Furnace repair and beds

Last time we had the Travco out in cold weather, the furnace fan was not starting on its own and required a helping hand to get it spinning. Not good at night while you are sleeping, but luckily at the time we had shore power and electric heaters on board. Anyway, I took the blower until out, it has a universal motor in it. It works on either AC or DC, so regardless which way you supply power it always turns in the correct direction. Unless of course the brushes are stuck. As the oil for the bearings got old, it got sticky. Apparently in the past someone had over oiled the motor, and so the oil had made its way to the brushes and as it got old and sticky it gummed them up so they would not advance and maintain contact with the commutator. So I cleaned the brushes and their tubes and hopefully I am good to go for another 44 years! Oh, just as a note, one of the brushes had the following number on it, 2189. might be a part number? Anyway, I plan to take the rig out in the next month to go camping at Devil's Den. I am going to remove one of the two counter tops, the one behind the driver and put a homemade tri-bunk in its place. I have ordered three 30x72" foam mattresses. I am going to cut down bed frame rails donated from family and weld or bolt them together. Can't really start building until I get the mattresses.

Storage for Genny

It has always been my procedure to run an engine's carb bowl out of fuel if possible, before storing for a period of time.
Motorcycles, lawnmowers, even the 440 on the Travco. (I turn the electric fuel pump off an wait the minute or two for it to die)

I was going to put a shut-off valve on the Kohler to do so, until I realized I could run the genny, pull and hold-up the priming lever on the fuel pump until it died from fuel starvation. I thought I would share this with those fellow Kohler L600/L654 owners. Don't forget to return the lever to the normal lowered position when done.

'66 Travco (California) & '67 Travco AC Electrical Wiring

I have posted some pictures here of how our two Travcos have input power connected to them.
Both Travcos have Kohler 6.5C63 6.5KW water-cooled generators.

The '67 has a 240VAC 4 pin receptacle on the genny and the Travco has a 4 pin plug to insert into it.




The '67 plugged into the Kohler genny.






The worse for wear power cord receptacle to plug the '67 RV into "park" power. The other end of the cord should be a standard 30 amp 3 pin RV style plug. Not shown is that the two 120VAC legs of the receptacle are shunted together.

The '66 built for California has a lockable compartment on the side opposite the generator to access the power connections.




The 3 pin twist-lock plug from the generator (240VAC) and the power input receptacle in the background on the '66. (120V leg, 120V leg, neutral, case is ground)


The '66 with a 30 amp park power cord inserted. Not shown is that the two 120V legs are shunted together inside the plug. (Generator output cord laying beside it)


The end of the 50 amp cord for the '66 that I made. This end matches 50 amp park service.





Ideally, the 3 pin twist-lock on the '66 should be replaced with a proper 4 pin twist-lock that has separate neutral and ground. Then you could use the 4 wire, 4 pin 50 amp cord to connect to a 50 amp park power outlet. If wired like the '67 it would have a 4 pin receptacle to match the RV's plug.

Winterizing

Well, the time finally came to winterize my Travco. It is fairly simple to do so...

For the curious, read on.

I remove the city water inlet plug to allow the water to drain from it to the check-valve, replace cap later. My fresh water tank does not have a drain, so I have to pump it out, I should probably add a drain to it. After it is empty, I open the drain on the water heater and open all the faucets. After that is complete, I switch the valves on the water heater to bypass, switch the intake valve to the jug-inlet, and attach the hose that goes to the anti-freeze jug. I close all the faucets but the kitchen cold and turn on the pump until I get anti-freeze, close the cold, open the hot, etc. Same with the bathroom sink, but I flush the shower hose as well. I also make sure enough goes down the traps to dilute/displace any water. With all faucets closed, I allow the system to pressurize to take on a total of 1/2 gallon of anti-freeze. I have to make sure my accumulator gets filled/diluted as well. Then I relieve the pressure in the system with a faucet. I have a monomatic toilet, so I just make sure it has dumped to the tank. Lastly I make sure the grey/black water tank is drained.

