11/19/99
Lucy runs
!
Boy,
am I excited.
I haven't had much
time to work on the International trucks lately, but I've been slipping in a few
moments here and there. Because I wasn't sure about the propane set up on Lucy,
the R-205, I started out working on The Great Pumpkin, a 1957 International
R-190 with a winch and 5th wheel. Because I guess the old fuel pump had worn out
on the Red Diamond 450 inch engine, someone added an electric fuel pump. I
pulled the line off where it entered the saddle tank and rigged up one of my
small chain saw gas cans. The fuel line went right over the
little nipple that vents the fuel can. I figured this would
eliminate any worries about stale gas, varnish, rust, crud, and
small rodent bodies in the fuel supply for the time being. The
ground needed a bit of cleaning and tightening to get the
electric fuel pump to work, but after we primed it a bit it
pumped well. The only minor glitch was that it required an extra
person to hold the hot wire against the positive battery
terminal. I figured if I get this thing running, I could splurge
for a switch or maybe just use one of the many extra ones already
mounted in the dash board. We got the line clean clear to the
carb. The original oil bath air cleaner was still fitted, so that
was carefully removed and leaned against the old liveoak shade
tree that serves as The Great Pumpkin's Texas garage. I pulled
out all the spark plugs and cleaned them up with a wire brush.
The weren't very fouled or worn. Figured on this fine machinery I
should be able to gap them by eye. After I got the throttle
linkage freed up, we noticed the carb butterflies still didn't
move when the linkage was moved. This is a Holley carb and it has
a governor built into it. Seems to have vacuum lines running back
and forth from the distributor to the carb. When couldn't get a
single pop by spraying ether down the carb, I figured we weren't
getting spark. I've been soaking the carb mounting bolts and I
posted to the oldihc list the other day about looking for a carb
that would work on an R-190, but the E-mail program chewed up and
spit out the first few lines of my plea for parts. Being as I'd
progressed all the way to the point of being stuck on both fuel
and spark, I figured it was time to work on Lucy a bit.
Unfortunately, Lucy was the last thing I picked up at the auction
where I bought my International 1486 tractor and the 3 old semi
trucks. I say unfortunately because by the time I got the other
stuff moved and got my friend with the heavy duty roll back over
to the auction site, someone had stolen the 20,000 lb. Tulsa
winch off of her. The thing I really like about Lucy is that she
has the duplex transmissions. She also has heavier wheels and
tires, using 10.00 x 22 instead of the 10.00 x 20 of the R-190.
I'd been a bit hesitant to try to start Lucy because she has been
converted to propane. I knew there was propane in the tank
because I could get it to leak out with that characteristic smell
when I fiddled around with the various knobs and valves on the
tank. I got my nice new fire extinguisher out of the Grand
Cherokee and took it over to Lucy for the time being.
The coolant hoses are really complicated on Lucy. Not only do
they run through the vaporizer for the propane, but they seem to
run through the air pump as well. One of the hoses that runs from
the propane vaporizer to a fitting on top of the engine was torn,
but I didn't think that would be too much of a problem because
there was no water in the radiator anyway. Poor Lucy is also
missing both her radiator cap and her oil fill cap. I bought a
new radiator cap during my lunch time errands today. Yesterday
I'd carefully filed many thousands of an inch of corrosion off
the points. I had to use one of my old diamond fingernail files,
because I couldn't find my points file anymore. The two contacts
also came no where near meeting evenly, so I bent the arm for
good contact. The propane carb on Lucy was extremely clean and
free of corrosion. A few months back I'd pulled the carb off and
carefully picked all the mouse nests out of the carb and intake
manifold, and the linkage worked well. This truck was missing an
ignition key when I got it, so a couple weeks ago I bought a new
replacement key switch at Wal-Mart for about $8.00. Last weekend
I stood on my head under the dash and transferred all the wires
from the old switch onto the new one.
