The WC53 Carryall thread .

[Alxj64]

Robert, that is a BEAUTIFUL find! She's gorgeous and you indeed have a lot there to work with! Congrats on the machine and $2k is more than fair in the current market / demand for these machines. Everytime another one comes out of the woods in need of repair, the search for parts goes on. Just glad that the previous owner had enough head on his shoulders to not part it out and to keep it as a whole. Sadly, once a few major things go missing, its not a far fall before the entire thing just becomes "for parts".

Again... Good score and keep us updated. I'm drooling on my keyboard. I won't lie, I just LOVE these trucks.



I actually put mine back in the garage recently and worked on the Radiator and such over the weekend. I need to pressure test it and fix whatever leaks are there. The core I used was rather cheap and as such, there is some dirt in the welds... I was less than pleased when I discovered just how cheaply made the core was for being "USA" made. I think the problem is that its a "crimp tank" type core and I was not aware of that until it was delivered. Should still work just fine, just not as pretty as I had hoped as my AL Tig skills have grossly improved over the past few months working on other things.

Plans are to get the front core back together, get my master cylinder and hydro boost unit mounted to a psuedo firewall panel, get my AC lines, laid out back to the firewall so that I can make my bulkhead, and then figure out where my wiring harness bulkhead is going to be.

Who here has done a bulkhead vs just a grommet port? What did you use for your bulkhead connector?

[Desoto61]

I think I posted a pic of my bulkhead connector. It's a 20 or 22 pin weatherpac unit you can find from a bunch of different sources at a range of prices.

I'm not sure if it was the right call or not. It was a bunch of extra work to wire in, and did create some problems where I had wires in the wrong places despite creating a diagram, plus it's just another connection that could go wrong. They also don't handle big loads. I ended up having to run the big power wires through a separate grommet because the weatherpac is limited to 20 amp continuous. With a truck the wires to the bed and tail lights would also need some sort of connectors which I didn't install, so my goal was to be able to easily disconnect the cab from the rest of the truck, and I didn't really get there.

I could see it being better as a way to isolate the engine wiring harness from the rest of the vehicle, but my engine isn't computer controlled, so there's few wires to disconnect and it would be easier to just unplug them from the motor.

It is also much more water resistant as a penetration, but considering all the lever openings and such that are lower and much more poorly sealed it's kind of a moot point.

I did use weatherpac for all my other connections outside of the cab however, though there are one or two places I probably should have added them like at the fenders to the headlights in case you want to pull the front clip, but it will probably just be easier to cut those wires and install it before re-install if I ever need to pull it again.

I have a good crimping tool for the weatherpac connectors if you need to borrow it.

[Greg Coffin]

Those weather-pack connectors look great. Which crimper do you recommend? I gulped when I saw the price of some of them!

[Bruce in BC]

Got my seat belts in.

Got some Hummer H1 seat belts for $29.99 American from Sportsman's Guide. My cost was $56.00 Canadian which included the exchange and shipping. For me this is still an excellent price.
This is a 14 lb kit that was to upgrade H1s that were delivered without seat belts.
I did a bit of reading and was surprised how many soldiers died from drowning in these vehicles, lot of injuries too. It was bad enough that they took Hummer bodies and placed them on a rotisserie. The soldiers would then practice getting out with the vehicle in various positions and conditions.
The kit has many extra pieces but they are aluminum and I was out of aluminum to steel welding wire. New brackets where made from steel for every attachment point.

The seat connection was welded to the seat adapter that fits under the seat and connects the base to the seat.
The upper shoulder bracket is a right angle that is welded to the body and bolted to the oak window frame. A better method would be to weld in a long piece of thin wall tubing in place of the oak, this would create a very strong connection for the shoulder point.
The lower attachment point for the retractor is quite complicated, but is basically a angle that bolts to the floor and the door frame.

[Alxj64]

I think I posted a pic of my bulkhead connector. It's a 20 or 22 pin weatherpac unit you can find from a bunch of different sources at a range of prices.

I'm not sure if it was the right call or not. It was a bunch of extra work to wire in, and did create some problems where I had wires in the wrong places despite creating a diagram, plus it's just another connection that could go wrong. They also don't handle big loads. I ended up having to run the big power wires through a separate grommet because the weatherpac is limited to 20 amp continuous. With a truck the wires to the bed and tail lights would also need some sort of connectors which I didn't install, so my goal was to be able to easily disconnect the cab from the rest of the truck, and I didn't really get there.

I could see it being better as a way to isolate the engine wiring harness from the rest of the vehicle, but my engine isn't computer controlled, so there's few wires to disconnect and it would be easier to just unplug them from the motor.

