1973 1210 Travelette dually

[Tate]

I bought this travelette a little over 3 years ago from way out in oregon. Michael mayban and I drove the truck from his place in leesburg all the way to southern in in about 53 straight hours after working on it in at his place over a three day weekend. This is what the truck looked like.

Since that trip I have regasketed the top of the engine, I believe our oil usage on the trip surpassed the amount of fuel so the gaskets had to be replaced. I have also had the tranny rebuilt and most recently I adopted hydro boost brakes to the truck. Yesterday was the day to start in on the body.

 

[Tate]

The service body has been great with my family and I moving around the us I have needed the packing space, and boy have we had some interesting highway times with this truck. By the way the truck has been named knute by a po and I don't know why it go the name but it has it. Yesterday the bed came off. It took less time than it does to fill the tank to seperate the two.

The lift didn't hurt with this process.

 

[Tate]

As you can see in the last pic. The frame was extended at some point, and I want it to be back to the original short bed size.

Once the frame was back to the original length it was time to wire wheel the frame so that I could por 15 the whole thing since I do live in mi now and metal doesn't last as well as it does in or.

 

[Tate]

I couldn't leave well enough alone and the plan for today was to apply the por 15 and chassis black but I decided to take the frame to bare metal.

It took a long time to get the frame this clean and as you can see I took the cab corners and lower back down to bare metal as well. While there were only a few pin holes I thought that it would be best to protect as much of the truck as possible. The pin holes were welded up ground down and ready for the paint. Tomorrow it will be paint time and then I will move on to suspension

 

[Michael Mayben]

Kinda ambitious weekend for pizza boy ain't it?

The back seat in knute shore made a nice bunk for the old fart...but the rest of knute has turned out to be a cobbled mess! Knute's back seat also must be conducive to breedin',...tater and momma have added two more to the krew since we pulled off that adventure.

Before anyone sez sumthin'...we know the service body was mounted azz-forward! The frame was crudely extended in order to accommodate that so that the wheel wells would align and look proper.

Tater's done much work on this pile over the last few years including moving the sumbitch cross-country onna regular basis as he has had a time keepin' a j.o.b. No corporate employer wants knute parked in the corporate parking lot with all those lexus and prius throwaways, so they make tater an offer he can't refuse to move knute on!

 

[Tate]

Never too ambitious, just over my head most of the time.

Last night with a $10 harbor freight paint gun and some por 15 I laid on the first coat. I first removed the suspension but didn't undo the brake lines since they didn't want to be undone then I lifted the frame just enough with the 1/2 ton hoist that's running on the I beam overhead. It worked out really well for what I was wanting to accomplish, however there is a small amount of over spray that you can see on the exhaust and drive shaft.


Then I cleaned the paint gun and waited 3 hours and started to put on a second coat but the gun started to spit too many chuncks so I decided that I would reclean the gun and try again today.


This is my first time to ever paint on this magnitude and I feel that the $10 gun has done really well. I only have one minor sag and no visable drips or runs.
The por 15 is horrible to clean up and mainly due to not being able to use thinners in this aluminum gun. I bought the gun knowing that I only intended to use it to spray the por 15 on and then toss it so no major loss.
I have the chasis black to top apply a top coat to the gray por 15 but I am kind of digging the gray. What do you think?

Michael is right this truck has seen many road miles since I have owned it and each trip has had is own little experiences that will stick with me for a long time. I hope to pass the memories on with the truck some day to my grand kids, I hope they appreciate the work I'm putting into this thing.

Momma is wanting a 4th kiddie around the house but I think 3 is fine with me right now. Plus I need to save up some more $ so that I can come attend binder u at some point.

 

[Tate]

I got the first coat of black on last night. I'm not too happy with the way it turned out but I'm holding out hope that a second coat will make it look a little better. The guy (me) who stirred up the paint didn't do a very good job.

 

[Lyle Wiese]

Tate,

it's great to see knute is still alive and well. I remember the day it was picked up by the owner previous to who you bought it from, just a few miles from my place. It came with a trailer load of stuff and the trailer actually lived in my driveway for a while.

I also remember it being loaded up for a trip down to mayben's from woodburn.

And then the trip from oregon east to your place.........

Aww, good memories.

Keep the pics coming.

Lyle

 

[Michael Mayben]

'member this???

Tater missed out on this leetle escapade!

 

[Michael Mayben]

And this?

 

[Lyle Wiese]

Yep, that was the escapade in woodburn..........

Lyle

 

[Tate]

Hey lyle, glad the truck can bring back memories for everyone! Knutes all grown up now. Yesterday I slapped some mud flaps on the back and hooked up the lights so that I could take it for a ride to work today.
The trip to work was faster and a bit bouncier than before. I got a few more looks and I don't know if they were positive or not since ann arbor is very green.
I used the angle iron from the step rails to make brackets for flaps and all the wiring was rather easy although the running lights aren't working right now, I will figure that out tomorrow. The only problem that I'm having right now is a vibration that I am hoping is coming from the u joints. I purchased two tonight so we will see if that fixes it if not then I'm guessing that it has to be the bearing on the drive shaft.
Pics of yesterdays work:
that's titus standing in behind the rear tires, the truck will be his one day. Some real rack in this pic!!!

Allister and titus standing under the frame

A pic with no kids