Easter find M1008 2015

This is my Easter Find thread so I took a day off from CUCV's and raided my scrap pile. I made this handy wood hauling vehicle. I use a retired Honda riding mower and made a rack to haul wood up from the end of my property. I wanted to share this and if you notice the hitch was on the M1031 that I parted out a few years back. Not the original one that came from factory but it was on the truck when I purchased it from DRMO. I ran it thru the course today and it does the work 5 times quicker/easier and can haul twice as much as previous trips with the Vermont wood cart. The Vermont wood cart still trumps on the trip down the basement steps. I don't think I can make any modifications to get it down the basement steps.

Rick, did you re-purpose the leftover desert tan paint or was that color stock from Honda? Now you just need a CUCV brush guard and LED lights and you can make deliveries at night.

I did use some of the 686 CARC TAN paint I had left from my Mule M1009 project. I disassembled the entire mower and taped it all up so it would look nice. It was RED from new. it is nice to get closer to the basement door with then my Mule is. Besides I like being creative, designing and building things. Basically everything was scrap. Including the mower. I am not going to add any weight to the front axle. It was not really designed to have a lot of weight on it. The mower had a bagging system hanging out over the rear and the 2 bags were very heavy when full. I took that idea in mind and moved some of the weight forward and I tested it hard yesterday and it worked great. The rack weighs about 45 # and I had someone at 250# sit/stand on it and drove around. Seems like it is going to do the job. It is Hydra-static so that helps a bunch. It has 4 lug rear wheels so they were designed to carry some weight. And it's a Honda. That about says it all. I will be adding a set of LED head/tail lamps just because I can. I am not sure if that will effect the charging system but I doubt it. I think daytime running lights key switched. No B/O lamps. The pintle hitch is just for effect. It is my M3113LWT vehicle. My Grand Son/Daughter likes bringing in firewood more now. This is what it looked like when someone scrapped it. The mower deck was rusted thru. The gas tank was full of water. Biggest expense was $200 in parts to get it running well again. Just another toy to me. Happy Holidays.

Today after not making any progress on my Easter Find M1008. I moved the work inside the basement of the house. yesterday it was 12 degrees and today it was 25 damp and sleeting. I managed to get the rear backing plates loaded up and that makes me 1 step closer to getting the rear axle under the frame and getting the frame into the garage for the winter. I replace all the hardware and the self adjusters. That is the original brake lining on the rear. this truck had 16 K on it when I bought it in the mid 90's. It does not have 50 K on it yet. Removing the barking plates is the easiest way to do the brakes, clean, lube and paint everything. I bought all the parts at Autozone. Happy Holidays. 4 more days of work and I am off till the second week of 2017. I am getting to like vacation more and more every time. For 25 years I just worked and took the pay. The last 2 years they did not allow that so here I go. They called and said I had 48 hours more then I knew I had. Use it or lose it.

Today I decided it was now or never. i had an extra day off of work and went out early and put the rear axle together. Put the cab back on the cab cart. Mounted the rear axle and also pushed the frame into the garage with the M1009 and the tow bar. Imagine my Son wanted to carry the back of the frame while I pushed the frame in. Not happening. Up hill on ice. I had the rear axle back in in about 20 minutes. A tape measure and new fasteners was all I needed. A cordless impact was real helpful also. Tomorrow is another day of fun in the garage. You know that feeling when you have an engine setting in the shop for 6 months and you just moved it 5 feet and the antifreeze runs out of it like you never drained the radiator? Been there done that. Spoke the Gospel while cleaning it up. I have 2 kerosene heaters for heat. I will work a little bit yet but want to shut down operations till spring returns. It is near impossible to heat a barn.

