First Recovery on Monday

[Heavysteven]

What's rough on the body? Did you find it had more rust than expected. Mine needed some cleaning and I used BBQ grill spray paint to fix some area's. After I did that mine looked 10x better. Also replaced the top and troop seats.

I need to take my air governor apart as well and clean. Was this difficult or easy?

 

[mistaken1]

Nice looking truck.

 

[Chief_919]

A huge pat on the back for doing a recovery the right- and safe way. Towing it off base to a place you can inspect it, verify the roadworthyness, and making repairs needed before putting it on the public roadways.

 

[Seth_O]

David: plan is to drive home on Monday 08/30 with my bro, who is flying in from Vegas for the assist. I normally wouldn't have spent a week on my in-law's couch, but there is another part still to this recovery

Rayzer: I highly recommend taking the time to do at least an inspection at a GL facility. I imagine they are not the same in size and scope, but HAFB is a ruddy monster, and the stuff they have there is super cool. Bring some lube though, security can be, ahem.....thorough. Mine was a little exacerbated since we had a commmercial tow truck and had to wait in the commercial line. A little painful to pay $100/hr for a tow truck and sit in a security line for almost an hour, but wouldn't be nearly as bad in a private vehicle.

Steven: it looks like the truck was painted over the CARC at some point, and much of that is flaking off. In some places down to bare or rusty metal. Hood has rust through in a couple of places along the front seam. Although now as I look at other trucks that seems pretty common. Interior is actually in pretty good shape, and the mechanics are in AWESOME shape. Truck pulls like a champ, and I found on the drive back to SLC I had to lay off the fuel as it easily wound up to 2500+ RPM's. Virtually no leaks (now that the brake cylinder is fixed) and the drive train through the rear-rear axle looks great. Tires are brand new, as in still-have-paint-on-the-tread-faces new.

Air governer was extremely easy, seriously like a 10min project. Unscrew the air line input, remove the plugs with boots for the pressure and air warning buzzer and then pull the two bolts mounting it to the firewall. I pulled the large adjustable end off with a monstrous set of pliers, it just unscrewed. Inside is a ceramic piece, a spring, a washer and a diaphragm. Luckily my diaphragm was in relatively good condition, I just lubed everything up and reassembled. After installtion everything worked great, my air pressure built to ~110psi (before it was venting at 60lbs so my compressor was cycling continually) and my buzzer performs as designed (previous to the rebuild it did nothing.) This assumes your governor is like mine, I looked at the 4 other trucks on the lot where I was working for reference, and none of them had the same governor I do - my truck is a '67 and they were all 71+ I believe.

Chief: It was a little tough to stomach a $200 tow over a $25 part, but looking back I am really glad I did it. Although spendy, there was a tremendous amount of unknown/risk to the truck to try and drive it off the base. Definitely the right way to go and I don't regret it. I've said it several times, but will say again - this recovery was made possible by Markmontana, so huge, huge thanks to him for his time and unselfish lending of his expertise.

Tks everyone for your kind words. Laid up with some sort of stomach flu today (up all night last night between the sick kids and myself taking turns) so it's a forced day off. Having a good time though laying on the couch looking at the truck in the driveway thru the window. And I am enjoying seeing neighbors come up and take pic's of it

 

[Seth_O]

Well, we made it home safely from the final stage of the recovery. Quick travelogue:

My brother and I left SLC Monday morning @ 3am local time. Somewhere between SLC and Wendover it started raining (around 4am). No heater, and a soft top meant it was really cold and a little wet inside. It stopped after a bit though, so wasn't a big deal.

We stopped in Wendover and fueled up. On the way to get back on the freeway the truck stopped moving! We had about 30secs of panic on the on-ramp while I tried different gears and got nothing but engine rev up. I forced myself to stop and take a deep breath and think through it. I checked the t-case, and sure enough the cushion my wife had kindly put together for us to sit on for the drive home had slipped forward and pushed the t-case into neutral. Whew! That was an easy fix.

The drive for the next 5 hours was fortunately uneventful - except for the waves and stares we received from passers and other folks in the small towns. I am having to get used to the far right-hand lane, as I am not usually a 55mph guy. I don't usually get passed by the big-rigs, although now when they drive by I can look them straight in eye .

We got through Winnemucca without incident, but about 30mins towards reno the 43yr-old stitching on the soft top let go, and the top started blowing madly in the wind. We pulled over and took it off, and put it into the bed. I grabbed out a bandana and put it on my bald head, as it was a sunny day and there are not a lot of tree's in Nevada to shade you on your drive through the desert. We continued on to Reno.

We rolled into Reno ~130pm (PDT, so 11.5hrs of driving) and fueled up and turned north. We then drove to Herlong to meet up with Aaron at Sierra Army Depot where we picked up an M105. The trailer was in great shape, and after filling the tires up from the M35 gladhand we hooked it up and headed back for Reno.

The truck had been driving GREAT all day. Holding a steady 50-55mph on the flats, and no lower than 40mph & 5th gear over some pretty steep grades through the desert. Turbo was spooling up nicely, and the temp's were staying rock-steady. With the cushion my wife made for us, the ride was pretty comfortable.

We got back to Reno ~6pm (we were both pretty roasted at this point) and started heading up the Sierra Nevada's with the 105 in tow. The truck did AWESOME over the mountains, seemed to be no difference between trailer or not. Even headed over the pass (7-8% grade) he held a rock solid 40mph and ~1800rpm's in 5th. Temp did rise ~10 degrees (according to the dash gauge) on the last long, hard, steep pull. Ultimately though, the truck pulled like a mule, strong and steady all day long.

We rolled into my place in Sacramento at 9pm PDT, so a solid 19hrs after leaving. It made for a long, long day. The truck never hesitated though, and the neighbors all came out when we got home to look at it. I apologized several times for the noise so late at night, but they all said they didn't mind and thought the truck was neat.

Tuesday we got the trailer hauled up to my bro-in-law's parents place (where I am going to be doing the bob-job) and got the bed pulled off the deuce. I also got the deuce frame pressure-washed so I can see what I am working on.

Hopefully with the long weekend I can get really going on the bob, as according to CA law I only have 20 days to get the bob finished and get the truck registered.

So ultimately the recovery went at least as well as I could have hoped. It was a great experience, and I owe lots of thanks to Markmontana, my bro for coming in to help me, and my sweet wife for looking after our well-being on the drive. Here's a pic of the truck and trailer parked out front of my house.