Vintage Tow & Pit Vehicle (log book)

[forrestbump]

Racer Z,

You missed your calling... you are a born Novelist. Unless that's what you also do, but if not, you should consider it!

Your story is an often told one by the vast majority of members here. I've found that buying an unmolested Bump as a donor tends to be the least expensive alternative as opposed to buying the individual parts needed.

Thanks for the update, told in such an interesting and captivating manner.

[fbomb100]

that was very well done Racer Z, and u bought it in palmdale!! that my stomping grounds ,,, like to more on your project!!

[Racer Z]

You missed your calling... you are a born Novelist. Unless that's what you also do, but if not, you should consider it! ... Thanks for the update, told in such an interesting and captivating manner.

that was very well done Racer Z, ...

Thanks

And to think that I failed seventh grade English, two years in a row. My punishment was no shop class. So in the end I didn't learn a @#$% thing.

I work for myself as a Handyman. Maybe someday I can call myself a carpenter or a furniture maker. Currently I live with and take care of my 98 year old Great Aunt. I've had to stop taking on jobs now that she requires more care. I end up with lots of idle time and a computer.

[Racer Z]

Thought I should update my log book.

I haven't been doing much to my Bump lately. Not directly. I'm getting ready to change the rear springs and brakes. It's been raining off-and-on, and I can't open shop without moving stuff out into the weather, so I'm stuck doing nothing.

My parts donor is a 69 Camper Special. I want the rear springs. They should do three things for me.
1) My current leaf springs are miss-matched, so the 70 sits at an angle. Matched springs should fix this.
2) Raise the payload up to nearly one ton.
3) Provide a softer ride while empty or lightly loaded.

I did the math to calculate the spring rates (inch pounds) of my existing leaf springs. The 69 C/S has five leafs plus an overload spring the other truck does not have. The 70 has a six leaf and a seven leaf. I calculated these to be:
208 Lbs / 5 leafs
250 Lbs / 6 leafs
290 Lbs / 7 leafs
(note: I did not calculate the overload spring.)

I also want the heavy duty rear brakes from the C/S. Aside from the obvious, I put new drums on it shortly before the motor blew.

I pulled the C/S auxiliary tank and inspected it. It looks clean inside, so I don't need to send it out. I tried removing the dual custom made saddle tanks from the 70, but they don't want to come off. The builder (not me) used two carriage bolts on each tank that run down through the tank. The tank is sleeved to support the bolts and prevent fuel leaks. I think the sleeve is too close to the diameter of the bolt and has filled with rust and crap over the years.

The tanks seem to be made from stainless, which should eliminate the possibly of rust in the tank. There is no inspection cover or fuel sending unit, just a fill, pick-up and drain. I'm going to have to put a few gallons in, drain it out and inspect it. The tanks were disconnected and un-capped when I bought the truck.

I measured and calculated the fuel storage for the saddle tanks. I came up with 18 gallons each.
I calculated the aux tank at 22 gallons. Ford claims it to be 25, while the previous owner says it's 35. I'm calling it a 25 until I can prove otherwise.

Once I get these three tanks working I will remove the in-cab tank. This will provide for 60 gallons of fuel, 350 pounds, and a 600 mile cruising range.

More important to me than the 600 miles, is the ability to have more than one grade of fuel. On race weekends, we go through about four tanks of gas in the race car. Fuel at the track is about three times the normal price and running to town with Gerry Cans is a pain. Having extra gas that I can pump out will be a convince.

It has finally stopped raining and is starting to warm up and dry out. Maybe I can get the Dana 60 out of the 69 this week.

[forrestbump]

Bump back to life and to the top...

Your project is near and dear to my heart because you're doing this on a shoe string budget as so many of us are.

Now that nicer weather is finally here in SoCal, I hope you're able to get more work done on your project and, most importantly, keeping all of us up to speed on your progress.

I know, it's a heavy burden, but we need each other for inspiration and motivation.

Hope all is well,

Larry

[Racer Z]

As of late I haven't been doing a whole lot to my truck. I was feeling pretty bad because of a bad tooth. Finally had that pulled about 5 days ago. Now I'm eating mush cause I don't have enough teeth to chew with, and I talk funny now.

When I had time and felt good, I drilled out the rivets that held the spring pads in and removed the pads from my parts donor. Eventually I will remove the camper special leaf springs as well and install them on my 70.

I finally got tired of hearing a clunk as I shifted from drive to reverse. The inspection showed slight play in all three universal joints, a soft center support and a dry slip joint. The parts donor (69) passed the same inspection so I traded drive-shafts, servicing the slip joint while it was out. It still clunks some, probably backlash in the rear-end. It drives so much better on the highway now. Now it feels like the tires are staying on the ground, not bouncing around.

I added new round convex mirrors so I can see in the blind spots better. These are five inch round with a stainless steel frame. I think the manufacturer discontinued the line, I had a hard time finding a new set. $8 each, they work great and look good.

