Available Manufacturing Company

[td25c]

This is an obscure one to me as I never heard off them before until I cleaned off the ID tag on the Insley crane carrier truck unit .

Tag says " Available Manufacturing Company " . Made in Chicago Illinois .

1953 vintage with Waukesha gas engines .

Pulled Old Roy out of the shed yesterday & rigged up for dragline . Got a couple ponds to go dip out and the excavator wont reach it all .

 

[Truck Shop]

That's how Bill Lampson started-operating a drag line.

Truck Shop

 

[td25c]

Ok ........ Who welded the becket ?


LOL !

We replaced the 1/2 inch bucket cable . Man ........ The old wedge on top of the bucket was froze tight .

Me and the Old Man both took turns at whaling on it with the sledge hammer .

We gave up beating on it and sliced it down the center with a cut off wheel . She came right out then and glued it back with 7018 .

Crazy how tight that wedge was .

 

[td25c]

That's how Bill Lampson started-operating a drag line.

Truck Shop

Funny story about this job I'm going to .

We were at a camp fire / barley soda party one evening and got to talking jobs & equipment .

Customer speaks up & says he's got a couple ponds to clean out and asks " why don't people use draglines anymore " ?

To be honest I did not have a good answer . Ya got good reach , don't have to drain the pond . He lets his cattle run in the pond so this don't have to look real pretty .

This cat wants to keep it simple , just dip out the mud & cast it out . He will come back later with his farm tractor / loader & move the material where he want's after it dries out .

 

[JasonG]

That's funny, ya don't see them these days.
When I was a teen, they were everywhere it seemed. Spent some time in one myself.

 

[td25c]

Yeah Jason , It was pretty funny . Customer calls me out " why don't people use drag lines any more " ?

Customer is pretty cool , retired airline pilot that started out flying C- 130 cargo ships in Viet Nam .

His job is perfect for a drag line , water hole for the cattle .

He likes to keep things simple & cost effective , I'm the same way .

Looks like Manitex has " Little Giant " now . Always thought they were pretty cool rigs mixing old school with new iron options .

https://www.manitex.com/_images/6430.jpg

https://www.manitex.com/products.aspx?s=Little+Giant

 

[td25c]

Swapped out a flat tire . Grabbed the breaker bar figuring the lugs would be bull tight .

Surprisingly the Dewalt 1/2 electric impact spun them off . That's been a pretty handy gun on odd jobs .

 

[td25c]

Saved the best for last . Exhaust manifold leaking on the truck .

Pulled the manifold and it came off in pieces , not to mention some holes rusted through on some of the cylinder ports .

Knew I was opening a " can of worms " but I hate exhaust leaks .

Got " Humpty Dumpty " welded back & sealed up . There went a Saturday I'll never get back LOL !

Install it in the morning .

 

[td25c]

Manifold Gasket ?

We replaced this gasket about 20 years ago . Got the gasket though an engine rebuilder " Jasper Engines " .

Gonna call them with some engine ID numbers this week to see if they can still get one .


Until then over the week end we just went " Redneck " on it & made a gasket .

Had some Fellpro paper gasket on hand . Not the best choice but that's all I had . Glued it to the block side on the engine .

Then stole a roll of tin foil off the wife Peeled off about a 4 inch wide section and rolled it up tight .

Then formed it in a circle & glued it to the manifold side .

Got it all back together this evening , got a few little hisses & spits around some of the welds but huge improvement over what we had before .

This rascle was pretty rotten .

Next round going back with Hooker header & 750 Holley double pump carb .

https://www.holley.com/brands/hooker/

https://www.holley.com/products/fuel_systems/carburetors/double_pumper/classic_double_pumper/parts/0-4779C

 

[Truck Shop]

When comes to repair on obsolete engine parts a man has got to do what ever to make it run. Looks like it will work for the time being.

Truck Shop

 

[rzucker]

You gotta love that old stuff that still does it's job. I had to fix a manifold like that on an old 6602 Continental in a 5 ton military truck... Lucky for me they had a core engine to bolt it on to as a jig to keep it straight. Those big gassers will run real hot in the manifolds if the ignition timing isn't up to snuff or the carb is dribbling.

 

[td25c]

When comes to repair on obsolete engine parts a man has got to do what ever to make it run. Looks like it will work for the time being.

Truck Shop

Good point Truck Shop !

One customer is a retired truck driver . Guy had a pretty good head on his shoulders . Gave me the lay down years ago how to deal with problem issues .

There's what you want to do ........... And there's what ya can do right now with what ya have on hand .

Focus the " can do " first . Don't wait on anyone !

Then after the dust clears concentrate on what you want to do later .

