• RME Gear & Apparel

1972 international Travelall 1210 restoration/mod/whatever my wife says I can do "Big Betty"

haulinshine

haulinshine

Active Member
The wife and I finally found a project vehicle we can agree on me building.

Everyone meet "Big Betty" as my wife named her. The old girl is a 1972 International Travelall 1210 (it's a 3/4 ton).
travelall (2).jpg
Engine: 345ci international V8
Transmission: 727 Chrystler
Transfer Case: Dana 20
Front Axle: Dana 44 8 lug (might have a spool locker)
Rear Axle: Dana 60 8 lug (might be limited slip)
The good news: it currently does not run
The better news: it has a bent front drive shaft, and the hubs are locked up so it's full time spinning the bent turd
drive shaft.jpg

The best news: it currently has split rim tires on it with some serious weather checked tires so it is really safe.
Also the brakes don't work at the moment so even more safe.

The goal: build this old girl back up to her former offroad capable glory while making some improvements
Getting the rig running should be easy (hopefully), the carb is in good shape, but it looks like the ground for the starter came loose and it needs a battery.
I will be removing the old mechanical fuel pump and putting in an inline electrical fuel pump so I don't have to put 35 fuel pumps in it over the next couple of years.

some actual good news is that it has 2 fuel tanks and provisions for a 3rd, the rear 21 gal tank has some really bad gas in it but the front passenger saddle tank has clean(ish) gas. The plan is to add the 3rd factory tank option to it for a total of 53 gallons of fuel so it can go at least 50 miles between fuel ups.

new wheels and tires are the next step after it gets running and moving, then I will take a look at re-arching the springs as they are 50 years old. Remove the little rust that it has and clean up the "patina" that my wife likes and put a clearcoat on it so it stops rusting (at some point it will get a real paint job but for now my wife loves the patina and I hate it so we are compromising and I get to live with it being rusty)

I will eventually convert it from the 350cfm carb that is on it to EFI and I have been looking at cams to shove a few more horses under the hood. No I will not LS swap it, I will not blaspheme at the church of old iron fully.

I will keep ya'll updated if you want it or not!
Edit: it seems that there is an issue with the photos being uploaded
Edit 2: got the pictures working it was a size issue
 
Last edited:
haulinshine

haulinshine

Active Member
Small update: The engine runs, it is a bottle baby right now. I need to clean the rear tank for sure and run fuel lines as it looks like there were some drunken shenanigans that happened with the fuel system at some point (the fuel lines from the tank to the selector look right but after that it goes to some nonsense self tapped into the grill support and doesn't come back out and the mechanical fuel pump is connected to the carb but nothing else, then there are the random fuel filters that make no sense). So I am going to run new lines from the selector to an electric pump then to the carb. Replace the upper and lower rad hoses, fill the cooling system and check for leaks, fill the power steering and check for leaks.

Also the brakes seem like they will work, I filled the reservoir on the master cylinder and got fluid in the lines. I need to bleed the system now and make sure they are working properly. I was going to replace all the brake lines because I figured they would be rotted out but there is only a small crossover that isn't steel lines and I don't see any rust on them. If everything goes well I will have the old girl on the road by late July!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top