Building La Tortuga: 1983 Ford-Collins E350 4x4 ShortBus

Lunchbox2

Explorer
With yours being coil-spring, it does limit your options on front axles. The HP dana 44 will hold up pretty good as long as you're not trying to rock-crawl it. You are pushing the limits with the weight of the bus and 36" tall tire, but it'll do fine in snow/sand/mud type situations. Your best bet would be to look into 05+ ford superduty axles if you want to go to a one-ton set up. They use a ball-joint dana 60 up front, using coil springs and radius arms, and a 10.5" Sterling axle in the rear, and they can be bought as a pair for less than $1000. Look into U-joint offroad, chris builds some crazy *** ford vans, and he recently did a later-model bus, he'd be the man to talk to about all that.

I'm not real familiar with the axles under that travelall, IH did some funky stuff back then. But if it's a kingpin dana 60 under the front, that alone is worth $1000+. You might be able to part it out and make enough money to get what you need? If you're on facebook, go join the 4x4 vans page, tell em' Lunchbox told you to join up. There's a dude named Billy Huffstetler on there, and he's a bank of knowledge on the 4x4 vans, both ford and chevy. Plus people would love your bus!
 

KeyserSoSay

Adventurer
With yours being coil-spring, it does limit your options on front axles. The HP dana 44 will hold up pretty good as long as you're not trying to rock-crawl it. You are pushing the limits with the weight of the bus and 36" tall tire, but it'll do fine in snow/sand/mud type situations. Your best bet would be to look into 05+ ford superduty axles if you want to go to a one-ton set up. They use a ball-joint dana 60 up front, using coil springs and radius arms, and a 10.5" Sterling axle in the rear, and they can be bought as a pair for less than $1000. Look into U-joint offroad, chris builds some crazy *** ford vans, and he recently did a later-model bus, he'd be the man to talk to about all that.

I'm not real familiar with the axles under that travelall, IH did some funky stuff back then. But if it's a kingpin dana 60 under the front, that alone is worth $1000+. You might be able to part it out and make enough money to get what you need? If you're on facebook, go join the 4x4 vans page, tell em' Lunchbox told you to join up. There's a dude named Billy Huffstetler on there, and he's a bank of knowledge on the 4x4 vans, both ford and chevy. Plus people would love your bus!

Thanks, very helpful info for me. I agree, UJOR kills it, but I've always been more a collector of skills then a customer. Just as an example, when we needed a water well at our cabin we bought an old rig off the side of the road, rigged it up, and drilled ourselves a well, then traded the rig for a bulldozer.
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I don't plan on doing any rock crawling, this van is just too long and not the right vehicle for that kind of work- I've been a game warden all over NM for near 20 years and have done all the exploring I need to do- this van can get me to about 99% of the spots I'd ever want or need to get back to. My wife and I are soon retiring to my homestead off the grid (Pagosa/Arboles area) and we'll be living 3 miles and 4 creek crossings from the nearest public road and 60 miles from the nearest town, so I'm basically building this camper van to get out of the driveway and to make sure my wife is never left stranded and vulnerable.
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You've got me thinking about the travelall axles now- there are actually two of them ( guy would take $1200 for both), both are 4x4 392ci, have 60s in front and 70s in the rear, and I was looking hard at the one when I bought this van but it was going to be too much work and money comparatively- awesome though- lifted 1 ton factory conversion-stretch 6door with 8" fiberglass top (would make a great DIY pop-top camper for a travelall or even for this bus) My wife would kill me, but I'm sure I could flip one and cannibalize the other and pad my Tortuga fund a bit. Trying to complete projects before getting into more projects though......

If anyone's interested in a build/restoration of the stretch travelall, let me know and I'll put you in touch with the owner and step back, I would rather see that truck restored than parted out, it would be a shame.
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I may join the Facebook van site, but I generally try to stay off Facebook. Anyway, thanks for your input on my thread, hope to hear more from you as I get deeper into this bus.
 

