1980 Autocar "Construcktor" Returns to the Road after many many Years!

foreign [Music] hey everybody welcome back to diesel creek my name is matt behind me my 1980 auto car constructor in the last video on this truck we started going through it and we started finding all the issues on it and i started correcting them i'm trying to get this thing on the road i need this truck to be able to move my large equipment around when i purchased the truck it had some frame extensions on the rear i think it had a flat bed in a former life however i am converting it to be a road tractor with a fifth wheel hitch for pulling low boys flat decks you know what have you so in today's episode we're gonna finish out this project and get it back on the road for the first time and god knows how long so stick around and let's get to it so after we had this truck up in the air the other day i brought it in here to the shop and i noticed that big oil spot on the tire and the rim right there you guys see that you know what that means that means we have an axle seal going bad over here and it's allowing oil to escape from the differential into the brake area you can also see there's another spot down there at the bottom of the rim it's running down the wheel so to change the axle seal we're gonna have to pull off the tires and the hub and it's gonna be a project let's get to it [Music] so all right well since i was planning on doing this i jacked up the rear end obviously to take the tires off and that's double that's doing double duty for us right now because that also allows any oil that's out here at the end of the axle to run back to the pumpkin so the axle is leaning like so so to get that hub off of there we have to pull the axle shaft and then we'll unbolt the hub from the brake drum and then we might be able to get in there to the axle seal finally so [Music] gotta pull all these wedges out of here before that axle is gonna come out [Music] uh-huh [Music] i figured that was gonna happen i'm hitting up against the greater wheel out of the frame here and uh i got the starter out of the grater right now and this truck obviously isn't in commission to move what am i gonna do here can you see our predicament here so so there we go that was easy huh [Music] all right as you can see now we have to take off our axle nut that puts the load on the bearing there and that's a four inch nut and i don't have any sockets that size i'm going to try it with a chisel first these usually aren't very tight at all but now all i'm doing is tearing up the nut well i've finally got a four inch socket [Music] let's get this thing off of here oh there we go yeah i don't think i got that with a chisel locking ring now the actual nut all right with those nuts off of there this whole hub and drum assembly should come off as you can imagine it's pretty darn heavy so i'm probably going to have to use the skid loader and a strap so well here's the part where i screwed up and you're gonna see i struggled and struggled and struggled some more to get this hub and drum off of the brake shoes i have never actually done one of these on a full-size semi truck with air brakes i have only done them on like dually pickup trucks and smaller hydraulic brake vehicles and what i should have done from the very get-go here was back the slack adjuster on the brake shoes off all the way to the point where they're not contacting the drum and this thing probably would have just slung right off of there but i paid my stupid tax and did it the hard way and thought about it when i reassembled oh yeah come on baby [Music] yes that was an ordeal good lord oh yeah yeah you can tell that one's been leaking for quite a while man look at the puddle of oil down there and inside here what a disgusting mess i'm gonna go through a case of brake clean just to clean all this crap man that sucks [Music] [Music] well over an hour and several cans of break clean later have this uh brake assembly all cleaned up here looking good i was kind of concerned about those uh brake shoes they were pretty greasy but uh they seem to have cleaned up pretty well i'm not too concerned about them i'm still working on the uh the drum here as you can see it is a disaster i was going to try to keep it all together but i decided to screw that i'm going to go ahead and zip these bolts out of here separate these halves make it easier to clean after about another hour and what felt like three days of scraping and wire brushing and spraying and wiping and spraying and wiping and spraying and wiping i've got this drum nice and clean now my hand was already dirty that's not a representation the the drum is clean um and the hub is also clean i just picked up our new seal and we're ready to install to put this back together you're going to want to take the bearing that came out of here you don't want to switch these they're the same bearing on each side of the hub but really once they're worn together like this you you don't want to change them out so now we should take our seal and you got to read it it says this side says oil side right there so that goes down towards the bearings that are going to be in the oil now you take your persuader and don't go crazy all right i think we got that down all the way now that seal is going to hold the bearing in there until we're ready to install it that sucker's heavy so do [Music] all right i think that's tight enough we're ready to install this thing there's a tit sticking out of the nut here we have to keep that facing out that