Jinxed by my last post.

I guess I jinxed myself with my last post. I was getting ready to turn around the Travco to stage for the camping trip to Devil's Den this weekend. It started on the first try, but died and would never start again. I got out the Voltmeter and checked for power at the coil, coil resistance and they were both good. I got out the O-scope and checked the output from the module and only was getting 3V. I checked the input from the pick-up and got a saw-tooth like pattern, so assumed it was good. I decided that the HEI module was bad. The PO had installed the upgrade and had soldered the connections and mounted the module on a small piece of aluminum on stand-offs from the frame. I assume that the module went bad due to overheating.

I bought a new module from Larry the parts guy and installed it directly to the metal frame around the doghouse, with thermal grease between them. Since the module was soldered in, I decided to cut the wires off and crimp-on connectors for each. One of them is the smaller 3/16" size. From the photos one of the websites from the previous post, I decided the pick-up wires were reversed as installed by the PO, so I corrected that. After doing so, I had to adjust the timing as it was back-firing. I didn't check the timing with a light, I will do that later. But after the adjustment it ran great!

Here is a picture of Ben and Jack in the back of the Travco. This weekend was a little cold, but no precipitation.

On the second day at the camp, the furnace blower started having fits. It would not spin-up without a little help. From previous posts you would know I have an old furnace and the motor has brushes. I suspect the brushes need some work. I just ran the furnace for a while before going to bed, shut it off, then used my electric heater for the rest of the night and all was well. I will post later with what I found-out. Let's hope it is not three months till my next post.

BTW, I got 6.43MPG on the round trip, it was hilly, going about 45MPH, RT was 54.8 miles. (I have a 440-3 with 727 and diff. from the original set-up with the 318.)

Electronic Ignition Conversion

There has been some talk on the Yahoo Travco group about the stock electronic ignition, so I decided to post on what I have. The previous owner of the '66 270 converted the Mopar electronic ignition (it has a '73 440 in it) to a GM HEI ignition module controlled system. He replaced the stock coil with an MSD #8202 Blaster 2 coil, 45kV output.

Here are some links in regard to similar conversions:

http://www.rowand.net/shop/tech/MoparHEIConversion.htm

http://www.designed2drive.com/

The module is basically a drop-in... Here is a quote from the first site, just the connections:

"An GM HEI module has four terminals - two at each and - that should be labeled C and B on one end, and W and G on the other end, with G being the "smaller" size terminal.

• C = Coil (negative side)
• B = Battery (positive side of the coil, or any appropriate power source that is live in ignition and start)
• W = positive lead (+) from the pickup in the distributor
• G = negative lead (-) from the pickup in the distributor"

You can eliminate the resistor if you have a coil that can handle direct connection such as mine above, or the GM E-coil that is stock with GM HEI (without computer control).

'67 Dodge Mahaul Master Cylinder Rebuild Middle

I have completed modifications to the master cylinder for the remote reservoir. All I need to do now is do a finish hone of the cylinder to remove any paint over-spray, install the new pistons and check-valves in the MC, and partially fill and bench-bleed the MC. I have temporarily connected the hoses that were used on the Mitsubishi Eclipse for the pictures. I need to check the heights, but I should be able to mount the reservoir on the metal frame behind the engine and run the two hoses to the MC... maybe 3 feet away? Then I will need to create a dash LED to illuminate when the fluid level gets low.

I will be posting to the Yahoo Travco group asking how much interest there would be for a group buy on a kit including a used reservoir w/bracket, hoses, fittings, cap, gasket, clamps, and cover hold-down bolts. I would not do this to make money per-se, but to allow others to enjoy this upgrade. Quantities would affect the cost. Everything would be new except the reservoir, but I could find some new ones as well I am sure, I just pulled this off of one of my parts cars.