WOW this site is like a mortuary. I was out in the barn. I had the Kerosene heaters fired up. It is in the low 40's and very damp and raining outside. Things were warm, dry and toasty in the barn. I got a lot of work done today. Still had to deal with the menacing antifreeze leaking out at every turn of the motor.This is my big block version of the 6.2. Two big blocks of wood strapped fast so I could flip it turtle style. It is easier then an engine stand. I have a stand and it breaks my back to turn and engine and is always a danger to move around. The oil pan is very rusty. I think I will put another one on. This small piece of rope is all that this engine had as a rear main seal. I have seen this before. it did not really leak all that bad. I have the parts on order for Monday from Autozone and will take a break until then. I have a lot of new parts coming Monday. After I get the oil pan replaced I will turn it up right and remove the heads and send them out to the machine shop. I am doing a complete reseal and new water pump, fuel pump , rebuilt injection pump and everything I can unbolt that is replaceable. With in limits. I am not going to throw parts away just to do it. I am changing the head gaskets because I am this far and I see them as a weak link in the chain. I have had several and heard of several leaking here of late. Merry Christmas to all of you and your family's.

Merry Christmas Rick. That project is looking good !

Twas the day after Christmas and all thru the shop. It was raining outside and the yard was slop. The CUCV's were parked by the barn with care. In hopes that dry weather soon would be there. I am unable to post pictures. I made a lot of progress today on the Easter Find CUCV M1008. I will post later or tomorrow. Or I will try. lots of great progress. I worked on my Cadillac and my CUCV. Take care. Enjoy the Christmas dinner left overs.

Sounds like fun buddy.
I fired up my cucv and ran it hard today, went up to see my girlfriend and Grandpa. Visited a while then came back in the pouring rain. Back to work tomorrow oh well

Yesterdays progress report as promised. This and worked on my Cadillac. Changed the water pump. I must give Cadillac a thumbs up. The water pump is very easy to change.

I bought a new Re-manufactured steering gear box from Autozone. It was leaking and the seal at the input shaft. . For $150. exchange problem solved. I have lots of parts coming from the Zone today. I did not make it to town yesterday. I was busy working on my toys. I sanded the water pump plate using the small Rolok and the DA sander with 80 grit. I followed up with a small buffing pad. Made everything nice and shiny clean. I closely examined my harmonic balancer and it passed my inspection. I followed the instructions on what to inspect and it has no indication of being bad. I left my engine all strapped up and covered it for the night. Today I hope to make a lot more progress. Should have the rear main seal installed and the engine up righted and the heads removed. I am changing the head gaskets on every CUCV engine I install going forward. I have seen too many failing in the last year. I think the 30 year expiration on the metal gaskets is the problem. I never overheated my Mule and it failed. Thank you for looking. Enjoy the pictures. I have lots more coming as I progress on this project. When it gets too cold I will shut it down for the winter. For now I can handle it. I am working with a sweat shirt on. Spray paint takes overnight to dry properly.

I picked up a lot of parts for my project. I bought them at Autozone. Great deal and the discounts and coupons you can not beat. All Felpro gaskets and head bolts. Same ones I could buy anywhere else. New fuel tank, head bolts, head gaskets, rear main seal, oil pan gasket and water pump. Happy New Year. Busy. Busy. Busy.

I have a lot of work today. I have the heaters running. i actually have my new truck parked where the scrap pile was. I raked all the leaves up and drug the magnet over the area. I still have a couple tons of scrap to haul. But I am done with that for now. I have other things to do on my M1008 project.

Parked where the scrap pile was???? Got any pictures of that load on the way out? Must have been a swinger.

I kept the HMMWV brushguard. I made a bundle on scrap sales this week.I replaced the rear main seal on my M1008 project and put a brand new oil pan on it. I made a decision that I was glad i made. this was a perfectly good runninmg truck. It started well and drove fine and had great power. Early on I have decided to change all the gaskets on every 6.2 engine I install from a CUCV. I am glad I made that decision. This is what I found when I removed the heads. the head gaskets were corroded thru at several places and you can see where the compression rings were being eaten away at. This is an easy inexpensive repair at this point. The heads are being sent out to the machine shop. I bought all the gaskets/head bolts and have everything painted and ready to go back together. I am advising at this point. if you have not changed the head gaskets. You are driving on borrowed time. this is about the 4th one I have seen like this. They are not getting any newer. And I think pulling the engine and going over the entire engine bolt on is the way to go. IMHO. I will be doing it to a few other trucks in the near future. Seeing this explains some of the issues I have seen on other peoples CUCV's. Like I said. this was a perfectly good running engine with no apparent issues. Take care. I done a lot of other odd and end little jobs today on the M1008 and cleaned and painted a lot of small parts. Take care and Happy New Year to all.