engages in our locking ring so we tighten that nut down all the way which loads the bearings up and the whole time you're snugging it you keep rotating the hub so that you don't get the bearings cocked in some weird position or something but just keep spinning this thing and then you run it down pretty darn tight but then you back it off you got to make sure you back it off because if you leave the bearing loaded like that you're going to just destroy the bearings it's way too much pressure to have on them because uh these bearings are going to get hotter and when they get hotter they expand so if you have this nut real snug you're not going to have any room for that expansion and you're going to break stuff or wear stuff out or whatever so once you seat the bearing you're going to come back in here and just ever so slightly snug this thing up you're not looking to put any pressure on it at all really run it down until it stops and it's time for our fancy pants locking ring here now if you look at the locking ring it has a tab in there which goes into a keyway and then all these little holes are to engage with that tip that's on that nut so hopefully yeah we actually have to back it off just a touch to be able to line up with one of those tits that looks beautiful now the outer nut here the locking nut you want to put some pressure on you still don't have to go crazy but you want to make sure it's not going to vibrate loose over the going down the road all right that should be it all right with that bearing set and the lock nut tightened down we are ready to stick our axle back in now we could replace this gasket but it's really not that bad this drives me nuts you'll see people put these things back in here and use three tubes of silicone or something putting it back in here and there'll be silicone busting out at the seams all the way around this thing you don't need all that i like to use this permatex number two you don't need a lot you just a little skim coating all the way around here and when that thing clamps down on there it'll push it all the places it needs to be all right that should be all we need [Music] [Music] so [Music] i'm gonna put all these wedge locks in first [Music] releasing schmoo yeah well it's not the color it's supposed to be on the plug here got some sludge but i don't feel any big chunks of metal so that's a good sign i think we'll be all right just need some fresh fluid looks like it has some water in it maybe all right last thing to drain here this oil looks better doesn't seem to be any water in this one yeah same thing as the other one just some fine very very fine metal flake i mean that's pretty normal out of a rear end like this nothing bad at all i think these hold about three or four gallons [Applause] well i think you can tell the stack there has seen some better days not only has it been up there the elbow has been patched several times and it leaks like a sieve so i got some new parts let's get this thing looking better right [Music] so wow aha success [Music] all right let's go straighten that bracket out old fat alice provides us a nice stable surface for beating on so let's commence the beating [Music] now we got that straightened out nicely [Music] [Music] so [Applause] [Music] so [Music] do there we go huh looks so much better looked like it clipped the tree branch or something before got it nice and squared up to the cab she's ready for the road [Music] [Music] [Music] all right so i'm sure most of you probably know but this is the fifth wheel plate aka the hitch that connects to uh full size full-size semi-trailers here this particular hitch came off of a cab over international so the bolt holes don't exactly perfectly line up now a couple of them do i think but the white marks are the ones that we're gonna make fit here so so i got the rails loosened up on there i got the hitch sitting up on a block of wood so that i could eyeball this stuff up i got to pull out all these bolts on the frame that are in a in our way here and then we'll set it down on there and drill them out all right well in addition to drilling some holes here you see i got that one bolt through there i'm looking down here i'm gonna have to cut this piece down because it's hitting the suspension mount here so we'll probably take about an inch off of that maybe maybe inch and a quarter actually and that'll get us down to where this thing sits flush with the top of the frame rail so [Applause] um [Applause] we got all of our bolts in here with the exception of this guy right here i'm going to go ahead and drill it after we get this bracket exactly where it needs to be so i got the bolts in it just loose right now and once i have the other side done we'll lower the plate all the way down onto the frame where it's supposed to be and we'll snug up those bolts at the same time that'll set the correct height because this is slotted so this thing can go up and down arbitrarily based upon where the the plate sits on the frame so we need everything to kind of jive just right so after that's in place that'll be the last thing i do drill out that last bolt hole and put a new bolt in it that's actually one more bolt than this thing had holding it on the other truck so i feel good about that [Music] [Music] so [Music] so so so [Music] all right there we go we got this baby all mounted up been a long time coming now one thing we didn't discuss about this hitch is that uh this hitch is what's called a slider hitch so you'll see these rails here this hitch can be