New front wheel cylinders and brake shoes

The wheels are notoriously difficult to remove on the old travcos with the lower fibreglass skirts. It involves: Jacking up on frame and letting suspension sag, on passenger front wheel turn wheels left, repeat the other way on left and lots of wiggling. Also it was jacked up quite a bit but that still doesn’t help with the tight clearance front to back and side to side around the bolts. On ours the driver side is also reverse lugs. It’s a tough removal!

We replaced the front wheel cylinders and brake shoes. The parts were from Napa Canada; wheel cylinders 28720 and 28721 ($55.00 each), and brake shoes TS-33a Proformer ($52.00 a set). Our vintage manual is great help for mechanical work and copies can sometimes be found on Ebay. Some photos of the manual and work below. 

New brake booster

Myrtle's brakes were a bit soft so we embarked on the adventure of replacing her brake booster. Myrtle has a single hydraulic system with one Midland Ross brake booster; #C-462. Refurbished boosters are sold by a few companies. Unfortunately the first one we ordered online was not a match for our booster, as you can see from the photo below, it is smaller than our original one. It is stamped Midland #C-8400-4, and we will be looking to sell this refurbished one as it can not be returned for a refund.

Luckily we were able to connect with a local company in Calgary; Fleet Products/KBR Brakes, who were able to quickly identify the correct replacement and had one in stock! This company has an American counterpart as well; Power Brake Sales. This website was super helpful in trouble shooting and installation: http://dave78chieftain.com/MidlandRoss.html In addition our vintage Dodge Trucks resource book was quite helpful, a few excerpts are below:

The new booster is a Midland Ross C-462, installed, all nicely refurbished and painted. We also found a new booster air cleaner 1/2 inch (part number 2503225).

Pump Problems

This season we needed to replace two pumps. The first was the fuel pump. There was some difficulty in getting it as the person working at the first place we tried was unable to look anything up with out a part number and insisted they were all electric, even though the mechanical fuel pumps are common on older trucks. Thankfully we found educated staff at the local Auto Value and got a Carter mechanical fuel pump replacement (part number M6866), which we installed ourselves. The pump was inexpensive, under $40.00.

The second pump was the water pump, which we discovered was broken, as we were heading out for our first camping trip of 2016. We apparently left it on for months with an empty tank, thus burning it out. The new one auto shut off. We found a SHURflo brand one (part number: 4008-171-E65) at an RV store on our way, planning to install it once we got set up at the campsite. A warning to others, confirm if your current water pump is wired for AC or DC. Our pump was DC and we bought an AC one. With some extra effort, we were able to make it work as we re-routed AC instead of DC. This pump was unfortunately far more expensive than the fuel pump, coming in at $330.00.

So now Myrtle again reliably pumps both fuel and water!

New starter relay

On Myrtle's last trip she was a little testy with starting so today we spent sometime investigating. We originally thought of her ballast resistors but then remembered we had upgraded her to a new electronic ignition. We picked up a new starter relay from Napa (part #SR4) and installed it. She starts up great!

                     

Almost there!

Myrtle is getting very close to completion. The new exhaust manifold was installed today and works well. We also put in a new Victor Reinz exhaust manifold gasket that we purchased at Napa. We took her for a test drive and she she runs great! I also tried out the solar power system by using the the vacuum to clean out some accumulated debris. It had great power and barely made a dent in the stored battery power levels. The AC and DC power is working great.

We were also able to add in some nice decorative touches including a hanging a clock and a piece of metal art. The curtains were a great find from a vintage store called Populuxe. They are new old stock and in mint condition. We added in some extra security with new strike plates on the doors as well.

Tomorrow we are hoping to drop her off to get her new windshields put in as well as the back window resealed.

New 318 poly exhaust manifold!

As luck would have it, I was talking (whining) about trying to repair or find a replacement 318 poly exhaust manifold at a local parts store, and one of the staff mentioned having a 1965 318 at home. He called the next day with the manifold removed and we bought it for $60.00. It lines up with the old manifold and should hopefully be a good fit. From the photos you can see the new and old manifold, a close up of the JB Weld we attempted (NOTE I don't know if works as we are going with the new manifold now) and a photo of the passenger side manifold (which at this point is still intact on Myrtle).

318 Poly Engine Resources

Mopar Magazine (September 2001) has an article on the 318 Poly Engine: "Chrysler's Poly-Head Engine - Mopar's Rodney Dangerfield Part 1 The Lowly 318 Poly Engine Gets No Respect"

There is a 318 Poly Yahoo Group as well.

Master Cylinder & Exhaust Manifold

Today we had intentions of installing the new master cylinder for the brakes, which we found via Family Car Parts. They were great to deal with!

However, we not only found out that we did not have the correct wrench, but also that the exhaust manifold was broken. (Note the photo of the cast metal corner busted off). Now we will either be hunting for a new exhaust manifold (for a 318 poly) or finding someone to weld the original cast metal one back together. We located the correct exhaust manifold gasket via our local Napa Dealer.

Lights, vent and vintage cooler!

