New guy w/Travelwagon

These lights were in one of the boxes of parts and I assumed they were back-up lights. I took them apart and cleaned them up with steel wool. The chrome shined up great and they both work. The purple-ish lenses are unusual.

Cool!!!

The van’s king pins were worn so I blew apart the front axle to replace them. The parts store sourced some NOS Moog parts that came in an antique box. One of the front wheel bearing seals had a cork seal that I was told to soak in oil prior to installation. It was odd to watch the seal soak up the oil!
I also got new rubber brake hoses just for cheap insurance. After replacing the brake hoses I tried bleeding the brakes. The brake pedal went to the floor and stayed there! The master cylinder and all the slave cylinders were all gunked up even though the brakes seemed to work normally. Now all of this stuff is getting replaced with new parts; the master cylinder got sent to Hagen’s Auto Parts in Puyallup, WA to be re-sleeved with stainless steel and rebuilt. Look closely and you can see the sleeve; this might be a good solution to save a rare brake part- like the MC on a 1967 E van.

I took the heater apart and had the leaking core repaired ($$$!). Then painted all the pieces separately. Got heat now.


The photo is terrible, just look closely- you'll see 'em.

In the name of safety I fashioned a third brake light for the van. I didn’t want someone to plow into my newly restored vehicle because of the feeble stock brake/tail lights and most drivers are now accustomed to seeing the center light in traffic. The light was taken from a 90s Ranger pickup and I initially thought about spicing the truck’s cab sheet metal into the van’s roof but couldn’t go through with cutting into the van’s skin.





I also didn’t want to carve into the camper top rear cap either if I screwed that up or changed my mind. So I got some sheet metal and fabbed up a “pod” that matched the Ranger’s roofline and mimicked the campers’ lines. It just attaches to the rear cap with some rivets.

I’ve had these blue-dot lenses in my toolbox for 30 years, because I haven’t owned anything cool enough to install them in. I guess with the new third brake light it couldn’t hurt to add these, could it?

Cool!

Finally ponied up for new window gaskets and got the windows in with some dark tint. It's getting closer.

It looks like Econo-Northwest 2021 is on the calendar for June 27th. It's on Facebook and I'm not so you'll have to look it up yourself.

I'm going to try to debut the Travelwagon at this event (I still haven't driven it yet).

Go for it! It looks Fantastic and you should show it off and inspire others to go ahead with their own ideas!

Small update on the van: I’m trying to get it road worthy and just got the turn signals working. Turns out it was just a simple blown fuse. Once the blinkers worked, I discovered that my third brake light was also blinking when the right turn signal was on. I just tied into the harness at the back of the van and had forgotten that the blinker signal goes through the brake wires. I fixed this by running a wire from the brake light switch clear back to the rear to power the third brake light. Yay!

I’m pondering getting some LEDs to replace some of the lights in the van- like the camper cabin lights, dash lights, and some others.

Tonight the antique seatbelts got put back in- hopefully at the correct anchor points because I didn’t remove them. Another thing I did was to install a seal on the engine box. The original was ruined and I haven’t found anyone reproducing this seal so I had to get creative.

I first tried the rear gate seal from a Subaru Outback- that was a fail. On the next trip to the JY, I had a better idea of what the van needed and I picked a door seal from a Suzuki SX4. It fit a little better but still not great.

What do other E van owners use for sealing the engine cover?

Saw this product memntioned on the FB Econolines site as a Good replacement...

Ordered

Otto, please let us know how it works out for you. They also had a picture posted that looked like it was a good fit.

The seal from McMaster’s showed up this afternoon.



You can see in the photo that the bulb part is bigger and the crimp is smaller than the Suzuki door seal I was using. It seems to fit and the lid closes easier than before. It struggles on the sections where the metal panels overlap and I had to trim off the Lizardskin coating where it got up on the flange, but it passed the dollar bill test around the lid. Win!

Thanks Vanny for the hook-up!

Happy to hear it worked for you. It’s always nice to hear what works and what doesn’t for people so that others who see this going forward can hopefully get what they need on the first try. Thanks for posting your findings Otto!

