My C-30 w/Holmes wrecker adventure

[jhe.1973]

Hello Everyone,

A few days ago I was thrilled to get on this forum to share in all the great information from so many helpful members!

Here is my 69 C-30 wrecker that I bought in 1997 to be a forklift for my R&D machine/welding/fab shop and soon to be my daily driver:



Here's how in 2011 I removed a roof section from the shop entry to make room for a shipping container. The last shot shows me just after winching the container in from the alley (by myself) the day before I rollered into it's final position. More to follow in a few minutes ......

[lil hoodlum]

Welcome to the forum and thank you for sharing photos of your old workhorse putting in work. She sure does seem to come in handy!

[jhe.1973]

Thanks for the welcome lil hoodlum,

Workhorse it has been for sure! Happy to share photos too.

Later that same year after I obtained the container, I bought a 4450 pound shaper and here I have just lifted it from the U-haul trailer before moving it into the shop. I cheated and removed the 265 pound vice and swivel base so it's a lightweight 4185 pounds:

[D.B]

Welcome and you absolutely have a workhorse of a truck. Keep us posted if you work on the C30 or use it like it was built to do. Don't forget to include pics. We all like pics.

[sixty8HDC30]

Sweet wreaker! I love the big trucks that actually work. I plan to eventually use my 68 c30 as a daily driver, still needs some work but it'll get there one day.

[truckster]

Welcome!

She looks nice, but I can't see her face...

[jhe.1973]

Hello Everyone,

Thanks for viewing my thread and for your welcomes!

Here are a couple of front views that I took this AM. My backyard is super crowded and I am backed up against the solid gates to the alley in order to get these views.





I'll be posting plenty of photos. I have been going all year on this truck and took tons of shots as I went.

[1970cstblazer]

What a solid rig! I love the day 2 paint scheme.

[jhe.1973]

Originally Posted by sixty8HDC30

....... I plan to eventually use my 68 c30 as a daily driver, still needs some work but it'll get there one day.

So ........... life getting in the way for you too?

[sixty8HDC30]

Originally Posted by jhe.1973

So ........... life getting in the way for you too?

Always... both of the current daily drivers need attention at the moment. one is on jack stands getting the lower control arms replaced and the other one needs the brake booster replaced which I'm gonna finish up tomorrow morning.

Plus the 68 is a big project that I dont have the funds for at the moment. I'd like to get it on the road by thius time next year.

[toms68cst]

Damn, that's a sweet ride!

[Sheepdip]

Nice truck...paint er red and call it "Towmater"
My eyes went straight to those tow hooks on the front!

[jhe.1973]

Originally Posted by Sheepdip

Nice truck...paint er red and call it "Towmater"
My eyes went straight to those tow hooks on the front!

I believe we might be on the same wave length!

Visible in a few of the photos are some of the places where the paint/bondo is falling off. I brushed these spots with Rustoleum primer just to stop the rust from continuing. I figured with a few more spots of this brownish color I can hide the truck in a herd of cattle and it will blend right in, never to be seen again!



About the tow hooks ............ they came off of a dump truck that I bought to replace the frame on this truck. Turned out only the front of that frame was usable so I grafted the two together for the wrecker. This photo was during that project. The finished chassis is in the foreground and the old tow truck front section is the one near the cab:

[jhe.1973]

This view was taken this last summer under the cab where the two frames are joined. Plus a close up of the reinforcements to the top and bottom flanges of the channels. The spider web is just one of the many black widow webs all around our place.

[jhe.1973]

Hi Everyone,

I've been spending every spare minute today (while helping take care of our 3 year old granddaughter) on organizing and preparing my photos for uploading to the forum. Still have lots to do cuz it involves 4 external hard drives, 2 laptops and my phone .....whew!! Glad to finally be doing it though cuz it's WAY overdue.

Any how, came across this inside shot of my routing of the wiring cable I am using and it shows the inside of the welded splice:



That's it for now cuz it's after midnight here and our bundle of joy won't let us sleep in!

................................................

[Sheepdip]

Originally Posted by jhe.1973

Any how, came across this inside shot of my routing of the wiring cable I am using and it shows the inside of the welded splice:

Attachment 2407478

Well..... someone can weld.

[truckster]

It's a good story and a nice truck.

[jhe.1973]

Originally Posted by truckster

It's a good story and a nice truck.

Thanks truckster! Sure do like your tag line - it's one of my favorite quotes....

[truckster]

Originally Posted by jhe.1973

Thanks truckster! Sure do like your tag line - it's one of my favorite quotes....

