The Travelodge comes home.....

[Dennis Bernth]

Originally Posted by Teight

Sounds like a good trip. After all of my fun adventures with my wife she told me I was on my own if I wanted to ever recover another one. The $250 travelall that we drove from CA to IN was a good trip even with some of the crap that happened.
I always travel with a bottle of Rain X because I have yet to buy anything old that had working wipers.
Sounds like you had a good trip hope the bug is all gone.

The wipers were the most amazing thing of the whole trip....I told my wife while we sat in Cracker Barrel 'this isn't going to be good, those wipers are going to be trash for sure, I've never bought a used vehicle that had even decent wiper blades'. I was as shocked when they worked great as I would have been to find the key and signed title to Elvis' pink Cadillac in the glove box....

I can't even imagine driving a $250 dollar Travelall home from anywhere, but that might have been before inflation set in. I know if I told my wife I had a $250 (insert, Scout, Travelall, etc) to drive home from California, she'd let me do that one on my own....

So far the bug is staying away, and it was a good trip in the sense that we survived it, we have memories, and now that it's over it's funnier than it was at the time

[Dennis Bernth]

Originally Posted by michigan scout

adding a sway bar on the rear would help for hauling, I think I have one laying around...when you pull the rear panel off the tailgate there is a stop adjustment maybe that needs adjusted to allow the window to go all the way down... I also do have new in a box a headliner for a pickup but if I am not mistaken it is the same as the t-all for the first section...and it is black...

I may be interested in the sway bar, I still have to get underneath and see what I've got for equipment now. And the headliner in it is white, although everything else, seats, door panels and floor mats are all black. The front section is actually the best in the truck, I may leave it along even if I yank the rest out, although I'll replace it when I do the rest of it.

[Dave Meyers]

Great adventure and you hit the jackpot with that truck, Dennis. The last leg of my trips are always the most stressful, too, because I need to go through Chicago. That may mean bad weather, terrible traffic, empty fuel tank, towed vehicle wagging behind me, drivers flipping me off, fullbladder and irritable bowel about to unleash its contents on my front seat.

[Dan Powlus da duke]

Dennis -

I like it - nice score! :-)

But with all the stuff that happens to you - maybe you could start writing a tv series : These Are The Days Of My Scouts - lol!

Dan

[Dennis Bernth]

Dan, it's time to start having less adventures and spending more time on fixing up the ones I have already drug home! I can't keep up with Darren on snagging them, and I sure can't keep up on fixing them, so I might as well throttle back and just finish what I already have. I really don't know what I'm going to do with the Travelodge yet as far as 'fixing it up'....it's got some rust, not horrible but it's there, and it's in the spots that you can't get patch panels for. At this point I'm thinking that I'm gonna run it as is, maybe do some mechanical stuff to it, and after the other projects are out of the way (as if!) I'll do a somewhat quick and dirty on it.....sandblast the bad spots, fiberglass to fix it, POR type paint on both sides, then shoot it with some acrylic enamel. I've done a couple of pickups that way and they held up pretty well, I don't have the time or inclination to do a total makeover on it, especially since I'm going to be driving it some....so whatever I do will need to be fast and somewhat easy.

[Teight]

The $250 travelall was just 3 years ago and it was truely rust free as they come. It's 2wd and hadn't been started in 10+ years so it was risky to drive it across the country and I really didn't think my wife would go with me but she did. My biggest worry was that we would be burning up from hot temps and I was sure the AC wouldn't work.
I sent a gas tank off of one of my other t'alls and carb. We flew in and I spent a day reworking brakes packing bearings replacing hoses belts and a giving it a good bath. I also replaced some other parts that I had ordered just in case I needed them and figured that we would make a good adventure out of it and if all else failed I would take the parts I had bought the truck for and send those home via UPS and fly home from where ever I was stranded at.
We took route 66 most of the way back with a detour to Phoenix then to the Grand Canyon. We took our time driving a couple houndred miles a day and we had planned on 6 days to get home. We made the entire trip with a blow out in the middle of no where AZ on our way to Phoenix, luckily it happened in 1 of only 3 spots in 200 miles that had cell service. We had to replace the points at the Grand Canyon (I had an extra set with me). Then we had the lower A arm on the right side come loose from the frame at highway speed on Friday night of Memorial Day weekend. That little move nearly made us both mess our undies but the good Lord was looking out for us as we spun around between two semis into the median back up onto the road and ended up facing the right direction in the e lane.
Some how we found a mechanic who towed us to his shop took the suspension apart welded everything up for us and we were back on the road within a couple hours and just charged us $150 for the tow and fix. Of course when I asked if he thought it would get us home he said sure it will get you home. Maybe not to your home but to somebody's home.
It is always about the adventures and I would have changed a thing. Of course like I said that I was worried about it being too hot and we never saw temps above 75. We did however get about 6" of snow at the Grand Canyon at the end of May, go figure.
I didn't keep receipts of the tires, parts, and fuel but it was a cheap vacation and great memory.
I am now in the same boat as you too many projects and not enough time to work on everything. At least our new home has a lift in the shop.

[Jeff Jamison]

Dennis
No go on the booster and brackets,they are different.I still have the booster from my 73 when I went to disc brakes,will look to see if the brackets are there.
Jeff

[Dennis Bernth]

Originally Posted by Jeff Jamison

Dennis
No go on the booster and brackets,they are different.I still have the booster from my 73 when I went to disc brakes,will look to see if the brackets are there.
Jeff

OK, what did you use for booster and brackets when you went disc brakes? That may be in the picture in the future, I haven't even really checked it over to see how the front end is set up now or given it a lot of thought.

I did notice today when I was doing kind of a nose around the Travelodge (while my burgers were cooking on the grill) that it has a BW auto tranny in it, I guess I figured it was a TF, but I can live with it the way it is....it works fine, that's the main thing. It's got a big honkin' tranny cooler up front which will have to go, I know on the Scout II"s anyway the BW had a fluid to water cooler, but this one is plumbed to a huge (althouth it's only a four pass) cooler. I'm going to need the spot the cooler is in to fit my AC condensor when I install air, so I figure to go with as big of a flat plate cooler as I can fit in on one side of the center bracket for the core support. That's all 'future' stuff though, it's good the way it is for now....
I can already feel the 'project creep' setting in on this one.....

[ihfarms]

Glad you enjoyed it. Hope everything goes good. I loved that truck. Just things didn't work out for me. I'm also going to let go of my midas, but I will be selling it myself. Not the EX.

[Dennis Bernth]

Originally Posted by ihfarms

Glad you enjoyed it. Hope everything goes good. I loved that truck. Just things didn't work out for me. I'm also going to let go of my midas, but I will be selling it myself. Not the EX.

I'm sorry you had to let it go, but I'm glad I was able to grab it....it hasn't made it into the shop yet, but soon, just for a going over before driving it out to Nationals. I'm not too worried about it though, it runs great, never a hiccup! You know how to pick em....