It is also much more water resistant as a penetration, but considering all the lever openings and such that are lower and much more poorly sealed it's kind of a moot point.

I did use weatherpac for all my other connections outside of the cab however, though there are one or two places I probably should have added them like at the fenders to the headlights in case you want to pull the front clip, but it will probably just be easier to cut those wires and install it before re-install if I ever need to pull it again.

I have a good crimping tool for the weatherpac connectors if you need to borrow it.

Good soild experience advice there... Hrmm.. You have me thinking. Yesterday after posting these questions I started to dig, and talked to a friend who has a pile of misc military and industrial stuff all the time. He and I are looking into the Amphenol Mil-spec connectors for the firewall bulkhead. Most of the affordable ones are limited to around 13A - 18A so I'll be in the same boat... However, I have pretty much talked myself into running the Infinity box or something similar... There are a few other companies out there that make it something along those lines. With the I-box I can have the mastercell in the cab and then hide the powercell outside the firewall, then the only things going through my bulkhead are going to be low amperage and low voltage connections; especially considering most of the switch inputs are grounded inputs. The powercell can then act as my switching point, and a relay center since it can operate at 125 amps continous under the hood, which should carry the E-fan, Headlights, LED markers and LED turns, horn, and whatever other little systems I am missing... Then the Mastercell can handle the under dash stuff like A/C, Gauges, interior lights, etc. Then the third and rear master cell can control my Aircompressor (for airing tires and the rear shocks are those load assist) rear turn signals, brake lights, etc.

Speaking of HEADLIGHTS...

Where is a good source for the factory housings, with the goodies to go with it. I don't think the 7" Guide type housings will look good crammed behind the wire grills.

[Desoto61]

Those weather-pack connectors look great. Which crimper do you recommend? I gulped when I saw the price of some of them!

For smaller wires they are quite good, and very common, so finding connectors is easy. I ended up ordering my connectors (except for the bulkhead connector I got from Summit), from DIYAutotune.com, they had decent prices, and provide extra pins and such because mistakes happen.

I ordered the crimping pliers from them as well IIRC, but it could have been from Amazon for a few bucks less, but it was worth it. This version doesn't do larger wires but the pin guide and ratcheting mechanism makes it much easier to use. I even used it for some other non-insulated connectors I used in the cab, just removed the pin block first. It worked really well. Like I said you're welcome to borrow mine even if just to try it out. I got a good set of regular ratcheting crimpers, they have interchangeable jaws so I probably could have gotten the right jaws for it, but the pin block makes it so much easier.

[Alxj64]

Damien,

You said you had massive words of advice in regards to the guages... Feel free to voice them here? If not, drop me an email. I'm not planning on changing my cluster layout and am looking at going with the Speedhut gauges with the GPS speedo. Trying to pull VSS and convert it from the Allison and calibrate for tire size, etc... nah... GPS speedo will be fine for me and I've not heard many complaints. Plus they build gauges that will look closer to stock but function more modern than what I've found elsewhere.

[AK3936]

Speaking of HEADLIGHTS...

Where is a good source for the factory housings, with the goodies to go with it. I don't think the 7" Guide type housings will look good crammed behind the wire grills.

Would these be what you are looking for?

http://dodgecentralmi.biz/ocart/Ligh...r-12-volt.html

[Alxj64]

Would these be what you are looking for?

http://dodgecentralmi.biz/ocart/Ligh...r-12-volt.html

Shwew... Pricey buggers. I think VPW has Repros for about half that... But those are very nice!

[Desoto61]

Damien,

You said you had massive words of advice in regards to the guages... Feel free to voice them here? If not, drop me an email. I'm not planning on changing my cluster layout and am looking at going with the Speedhut gauges with the GPS speedo. Trying to pull VSS and convert it from the Allison and calibrate for tire size, etc... nah... GPS speedo will be fine for me and I've not heard many complaints. Plus they build gauges that will look closer to stock but function more modern than what I've found elsewhere.

Ok, you had me cut the openings for my gauges slightly larger (I think about 10%) to account for the way your table cuts, but they ended up being almost too big. It's fine but I wouldn't go more than 5% or so larger than the recommended hole size.

I would look at the documentation but their gauges are basically just computer controlled pointers, as such the speedometers are really smart. You simply connect up the wire and using the little screen set a desired calibration speed, then using a GPS/smartphone/chase vehicle you hold that set speed and push the button on the gauge, it does the math and determines the calibration for the input signal. It just has to fall within the specs of the device, which are pretty broad. It's up to you but I always prefer the driven option. Of course you could always just install an aftermarket speed sensor in the transfer case if there is a port there. That's what I did, the NV4500 has an electronic speedometer output which would have been fine, but by pulling from the back of the T-case I'll have correct low range speed readings too. I still have to calibrate mine but it's been working fine other than being way off.

