What did you do to your deuce this week?

[Valley Rock]

Took the old truck on down to the local Dept. of Forestry and got it inspected, stickered and ready for another fire season .

1963 Studebaker M50 has been a water truck it's entire life, everybody loves it and so do I, getting paid to drive it and allow it to continue to do what it was born to do is a nice bonus !

 

[ToddJK]

Swapping out head gaskets on mine now. Was leaking oil really bad, would leak around a gallon per week and that's driving it three to four times around 120-140 miles/week. With the heads off, there was lots of build up around the injector nozzles, but the pistons looked great, the cylinder sleeves looked good too with no scoring or any signs of hard/abnormal wear. I did notice too, that it looked like one of the fire rings did not completely seal as I can see the soot mark on the head, which I'm wondering if that was contributing to my blow-by. Have the new gaskets on now and the heads are on but still needs to be torqued down and everything reinstalled. I have to say though, it's going by very smoothly unlike the first time I did it around 10 years ago when I melted a piston and everything in my other deuce.

 

[RedRiderBB]

I mounted two of my new ndt tires on the front and broke down one more wheel. Replaced a return spring that had broken on the throttle return.

I’m suspecting that I have a broken/missing throttle return spring, but I don’t see anything obvious, can you point me to where I can find it to verify it is ok/not ok? Accelerator pedal does not return to idle in fact it ramps itself up until the pedal is lifted an put in the idle position.

 

[cattlerepairman]

Throttle return spring diagram?

I started my deuce a few days ago and it was revving right up to about 2100 rpms when I would start it. Figured out that my pedal is sticking. I have sprayed the linkage with wd40 to no avail. I looked at the linkage and I cannot see where a return spring would go so I was wondering if anyone...

www.steelsoldiers.com

 

[mweidhaas]

Too hot to drive this afternoon so a good day to work indoors. Added some new LED headlights and brighter dash light bulbs. I also installed some refurbished newer style tailgate chains. Hoping these will eliminate the tailgate rattle.

 

[92ramaro]

It's been quite a long time since I've been here.

Life happens I guess.

I figured I'd add to this thread again for old times sake since I stopped in to dig through TMs.

A good friend and I traded dump trucks months ago, and I finally had time to run over there yesterday to throw some batteries in to see what I'm working with.

Used Daisy (my M35) as a service truck of sorts to air up some tires,blow out some fuel lines, and haul the various tools and fluids out there.

The plan is to flat tow the 2.5 ton with the 5 ton since naturally, the dump truck doesn't have brakes of its own after sitting for more than a decade by now. It's a 2 mile or less drive.

It's neat to be using a truck that was also driven out of the same ground 6 years ago to assist in the resurrection of another project vehicle.
Albeit a much heavier one.

 

[cattlerepairman]

I have a soft spot for dump trucks w/w. They are cool.

 

[Valley Rock]

I put it to work, we were on the Applegate fire for a week, old boy did good .
Needs rear springs very much badly tho

Here's a few pics, nothing exciting

 

[CommoChief]

That looks good. I bet performs much better too. I left the pneumatic wipers on mine but replaced the wiper arms with ANCO and ANCO wiper blades, so much better than the stock version. Only con, need to turn the air way up to get speed on the wipers as the new arms and blades have a lot more pressure on them vs stock, but wiper upgrades on a deuce imo, priceless!

which ANCO arms did you use? The 41-01 arms are apparently no longer available.

 

[Jeepsinker]

I thought about my deuce today. Think about it every day. I haven't laid eyes on it since June 2023, and hadn't for three years before that. Sure wish the time was right for me to come home.

 

[cattlerepairman]

Not even a "what DID I do" but "what I have to do" list.......

- drove Lola about 200km to get her appraised (for insurance purposes)
- the oil leak out of the bell housing raised its ugly head when she got really warm. She barfs a good half quart on shutdown and a has few drops when running. Appraiser did not see it. I may or may not have kicked some sand under, from the roadside....
- clutch started slipping on the way home, so that's it. She is sidelined.
- I think the rear main has given up. I had put a brand new one in when I rebuilt the engine a few years back, so that is annoying as ^&*(.

- received two new window frames from C&C, so those have to go on the truck
- ticking noise under acceleration and a bit at idle, none when coasting. I suspect exhaust manifold gasket leak. So that has to come off....

I was hoping to get away this summer with just driving her, alas, that is not happening!

 

[Valley Rock]

My fuel pump died in my M50A2 when I was out on my last fire, luckily there is a lift pump on the injection pump that got me through but it makes for longer starts and makes me nervous because if that fails I'm obviously dead in the water, no pun intended

So I bought a fuel pump from Seco parts on eBay a couple weeks ago, it has a few things dinged up that they could have mentioned that were hidden, I would have bought it anyway it's nothing I can't remedy

To pump itself is a little different, and in the way that the wiring attaches, I wish I had the little piece that locks in and holds that feed wire on, but I'll figure something out

So I got the pump out today and it's soaking in a utility tub of soapy water, it's around 100° here today, I'm half bent over in pain from an ulcer and I have a naked (in potty training mode) two year old packing off my tools and parts as I work

I shall see if I can make some more progress this evening when it cools off a few degrees, and the mosquitoes come out which is always a nice bonus

Here's a few pics ...