Getting 68 Patrol back on the road.

[KungFooMASTA]

Now onto the cooling system. I added a fitting with a ballvalve for the heater. The previous owner had a mess of waterpipe and hoses all together that might have worked but looked like a mess.

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[KungFooMASTA]

The original temp gauge got stuck in the housing. My friend working on it got it out but the original threads were damaged. He retapped it to 3/8 pipe but the housing cracked.

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I got my other friend to tig weld it. It cracked a second time when I tried to tap it so the second time he welded the pipe into it so the pipe would help support the housing from cracking anymore.

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[RiverPatrol]

You've got some handy friends to have and some mad improvisation skills. Excellent resources to have when bringing a Patrol back to life.

[r1lark]

I have been having trouble getting the adjuster to adjust correctly. If you back it off till it does not drag the wheel cylinder blew out. If I adjust it till its tight then back it off it drags too much. I took it for a drive around town and it was still dragging too much. I will back it off another click and see how that does.

I had a problem adjusting the brakes on my Patrol last year after replacing all the brake lines, hoses, wheel cylinders, and master cylinder. When adjusted per the Shop Manual (or at least how I interpreted the Shop Manual), I had barely any pedal. Here is some wisdom from RiverPatrol (copied word-for-word from her post on my thread) that got me straightened out on Patrol brake adjustment:

Adjustment is critical to the pedal travel. I have saved a brake system by just adjusting correctly. Having done this many times my method is this: tighten the adjuster until you are unable to spin the wheel by hand, then back the adjuster off (usually just one or even part of one click) until the you can spin the wheel by hand and it will spin about half a turn before stopping. If the wheel free wheels a full rotation or more the brakes are too loose and the pedal will be soft. It will seem like it's too tight but when the brakes are rolling 3500 pounds down the road it's not too tight at all. Plus, your new shoes are going to wear in and you'll need to adjust the brakes frequently after you start driving it until the shoes seat in the drums fully.

Hopefully this will help you out!

[KungFooMASTA]

Someone in the past installed a Rochester carburetor. It looks to fit as good as factory and runs great. It leaked from the gasket so I got a rebuild kit. I just pulled the top off and found my kit was not the right one so I couldn’t replace the accelerator pump. But the original still worked. I cleaned the bowl and all the passages I could get to, put new needle, seat and gasket in and put it back together. Now it runs great and doesn’t leak fuel.

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[KungFooMASTA]

Back to the brakes. My left rear adjuster nut was broke off and it was stuck. I took it off. Welded the nut on. Then filled it with Thrust penetrating oil. Pulled the cone cap off and worked it back and forth and back and forth till it was easy enough to spin with my finger. I was scared of what was inside and that it would be a lost cause to fix but was surprised, These adjusters are a good simple design. Mine was nearly rusted solid but I got it freed up without spending too much time on it.

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[KungFooMASTA]

Next I wanted to have some gauges on it so I didn’t damage the engine. The factory temp sender was gone and I didn’t know if the factory oil pressure unit worked so I went ahead and put this cheap chicom set of gauges on that my friend gave me.

I was pleasantly surprised the factory alternator was working without even doing anything to it. But the bearing are going out in it. The alternator sounded like I had a diesel engine in it.

This was just above idle.

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[r1lark]

Someone in the past installed a Rochester carburetor. It looks to fit as good as factory and runs great.

The later Patrols used factory-installed Rochester carbs. Not sure of the year the change came, but River or Esteban will be able to tell us.

[KungFooMASTA]

Ok I didn’t know that. This thing fits so well it might be factory.

[RiverPatrol]

Ok I didn’t know that. This thing fits so well it might be factory.

The nice thing is kits are easy to get.