Project Johnny Reb

[David Miller]

This story starts about 6 weeks ago.

I went up to Gary Barker's place and bought a pickup bed for parts to repair the Travelette right bedside, which was backed over by a farm tractor in it's previous life on a Minnesota farm. I am not thrilled with 2" of body filler and kinked beside, and Gary was happy to sell his spare bed.

Gary, my oldest brother, and I loaded the bed upside down on my little 5 x 10trailer, which I was pulling behind my car. Not too far into our trip toward home, we were travelling thru Smith Crossroads in Lenoir and stopped in a line of traffic. A beat up (rust holes in sides, doors don't shut, slick tires etc) Chebby pickup stopped short beside us at the intersection to catch our attention. The girl in the truck yelled "is that bed for and International?". I said "yes". She asked, "what are you going to do with it?". I was not sure where she was going with this, so I said "Put it on my truck."

Then the guy in the truck said "we got one of those, you want to see it?"

Well, my brother was with me, and we are pretty good size, so I said "OK, I'll follow you."

We went a few miles to an empty house they owned, with a fenced garage on one side, and a big shed off to the right. The whole place is in a narrow valley, and the ground was "rotten" as my buddy Cheek says. "Rotten" means the ground is always wet and your feet sink in the mud, even when you are walking in the grass.

We had soggy feet by the time we got to the big shed. There were six vehicles, a boat, and a few hundred bales of hay in the shed. The man and I moved about 50 bales of hay to reveal a red 1110 long bed 2wd. He said the truck had belonged to the neighbor across a meadow from the shed. When the man died, it sat outside a few years, then he bought it from the widow and moved it to the garage. He said it was a 74 model with 74,000 miles. I knew it was not a 74 model, the grille and motor mounts were wrong. After digging in the truck, he found an old inspection sheet and declared that it was a 71 model, and that was the first mistake he had made all day.

I saw this as an opportunity for my 13 year old son, Jacob. It was in good enough shape that he and I can repair it, and in bad enough shape that it would take some work on his part to have a truck to drive in a few years.

We shared phone numbers and I told him I would call him back.

The pictures are in the barn.

[David Miller]

Look close at the fender opening and the rocker panel under the door where the red paint is knocked off. I didn't notice this at all that day.

[Jeff Joyce]

So is it a Johnnie Reb? Looks like it could be. Has the bed rails, correct trim, correct year. Have any pics of the interior?

Sheetmetal around the windsheild looks great too. Congrats man!

-Jeff

[David Miller]

THE PLAN:

I talked to two of my brothers, and my wife. A plan was hatched.

I had a 85 1/2 F150 4x4 short bed that Jacob has been driving around in the back yard for the past few years to practice his driving skills with a stick shift. We call it Rust Bucket, because it is. The EFI 302 ran well, and the drivetrain was great, but the body is rotten. The driver's side rocker panel is held on by about 6" of floor pan. The bedsides have rust under body filler that creates a weird spackled effect. All the wheel openings are rusted thru. The frame has numerous rust holes under the bed area. The two rear frame crossmembers are Swiss cheese, and you can poke thru with your finger. The rear shock mounts fell off. The bottom of the radiator support is rusted thru on one side. The passenger door looked pretty good til Jacob side-swiped a tree. The hood is OK, but needs the paint stripped before it can be used. You couldn't drive it on the road because the flying specks of rust would get in your eyes.

My youngest brother wanted the F150, because he has an '86 with the high speed econo transmission (high geared three speed + overdrive), 3:50 gears, and he runs 33" mud tires when he goes four wheeling. His spare money comes from hauling scrap metal with this truck. He wanted the NP265 granny low four speed and the 4:11 axles. My oldest brother hatched the plan of him hauling the International to my house, and taking the F150 back to his. The only problem, we live 200 miles apart.

My wife advised that if another truck comes to the house, one has to leave.

It was all set. Seemed like a perfect plan that is a win for everybody. Jacob gets a truck, I get a deal, my youngest brother gets the trans and axles he wants, and my wife gets Rust Bucket out of the back yard.

I also planned to stop by the Wrenchathon in Hickory if time would allow - it didn't.

Last week, Jacob and I pulled the engine so we could get parts to use in my 72 bronco when I install a 5.0 HO that I picked up a few years ago. The hydraulic clutch assembly, bellhousing, clutch, flywheel, and fuel lines are all needed. This lightened the load on the pickup, and gave me parts I need.