I actually took my van for a drive yesterday- Yikes! Just went up the road a little and turned around; I don’t know if the shock absorbers are original equipment, but they need to be replaced!

Once I get that handled I’ll try it again. At least it didn’t overheat.

It’s an odd thing to drive…

On another topic, the LED lights I ordered showed up. The third brake light is brighter and so are the dash lights- at least something went right.

The new shocks arrived and got installed on the van. This evening I took another spin in the van and hooned it around the neighborhood. What a difference! So much better and it no longer felt like it was going to drive off the road.
The old shocks were all the same and when I wire brushed the rust and crud off of them, I uncovered the Ford oval. I’m convinced they were the original equipment from 1964. I guess 57 years is a pretty good service life.

Great progress for that van. Hope to hear some updates soon.

dRomer48 wrote:Great progress for that van. Hope to hear some updates soon.

Check the E camper section, I put up a small update there. More to come.

Otto wrote:

dRomer48 wrote:Great progress for that van. Hope to hear some updates soon.

Check the E camper section, I put up a small update there. More to come.

Alright, I will take a look!

Over the holiday weekend I did some shuffling of vehicles and brought the van into the shop. What I’ve got in mind is a transmission swap- removing the 3 speed for an overdrive 3 speed. I mentioned this gearbox earlier and after taking some measurements and some eye-ballin’, it looks like it will work nicely. Here’s what I’m working with:
(photo)
It’s a BW T85N with the R11 overdrive on the back of it. This is most likely out of a Ford truck from the 60s or early 70s. The R11 is the heavier duty OD of what was used in ye olden days as it was available for big-block cars and trucks. There was a R10 OD used in older cars (the R11 has four planetary gears @ 28% vs the R10s three @ 30%).




This side shows the governor switch which will energize the solenoid at around 27 MPH and encourage a shift into OD; if the vehicle slows to under 27 MPH it will pull the transmission back into direct drive. Pushing in the clutch is not necessary for this shift to occur, just lift the gas pedal to take the load off the drivetrain. The round rubber object is a boot for the governor that 5th Avenue Garage repopped; they said I bought the last one in the country!




On the driver’s side is the solenoid that performs the shifting. I have all the relays and wiring that would have been installed in a vehicle to make the transmission work properly, even the cable that would be on the dash to “lock out” the OD and keep the transmission in direct drive. I’ll try to retain all the features that give a driver this transmission’s benefits. There is also a “kick down” switch feature that will make the transmission downshift into direct drive on command if the driver floors the gas pedal.

The T85 won’t simply bolt to the bellhousing in my van even though they both share the Ford “narrow pattern”. The input shaft is a little long and there is some disparity in bearing retainer size. I’ve been talking with Modern Driveline about some of their adapters being used as a spacer and just bolting through it. I need to take some careful measurements once the transmission is removed, but I think this strategy just might work.

It's been a minute since this was updated, so I'll try to catch up:

The adapter showed up! This is from Modern Driveline and it’s their part for adapting a T5 to a 65 and earlier Mustang with a 5 bolt bellhousing. This will just get bolted through the “narrow” Ford bolt pattern. The T85N  bearing retainer is about 0.060” smaller than the relief in the adapter, so I’ll have to come up with something there. MD also sold me a new clutch disc to match the T85N’s 10 spline 1 1/16” input shaft. The Econoline’s clutch disc can be a spare for the jeep as they will interchange.



The throw out bearing collar needs to be changed out too as the one in the van is too small for the new transmission. It’s always something…

Tonight I took the overdrive apart to inspect the innards. I drained out only a few ounces of oil from the OD unit which was concerning as that’s the death knell for them. Everything looks good inside with only ordinary wear evident to my eye, so that was a big relief. Hopefully, the oil just leaked out during the years of storage through some leaky seals that will get replaced now.

I have a factory 1965 Ford truck service manual that includes this transmission. The gearbox passed all the diagnostic tests listed in the manual so I'm feeling good so far. The gizmo on the end of the shaft is the free- wheeling unit, or overrunning clutch which has some rollers that climb ramps and wedge themselves into the bowl gear. There were a couple of fun springs inside of that to put back together.