I installed all new seat belts. These are the 3-point upgrade. They look like they came out of a GM, but they work good. I also added a center belt (lap only) so I can have two passengers. I had to tap (thread) the bolt holes. The factory provided mounting points, but didn't tap the unused ones. The belts were too long and the buckle was in the wrong place which felt uncomfortable and would be dangerous in an accident. My girlfriend re-stitched them for me to put the buckle on the side of your hip where it should be. She did a fabulous job and you can't tell it's been re-stitched.

The next step is to remove the leaf springs and rear-end from the 69. The install of this will be a major job cause I need to go through the brakes at the same time. The brake symptoms are that they have trouble releasing. I figure the lines are full of muck. Both trucks "look" like the lines are in bad shape. I'm NOT going to play silly games with the brakes, I'm going to replace all the hard lines. I have new braided lines waiting to go. Everything else will be inspected and dealt with on a as-needed-basis. The 69 (donor) had new brakes and new rear drums just before the motor blew, but that was eight years ago. The 70 already has front disks that seem to be in good shape.

I still have fuel tanks to deal with.

Hopefully I can get this done by August. We're planning on driving it out to Cape Hatteras, NC. with stops in Ohio and Colorado to see family and friends. About 6,000 miles round trip from Los Angeles. We're taking the truck and not a more economical vehicle because in Ohio we're picking up some furniture that belonged to her Dad.

[Racer Z]

Over the coarse of several days I worked on putting the dual saddle tanks back in service. Since I wasn't able to remove the tanks for inspection, I poured gasoline in and drained it back out. Then I carefully poured it through a coffee filter to check for sediment and water. I did this three times with each tank, one quart of gas at a time. I found some water but no sediment to speak of, which is amazing considering they didn't have any gas caps when I bought the truck.

I was concerned about the fuel selector valve as well. Like the saddle tanks, it too was disconnected. I removed both fuel selector valves, the 3-way in my daily driver and the 2-way (OEM) in my parts truck. I didn't disassemble the valves, but I did remove all the fittings for a partial inspection. It seems the main seal is the tight fit of the two brass parts, the body and the rotating valve. The only place for any type of seal would be the threaded cap that holds the valve in the body, which I chose not to take apart knowing that would break the seal and I'd probably never find a new seal.

While I was inspecting the 3-way valve, I noticed that the ports were as large as the stock 2-way. I mention this because the only new 3-way valve I could find was 1/4 inch, not the 3/8 that my big 390 needs. Possibly somebody took it apart once and machined it out to 3/8. This was good news indeed!

At my machine shop class, I made a new face-plate with indicators so I could tell what position the valve was in. I marked it L, M, R, and OFF.

Then, I re-plumbed all the rubber gas lines and drove to a filling station. I made sure to take a few tools just in case there was a leak. I filled both saddle tanks with no signs of leaks or seepage. They hold 17.25 gallons each, not the 18+ I estimated them to be.

I drove for a few miles on each tank without any issues. After I burn up the gas in each tank I will change the fuel filter.

[Racer Z]

My brother and I installed the Camper Special leaf springs and replaced the rear suspension bushings. The main reason I changed springs was to get the truck to sit level again. The old leaf springs had a miss-matched leaf count forcing one rear corner to sit high and one front corner to sit low. Now it sits level, left to right.

While it was apart I cleaned (wire brushed) the bearing surfaces and lubed them. We removed all the old rubber bushing and replaced them with new Polyurethane bushings.

I had previously removed the spring pads for the overload springs by drilling out the rivets. These pads got bolted on with grade 8 bolts. The frame was pre-drilled (or stamped) to accept the spring pads. I'm loosely concerned because the truck is almost on the overload springs. I do have a Dana 60 complete with drums and springs in the bed, as well as 30+ gallons of gas in the saddle tanks. Hmm. I also have a cab-over lumber rack and a cross-bed tool box full of junk. Upon a closer exam of the spring-pad placement, I did notice that Ford relocated them from 69 to 70, making the pads closer to the overload spring.

The rear of the truck sits lower now. That's because I went from 6 & 7 leafs to 5 leafs (five leafs and an overload spring). In theory, it should ride smoother while lightly loaded. The freshly serviced rear suspension bushings should allow it to ride smoother as well. It was a twenty mile trip home from my brothers. For the most part it felt a bit smoother. About halfway home I started to think I that the front was now riding rough.

[Racer Z]

I finally got around to putting speakers in the door panels and the panels back on the doors. About a year ago I took the dash and doors apart thinking I would have tunes in three hours. Then I got caught up in repairing everything else while I was in there. Had to address real issues with the window regulators, door locks, instrument cluster, heater and more. Ended up replacing the entire under-dash wiring harness.

Now that I have the door panels back on, I have been given some nice scraps of sound deadening/heat insulation. Should be just enough to do both doors properly.

I still need to install a radio and put the dash back together. The wiring has been done, but the radio mount needs some attention.

[Racer Z]

Finished mounting the radio today. It's an old Pioneer Super Tuner with 8-track. I don't have a tape to test the 8-track with, but the FM stereo works killer.

The 6x9's in the doors are nothing special, but they were free and new.

The Super Tuner is famous for being able to pull in the weakest station like you are near the broadcast tower.

