

edit
First Carryall asking $20,000
Second Carryall $4000
Which means my carryall in the raw must have been worth $15,674.98.

[Bruce in BC]

Tail gate skin

IMG_1275.jpg

Stripped the lift gate of surface rust and painted in in white epoxy. This is the same old stock paint I used on the interior. I needed to support the panels that will fit on the inside of the gate. I elected to go with oak which more or less mirrors the window frame wood that came with the Carryall. I picked up the outside shape of the skin while I was forming the oak. Tossed in some of Alex's lightening holes for no good reason other than " It seemed like a good idea at the time"

[Bruce in BC]

Used a bit of tape

IMG_1277.JPG
I taped up the area that will get glassed to create the skin. I should have used bristol board or poster board and stapled it to the wood. The tape has too much give. The shape looks decent. Not sure how much work it will take to get the skin presentable. Glass is not my forte.
How are the other projects out there going?