Another round of projects.

I know it has been a while since I had time to be on the forum much, but it looks like I may be coming into some more time for projects again...

So I decided to document some work once again.  Should there be interest in the work I will try to maintain documenting the work through the project.  I am sure, as usual, I will have plenty of questions and odd ideas.

So let's get down to it.



This is a normal story.  I have seen this truck sitting along the roadside for many years.  I have always thought as I drove by it was such a shame...  I am not a welder, but I do quite a bit of welding with work and on my hobbies.  I knew, even from a distance there was a lot of potential sitting there.  After having a deal for a small welder elsewhere fall through I decided to see if it would be possible to get this truck.  Some discussion with a friend, and a little luck and I tracked down the contact for the truck.  

It was a pretty good turn of events.  Turned out the family was ready for the truck to move to a new home and a deal was negotiated.  I loaded the truck up with some help from a friend and the start of the work began.


As a side note...  I am not sure if my dump truck has ever made an appearance on the site in photo before...

Cool project!  I'm interested, for sure!

So that's an 85 or 86 F350 dually?

Unimaginably, all 6 tires on the truck aired up.  5 of the 6 are still holding air today (a week and a half later).  

I can not definitively say when the truck had last ran (or welder), but the plates show the last registration in the year 2000...


I think it would be safe to assume a decade easily, but you can decide for yourself.  I know I haven't seen the truck move at least since my wife and I got married (11 years ago).  When I looked at the truck the hood lactch was stuck.  I crawled under enough to see it had a straight 6.  The door tag tells me it is a 1981.  The interior was amazingly in decent shape.  





Non AC, drivers and passenger vents below the dash, 4 speed manual, am only factory radio, manual windows, slide lock doors...  With the exception of the door panels everything is pretty nice especially when you consider the sun working on it all this time.

Well I had the truck home.  First order of business...  Hood open.  The handle in the cab had been broke off, buy a vise grip and some pb blaster spray on the latch behind the grill and I was in.


First glance...  As I suspect, 300 I6.  Nothing special...  Wait.  What the...



Hello power steering pump...  You don't belong there.  It is hard to see, but the alternator is below the poster steering.



Interesting...  A Tecumseh ac compressor is where the power steering belongs.  Having done the Saginaw brackets on the bronco I can respect the work involved for the brackets.  All the alignment on belts looks acceptable to my eye.  I was impressed.  Further inspection reveals the discharge headed to the rear of the vehicle.  The air line terminates just aft of the rear axle so I assume at one time this was a function on board air system for the welding bed on the rear.  There is no control for pressure for the clutch, only an on off switch.  But never the less...  Homebrew On board air under the hood.

The dump (black) is a 1986 f350 idi 4 speed.  

 Terminology update:
I intend to refer to the 1981 as the welding truck from this point forward to avoid any confusion with the "dump truck" (black 86 f350), and always the bronco remains the bronco.

While unloading the welding truck I realized the brakes didn't work (no surprise) and threw it in a gear and popped the clutch.  It gracefully rolled to a stop,  Feeling especially pleased with myself having made it home with the truck with no incidents I decided to head in and relax.  It took me a full day to realize what had happened.  The next day while sitting eating a meal with my wife it dawned on me the motor had turned when it came to a stop.  I didn't imagine the truck would run when I had made the deal and resigned myself this was a hopeless parts truck.  This realization that the truck had turned over made me decide to give the truck a little more attention before switching focus to the welder (my main hope).  I went ahead and checked the fluid in the welding truck, borrowed a battery from the bronco, cut the fuel line and plumbed up a 1 gallon gas can on the radiator support.  I hoped in the cab, again to my amazement, to a door buzzer alerting me to the key being in the ignition.  Turned the key and the truck started right up and idled.  No checking plugs, no cleaning the carb, nothing.  Just checked fluids and put clean gas to it.  I was speechless.  It ran rough, but idled.  So now I have to decide how I want to move forward with the truck.  It starts, drives forward, drives back.

Being unable to decide at this point I shifted focus to the welder.

Wow!  The tires hold air and the engine runs!  You may have gotten a really good project truck.  

The welder.




The welder was honestly the start of this entire journey.  I wanted a nice portable welder.  Locally portables have been hard to aquire in my "budget".  I admit I may be cheap at times.  This deal afforded me a welder I thought was a gamble, but there was enough I could break even at worst on the deal.  A little research on the internet told me the welder is a 1965 (if I read the charts right) sa200.  An all copper, pure dc welder from back when they made things to last.  I had attempted to turn the motor on the welder before I made the deal.  It was pretty tight.  I couldn't get it to budge, but I do not like to get forceful with anything that is not my property.  I quickly realized the welder and the air compressor on the truck where not bolted down...  Welded direct to the bed.  I pulled the plugs in the welder and soaked the cylinders in some oil and slowly worked the crank forward and back.  At first it didn't seem like there was any movement at all, but on day 3 of playing with it I felt the smallest movement on the crank.  Again victory was achieved.  I slowly worked the crank back and forth until I could fully rotate the motor.  I spent the next several days trying to understand the magneto system (my first encounter) and all the people I knew who where my experts have since passed away.  I finally figured out after points and condenser I got some spark and then it took several tries to get the impulse timed properly.  Once I had spark I pulled and cleaned and rebuilt the welder carb.  I got the welder to cough and sputters and eventually I got it to start and run for a few seconds.  I spent a week off and on before I finally got the welder to start and run, but the radiator leaked terrible.  I was able to test the motor enough to know it was safe.  20-25 psi oil pressure.  I was again pleased with myself and the project.  I hooked up a dc safe drill to the auxillary plug on the welder and was disappointed to not have any power.  I wasn't able to run the welder for more than 5 or 6 minutes without risking running out of coolant.  I felt confident enough in the motor, but I wasn't confident the welder would work yet so I didn't want to spend the 500 dollars on parts to get the motor caught up on maintenance.  So I spent a couple days learning about how the welder functions.  I decided to clean the brush holders (stuck with rust bubbles) and flashed the field in the welder.  The next startup revealed a new high pitch whine...  I was immediately concerned something was seriously wrong.  I quickly tried the drill in the auxillary plug to see if I had done any good and was surprised to find it fired up.  Over the course of the next several start ups the noise or a little worse and I made a call to a welder buddy.  He told me he thought I got it beat now.  He said some of the welder like that just sing a little when they generate power.  Told me to rig up some weld leads (ones on the truck had been stolen long ago) and try it...  Sure enough.  It welded.  The output selectors where stuck but progress again.