F150 images (Sorry about posting non-IH photos, but this thing is a real POS)

[David Miller]

THE TRIP
Friday night I drove my two boys from our house in Johnston County (south of Raleigh), to Granite Falls, and spent the night at my oldest brother's house. My youngest brother Chris works third shift, so it was 9:30 before he called me back to get going. I drove to his house in Hudson, and then we drove right back to Granite Falls to get the tow dolly from a buddy of his that runs a U-Haul. We made it to the International in Lenoir by 10:30. Chris and his son were driving his F150 to pull the International, and I followed in my car.

After we checked out all the other cars and trucks and boat in the barn, we got the International loaded up on the tow dolly. Jacob and Chris laid in the mud and disconnected the driveshaft. Luckily, the seller had pulled the IH to the driveway with his tractor. There is 150' of rotten ground between the two. The IH had a fresh set of used mismatched different sized tires, so I wished I had thought to throw a few spares in the trunk. The tires were covered up to the rims in mud from the short trip to the driveway.

The IH did not look quite as good in the sunlight as it had in the barn, but is still pretty solid and was a good deal, so we transferred the title and signed a bill of sale.

With time wasting, we decided to get moving. I considered going by way of Hickory to check out the wrench fest, but Chris was a little concerned about getting on I-40 and going 70mph, and we both know that there is a section of concrete pavement on I-40 between Hickory and Statesville that will rattle your teeth, especially when pulling a trailer. Shaking the IH off the tow dolly at highway speed was not a thrilling prospect, so we decided to take 18 to Wilkesboro, and ride the smooth pavement on highway 421. We were already north of Lenoir, so this was not out of the way too far.

All was going great, and his F150 with a built 300 six cylinder was pulling hills better than I expected. I kept Chris in the rear view mirror, and didn't get too far ahead. We stopped and ate lunch at a BBQ joint in Wilkesboro, and got ready to get back on the road. I mentioned that there was a little fresh oil on his rear axle housing. He said it was OK, it had been weeping at the pinion seal for a while and he had just topped off the fluid. Famous last words.

Chris said the old license plate on the IH blew off and got run over. On inspection, the license plate was there, but the LT rear molding on the bedside was gone. It is about the size of a license plate.

We drove the 50 mile stretch from Wilkesboro to Winston Salem with no issues. Just before the last exit before 421 merges with I-40, there is a long downhill, followed by a long up hill. At the bottom of the hill, Chris slowed considerably. I braked hard and stopped at the Peace Haven road exit. He eventually got to the exit and pulled over. He said that when he reached over to pull the trans from OD to third, it popped out of gear before his hand grabbed the stick. It would not go into third, but he was able to get into second and make it to the ramp. We followed each other to the top of the ramp, and he was down to only first gear.

I scouted around a little and found a small church .6 miles away nestled amongst the upscale townhomes and cookie cutter neighborhoods. He made it to the parking lot in first gear. When he pulled in, we could smell gear oil but nothing smelled hot. The rear axle was cool. The transmission was a bit hot, but not scalding. The front of the IH was covered in axle grease. He had 1 forward gear and no reverse.

We found our way to a local Wal-Mart to get gear oil and see if there was any salvaging of the trans or rear axle. There was not. We unloaded the IH and rolled it into a parking space (not too fun with no brakes, no ebrake, and driveshaft disconnected.) Chris pulled the truck around in a circle to get to a parking space. The inside tire chirped. I asked Chris if he has a locker in his rear axle. He said "now I do". Now, he no longer wants the Rust Bucket transmission and axles. He kind of needs them.

Sorry, no pictures from the parking lot.

[David Miller]

JOHNNIE REB REVEALED

I called Gary and Nate to see if there might be someone at the Wrench Fest going our way without a load. No luck. But I got moral support and found out that Gary’s parts truck is now at Nate’s place. I might be able to help him liberate some parts he doesn’t need.

As we were kicking around in the parking lot, I noticed that the missing side panel molding revealed silver/gray paint. The truck has a pretty poor repaint, with red over orange in some places, red over red in others, and red over silver along the sides and bottom. I have seen a paint scheme like that before. Jeff Joyce has one. It might be a Johnnie Reb paint job. This old truck could not possibly be a Johnnie Reb.