Someday... I'll ditch the 6x9's and install something bigger and better. Depends on what I can stuff in the doors. 8 inch woofers should be an easy fit. 12's may fit, or not. 4 inch mid-ranges and tweets should fit in the dash. Amps behind the seat where the fuel tank currently is. A CD Changer back there as well.

Of course I'll hide everything and do it so the truck "looks" vintage. I've got four years experience as a car stereo installer where we did just that, hide everything so the cars still looked stock. I can fabricate what ever I need to do this. Well, except for the money, cough cough.

Most defiantly I'll continue to use the old Super Tuner.

[killakobra]

i doubt a 12 would fit depth wise and the rattle would be maddening.

[Racer Z]

I added an FM Modulator aka FM Transmitter. This allows me to play MP3 files through my FM Radio. Ultimately I can connect any device that has a 3.5 mm jack (the standard mini-headphone jack). After doing some research and then talking to a few sales persons as well as a few installers, I went with a more expensive hardwired unit.

It connects into the antenna connection. There is a power switch for the FM Modulator that disconnects the antenna while using the Modulator. This completely eliminates static and other interference. I mounted the unit under the dash using the stock speaker mount. All that is visible is a small switch and a 3.5 headphone jack. To listen to the MP3 player I simply tune the radio to the same frequency as the FM Modulator.

------

I added a spare tire hoist from a Mini-Pickup. I don't know what year, make or model the hoist came from. I had to do some fabrication to make the hoist fit my big F250 and work with my big 8-lug rims. Now I simply turn a crank and a chain lifts the spare tire up and holds it under the bed.

[Racer Z]

We are about halfway into a brake job and found some problems that make for good conversation. As I probably mentioned before, everything else has been wrong so far; the new heater hose was 3/4 inch instead of 5/8; the new fuel line was 1/2 inch instead of 3/8; the new water pump had stripped bolt holes for the fan mount cause the P/O (previous owner) used the wrong bolts... etc... etc...

So I figured that when the brakes were upgraded to front disk they must have done that wrong too. So I bought a new "correct" brake master, just because. After getting the old master off it became clear that the two were different. The new master was much larger and had bigger bore. The old master was an "all drum" unit.

We also found that the P/O had crossed the brake lines at the master. These two problems explain why the rear brakes were so grabby and the brakes dragged for a few minutes after stopping.

---

The other day I bought a thick wool blanket at the Army Surplus Store and used that as a carpet for the cab. I spray-glued it in place on top of the rusting floor boards. After trimming the edges and putting the edging back on, it looks pretty dang good actually. It's amazing how much quieter it is now while driving. This a temporary carpet so we can drive from Los Angeles to the Outer Banks and back next month (August 2011). Eventually I will remove the wool blanket, take care of the rust and install new insulating material and a preformed carpet.

As part of the trip, I've removed the lumber rack and cross-bed tool-box to make room for a camper shell. We will be bringing home Allie's Father's old desk. (Allie is my "almost wife" of ten years).

[Racer Z]

I swapped the rear-end today. This puts the three inch C/S (same as the 1 ton) brakes on my 70 F250. The shoes and drums had less than 2000 miles when the motor blew six years ago. They still work, and better than the brakes they replaced. I was concerned that they might be a bit grabby, but they're not. I need to drive it around for a few days to knock the rust off and let the front pads bed in still. The rears may not be bedded in yet either. Then I should pull the drums and inspect for seepage and what.

[Racer Z]

On Sunday I drove about 130 miles round trip to buy a camper shell to fit my beast. Amazingly it's the same ugly brown as my truck. Spent the rest of the day mounting it properly.

The next day I drove all around town looking for some spring loaded J-hooks. Must have gone to ten different places until I found them. Next time I'm going to start with OSH (Orchard Supply Hardware) first!

Today I mounted the eight J-hooks in the bed so we will have tie points to secure stuff on our trip to North Carolina.

The new brakes work great. I think I finally fixed the seeping fluid at the master. Just had to tighten the fittings some more.
There is less drive-line play now. It seems that the rear-end was worn more than the 69 rear-end. Still a Dana 60 and still the same gearing.

I did some research about the brakes now that I've had them apart. Both the fronts and rears (disk and drum) are from a one ton F350. The fronts are two piston calipers and the rears are 12x3 inch drums. The rears are from a F250 Camper Special, the front from a 1973 Dent (size unknown) Both are the only brakes used on the F350, both are optional for the F250. This will be beneficial when flat-towing our race car.

The brake-bias is really nice now that the and pads shoes are bedded in. I don't see any need to add a proportioning valve now. I drove the 69 F250 C/S for about two years and it always had more rear brake than front. 12x3 drums all the way around.
The 70 used to be even more grabby in the rear, but now I know that's because the lines were crossed at the master. There were other problems too: The master was an all-drum type which doesn't work well with disks. The rubber flex lines were clogged. All of these problems contributed to the rears getting more pressure and the fronts dragging.
Now when I tap-and-release the truck does not continue braking. Now when I'm stopped and release the pedal, the truck rolls forward (700 RPM). Now when I jump on the brakes, the truck does not swerve. Now when I lock-up the brakes, they all lock at the same time instead of the rears only and the truck trying to slide sideways.