I pretty much live by that

 

[td25c]

You gotta love that old stuff that still does it's job. I had to fix a manifold like that on an old 6602 Continental in a 5 ton military truck... Lucky for me they had a core engine to bolt it on to as a jig to keep it straight. Those big gassers will run real hot in the manifolds if the ignition timing isn't up to snuff or the carb is dribbling.

I had to do the same on the Waukesha engine in the truck .

cleaned up the manifold in the shop then took the pieces back to the engine & bolted it all in place .

Tack welded best I could around the joints off the gas drive welder on the 750 Holmes .

Then removed the manifold & finished welding in the shop .

Long day . Barley sodas sure tasted good after that job

 

[Truck Shop]

Reminds me of a block I welded years ago, 1964 Ford side oiler 427. Those blocks didn't have freeze plugs but had threaded plugs instead. At high rpm they
wanted the strength in the block with threaded plugs. Anyway not enough antifreeze cracked the left side between the center and rear plug. I brazed it and
the guy ran it for another two years before he scattered it.

Truck Shop

 

[JasonG]

If Jasper doesn't have the gaskets, try Cometic.

 

[td25c]

Will do Jason , thanks for the contact .

I really need to find a new / used manifold but imagine that's a needle in the haystack item .

Engine runs great , no smoke or oil use . 404 cubic inch .

 

[rzucker]

Reminds me of a block I welded years ago, 1964 Ford side oiler 427. Those blocks didn't have freeze plugs but had threaded plugs instead. At high rpm they
wanted the strength in the block with threaded plugs. Anyway not enough antifreeze cracked the left side between the center and rear plug. I brazed it and
the guy ran it for another two years before he scattered it.

Truck Shop

It's a strange story, but in 1980 (ish) a buddy and I had a pickup full of D9G track shoes and other junk undercarriage parts from a yard cleanup at Dad's shop. Took the stuff to Pacific Recycling in Kennewick... sitting at the bottom of the cast iron pile was a 427 Side bolt block. We stared at it for 10 minutes thinking our eyes were playing tricks on us. He bought it for 20 bucks, main caps and bolts were all there, he took it to a machine shop and had it magged and measured and all checked out. I think the rest of the parts were collected over the years and it ended up in a '67 Fairlane 500.

 

[td25c]

Those big gassers will run real hot in the manifolds if the ignition timing isn't up to snuff or the carb is dribbling.

Thanks for reminding me RZ .

Exhaust manifold is smoking hot . I did check the timing this evening . A little slow but pretty close had to tweek the distributor a little .

Kind of a handy setup . Timing marks on the flywheel under an inspection cover on top of the bell housing . Only two marks , Top Dead center &#1 spark mark .

Timing light worked great & was able to get her rite on .

Funny part was I first looked at the front of the engine ? " Hay ... this Waukesha aint got a harmonic balancer with timing marks on it " .

It has the notches for a hand crank on the front of the crankshaft but I aint gonna try it
Then noticed the port on top of the bell housing . LOL !

 

[rzucker]

Yeah, I won't try to hand crank anything that doesn't have a magneto. My old Lincoln welders with the Continental engines were a piece of cake to start with a crank... Mag off, pull the choke, crank it 4 turns and pull it up to compression, mag on and pull the crank... off they would go. Tried one with a distributor and a good battery once... Bad juju. Never again. The impulse coupling on a mag makes all the difference firing after TDC.

 

[Truck Shop]

It's a strange story, but in 1980 (ish) a buddy and I had a pickup full of D9G track shoes and other junk undercarriage parts from a yard cleanup at Dad's shop. Took the stuff to Pacific Recycling in Kennewick... sitting at the bottom of the cast iron pile was a 427 Side bolt block. We stared at it for 10 minutes thinking our eyes were playing tricks on us. He bought it for 20 bucks, main caps and bolts were all there, he took it to a machine shop and had it magged and measured and all checked out. I think the rest of the parts were collected over the years and it ended up in a '67 Fairlane 500.

I had a pile of 66 and 67 Fairlane parts plus three complete 66 Fairlanes. Two GTA's one with a 390 and another with a manual shift C6, solid cam, sidewinder intake topped with a Holley 850 three barrel
on top of a 428. Heads were built to 427 spec's. The third was a GT 4sp big shaft top loader with same basic engine, a 428. The red one below was the 390 powered day driver. The wheels that were
normally on it were Ansen's, I had those off for polishing. One pic of my sand rail at S.I.R. I won first out of 38 cars in my bracket 2. Got moved to bracket 1 and lost the second race, that was in 1979.
And two Toronado's I restored mechanically a friend did the body work and paint. The red is a 66, blue a 67. Sorry to high jack your thread TD.

Truck Shop