I wondered out loud if it might be true. Jacob’s eyes got big, and he started getting pretty excited. We had already made plans for this 1110 to be a Johnnie Reb clone. He has seen Jeff's truck, and thought it was very cool.

There in the church parking lot, all broken down with bleak prospects, I did a little investigating. There was nothing under the seat. I opened the glove box door, then pinched the springs and let it fall all the way open. There was the line set ticket. Halfway down the list was the listing for the Johnnie Reb Ident package. Jacob was jumping up and down and yelling (acting like a 13 year old, really). Chris had been watching his gear oil drip on the ground, and looked at Jacob like he was an idiot.

It is a Johnnie Reb. The truck was originally sold from Hibriten Motors in Lenoir, so the old man with a truck story got a little more credence. The pay slips and inspection sheets that had slipped behind the glove box gave it more.

Now feeling a little better, we worked on plan B to get three powerless trucks moved across the state. One was at my house, and two were in a church parking lot about halfway between Chris' house and mine on Saturday afternoon. We put some notes on the windshields, something like "sorry our crappy old trucks are in the middle of your pretty parking lot - we promise we will be back to get them before church starts tomorrow." Chris' front plate on his trail/scrap metal hauling truck says "This is not an abandoned vehicle." That helped our cause with the good church people.

We hoped that nothing would get towed, and prepared to leave.

Line Setting Ticket

[David Miller]

THE REST OF THE TRIP:
We decided to haul the tow dolly to my house with my car (a company car '09 Ford Taurus which has a prohibited trailer hitch under the rear bumper), get the Travelette, haul the Rust Bucket to Chris’ house, then come back to Winston Salem, haul the F150 to Chris’ house, then come back to Winston again, haul the Johnnie Reb to my house, then use the car to pull the tow dolly back to Chris house, then I would take the boys home. Sounds simple, right? It is 200+ miles each way.

Chris and I had a pretty good idea that the rear axle in Chris’ truck would not handle an 80 mile flat tow, and that there are not enough hours in a weekend for our plan to work. My oldest brother was gone on a camping trip in Mortimer. Another brother that could help lives to far away in Knoxville, and I did not think about calling our other brother who lives near Maiden or Lincolnton. Chris started calling our cousin Bruce in Lenoir who has a mid 60’s Ford F350 with a dovetail car hauler bed to see if he could pick up the F150. No answer, no answer, no answer.

We took off to Johnston County. That @#$% tow dolly bounced every which way but loose all the way down I-40. We got to the house at about 5:00pm. We turned the F150 around by pulling it with the Bolens 1054 lawn tractor, and the Travelette (remember the F150 no longer has an engine). We moved the tow dolly from the car to the Travelette. We plugged in the pigtail and I told Jacob to watch the trailer lamps to make sure they work, and we then realized that one of the rear tow dolly lamps was gone. These are plastic housings riveted to plastic fenders. The entire housing with it’s LED light fixture was completely gone. I'll bet U-haul is pretty proud of them, too. I took a spare trailer light and a short metal strap and rigged a lamp on the RT tow dolly fender. Didn’t look good, but should have been functional. Not!

The bright lights for brakes and turn signals were fine. But when I pulled on the parking lamp switch, the fuse blew. We started digging around in the trailer wiring. We found that someone had been cutting into the wires and had installed cheap butt connectors at every junction that sticks out of the trailer frame. The wiring goes into the frame at the coupler, and peeks back out again at the tubes that hold the plastic fenders. The wiring at the coupler was covered in Chris’ rear axle gear oil, and there were 4 bare wires that were wrapped in oil-soaked black tape. Seemed like a good place for a short. We cleaned that up and re-taped it, but still had a problem. We made similar repairs at the rear of the trailer, and finally figured out that there is a short in the parking light circuit inside the frame. I found a trailer wiring harness in my garage, so we plugged it in at the pigtail, wrapped it around the tow dolly frame back to the lamps, and used more cheap butt connectors to hook it up.

We called Bruce again. No answer.