Their gauges come with really nice shielded protected cables, however sometimes you may want to use a different cable. For instance my speed sensor needs a power wire, but the factory cable only uses signal and ground, and therefore comes with a two wire cable. So I ordered an extra three-wire cable and an extra connector so I could feed 12V through the same wire. But I learned this after the fact and had to place a second order for the extra parts, more time and shipping. This was also another area where the bulkhead connector wasn't a benefit, as to be consistent I had to splice those cables through the connector which means breaking the shielding and insulation on those cables. You don't have to use them, you can buy connector kits so you can run your own wires up to the gauge and connect up. Just think that all through first so you can do one order.

The backlighting is electroluminescent, while the pointer lighting is LED, so there are two lighting wires as the faces have to be powered through a transformer. If you buy multiple gauges (build or buy a kit) they include an adjustable transformer (so you can dim the gauges) that can be remote mounted, so it's another hole. You can however use a standard headlight knob style dimmer, which was my goal so that any other lights dimmed too, in that case you just adjust the gauge knob all the way up and hide it somewhere and use the headlight dimmer.

They goofed up two of my gauges, the speedometer didn't have the cruise control output (which I though was an optional add-on at first), and they programmed the tach with the wrong software so the shift lights didn't work. They were very good about fixing the mistakes, even going as far as to ship me new gauges and pay for the return of my old ones even though they could have just had me ship them back to be fixed. I was very impressed with their customer service people.

The only annoying part is that some of their wires want a pull-up or pull-down resister, and I'm not sure why it's just not built in instead of having to try and wire one in line if it's required. Some of the features are kind of annoying to calibrate or set with having to do a certain sequence of events in a certain order and time limit, but you should only have to do it once as the gauges are good about keeping those settings without power.

You may want to order some of their male and female connectors, or another connector kit, because while the sensors all connect with three-pin connectors, the turn signal/high beam wires, and the overall power/ground/lighting wires are just bare, so I used a 6 or 9-pin connector from radioscrap so the whole cluster could just be plugged and unplugged with a series of connectors, the exception being the EGT gauge which uses a special cable with bolt-together connections (so you can't splice it through a bulkhead connector either).

They do have sales around certain holidays it's usually 15% or 20%, vice the usual 10% for ordering multiple gauges. The lead time is a few weeks, but they are really nice gauges.

[Desoto61]

Shwew... Pricey buggers. I think VPW has Repros for about half that... But those are very nice!

Be careful with those, I have them on mine, but they are designed for the 2wd trucks. You have to modify them to work with Power Wagon style bases, but maybe the WCs were different. The modification isn't hard, but the existing bolts have to be removed and one of the holes welded shut and some new holes drilled for the Power Wagon bases.

Should be photos on my thread. My other problem is that either they goofed or they only make one style, because the bulbs have little tabs that are supposed to lock into the carrier to prevent them from being able to turn. Those tabs didn't line up correctly, and were in the wrong position on one side, so I had to modify it to hold the bulb in the correct orientation. Not sure if I did something wrong when I disassembled them for modification and paint, or if I got two of the same side, or if it's just that they don't do a R and L and you have to adapt.

They are decent units though, I had no real issues with prep and paint other than the interior bucket looks to just be galvanized vice coated, so I primed it when I did the rest of the bucket before I put them back together. Not sure what VPW has, I was kind of afraid to ask.

[Alxj64]

Man! Thats a wheelbarrow of information there! Many thanks for taking the time to write that up. I put together the gauge cluster order and its in my cart, ready to pull the trigger but finding another 5% or 10% off would still help in the long run since this is the nickel and dime to death phase of the build. I thought I was going to be digging into this build hard here this winter but its looking like we might be trying to move again... but it also means chance for a bigger shop and possibly a lift so that I can work on this thing much more easily, especially in the final assembly portions of the build.

Many thanks to all the folks in this thread. I appreciate it!

[Bruce in BC]

Another Carryall surfaces

Supposed to be complete. A whole $200 bucks bid on it......so far.

[AK3936]

Looks pretty clean. Where is it located?

Is the ad on ebay?

[Bruce in BC]

What do we have here?

Yes the yellow WC53 is on ebay. Price is now bid to $3850 with 5 days left on the bid. Just punch in Dodge carryall.

Now check this postcard from a museum in Belgium. Something looks a little off.
The reason I post some of these pictures on this thread is to provide a archive of the images, many of them disappear once the add is taken down or the auction is done.

edit: one more week of training and I can get back to puttering on my Carryall.