Yesterday I got out my old trusty little probe tester that lights
up when it's alligator clip and sharp point scrape through enough
corrosion and find a hot circuit. I made sure I traced current up
though the ballast reducer, both sides of the coil, and on to the
distributor. There is also a wire that runs to the propane
vaporizer on the fenderwell, so I traced that back to a switch
hidden under the dash and used the test light to figure out how
to get current to it. Last evening I wore the old battery down a
couple times, jumping out of the cab to climb up the front bumper
and grill guard and spray ether down into the carb, then climbing
back up to crank her over some more. I got just enough pops and
catches to keep me at it instead of cleaning up the car port or
organizing my huge collection of truck, tractor, gun, and
motorcycle books and magazines. As I thought it about it during
moments during the day today, it occurred to me that with as much
as I filed off of the points to get through that corrosion, the
timing may have changed. The charger was on the battery all last
night and all of today, so when I got home I just changed
clothes, grabbed a 7/16" wrench and loosened up the
distributor bolt. I gave it just a little turn clockwise, sprayed
the ether and jumped back up in the cab. It really didn't hit at
all, so I smoothly tripped out of the cab, bounced off the
running board, picked myself back up, and climbed the bumper and
grill back up to that cavern of an engine compartment. I rotated
the distributor counter-clockwise a little past where it had been
originally and sprayed the last of the ether can into the carb.
After climbing back up onto the cab, it fired on about the 5th
revolution. By pumping the gas pedal a bit, I was able to keep it
running. These Red Diamonds have the funniest dip sticks. They
are marked "Full" at the higher part, "Half"
part way down and "Empty" at the bottom. I'd already
dumped a good bit of the cheap Tractor Supply oil that I've been
feeding to Earl, the Farmall 450 as I waited for the magic
additive to fix his rear main seal. About half a gallon brought
it up from Half about to halfway between Half & Full. I
figured that was all she'd get until she at least showed me she
could start. Things were understandably a bit noisy and clattery
at first. I'm not used to what the air pumps are supposed to
sound like and I know there were valve sounds in the symphony,
but I'm hoping I wasn't hearing any bearing noise. As it warmed
up a bit, (rather quickly without any coolant), I found it would
stay running without my foot on the throttle. By now I'm getting
really good at jumping out of the cab and climbing up onto the
left front fender. I pull the hood closed, unplug and unhook the
battery charger and push tools and charger where they are a bit
less likely to get run over. I dropped the brownie trans into
low, and put the main trans in low as well. Releasing the clutch
had me surging ahead at breakneck speeds up to 3 miles per hour.
That speed was fast enough when trying to get this non-power
steering baby turned around in our driveway area. Of course the
exhaust system ends right after the primary pipe, as I've always
felt mufflers were a necessary evil for obtaining an inspection
sticker. Being as I won't even bother to title a vehicle in my
name until it's running and street worthy, Lucy will stick with
her racing exhaust system for now. After turning around I headed
for the opened gate into the cow pasture and on out toward the
shop. After a slow, almost painful double clutching shift to
second gear on the main trans, I decided to stop and find the
next higher gear on the brownie. I was very pleasantly surprised
when I stepped on that middle pedal that looks like a second gas
pedal and felt the solid resistance of actually functioning air
brakes. Boy, am I real truck driver now, or what ? With the
brownie in second, I worked the main trans up to third. Being
conscious of having no coolant in the radiator and a rather
stingy amount of oil in the crankcase, third gear bounced me as
fast as I felt like going through the cow pasture. I took a lap
around the shop and headed back to the house where a hose was
available. Pulling up toward the faucet, I was even able to get
the hand brake to hold when I pulled back on the release lever so
it would lock in. I turned the hose on and jumped up to drop it
into the radiator. For a long time, the water just ran into the
radiator and didn't come out anywhere. That's when it was time
for Old Faithful. That little fitting on top of the engine where
I cut the broken end of a hose off decided to erupt in a very
Vesuvius like manner. It went up so high I was afraid it would
get pulled into the carb. My left hand was already covering the
open oil fill tube.
When the eruption had settled down to a mere torrent, I decided
it was time to park Lucy from her maiden voyage. I got her back
to her spot and shut her down. I then heard a hissing comming
from the running board below me. There is this big diaphragm
looking thing with an air hose running to it, and it's leaking
slowly out of where a rod inserts into it. I don't know if this
is some sort of booster or what other part of the air brake
system it would be. If I can't find it in any of my manuals, I'll
just remove it and cap the hose that runs to it. After all, the
brakes already worked with this thing just laying on the running
board, so how important could it be?