We pulled the driveshaft from the F150, finished getting it ready to tow, and winched it onto the tow dolly. I worked to get the Travelette ready for the trip. I had been working on a few things, and had no plans to take it on a trip at this time. A few weeks ago I installed a freshly cleaned and sealed original fuel tank under the LT fender. It had poured fuel from the vent tube hosing the first time I put gas in it. It does not vent correctly, has a non-functioning fuel gauge sending unit (it worked on the bench before I installed it) and has a pinhole in the filler neck that drips ever so slowly when the tank is over half full. I had not yet run a full tank of gas thru it. I have a freshly recored radiator to install, but have not yet completed that task. The Travelette radiator has several small leaks and seeps, but generally still cools the engine. Way back in July I came outside one day and noticed a coolant leak. The heater core was leaking. Since it is hot in July, and I did not have an immediate need for heat, I just routed the heater hoses into each other and decided to worry about that when cold weather arrives (It was now October 24). I checked all my fluid levels, removed unnecessaries from the truck, put a spare can of fuel in the bed, put together all the tools and spare parts that I might need for a 450 mile journey with a 35 year old truck, and decided we were ready to continue with plan B. It was still pretty warm, and we had been working pretty hard, so we were all in shorts and t-shirts. Me, Chris, Jacob, my 10 year old Paul, and Chris’ 12 year old Donovan loaded up to head out.

Back on the road, at 11:00pm.

First, we went to the new local Wal-Mart for a can of Fix-a Flat for the RT front on the F150. It was hissing loudly, and Chris found a shard of metal in the tire. Fix-A-Flat worked.

Then, we stopped by a gas station and filled up. As noted above, the fuel gauge does not work, so I tried to figure how much I had burned since I installed the tank and filled it up. I figured I had about 7 or 8 gallons of fuel. When I pumped in 6 gallons, it burped pretty good and the automatic pump shut off kicked in, so I figured it was full and I was good to go at least 100 miles with my new 16 gallon tank at my normal 7mpg under tow.

All was well, and we were travelling. We decided to take the slower highways instead of the 70 mph interstate, which would not hurt our time too much, and would save gas and wear on the truck.

Well, about 7 miles east of Siler City on NC 64, the engine started cutting out. It cut out two or three times, then we were on the side of the road. Chris said his truck did that same thing once, and it was because his distributor cap blew apart. We pulled off the cap and I immediately noticed that the center button under the coil wire was melted away. I installed a higher energy coil about 600 miles ago (which I highly recommend) and left the cheap distributor cap with aluminum contacts. This had to be the problem. We had plenty of fuel, and an obvious spark problem. It was 12:12am Sunday morning.

I called my dear old buddy Brian, who lives 45 minutes from where we were. He is a great guy and a wonderful friend, and pretty good with mechanical work. He did some quick internet research, and discovered that the distributor cap for a Blue Oval 302 is interchangeable with a 392 IH. He had a new spare that he will never use because it is bright blue (not an original color for this Mustang restorer). He packed it up with some tools and other spare parts (not sure why he brought spare Furd fan belts) and showed up about 1:40am.

Remember that heater core that was broken. Remember how warm it was when we left the house. It was no longer warm. I could see my breath. I could also see my knees below my shorts. Those are not good to see at the same time.

In my line of business, I have investigated many accidents, and the worst ones seem to be as follows: Car is in a fender bender or breaks down, car pulls to side of road while driver waits for help, transfer truck hits stopped car, everybody in car dies.

Traffic on US 64 in the middle of the night was light, but the only traffic on the road was transfer trucks and huge cross country buses. I made everybody get out of the truck and stand near some big trees about 60’ from the road. The boys had brought a huge comforter, so they stayed warm. Chris and I froze for the hour and fifteen minutes til Brian got there, and for the next hour when we troubleshot the truck.

Oh, there was a side road near our new parking area where numerous cars pulled in, then left a few minutes later, in the middle of the night. We passed time looking at the bright stars on the clear cold night, wondering what was on the side road that caused so much traffic, and trying to shoo away a cat that kept coming around. My youngest son is very allergic to cats. After a little while, the cat ran out in the road and lost nine lives at once right in front of us. It wiggled and squirmed awhile. A bus came by later and it never wiggled any more. Have you ever heard a peacock? There was one in a small building in a field near us. That first time it called out, the youngest boy nearly climbed a tree. Far away a bull bellowed long and low. The sound echoed over to us. The older boys were getting spooked.

Brian finally showed up. We installed the distributor cap and no start. We installed a spare coil Brian brought and no start. Then we got smart and tested spark and had plenty (especially with that hot new coil). We checked the firing order to make sure I did not crosswire anything when the cap was installed. We tested 20 other things. Then Brian said, “that carb sure looks dry.”

