The Adventure That Never Was

Hazel's Saga
Trasborg: So, ya think you'll get your 715 ready by the time we leave?

Hazel: Yeah, but it won't make the trip.

Trasborg: Whaddaya mean?

Hazel: I'm gonna thrash on it full bore for a month, get it finished just under the wire, and then it's gonna blow chunks on its maiden voyage the night before we leave.

God, sometimes I hate always being right. The above conversation took place verbatim shortly after hatching my plan to thrash build the M-715 and get it ready for The Trip that Never Was.

Cappa's FSJ buildup and trip prep entailed bolting on a suspension and changing his oil. So boring I almost fell asleep writing the preceding sentence. Snoooore. Then there's Trasborg who thinks it's more important to install heat shielding on the interior of a vehicle with a severe overheating problem and doesn't run worth a turkey. That's like worrying about your runny nose while your chest gushes blood from a fresh bullet wound. It's called prioritizing, Pete. Look into it.

As a reader, I had always loved the entertainment value that came from the staff's miserable thrash builds, so I've done my best to follow in those footsteps since I've been in the writer's chair. We speculated around the office that it shouldn't take more than a weekend of hard work to get my M-715 up and running. Apparently, before hubris does indeed go the fall because what followed was one piddling setback after another.

With this build, it wasn't necessarily the severity of the setbacks but the sheer number of setbacks. When the clock is ticking and every second counts, having to make an extra run to the parts store or discovering that a mail order purchase isn't exactly right carries much drama. Pete's free T-case looked fine on the ground, but once it was installed and filled it with gear oil, it leaked like a sieve until I swapped all the seals. The fan hit the lower radiator hose and required four trips to the parts store before a hose that cleared was located.

Then when the original radiator blew up, the lower hose wouldn't fit the new replacement radiator, so it was back to the parts store a few more times. The 24-volt light bulbs were corroded solid in their terminals. The factory wiring was butchered and missing its aluminum identification tags. The starter that came with the engine wouldn't fit the bellhousing. The brakes were hashed and needed half a dozen bleeding procedures and all-new parts. Every seal in the vehicle leaked when oil was introduced to drivetrain components. The exhaust had held up the transmission after the engine was yanked and was bent, so the headers wouldn't line up on the engine. Missing lug nuts, no hood hinges, throttle cables that didn't fit, rigging stuff, cobbling crap, and so on.

In the end, true to my word, I got it going. I drove it through my neighborhood amid horrified stares from affluent neighbors, incredulous CHP officers, and terrified motorists to discover my freebie engine didn't have a prayer of making it to Bakersfield, let alone Colorado. Although I admit defeat, I do so in the knowledge that I gave it one hell of a go and refused to go quietly into the night. Hopefully, somewhere in America there's a kid who gets a chuckle from this tale and who will someday sit behind this keyboard typing away about his own failed driveway adventures.

Trasborg's Recollections
If I was going to make the unspecified deadline of sometime the week of July 17th, I had a lot of self-imposed work to do on my '67 M715 in two week's time.

Let me back up a step. I thrashed to build my truck in the tail end of 2004 with the intention of driving it cross-country. I didn't make it, and I had it shipped. Once it got to sunny Southern California, it wouldn't run, so I spent lots of time tuning it - messing with the carburetor, the timing and all other kinds of things.

You know how power-steering systems don't like to be at lock for more than a few seconds? Well, so do I. Didn't stop me from frying my added-on power-steering system while tuning the truck. I forgot my chain (steering-wheel lock) was wrapped around the wheel. It was at lock (or close to it) while pushing on a curb for a 40-minute carburetor-tuning session.

Needless to say, I fried my power steering pump, but didn't realize it. I ran the truck in a parade, and, just over an hour into it, I had smoke coming out from under my hood. Turns out the power-steering pump was smoking and incredibly hot to the touch.

Fast-forward six months. I knew what was wrong, and I'd replaced the steering box twice, the pump once, and the hydroboost once from December to April. Yes, it's got hydroboost. A regular vacuum booster wouldn't fit in the space it needed to, and I wanted power brakes.

Well, two days after replacing the last component (hydroboost), my truck was sitting in the street and got whacked by a drunk or otherwise impaired driver.

The steering was, once again, shot, and this time I ordered all-new parts: PSC power-steering box, PSC pump, PSC reservoir, Mr. Gasket remote filter setup, Vanco hydroboost and master cylinder, Flaming River steering shaft, B&M Supercooler, and Borgeson power-steering pump mount. After six months of having a power-steering system I could cook eggs on, I wanted to put good parts and a decent filter in it so I wouldn't have to mess with the steering or brakes again. I spent 10 14-hour days wrenching on the truck in 115-degree heat, most of it in the sun.

I had to fabricate a mount for the reservoir and filter and also had to clearance the frame for the new, large-piston PSC steering box. The alternator had to be moved because the new power-steering pump was using the grooves in the pulleys the alternator had been using, so I got to fab new alternator mounts - again, sparing no expense with rod ends and DOM tubing for tensioning, as well as Grade 8 bolts and DOM tube to get the spacing correct. Bled the brakes by myself with a two-foot chunk of leftover rollbar tube (new master cylinder, remember?), fabbed a new bolt for where the hydroboost hooks to the brake pedal, and 30 other things I'm sure I've forgotten.

Well, I got all that done the afternoon before Cappa (my boss) was due to show up so we could begin our journey. I decided, after painstakingly bleeding the steering system, to take it for a drive to my bud's house 15 miles away down the freeway. When I got there, it was running warm. I looked under the hood, felt around, but nothing seemed amiss. It turned out that the fuel pump gave up the ghost. That is, it was leaking fuel just sitting still. With running warm in mind, I waited until later when it had a chance to cool and limped it home.

Early the next morning, I ran to the speed shop and grabbed a Holley fuel pump with the outlet and inlet in the right places and was still installing it when Cappa showed up. I packed the truck and off we went

No more than 15 miles out of town, we stopped for food, and I mentioned how my truck was running at approximately 230 degrees, according to my 400-mile old Auto Meter gauge. We compared underhood temperatures and decided to let it ride.

We got about 10 miles out from lunch when Cappa flagged me down and pulled me over. My gauge had been indicating somewhere over 250 degrees for the last 20 minutes, but I was letting it ride. Well, my overflow container was boiling over, and on the side of the road we found out that one of my electric fans had spit the blades off the motor.

So after another 60 miles, two stops to work on my truck, and four hours later, we called the whole trip off because my truck was the last hope, and it just wouldn't run cool enough to continue. At the rate we were going, it would have taken four days to get to Colorado. But, hey, at least my steering works!