Work and play, work and play. Even for us this can be a balancing act.
Just in this one picture we can see a new clutch master cylinder and line, new battery, new valve cover gaskets, fresh paint, all new hoses, new plug wires, new air filter, new thermostat and gaskets, and flushed coolant.
How about some new plates?
New jail cell/restaurant/house/store.
New hobby. Kids yoga.
Ouest was so excited to get out and help grandpa fix the leaky sprinkler system line. Ali made her get dressed and brush her teeth first. Then she could go get muddy.
We met some friends at a nearby park and let the kids catch a couple sunfish with corn kernels. They were excited for about two fish each and then they asked me if I could tie their plastic toys back on their lines instead.
Five minutes after this was taken we heard the heavy splash that to our experienced ears is unmistakably a kid going in the water. We turned around and there was Lowe dog paddling with his fishing pole trapped around his foot. He’d been leaning out to watch the fish nibble on his plastic fish toy lure, leaned too far, and went over, bloodying his chin and mouth in the process.
What’s a trip to Minnesota without a fair. Not the state fair this time, but the Washington County fair will do just fine.
Tractors, chickens, and pigs. Farm girls crack me up—just lounging around in the pig pens like it is the most normal thing in the world.
Lowe has his own style for eating hard shell tacos.
Grandma gave the kids ten bucks each to blow on the midway games. The kids were determined to win a goldfish, and we were fairly certain they wouldn’t, so…
They both won.
Aunt Katy wasn’t afraid to go on this ride. Twice. Each time there was at least one kid who came off crying. Ouest was not one of them.
Lots of big smiles on this day.
One week to go. This is not a promising picture.
That there is a weeping freeze plug. There are more on the other side of the engine.
And this is what a few hours and some bloody knuckles look like.
And as long as the coolant was empty again I might as well replace the water pump, right?
Grandma’s dogs chased a cat up a tree. We reeled in the dogs right before the tree branch broke—they would have torn it apart. We took it inside, Ouest made signs all on her own, and then we drove around the neighborhood delivering them. The owner showed up the next day.
29 Comments on “Freeze Plugs and Fairgrounds”
Pat;
Is that twin I Beam suspension? If so, you might want to check the front end alignment before you go off. I got a 73 ford econoline from my grandparents (which in 1980, had 10K miles on it) with I beams. Turned out they had never been aligned. You gotta bend them into alignment.
Great job on the freeze plugs! (and the pics as always!)
Great Pictures, sure brings back memories. Next time, I expect to see a fishbowl on the dashboard? Do they have names already? oh oh…
Coco and Mango. It is with a heavy heart that I report that Coco didn’t survive his first 24 hours. His death is suspicious, and Mango is the prime suspect.
Do you regret buying the truck with all of these repairs or do you treat it all as a matter of course? I know there was a lot of work put into the Travco too, and at least the weather’s warmer 😉
No. In fact I think it’s pretty cool that I can actually do all of this stuff. With a new car I’d be at the mercy of the shops whenever anything went wrong. This is just part of owning and maintaining 50 year-old vehicles. To me, it’s worth it just to be able to drive around in a piece of history. And yeah, the weather is very nice. 🙂
I never in my life would have thought about googling “freeze plug”.
Thanks!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Core_plug
I had to google them too. Then I had to watch a youtube video to determine how hard they would be to do myself. Without the internet I wouldn’t be the mechanic I am today.
Fearless Ouest! It is interesting to watch this gal grow up. Let’s hope she keeps a blog of her own someday. Oh yeah, and those are definitely NOT Mexico’s tacos!
That’s why he doesn’t know how to eat them. 🙂
Lowe looks perfect with his scabby chin! Great pictures as usual.
Back in the days of those water cooled engines a new radiator core was always part of keeping things going.
Semi truck shops like Goodyear have the equipment for bending. I’m sure some auto shops may still have it.
Of course they won goldfish. You’re about to leave town and you don’t expect the carnival people to move them down the road to the next fair do you?
Are you implying that their wins were not legitimate? 🙂
Actually, they did throw their ping pong balls into the little gold fish bowls to win. I’m fairly certain we could have spent another fifty bucks and not won once. As it was, they each sunk a ball on their first basket of balls. I tell you what, though, those carnies are the ultimate business people, giving away a $.25 fish for probably ever $10 to $20 spent on a game.
So the overheating was caused by loss of coolant due to leaking freeze plugs?
Does BUMS 68 have an expansion tank? If so, a transparent tank makes it easy to check that everything is cool before hitting the road in the morning. One last thing: can you post a picture of the old water pump if you still have it (a picture of the impeller can tell a thousand stories).