I cannot believe Brian got up in the middle of the night and drove 45 minutes to tell somebody that they were out of gas. He must be a complete idiot. I always thought he was smarter than that.

The real kicker is that I had 2.5 gallons of gas in a regulation fuel container in the back of the truck. I was so sure I had gas that I never even checked. We poured gas in the tank, poured gas in the carb, and the Travelette fired right up. The only thing wrong with the Travelette was the loose screw behind the steering wheel. I was a bit relieved to have a new high quality distributor cap under that high energy coil, so it was not all for nothing.

We found a gas station open about 15 miles down the road (getting close to my fuel range on 2.5 gallons). The boys got to watch a DUI arrest with an impounded car and everything right there in front of us in the gas station parking lot. Just like watching “Cops.” Then we were on our way.

The hardest part of that part of the trip was making sure to find a gas station in the country in the middle of the night before we ran out. I had to stop once and use the gas can again. I had figured out that whole “engine cutting out” thing by then. We continued thru the country and got to Chris’ house at about 6:00am. Driving thru the country was really slow. I poured the boys out of the back of the Travelette, and dumped them on Chris’ couch. Chris gave me a pair of his long pants to wear. He is a good bit shorter than I am, so I was stylin in my highwaters. I could see the tops of my socks when I was standing up. We off-loaded the F150, and circled around the house to get back on the road. At 7:30 we started calling Bruce again, no answer. We got back to the abandoned trucks in Winston Salem at 8:00am. I sure got better fuel mileage when there was no load behind the Travelette. (It usually has a 30’ travel trailer behind it when we travel.)

At 8:00am Bruce finally answered. He agreed to drive to Winston Salem to pick up the F150. Saved us a trip. Both trucks were still there. We walked around the church parking lot awhile to get awake and work out the stiff joints from our all-night travels, then loaded up the Johnnie Reb on the Tow Dolly. Thank goodness we had packed the come-a-long. I was tired of the side roads, and decided to run straight down the interstate. I tried to keep speed down to about 60, but sometimes I forgot and ran along with the traffic. I caught myself running 65, 70, 75 at times. I really did not want to, because that is a lot of RPM for a 392 and the Johnnie Reb did not haul as well as the F150. The shocks are completely gone, and every big bump or hump sent it cycling up and down, and it took a long time for it to recover. It swayed side to side occasionally, and I was a bit worried about the unknown history of the used, undersized, mud covered tires. Not to mention the rear axle that had not been on the road in umpteen years. The license plate on the back is from 1993. I could only see this play out in the mirror, because in the one ton Travelette I could only hear wind noise and could not feel the load behind us at all.

Chris said he was going to keep an eye out for the u-haul tail lamp assembly. I said I would help, but knew that we would never see it again. I forgot to look after about five minutes. Then, just before we got to Burlington, Chris said (in his deep drawl), “There is that damn light, pull over.” Sure enough, he found every piece of that light in the emergency lane at the end of the Stoney Creek exit ramp. It was all broken up, but he figured he could tell the U-Haul people that it just flew off while we were driving, and here is the proof. It is the truth. I cannot believe he stayed up all night after working a third shift the night before, and was alert enough to spot that little orange light while we were going 60+mph on the 6 lane highway.

We made it to the house (after two more gas stops) and unloaded the Johnnie Reb at about 11:00am. Then it was back to hauling the empty u-haul with my car (clankety BANG BANG for 4 hours) drop off the u-haul dolly and Chris at his house, check out all his Furd projects for about half an hour, then pack up the boys and drive 4 hours home again.

When we got home, I had driven 1300 or 1400 miles in 49 hours, with little sleep, but all our junk was moved. I took a shower.

Now I ask the more experienced of our International crowd, is that how your road trips go, or am I just especially ill prepared? I have dragged the travel trailer all over the place with little drama. Chris said all this is his normal bad luck, so I can only assume that he is right.

[gmbarker78]

Looks like a pretty solid truck, Congrats. A J. Reb in hiding, that's awesome. I've hauled a few IH's through Lenoir, it's a good think I wasn't the one they flagged down. There would still be a rust bucket Ford in your drive. How is the cowl and bed? We want more pics!

Congrats again!

BTW, better move quick on the 1110 at Nate's, it'll soon be making hybrids!

[ClemsonScout]

Very cool story David!

[TheDon]

Whew, I'm tired just reading about all that!! Glad it all worked out, especially for the JR surprise to make it all better!