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Lunchbox2

Explorer
Thanks, very helpful info for me. I agree, UJOR kills it, but I've always been more a collector of skills then a customer. Just as an example, when we needed a water well at our cabin we bought an old rig off the side of the road, rigged it up, and drilled ourselves a well, then traded the rig for a bulldozer.
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I don't plan on doing any rock crawling, this van is just too long and not the right vehicle for that kind of work- I've been a game warden all over NM for near 20 years and have done all the exploring I need to do- this van can get me to about 99% of the spots I'd ever want or need to get back to. My wife and I are soon retiring to my homestead off the grid (Pagosa/Arboles area) and we'll be living 3 miles and 4 creek crossings from the nearest public road and 60 miles from the nearest town, so I'm basically building this camper van to get out of the driveway and to make sure my wife is never left stranded and vulnerable.
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You've got me thinking about the travelall axles now- there are actually two of them ( guy would take $1200 for both), both are 4x4 392ci, have 60s in front and 70s in the rear, and I was looking hard at the one when I bought this van but it was going to be too much work and money comparatively- awesome though- lifted 1 ton factory conversion-stretch 6door with 8" fiberglass top (would make a great DIY pop-top camper for a travelall or even for this bus) My wife would kill me, but I'm sure I could flip one and cannibalize the other and pad my Tortuga fund a bit. Trying to complete projects before getting into more projects though......

If anyone's interested in a build/restoration of the stretch travelall, let me know and I'll put you in touch with the owner and step back, I would rather see that truck restored than parted out, it would be a shame.
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I may join the Facebook van site, but I generally try to stay off Facebook. Anyway, thanks for your input on my thread, hope to hear more from you as I get deeper into this bus.

That stretched travelall is sweet! But you can't have too many things on your plate, one project at a time right?! I hear ya on doing things yourself, I'm the same way. I'd much rather buy the tools, do a little research, and get it done myself than pay somebody else to do it. Look under those travelall's and take a pic of those dana 60's. I would guess that they are passenger drop low pinion designs, but still a desirable item. My 60 is a chevy low pinion passenger drop, and I paid $800 for it and THEN re-built it...

I'm jealous of your off-grid living set-up! That's my ultimate goal, is to eventually buy some land and have a self-sufficient style homestead. I've bounced back and forth from the city to the country my whole life, and I'm about ready to disappear to the mountains and never look-back. I'll never make it if I don't get this damn transmission to hold up though! LOL
 

KeyserSoSay

Adventurer
Ok, so I expect anyone tuning into this thread is probably disappointed there is no actual bus building projects on it yet, but I do wake up and fall asleep every day with the thought of forwarding my Tortuga project and the wheels of progress are turning. I've completed an important order of business this weekend, and it was a lot more work than it looks.
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I've got an adequate collection of air tools and had not been able to really use them in recent years with my little 3HP/20gallon air compressor- besides it took a dump on me. After a patient scouring I bought a like-new Devilbiss 220v 5HP/60gallon compressor off of Craigslist, for about 30% of new. I had another 220v outlet installed in the corner of my tiny and overstuffed shop. I needed an air center for all my air tools, plumbing and hoses and decided to build an all-in-one frame mounted directly to my compressor. I've got a 25ft hose real, and two other hose connectors and hoses, I've got a removable QD oiler I can use for my air tools, but separate clean hoses for spraying paint. I'm planning on boring a hole through the wall (out to my blue-room shop) large enough to pass the female connector, and lining the hole permanently with a PVC pipe that I can plug off when not in use.
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The pictures really suck as I had the backlit window screwing up all my shots, and they don't do the project justice, but you should be able to get the gist. I'm pretty tickled with how it turned out, even though it took over 20 hours of my life to build it and rig it up. I barely laid eyes on the shortbus this weekend, but this was a big hurdle in the build project.
 