Hmmm I hope your New Years resolution is not to stop working on the Easter find 1008. Were waiting for a progress report.

IMHO used engines and transmissions in a 30 year old vehicle are a waste of time and money to reinstall into something else you want to drive. I sell them as cores anymore. Do it right the first time and move on. I just had a perfect running engine. 40K miles. Still would run perfect. But look at the steel head gaskets. I am glad I removed the heads. I could have easily reinstalled it and still had a perfect running engine. For how long? Same as the transmission. Have it gone over at a reputable shop before you put anymore effort and expense into it. Or not and take the risk. I use reliable shops to get work done. you can call me a parts replacer if you like but I focus and specialize in the fine detail and reassembly of vehicles. I can do the dirt work also. but I let precision items up to guys that have the correct equipment to do so. No hacking going on here. I depend on my vehicles to last and still have value anytime I want to part with them.


Well today the phone rings again. It is the guy at the machine shop. I removed a set of heads from another engine I had and he said the heads were cracked on them also. I do know the head gaskets were rotted thru. But that was a good running 6.2 that I had from a low mileage CUCV. And after sitting in my barn for 15 years and being exercised every so often. It still had a bit of antifreeze in it. But it was the Dex Cool. I still blame 30 years on the bad corroded head gaskets. The cracked heads. IDK. I had this experience before with heads. Today I had my Son take the heads down that I removed from my Mule M1009 in the summer 2015 overhaul. I will wait to hear back. I still have a few sets to send if need be. That is why I do NOT sell used CUCV engines or transmissions. It never seems to end well. I had some HMMWV engines but they were all late 90's vintage. A wee bit newer. Not much but newer. And when I removed the heads from the HMMWV engine they had a composite type head gasket like the new Felpro's I use. So the easy answer to my progress report is. Waiting for heads to be returned. I seem to have a lot of crack heads at my place. And I have a 13 K M1009 in my barn that runs perfect. I have ben storing it many years. When I get that out I guess the engine will be coming out of that as well. Seems to be the thing to do. From there the transmission and then the transfer case. Once I don't like it anymore. I will just say enough of that. Till then progress. I have a full schedule for spring / summer 2017. Full convertible M1009, Reframe of an M1009 and still my Easter find. Stay tuned. All this work is sponsored by CUCVRUS. Many CUCV's have been harmed at my barn. And I like it.

This is getting to be a regular thing. I received another phone call from the machine shop. The 3rd set of heads have cracks between then valves. I have all 3 sets in the back of Mr. Crusty. I can see the cracks in the heads between the valves on the outer 2 cylinders on all 6 heads. I say how can this be. I went thru the same thing on police car heads. The 1989-1997 Caprices with the 350 engine. I needed to buy new heads. I sent 8 sets of 350 heads from every engine I could find and they all had cracks. Not sure what is the problem. It must be design related. I have removed the heads that I had on a 13K 6.2 engine in my barn and they were cracked. I have 3 more sets to send if need be. Then it is time to pull nails from a crate I have and get the brand new ones out. That is the last resort. I would rather store them and look at them then use them. Pictures of cracks are forth coming. Have a great day.

All you need is some magic cracked head fixer upper

Digger09 said:

View attachment 662120 All you need is some magic cracked head fixer upper

Click to expand...

That will work. I am all over it. I was hoping for a spray on. The CUCVRUS crack head spray on Modification. So the words out. I am now a crack head. No report back on set # 4. I guess I get the weekend off from head removal and transport. My Son Rick Jr. has basically been hauling crack heads. Oh the jokes are limitless. We still have a few more engines to disassemble. Could you imagine if I sold these CUCV engines to someone else. I would be a no good. You got it. Future sales will be as is. Just like I buy everything used that I get. Good scrap prices are a bit higher now. I can use my cracked 6.2 heads to hold down the tarp on the wood pile. If the wind gets that high and blows them away. Time to move on.