On 05/21/2017 01:15 PM, grarpamp wrote:
Lern2wrench. You can't "Wrench" them when they're 30 years old. They've fallen apart.
I mean... I MEAN... If you really love that hole in the pavement
in it for humans. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Harvester_Travelall
Looks cool, probably a lot of them in Cuba. Just like code, you can wrench on it, debug it, hacker it, maker it, hobby it, mod it and trick it out with bling. Humans do that just because they can.
IH marketed them to midwest farmers as part of a package deal (the Central Valley of California was another hotspot and that's where alot of the specialty wrecking yards for them are) 'for the misus' if they bought the combine or big tractor. It was always 'power everything'. Brakes. Steering... No such thing as a wind-down back window. Unlike the pickup trucks which were essentially the same vehicle 'capped off' at the back of the front seat and a pickup truck bed instead. There was also a "Travelette" that had seating for four and small pickup truck bed. Quite a few were HIgh clearance 4 wheel drive versions Forestry services loved them. Literally unbreakable, and repairable by the side of the road if something did go wrong, and IH also supplied them to railroads where they were outfitted with drop-down rail wheels for moving work crews around. The running joke was alway "If the serial number was one number different it might have been a combine instead". They came with a "Line Setting Ticket" with the complete rundown if everything installed (like a big rig might), and they weren't cheap. In 1965 a basic travelall listed fr the same price as a base caddy... (Wait for it...) $10k. I'm sure they were heavily discounted when the farmer bought the Combine.... Mine was originally a 3 speed with overdrive (horse trailer towing vehicle) but it chucked a gear (1965-1985... 30 years) and I stuffed a 4 speed from a similar year Dodge pickup in it... which gave it a 'stump puller' 1st gear because of the differential gear ratio mismatch. So low I didn't need the clutch. I could rev the engine and just push the shifter up by the 1st gear gate, and it would drop in. The truck would lift on it's suspension about a foot, and it would start rolling. After that it was 'gravy' to shift without the clutch. Try doing that with any mdern transmission that uses shitty little needle bearing capped into an aluminum housing and you'll be replacing the transmission before long. The only problem was once you bought one... Unless something particularly tragic happened, you never had to buy one again. That's what killed it, and the pickup truck sales too. But in 1983 when I needed a new rear axle for one that "Mushroomed" on brake drum removal, the factory still had one ... undoubtedly overmanufactured for warranty purposes and then written off, but they had one. There's no such thing as 'overmanufacturing for warranty purposes anymore, and if it's done the parts are ditched as soon as written off. That's one reason why maintaining a 'New Millennium" car like it's a 'classic', will fail. To expect an aftermarket that will still have an "axleshaft" for a 30 year old vehicle is laughable. Rr