I’m trying very hard not to continually obsess about working on the red truck. The weather has been unusually warm this week and it’s all I can do not to ditch work and go attack something with the angle grinder. I’ve got a long list of tasks to accomplish before I can really get into things, but the important stuff is being handled: I sent a package of documents to the Vermont DMV so that I can get a registration back from them; with that (and the Vermont plates) I can then go to the Maryland DMV and transfer the registration to a legal Maryland title.

I had some time between the end of the workday and sunset today to get into the Travelall and start cleaning things out. I was pleasantly surprised at how much I was able to get rid of and how good things actually look underneath. The first order of business was to put some new shoes on the front; she’s been sitting on jackstands since Tuesday and it really makes the whole place look redneck. I picked up the tires and had them back on the hubs in about ten minutes; a set of General Grabber LT’s in the correct size really make things look much better.

In an effort to make it look better sitting in the driveway, I reached out to a guy on Marketplace with a 1965-66 grille in really good shape and arranged to buy it and have it shipped from Buffalo. With some clean chrome it’ll look much less derelict. It’s not the correct grille but it’ll do for now until I can source the right one (which is concave and which I actually prefer).

I’d started last weekend tearing out all the upholstery and it was pretty easy to continue. First I bagged up as much of the loose crap as possible and made a pile of the bigger stuff on the driveway. Continuing up to the front of the cabin I got the rest down off the edges of the cab roof and pulled the headliner down in sections. The carpet over the wheel wells came off pretty cleanly—I’m lucky it was cold this evening because the glue basically just gave up. The rear carpet came off the floor in one sheet. I unscrewed and removed both of the trap doors behind the front seats.

Up in the cab I used a utility knife to cut the rubber floormat out completely to get my first good look at the cab floor. Both sides have been patched at some point; the passenger side is worse. It’s rusted through in one place that I can see, right in the center. I used a shop-vac to get all the loose paint and rust out. The driver’s side has some kind of patch material over the metal that I can’t identify, so more research will need to be done there. The transmission tunnel looks to be in great shape.

Travelalls have wooden floors over the rear section—it’s a sheet of (probably) 3/4 plywood covered in rubber sheeting of some kind. This rubber is disintegrating in strips of 1″x3″ or so and will need to be scraped out, probably with the aid of some heat.

As I mentioned earlier, the wheel well is in fantastic shape for an East Coast truck: there’s some rust there and I can see daylight through one of the seams, but it’s not completely missing.

When that was all done I washed the rest of the grime off the windows and got all the debris ready for a trip to the dump. It’s good to see what we’re dealing with and now I can start listing and subdividing the tasks.

I’ve been organizing a work day at the house and reached out to a bunch of local IH friends. There are several who can’t make it but want to get together this year, so I’m going to take on the role of coordinator again and see if I can get some regular meetups happening. The core group of Bennett, Brian, and Brian will be here for the day, and an old acquaintance Will will stop by with his kids for a quick visit. Will was the guy who had a gorgeous 1968 Travelall he offered me back n 2014 when I wasn’t ready to take it on, but look back upon and wish I’d bought.

I also joined a Facebook group for 1957-1968 Travelalls (called Round Body Travelalls) and I’m waiting to be approved; hopefully there are some good leads on parts and tips for working on them to be found. I posted a new build thread on the Binder Planet but haven’t gotten much response yet; I think I’ve got to show some progress.

Doing some more research, I’ve identified two key components of the engine.

The carb is a Holley 2300 with a manual choke, sitting under a gloopy oil bath air filter. A manual choke! I was half-shocked to find this, but I continually have to remember this thing is from 1964 and I’m actually lucky it doesn’t have a magneto instead of a generator. The carb is crusty and covered in mud dauber nests, but complete. I wonder which control on the dash feeds to the choke? I’ll bet a couple of dollars that’s one reason she didn’t start when we tried it. An inexpensive rebuild kit is sitting in the Rock Auto basket, along with new Autolite 85’s and wires.

The mystery distributor is a Delco cast iron body unit, according to Mike Mayben over at the IHPA forums. In his words, “I personally think that these distributors were the best units used, extremely durable as compared to a Holley.” Well, that’s good to hear. Where I can find parts for this remains to be seen; I think I’ll test it first for spark before throwing parts at it.

I got in touch with the owner of the blue truck with the gas tank in back and asked him if he was interested in parting it out (it’s been up since October and he’s dropped the price once). I inquired about the big stuff—the windshield, doors, power steering unit, and bench seat, as well as the gas tank. He’s still got it and gave me a price for the tank but doesn’t want to part the truck. I looked back at the video I shot, and reviewing the footage I notice it’s not in the perfect shape I remember it being. New poly tanks are $~350. I figure five hours in the car to save $250 probably isn’t worth it unless I can grab a bunch of other stuff, so I think I’ll pass.

From the research that I’ve done this morning, I think I’ve got some vague information on the new truck. Looking at the JDPower site for a valuation so that I can apply for a title through Vermont, the best match for what I’ve got is a 1964 C1100 Travelall Custom Wagon. In 1963 the model numbers were in the 100’s, and in 1965 the models changed to D prefixes. My truck has Custom badges directly below the windows, and there was a 1100 emblem on the driver’s side fender, which checks out. Single headlights continued up until 1968 but the grilles were restyled every year, and my style (single headlight with a trim ring surround) looks like it was switched in 1968.

The title situation is a bit confusing but I’m working my way through that process; I may consider using a professional service just so I don’t fuck it up, but I think I just need to slow down and take my time. From all accounts it’ll take a month or so to get results back.

I wrote to the Wisconsin Historical Society this morning and they say the backlog is about 4 weeks, so that ball is in play. Usually I go through one of the Light Line dealers, so this will be a new approach.

As near as I can tell, the paint code is simply just IH 2150 Red, which IH painted every tractor and combine up until they were bought by CASE. Which is a bonus for me, as I can walk into any Ace Hardware and buy a spray can of IH Red off the shelf; I’ve actually got one sitting in my stash downstairs to test this theory out.

Meanwhile, I ordered two new tires from Tire Rack to be delivered to a local NTB, where I’ll drop the old ones off to be mounted properly. The truck is currently up on a pair of jackstands under the front axle, and I’ll hopefully have the tires mounted and on the truck by Thursday afternoon. One thing I noticed pulling the studs off the tires is that the driver’s side studs all spin backards, like my father-in-law’s ’66 Chrysler (and strangely one is a smaller diameter than the others). So I’ll have to mark the reverse studs somehow and make sure I’ve got some spares.

Finally, I’ve got to figure out what I’m going to do about a separate weblog for this truck. I could just create a category called “Travelall” here and call it done, but it helps to have things subcategorized, and Scout brakes are completely different than Travelall brakes, for example.