I was pleased to receive my new door seal, amber and red teardrop marker lights, and metal roof vent from Vintage Trailer Supply. The lights and vent needed to be replaced due to last year's violent hail storm. All the items look great, and the ordering and shipping process was a breeze. I am looking forward to installing the new items.

I also scored a great vintage aluminum cooler at an estate sale. A perfect accessory for Myrtle.

Windshield Wipers

We found two 212 wiper arms from AM Equipment (https://www.amequipment.com) from Traction Heavy Duty Parts (https://www.traction.com/en/) and they installed well. We mounted them on new Cadel (https://ecommerce.cadel.ca/en) marine windshield wiper motors, found a boat store. The wood underneath the dash (where the previous motors were bolted in) was all rotten so it was removed. We bolted the wipers on with out replacing the wood. In retrospect, with the removal of the wood, we should have got wiper motors with shorter stems (the part that goes from the motor through the exterior to the arms). However, the longer stems still worked well.

The 318 poly engine

The 1957 - 1967 Mopar 318 Poly (Semi-Hemi) 'A' engine used in Myrtle has a partial hemispherical head. It is a mostly different engine from the modern 1967+ Mopar 318- 340 - 360 small block 'LA' motor which has a wedge head.

A decent history of the Poly engines:

http://www.allpar.com/mopar/a-engines.html

While we originally toyed with dropping in a new Mopar crate engine (maybe even a Viper crate), the idea of having a cool retro engine just became too tempting.

Often Overshadowed By Their Hemi Brethren, They Might Be The New Cool:

http://www.streetrodderweb.com/tech/0805sr_vintage_engines/index.html

Some of the parts on the lower part of the 'LA' block are interchangeable, but almost everything from the cam up is different (excluding the ignition).

The 318 Poly was not a popular performance motor, so often the parts are harder to find, or there won't be as great of selection. However, you can get everything you need to rebuild an 'A' engine here:

http://www.kanter.com///productdetail.aspx?Tg=2738794&Mak=Dodge&Yr=64&Dv=1&Dpt=1400&Sb=0&Vdr=&Itm=&MDv=1&MDpt=0&MSb=0&Cat=31&Prc=1650

The Travco weighs 10,000+ lbs. With a 318 Poly stock engine it keeps up; but that's about it. Don't worry... you can add a little bit of performance to this engine; The 318 Poly heads produce excellent torque for the engines relatively small displacement. This isn't a bad thing in a motorhome like a Travco.

Performance gains can be found with a cast iron OEM 4 barrel dual plane intake, or even the aluminum 6 barrel dual plane intake (Edelbrock P600). You do not want the Weiand single plane intake. A single plane will reduce torque at lower RPMs. You are driving a motorhome. You want torque at low RPMs.

Myrtle is upgrading to the Edelbrock P600 with 3 x 2 barrel Rochester carbs configured with progressive linkage. We will set this up so that most of the driving is done with only the centre carb (providing decent gas mileage), with the outboard carbs opening for extra power when you floor it. That's the plan anyway...

Carbs and stuff can be found here:

http://www.parts123.com/PartFrame.asp?ZTM=cadegdha&GHOME=www.vintagespeed.com&TITLE=VINTAGE_SPEED

You'll have to scrounge for the intake.

Headers for your Travco? TTI makes the only Poly headers I am aware of. We have some TTI "LA" headers on the Dodge Dart and they are very good quality. I have no idea if the Poly headers will fit on a Travco. There is a lot of room under there, so they might be OK, but you would need to modify where they connect into the rest of the exhaust.

http://www.ttiexhaust.com/Header-TTI318BC/Polyheaders.htm

Here are some forums to ask any questions you might have.

Performance Poly Forum

http://www.diamondbackengines.com/forums/index.php/board,6.0.html

Yahoo Poly Forum. This group knows there stuff.

http://autos.groups.yahoo.com/group/318poly/

Myrtle is officially a registered Canadian!

After an expensive overhaul of key safety and mechanical items Myrtle has passed her "out of province" inspection and is registered with her brand new plates. She required new 7 new tires (Yokohama Y785R), steering linkage, shocks, speedometer repair, new brakes, new drive shaft, new bearings & bushings, and assorted flushes. We had the repairs done at the wonderful Dale Adams Automotives They source all the hard to find parts and tires too.

Camping summer 2010! Well... there is still the small issue of installing her new windshield and assorted other repairs like engine tune up and some interior work.

Purrs like a kitten

Before the big storm, we tuned up the engine and completed the following; new electronic ignition, new spark plugs, new carburetor linkage, new fuel lines, new fluids, checked the timing, cleaned carburetor, fixed the choke, fixed the heat cross over, hooked up the heater, replaced all the hoses, and a rad new paint job!

The awesome book on the Dodge 318 came in handy!

Bed and Bolts!

We removed the back little shelf that was in the bed area. This gave us an extra long bed space, totaling about 86 inches. We got a custom built extra soft, with pillow top, foam mattress that fits the length and the curved side. It made the most sense for us! The bed is from Labbe Bedding.

Now for the bolts... bolts of energy! We bought the entire solar power system today including two solar panels, inverter, remote control and two six volt batteries.

We also found two 212 oscillating AM Equipment wiper motors from Traction Heavy Duty Parts We'll see how they install!