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screwball48

Explorer
Looks like a worthwhile endeavor that you will see exponential return on investment from.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

KeyserSoSay

Adventurer
Not much of a post (and no pictures) but I did get some work done on the Tortuga this week and figured it should be recorded here for the grand scheme of the build thread. I'd been having hell getting and keeping the van running (which my wife has been mercilessly teasing me about) which I initially thought was some issue with the Holly 4-barrel, but came to realize It was an intermittent electrical issue. I replaces the duraspark II coil, and ignition control module and WOW! This truck runs like a Striped-*** Ape now. I was convinced I needed to move to a Fitech throttle body EFI, but now I'm not so sure, it at least lets me kick that potential upgrade down the priority list to near the bottom. One problem that will remain is the transmission kick-down does not work properly with this Holly 4-barrel, I'm told it's just not compatible with the Ford kick down, So far, I've barely and rarely notice any issue with the lack of kickdown, but we'll see if it becomes an issue to the point that I'll need to change or retrofit something.
`
I'm blown away at how simple this (1983) truck is and how much room there is in the engine compartment without a ton of electronics, wires, computers, smog-widgets, and intricate auxiliary thing-a-ma-bobbers everywhere- this was a virtue I was specifically looking for when choosing a vehicle for this build. But whoever did the engine replacement did a pretty shabby job of locating things and routing (and protecting) wires, many wires are stretched too tight in my opinion. I've bought some wire loom, loom clips, wire brackets, heat shielding, colored heat shrink, and plan a complete engine compartment makeover. I plan to relocate the coil and ignition control module and mount them on the firewall, and I am going to replace the battery cables and create an enclosed power bus aside from the battery (so I don't end up with a 300 wires clamped to the battery). I'll put this chore off until to coincide with some other jobs (replacing the power steering pump/lines/gearbox, revamping the master cylinder/brake booster, etc.) so I can basically strip everything out of the engine compartment, repaint it, (cant stand to see it school-bus yellow), and go back with everything proper.
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In the meantime, still waiting on my steel for my bumpers- and am moving forward with setting up my outdoor shop space to house the bus. I've also made some purchases to upgrade my wire-fed welder to CO2 gas as I'm sick of grinding bee-bees and now that I'm posting pics of my welds to this thread, don't want the ridicule:smilies27. Oh, and I also purchased a powder coating gun and supplies- since I already have the oven to do thermal-cure coatings, no reason not to have the ability to powder coat things when appropriate. I think my 16" rims will juuuuust fit in my oven, so I can potentially powder coat my rims myself. I have a HF sandblaster which I've accomplished many projects with, but may end up having to upgrade to a better sandblaster.

In short, still getting my ducks in a row for this build but there is a daily, relentless, progress towards that end.
 
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KeyserSoSay

Adventurer
I'll make a point to take a few pics and post them this week. There's not much to it yet, the previous owner built a crappy little cabinet with a cook stove on it, some high shelfs, and turned a bus seat around to make a small booth. It's got a futon frame in the back that rests on brackets in the walls.
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I've not considered the interior much as I intend to rip and strip it to bare metal and build it out with a pop-top or at least a raised top I can stand up in (at 5'9" I'm about 2 inches too tall to stand up in the bus as it is). I've got a preliminary plan for a flip down bed, and a marine flip-down sink with a foot-pump pressurized water system. Not sure yet to what extent I'm going to "camperize" the bus, but expect it will be somewhere short of a full RV with holding tanks and the works- as I do want to keep the utilitarian space at the back for the van for hauling stuff so I am working on a modular design with movable and removable amenities.
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I started a thread about the idea of using hydraulic door closers as a bed lift but got no response, so I guess I'll be a trailblazer as I'm certain I can build an awesome custom bed lift for about $250 that'll keep my bed stashed against the roof

http://forum.expeditionportal.com/t...ydraulic-door-closers-for-pop-top-or-bed-lift
 

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Awesome to see a build thread that isn't another Econoline or Express! I love unique projects even though I am building a common one myself. Will stay tuned to this one for sure. Good luck!