I haven’t had a problem with overheating since I changed out the fuel filter. But who knows? At this point I’ve flushed the coolant three times, stopped the leaking freeze plugs and cleaned out a bunch of crap that was sitting behind them, and changed out a possibly sticking thermostat. Could have been any one of those things, or a combination.
No expansion tank.
That is the old water pump. 🙂 I was actually disappointed when I pulled it off and it looked so perfect. Judging by the bolts and the gasket it had been there for a long time, but still looked new.
Pat, I am definitely not a car expert but I have a question. Could it be that the pump itself hasn’t been actually working for a long time? Could this is why the pump looks so perfect as it has just been sitting there? Has the cooling been operating strictly passive? Seems very curious to me that a pump could look that good after almost 50 years.
No, I don’t think so. It would have overheated when I drove it across the country from NH. Plus, the owner had written in the part number of the pump in the manual, which leads me to believe he replaced it at some point.
If that is the old water pump, someone just replaced the impeller (probably in the last 6 months), so you might like to ask the previous owner if he has any inside information, like if the previous impeller was eaten away by internal corrosion or if he just tried to fix overheating problems with a high-flow impeller (what does the new impeller look like?).
As far as the overflow tank is concerned, I think that we may have found the problem: the radiator is just dumping coolant to the street every time the radiator cap springs open, so you eventually run out of coolant et voila! Here is the solution: http://www.1aauto.com/1968-international-travelall-radiator-overflow-tank/y-mo-c/1968-575-38
Next question for the previous owner: what happened here???
“I haven’t had a problem with overheating since I changed out the fuel filter” is another possible explanation: a clogged fuel filter could cause a weak mixture that would result in overheating (and the mysterious stall that looked like a vapor lock).
You probably know all of this but: I like to squirt oil on the hinge parts supporting the hood, on the hood release mechanism, on each of the door/gate hinges, & to put a drop of oil on the key and put it into the locks (ign sw too) for a couple of minutes each.
As for the front suspension of my RV I would also lube all of the grease fittings each 4k miles. The vehicle had 22 of them.
I assume the front axle has kingpins & bushings, and I would expect some wear; but if periodically greased, they can outlast the owner. If your front tire treads wear out on the inner side, try increasing the toe-in a little – like half a turn of the cross-steering tube. Viceversa if they wear on the outer side of the tread.
Hi Dave. In preference to oil for the door locks, use powdered graphite. Oil attracts and retains dirt and grit and over time will cause problems with the lock. Most hardware stores stock it in a small squeezable container. Your advice about lubrication though is very sound 🙂
Gotta do this to filter the coolant and catch the sludge remaining in the block, ( partially removed when changing the freeze plugs ). : cut off the foot of a pair of panty hose and remove the radiator end of the top tank hose. Place the foot into the top tank of the radiator, lap excess over the outside of the top tank fitting and slide the hose back over this and tighten up the hose clamp. This provides a perfect filter to catch the sludge passing through and will avoid the radiator becoming clogged/restricted again. I’ve had 52 vintage cars and driven them coast to coast and border to border and I know this simple procedure eliminates worry. Check it periodically and either empty the sludge or drop in a new one. Those old blocks just never come clean unless they are boiled out when doing a complete rebuild.
MaxF
I like that one, Max.
Do you have a favorite brand of panty hose? 🙂
Leggs are cheap and they work pretty well! In the “olden” days when I wore panty hose, I would give him the one that didn’t have the run in it. He is serious! It has worked over many years of old cars!
not the best place for the fuel filter, given where you are traveling I would go with a larger canister style mounted on the firewall, also you should have trimmed the heater hoses more, they shouldn’t be that high.
Pat. Comments from a kiwi bush mechanic that “enjoys” driving older vehicles 🙂
I love the extra length on the heater hose, it allows for cutting out the inevitable leaky bit and you are back on the way.
Whats that flexihose behind the front wheel, I travel on lots of N.Z. gravel roads and something like that looks like a real stone damage magnet. An easy fix would be to put front mudflaps on … not city lookgood ones but real thick country ones, they will also protect your paint job. I can only see it in 2D but it looks like there is a front hanger bracket that its cable tied to, maybe you could bolt some conveyor belting to it to protect the pipe.
Overheating radiators never fix themselves, never thought of pantyhose filters but that sounds good. I presume you have given it several doses of radiator flush. if not they can be done on the road if you take a few spare jugs of water to do a change when you stop for lunner someplace. Your comments about the sludge behind the frost plugs are very telling.
Lastly get on the road and ignore all our advise before we have you doing a full rebuild of the whole truck…. you will never be prepared enough for us armchair admirals (harking back to the naysayers in your early sailing blogs.)
Git R Dun …Muzza
Just a thought.
http://www.chevrolet.com/tahoe-full-size-suv.html
Yeah, maybe I could get the rest of the soccer moms to join us for a trip to the mall.