unlatched and slid forward or backward to change the weight distribution on the axles now if this was a solid mount hitch meaning one that wouldn't be able to slide my understanding that you'd want to mount it just ahead of the pivot here for the axles so somewhere like right around here and that's typically where this is going to run anyways but uh you know it's nice to be able to have that very ability to transfer the weight more onto the steer axles or off the steer axles depending on what you're hauling now this one over here is covered in junk but this is the solid mount on the 57 auto car and it is just ahead of the axle which is uh a little bit different too because this is a single axle versus the tandem like this auto car is i've never tried to unlatch this thing yet i'm hoping it's not seized up because we sure don't want it all the way back there i don't have it rigged up into the cab yet but i'm going to try to just put some air to this airline and hopefully those latches kick out and maybe we can slide this thing forward all right i'm just going to use the uh blow gun here blow some air in here and there's a dog here on each side and we'll see if these things kick out you ready contact hey look at that huh looky there now those things need lubed up substantially obviously they came out which is good but they uh they're not wanting to go back in [Applause] [Music] so [Music] huh i'm gonna be abundantly clear that i do not like these brackets they don't have clearance for a stinking socket on them and you know i don't care how the rear end of your truck's configured it's probably not a great place to be putting an open-end wrench on either there we go [Music] i went ahead and sprung for the springy ones because i see too many of the rigid mud flap holders snapped off from fatigue of bouncing down the road [Music] well i was going to try to tie in these tail lights with this uh junction box back here but when i pulled the cover off i found it to be completely full of dirt all these terminals are rusted over i don't think we're going to be using this one so i picked up a new one we got to switch all this over this is the stupid little setbacks that take you forever because i bet you all these nuts are gonna fight me [Music] well as a lot of you guys have pointed out in the comments we got two different size eyeballs going on here on this rig and uh we got to do something about that it's driving me crazy [Applause] [Applause] all right so we have our hitch mounted here now we can hook up trailers but we need to be able to have connections for our air lines and for our lights and everything so i have a brand new set here this is uh your service airline and your emergency airline and your 710 connector so all those connections are back here on the back of the cab we have to put some tees in there these two air lines already run to the back here in case i want to put a regular pintle hitch on so that's our emergency and our service line right there so we're going to t into those back up at the cab and i'm going to leave these two here in case in the future i want to put a pintle hitch on i already have the air connections here got new glad hand connections here it's already got thread sealant on there so [Music] so [Music] i wish they were all that easy to install we have our air lines completely connected and configured how we want them here i have that bungee up there that's just temporary until i can find the proper spring deal to hold that thing up there but i even see trucks going down the highway all the time using nothing more but bungees so i feel pretty good about that [Music] i was gonna get a special hanger to go on the back here and hold these uh leads but i tell you what they really they stick in there pretty nicely they definitely can't come out they're wedged in there nice i don't know what the dot will think about that but i'm sure you guys will let me know all right well it's the stupidest little things that always end up taking you the longest i'm not even gonna sit here and go into the odyssey that was connecting these taillights but the bottom line is it was a lot of wiring and uh i hate wiring but i got it done so that much closer to legal well just got my license plate from the notary and in case you're wondering the gvw on this truck is 80 000 pounds which means that this license plate that's not actually the plate the registration fee for this truck per year in the state of pennsylvania 2500 not cheap to run these big trucks well next thing i need to do here is change out these tires as you can see these steer tires here are awful cracked up and those are no longer safe for the road so these are 100 20s which is a hard size to come by anymore you can still get them but they don't make a whole lot of different tread patterns and what little ones they do are mostly steers and uh trailer tires so the other reason i don't like these 100 20s on here is look they just kind of look small in that fender well the look of the truck is uh not a critical thing but it is considered here so i actually have a couple 12r 22.5 tires off of my international parts truck and it has a couple real nice steer tires so i went ahead and pulled those off we'll get going to get them put on here and we're going to have some uh safe steer tires to be able to take down the road when you're tightening down these old uh dayton style rims you stick a block or a hammer or something and then spin the tire and watch that gap see there's the tire we're gonna be putting on