I will try to look up Johnny Williams for sure the next time I am down the Jarbidge way. Not sure when that will be, but I'll for sure ask some old timers for some stories. Jarbidge is one of the most out the way places in this country.
 

Lunchbox2

Explorer
After sleeping on this fold down seat a couple times, I think I'm going to have to come up with something creative for a bed inside the LUNCHBOX... I'm going to try a fullsize air mattress at first, and if that doesn't work, I think I'm going to start looking into hanging hammocks on the inside. I think I could hang 2 of them, one for me and one for my boy, and we could probably sleep better than we do on this seat. I've just made sure to suck down a couple of adult beverages these last 2 times we went camping, to make falling asleep a little easier...lol

I'm curious to see how your door closer idea works out....
 

philos

Explorer
After sleeping on this fold down seat a couple times, I think I'm going to have to come up with something creative for a bed inside the LUNCHBOX... I'm going to try a fullsize air mattress at first, and if that doesn't work, I think I'm going to start looking into hanging hammocks on the inside. I think I could hang 2 of them, one for me and one for my boy, and we could probably sleep better than we do on this seat. I've just made sure to suck down a couple of adult beverages these last 2 times we went camping, to make falling asleep a little easier...lol

I'm curious to see how your door closer idea works out....

After I ditched my bed platform, I chucked a Coleman cot in the back for trips. I'm in luuuurve with it. Two cots fit my setup in a pinch...
 

KeyserSoSay

Adventurer
Awesome to see a build thread that isn't another Econoline or Express! I love unique projects even though I am building a common one myself. Will stay tuned to this one for sure. Good luck!

I will try to look up Johnny Williams for sure the next time I am down the Jarbidge way. Not sure when that will be, but I'll for sure ask some old timers for some stories. Jarbidge is one of the most out the way places in this country.

Find the oldest person you can in Jarbidge and ask them what they know about "The millionaire sheep herder", who'd once a year come to town and upon departure rain the surplus of his annual earnings into the streets for all the kids to scramble over- even after he had to castrate himself on the mountain due to an unfortunate infection, and "Bull-**** Jack McCloud the moonshiner"- who escaped from an Elko asylum and specifically prophesied WWII and my grandpa's role in it as a bomber pilot (a concept which didn't yet exist) over several weeks as he visited him at the Jarbidge jailhouse- also home of the last man jailed and hanged in the US for a stage robbery (first ever convicted with fingerprints) also famous for an unattached roof allowing privy prisoners to sneak out and go down to the bar after the deputy fell asleep. I ******'n love Jarbidge NV, wish I could have known the Jarbidge my grandpa grew up in. It's on my shortlist of places to take my family in the Tortuga when I get her rigged up.

My grandpa's cousin- lost an eye and half a hand playing with blasting caps, went on to be Jarbidge's patriarch. That White truck ran once a year, every year, for the 4th of July parade.
http://markstrail.com/jobs/judge/judge.htm
 
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Find the oldest person you can in Jarbidge and ask them what they know about "The millionaire sheep herder", who'd once a year come to town and upon departure rain the surplus of his annual earnings into the streets for all the kids to scramble over- even after he had to castrate himself on the mountain due to an unfortunate infection, and "Bull-**** Jack McCloud the moonshiner"- who escaped from an Elko asylum and specifically prophesied WWII and my grandpa's role in it as a bomber pilot (a concept which didn't yet exist) over several weeks as he visited him at the Jarbidge jailhouse- also home of the last man jailed and hanged in the US for a stage robbery- also famous for an unattached roof allowing privy prisoners to sneak out and go down to the bar after the deputy fell asleep. I ******'n love Jarbidge NV, wish I could have known the Jarbidge my grandpa grew up in. It's on my shortlist of places to take my family in the Tortuga when I get her rigged up.

When you head that way down the road, make sure you hit me up. That would be a great place to hang out and camp for a weekend up on top of the mountains between Jarbidge and Charleston.
 

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