I'm a retired Soldier and a high school teacher...

[jhe.1973]

Hi Everyone,

Often this wrecker sits for a long time. My standard starting procedure had been to put the battery in from the trickle charger, prime the carb a bit and it would fire almost instantly.

Back in October of 2023 when I went to fire up the truck from one of it's several month vacations, I found the fuel line from the pump to be soft and draped over the lower radiator hose:



So, before I did anything else I needed to make a new line. I decided to go to a steel line with short neoprene hoses rather than another long one as pictured. I learned years ago to not just flare the line and force the hose over the end cuz the sharp steel flare will likely cut into the soft neoprene weakening it.

Using my double flaring tool and a snug fitting spacer I made in a lathe, I could bulge the steel creating a stop with support on each side of the bulge:



The next view shows the shows the finished bulge ready to come out of the flaring tool:



This next shot is of the tube removed from the flaring tool before the spacer is twisted off:



The tube does fit more snugly in the spacer once it is bulged, but it isn't too bad to remove. Next time I may apply a bit of grease to the bore of the spacer to see how that works.

Here is the line bent and installed:



I never tried this before and was so pleased with the result that I thought I would pass it on. The line has been routed a bit differently since doing this but y'all get the idea.

[D.B]

That worked out nicely. Good job on making the hard line.

[Steeveedee]

Just started in on this thread. As mentioned, you really know how to weld! I can do that with my oxy-acetylene rig, but I don't have enough practice with any electrical welding to do much more than make it look like a flock of iron birds were leaving droppings at the weld site. It looks like you'll have her knocked into decent shape soon.

[jhe.1973]

Thanks guys for the views and nice words!

Steven, if you can weld with oxy-acetylene then you should have no trouble doing arc welding. In fact TIG welding is just like oxy-acetylene only the torch is electric instead of gas. All you need is to get some practice time. Have you considered taking a class? I would think that Simi Valley would have something to offer like community college or night school.

[jhe.1973]

Hi Everyone,

November 21st I thought I was ready to drive the wrecker and use it to clear a few things from the backyard. I had let it run on fast idle for around an hour to try to use up the stale gas in the tank. When I shut it off I noticed the fuel pump was leaking from the crimped on bowl. I got a new pump from a fast food auto parts store in town and put it on the following day.

It started just fine and then started stumbling severely as if too rich. I thought the float(s) might be sticking. When I got out to look (hood was already up) gas was pouring out of the top of the carb and all down its sides and was on fire.

There wasn't any wiring or hoses etc. to burn where the flames were and I put it out with the with the ice tea I had handy.

I returned the pump figuring I got one for a TBI application. I had been considering going to an electric pump so I wouldn't have to prime the carb after it had been sitting for awhile and figured now is the time.

Here's the pump block off plate that I made:



Here it is installed:



This truck came with an auxiliary tank that wasn't hooked up under the bed right behind the cab. So, I installed a selector valve for dual fuel tanks at this time also:





All the holes were already there so it was a piece of cake!

It's gotten really late so I'll try to post more tomorrow morning about how I hooked up the tank behind the seat. I spent my day doing that today and have more photos to post.

[jhe.1973]

Hi Everyone,

Here is a shot of the auxiliary tank’s spout that I will be hooking up eventually:



The tank is held up by 2-14 inch long 1/2 inch diameter carriage bolts. Towards the upper right corner of this photo you can see where the diamond plate deck has cracked from the load of the tank. I will be repairing that before I get to actually hooking the tank up.

The first thing I decided to do was to remove the OEM fuel line that went through the floor and bend the lower portion to point towards the driver's side where the selector valve is located:



Because I wanted a rigid line in the cab, I cut off the end for the neoprene hose and installed an inverted flare coupling for a steel line extension. The plastic cap is from the local hardware store and fits the old hole great:



The challenge now was to have my new line follow the floor as closely as possible to reduce the chance of damage later on. Because this would involve at least 3 bends I needed to place them in the correct orientation to the coupling and to the original line. Soooo, I made this and cut the vee groove that will allow me to use it with small automotive brake lines up to 5/16 fuel lines:



By clamping the tool to the new line, parallel to the floor, I could remove the line and visually line up the bender in the shop in the same plane as the tool. In the foreground the line is marked w/a felt tip pen where the bends are to be. This allowed me to have it go through a rather small hole protected by a plastic grommet for electrical wires:



It should be noted that it didn't come out perfectly on the first trial but needed a very small amount of tweaking to get it as shown in the final view.

More to follow ........................