the left and you can see how much the tire is quite true you've got a 100 kind of work the nuts around until you get that thing spinning really true so [Music] when you're tightening down these old uh dayton style rims you stick a block or a hammer or something and then spin the tire and watch that gap see how it gets fatter and smaller it means we don't have the tire quite true so you got to kind of work the nuts around until you get that thing spinning really true after some adjusting of the nuts we got that gap tightened up greatly the only little wobble we have there i think is actually an irregularity in the tire well as you can see i got a couple of cab lights that are busted out there while i don't dislike these lenses i think they have a nice old-school look to them i can't find them anywhere i've looked all over the internet part stores seem to be unavailable so i'm not going to break them but i'm going to take them off of there and i got some new led ones we're going to put on look at that nice original orange i wish i still had that color now we got five different shades of rust [Music] [Music] so [Music] all right well i just got all the wiring done here moment of truth let's uh see if these babies come on uh well three out of five ain't good there we go so apparently there's a correct and incorrect way to install these in the socket i didn't know that i wouldn't have because i didn't read the directions probably so i can't really be mad at the kit there we go five out of five we're ready to hit the road now also just because i'm sure i'm going to get some comments about it you guys can tell the window weatherstripping has seen some better days i have some calls into some window glass people and i am going to get that replaced post haste because it's actually leaking inside the cab because it's so bad so with my incredible luck i managed to rip the mud flap off feet outside of the shop this mudflap is brand new it hasn't seen a hundred feet of roadway and i ripped it right off there one of those days [Music] uh [Music] hmm so so um we're trying to get this trailer hitched up here but as you can see i got a gap on this side and it's tight on the other side and the reason that is is because the ground is so uneven here so the truck is leaning and the trailer isn't not much i can do about that really i'm gonna have to uh i'm gonna have to probably drag the trailer out of this spot with the loader and hook up to it on the flat better so [Music] [Music] hmm oh so i don't know if you guys can see in the video but the jaws aren't latching they're coming around the pin but they're not like the actual latch part isn't happening so yeah i'm gonna pull back out from underneath of it and we're gonna have to inspect that and figure out why those things aren't latching nothing's ever easy now i should hope it would go without saying that i have been spraying the crap out of this thing with not only penetrating oil but soaking it down with grease and everything else even prior to installing this thing because i anticipated having these jaws be a little bit sticky but uh it doesn't seem to have helped our case here so this guy right here is our release and i can tell it should be pulling out further than this so what happens when you back in here the kingpin rides down onto this trap door thingy here and slams into that jaw when that happens these locking jaws out here should come in around behind the kingpin and then trap it well everybody i am very disappointed i do not like to leave cliffhanger endings on these videos and i was dead set on getting this trailer connected and uh hauling a piece of equipment around i was probably gonna take old fat alice here for a short joy ride the truck is legal now i do have to get it inspected yet but everything is there for it to be inspected and i don't know what's causing the hang up with these fifth wheel jaws so i'm gonna have to uh really study these things and inspect it and figure out what the hold up is there um there's several different types of fifth wheel jaws uh that believe this is a simplex so i'm gonna have to find the breakdown online it's hard to see up underneath there especially with everything caked in like two inches of grease so unfortunately that's gonna turn into its own whole video i wasn't gonna do that i still have time today but mother nature is telling me it's time to cut this one off i just looked at the radar and there is a big blob of red thunderstorm coming at me that was not in today's forecast so so i got a whole bunch of tools to put away before this rain lets loose i appreciate you guys watching and hanging out with me if you would please hit the thumbs up video down below i have a sweat through my shirt about 15 times in this one for you guys so let me know i'm doing a good job hit that thumbs up below and really means a lot to me if you want to help support the channel and do it in style head on over to dieselcreek.com get yourself a hat a t-shirt a beer koozie some stickers whatever it is and you can help support the channel and look good doing it anyways guys that's all i got for today i'm gonna get out of this weather before i get struck by lightning as always thanks for watching i'll see you on the next one [Music] you

Channel: Diesel Creek

Views: 1,858,431

Keywords: autocar, semi, big, rig, largecar, diesel, cam, cummins, detroit, caterpillar, construcktor, small cam, 855, ntc

Id: J0yQqM3rkOU

Length: 55min 45sec (3345 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 24 2022