Getting 68 Patrol back on the road.

[KungFooMASTA]

I have a 68 soft top. I bought it back in 08 or 09 and parked it under an oil tank shed. It sat and sat and sat. Then got attacked bypackrats, building a nest under the entire hood and cab. I always said I would get to it one day and never did. Until I came under attack by tweakers. Tweakers are the scum of the earth. Where I have some vehicles stored they stole every catalytic converter I had, cut almost all my wire harnesses off vehicles stole all 5 wheels from my Range Rover classic. Then the tried unsuccessfully cutting the radiator out of my patrol but in the process they ruined it beyond affordable repair. They even cut the exhaust off the Patrol even though it doesn’t even have a cat (the stupidest of tweakers).

This gave me reason to get my Patrol out of there before they attack again. At the time I did not have time or a place to work on it and I didn’t even know if it would run. I took it to a friend that said he would work on it on the side when he had time. I told him I only want to hear it run, that will give me enough ambition to fix it.

After a couple months of battling packrat mess patching wires and such. He got it to run. He said it fired right up. It ran like a sewing machine. It only has 27k miles on it so it shouldn’t be worn out.

Then he decided he wanted to fix the brakes. I wanted to find new seals and rebuild what I had but he ordered all new wheelncylinders from Australia instead.


I will continue this to where I am now later plus will add pictures.

[RiverPatrol]

Welcome to 60Patrol! Wow, what an intro story! I'm glad you found us, you find tons of helpful info about your Patrol here. Sounds like you've got a good friend that's on the right track to getting that Patrol going again. Good luck and keep us posted!

[KungFooMASTA]

These are the first pictures I have of it from
The Craigslist add. When I bought it from Craigslist in 08 or 09 East of Kansas City.

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[KungFooMASTA]

When I first got it home.

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Where it sat for about 15-16 years.

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Me and my wife cleaning all the packrat mess out of it. Not sure what I hate more, packrats or tweakers. They are nearly on the same level.

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[RiverPatrol]

Looks like it has a lot of potential once you rescue it from rats and tweakers.

[KungFooMASTA]

Also for the radiator I had a chicom all aluminum radiator out of a Jeep TJ that I thought looked close. It was almost a perfect fit except the necks were on the wrong side. So I ordered a Chicom Aluminum Jeep TJ radiator for a v8 swap and it worked perfectly. Was even able to reuse the original fan shroud.

I will add a picture of that here later.

At this point my friend is getting ready for harvest and spending more time on my Patrol than he should. So I went out to get it and bring it home.

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[r1lark]

Great story, thanks for posting. Sorry to see/hear of all the damage to a really decent looking Patrol.

Maybe I live a sheltered life here in semi-rural North Carolina, but I had no earthly idea what a "tweaker" was. So I looked it up online. To help out other sheltered folks, here is the definition:

A "tweaker" is a slang term most commonly used to describe an individual who uses or is heavily addicted to stimulant drugs, particularly methamphetamine. The term comes from "tweaking," which refers to the erratic, paranoid, and highly agitated state a person experiences during the later stages of a stimulant binge

Here in North Carolina, they are just called 'meth-heads'.

[KungFooMASTA]

Once I got it home I got finished on the brakes. I built new hardlines for the front axle and the one along the frame. I bled the brakes and got them working. The guy I got it from had one set of front and one set of back brakes removed and somewhere along that time I lost one rear brake shoe. My friend improvised and got a brake shoe from an 87-91 F150 to fit. The same axle we stole some brake springs for one side of the front axle that were also missing.

The ford springs on the front brake

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Comparing Ford and Patrol shoe

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Comparing Ford and Patrol Shoe

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One Ford Shoe and one Patrol shoe installed. The Ford shoe took some cutting and drilling new holes.

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Im not sure yet that the ford Shoe is going to work. 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. When I blew the wheel cylinder out all the way the first time it damaged the umbrella seal. I took a seal out of an old cylinder and It was not as spread out so I put a few orings under the umbrella part. It seems to be sealing but I really don’t trust getting on the brakes hard. I really wish I would have just done a disc brake conversion the first time.

[KungFooMASTA]

A few pictures I forgot I had out of order.

This was its first time out of the oil tank in 15-16 years.

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How much of a mess packrats make. The pile on the ground in the last picture is how much we pulled out.

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[KungFooMASTA]

The damage the tweakers did to my radiator.

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