I'll tell you, nothing makes my day better than getting an old
vehicle moving under her own power again after of years of
dormancy. It sure will be hard to make progress on the carport
cleaning or the library organizing with good ole Lucy sitting
coyly out in my parking area. She's proved herself worthy of new
oil, a filter, points, condenser, and coolant hoses. I'll also
borrow The Great Pumpkins oil filler cap for now...
11/20/99 Lucy gets a workout !
I
sure do wish I
could get one running every day. Today I topped up the oil, got
the water hoses connected and filled the radiator. Then I put on
the 13 lb. cap I bought yesterday and took her out on our local
farm road. Playing with the two transmissions is really neat.
When you
hit a shift just right, no clutch is needed and it just slips
right into the next gear up or down. When you miss a shift, I had
times where all the clutching in the world wouldn't let me get it
back into gear and I just had to let it slow down and start over
again in second. I was really pleased to see I was running 50 lb.
of oil pressure and the engine quieted down nicely now that it's
been run a bit. I was taking my neighbor for a ride and getting
some tips on when to shift the auxiliary transmission when I
looked down and saw the temp gauge at 240.
Just about that time we could smell some antifreeze so I pulled
over off the side of the road. Took about 5 minutes for the steam
under the hood to clear enough to even see in. Did do a nice job
of steam cleaning the front of the engine though. Turns out there
is a hole right in the
front of the top radiator tank. When it had cooled to 200 degrees
I tried to restart, but the old battery didn't have enough left.
The neighbor and walked the mile or so back to his house and got
his Dodge winch truck. The truck has permanent wired jumper
cables comming out of the grill and already had a couple jugs of
water on board. It also has a few chains in case we weren't
successful. By now the engine had cooled to 180. I poured the
water in and we hooked up the jumper cables. It still took some
ether to get her fired up, but she did. As the new water
circulated, the temp dropped down to 170 before it started to
climb back up again. Just as I was coming up to my driveway I
managed to hit two of the nicest clutchless downshifts I could
ever imagine. I can't wait until I can keep her running long
enough to let my ear learn to match the rpms to the various
gears.
11/25/99 Got
the radiator removed.
11/30/99 Had a fun event
at lunch time today. I'd put Lucy's radiator in the back of
the Grand Cherokee and slipped out to the radiator shop during
the lunch hour. When I backed up to the door and flipped up
the hatch, the guys really freaked out over the size of the
radiator. They acted like they hadn't seen a customer bring
in one this large in a long time. The good news is that
they didn't laugh at my big old radiator and are actually going
to cook it out, repair, and pressure test it if possible.
I'll just have to wait until I have help to slip it back into
place. The upper and lower radiator hoses are just heavy
straight sections of 4.125 inch tubing. They are almost
impossible to bend, so it really pays toslip them on as the
radiator is dropping in.
12/5/99
Had Lucy the 1957 R-205's radiator patched up. There are
some corroded spots in the core, so they recommended I don't run
a pressure cap. Yesterday I straightened out fins for
almost two hours, and cleaned up all the gasket surfaces.
Also painted the fan, water pump, and water necks International
red. Today was a bit cool, so I put beads of the silicone
on and let them sit for almost 30 minutes. Worked pretty
good except where Coco, my pet chicken stepped on one of the
pieces. I put some more silicone back on that one.
Got a friend to help me lift the radiator back in and then
reinstalled the water pump, and all the other outlets,
using all new radiator hose. I'm not sure why, but it still
took a little shot of ether to get her started. I'm still
not real knowledgeable about propane, but at least she did get
running. As I was running the hose into the radiator with
the truck running, I found one place where I forgot to tighten a
hose clamp. Took care of that, and the main outlet neck
needed just a bit more torque. All 28 quarts of water now stay
in. There was no thermostat under the
housing
where I think one should have been. Truck stayed about 140
F as I drove it up and down the road. When I sat and talked
with a neighbor for a bit, the temp got a bit above 140, but it
dropped right down again when I started moving. Looks like
I might need to find a thermostat and figure out where it goes,
but at least things are staying cool now. Seems like the timing
might still be a bit off, so I'll just try twisting the
distributor a bit to see if it gets better or worse, I probably
won't dig out the old timing light until after I replace the
points, condenser, cap and rotor. I think I'll go back out
and see if she starts up again.
Lucy on 8/26/00
Email me at goodwrench@CyberRanch.org
Email me.
Y'all please come back soon.
Updated 8/27/00
Created 3/15/99