Amazing it runs and that the welder is working.

Very cool! Good job and good luck!

Woah. What incredible luck! Thats incredible that it more or less started right up.

Now that you have a running truck and a working welder, what do you plan to do? Drive it to town and buy some lotto tickets?

Haven proven the welder motor and generator...  Time to pull stuff apart to work on the welder properly.





Several hours, grinder discs, even borrowed an air arc (run by this welder), and a few choice discussions with the welds on the bed...  In the end they decided to let me have the welder.



I now felt comfortable investing in some parts since the welder had been tested.  I went ahead and called the supplier and ordered the parts to go through the mag properly, new radiator, hoses, and fan belt.  

Yesterday I started taking the welder apart to replace everything.

I am pleased to say with another day of cleaning and reassembly it will be in the "ready to use" state.  I need to decide how much I want to fix the looks of the welder up and make some new leads up, but last night before giving up working on the welder I burned about 10 rods.  That thing welds nice.

I also started on the air compressor on the back of the truck.



So far I have pressure tested the tank, removed the motor since it was shot (water had rained in the rusted off exhaust pipe).  I hand tested the compressor some and it appears to build pressure.  I have a motor from a 314 john Deere sitting on it ready to be mounted when I get a little time.  It was a 10hp Kohler originally, I am installing a 14hp with an inch larger diameter drive pulley.

I will try to get a few more pictures.  I know that is what everyone loves.  

Well that is all caught up to date.  More updates now as they happen.

Any input appreciated.

That's really cool the welder is working, and welding smooth.
I suppose having it welded down kept it from growing legs over the years.
Not so sure I'd call it portable though!
Self powered... yes!

Nice that you have an engine for the compressor.
I would have suggested a Honda knock-off Predator, but the JD is more in keeping with its vintage.

And now what to do with a project truck?
Given the year it has lots of desirable parts, a uniquely optioned engine and ????

Keep it?
Part it?
Sell it 'as is'?
Fix it and flip it?

I am not much of a gambler, but I sure feel like I am winning right now.  I think the welder and compressor will end up on a skid I can load onto a trailer or truck if I need them.  I may still swap parts around with the dump truck as I am definitely keeping it.  I may get the welding truck running nice enough to let someone else have a bullnose to drive.  It is a shame to part something like that out or junk it.  I want to recoup some of my expense of purchases yet.  I also got a couple of trailers in the deal so I need to decide if they are being kept or sold.

I have used those predators before and am a big fan.  The quick decision for me was I have 50 bucks in this whole John Deere and I know the motor.  It is a direct bolt in...  Even the idle controls for the compressor and motor idle will bolt up to it making the swap even better.  I just had to swap oil pan and gasket on the Kohler from the old motor to the Kohler from the Deere.

Honestly, before it started I had planned on just swapping front clips, doors, seat, and dash pad.  Maybe the whole dash with my dump truck.  My dump has some serious rust in the doors and damage in the front clip.  I could fix most of the shortcomings of the dump truck in one quick go.  And still be left with a truck to sell worth maybe 800-1000 I I leave the welding bed on as it is.

I haven't decided yet.

WOW!  So much good karma!  And so many options.  This is a good project to follow.  Or, maybe projectS?

Not super proficient at this yet, but trying to upload some videos that I can share here so be patient with me.  Hopefully I can figure out embedding the video directly eventually, but linking will work for today.

welder proof of life

welder running

the first start

onboard air compressor

after tuning testing


Today I didn't accomplish much new work, but I let the welder sit and run for several hours.  I have temporarily put all the sheet metal back on since rain is forecasted for tomorrow.  I did trade for about 100 feet of weld leads so I should be able to make up two 50 foot cables and be set to start using the machine soon.  The current hurdle is tracking down material to make some fuel tank straps.  The straps on the tank where rusted out and it looks like plain strapping/banding steel for shipping large items on pallets.  I would like to make up some stainless straps, but do want to find a decent deal on a strapping tool and materials.  So much research has been done this evening.

Nabble doesn't offer the ability to upload videos.
You can host on YouTube or Vimeo, or whatever and imbed it here.

To put them on here tick the box that says "Message is in HTML Format". And on Youtube click Share then get the embed code and paste it here, like I've done below. However, Youtube insists on making the thing 560 pixels high and 315 pixels wide. So I change that to twice that - 1120 and 630.

And with it in HTML mode hitting Enter doesn't get you a line feed. You need to click Formatting and then Line Feed for that.

Oh, Youtubes work much better if you turn the phone landscape.

Gary,

I will attempt to make videos that suit the site better.  It really was just testing if I could get the actual videos to go through or not this time.

Best practices have been noted.

Thank you

I want to hear that thing when it loads down striking a 1/4" rod!

The links work fine for me.