A 78 Traveler build

Little time at work so figured I would start a build thread. I don't know when I first found Scouts, but I have been obsessed with them for about the past 5 or so years. About 3 years ago I decided it was time to start looking, and have browsed until finally hitting the right combo of finding one and being ready this summer. The plan is to have it for weekend cruising, tailgating for football and hopefully some hunting/fishing. Wouldn't mind basic offroading but not my main focus.
Huge shoutout to the Scoutman in Douglasville, GA, they have been great to work with on this. I went there to check out some scouts, and they had the traveler which is now mine. It was originally an Idaho truck, minimal rust for a Scout and in great shape. It had a new carb, ran well, and after a test drive I was sold.
Original picture from first looking at it.
Original Interior:

After buying it I had all the brakes redone, a roll bar & seat belts installed, few things cleaned up and was ready to roll. Got it home and instantly swapped out the mirror heads to chrome ones

and added some new tires as the current ones were a little old for my comfort, wanted KO2's but couldn't find any, happy with the general grabbers I got now.


Since having it I drove it around Atlanta a bit and the first thing to be addressed was the metal floors. In my TJ I'm used to hot floors on longer drives, but it has some carpet to help.So putting something to help out the AC was needed for comfort just from driving it around and on longer trips. Back to the scoutman for some lizzard skin, and had the retrosound put in at the same time. I also got the trim added on and the center console put on. Here is the new interior which is a huge improvement imo, the heat is all but gone. Very impressed with the lizzard skin/carpet combo.


This weekend the driver door was rolling up a little stiff, so took it apart and hit it with some white lithium grease, now have a much easier job. Here is after I got everything buttoned back up and it all fit the same way as before luckily enough.


Current plan is to grab a tailgate for when the top is off, and drive it for a while. Seat recovering is next on my list of to-dos, but the covers will be okay for now. Really excited to drive it more and enjoy it! I'm hoping to do more work on it myself, I got the factory manuals and have worked on my Wrangler, so this forum has been a big help even with the little I've looked into.

 

Here is the pic the Scoutman sent me during the lizzard skin install:

and here is how the scout currently looks:

 

Doing a little last min checking before first long drive (hour and a half to 2 hours is most I’ve done) tomorrow. Thought the gas filter was a little crusty so swapped on one of my spares, still have one in reserve.
I might extend the line a little as there is 0 slack from the fuel pump to filter, so might move it a little away from the compressor. Super easy, didn’t have the rear clamp tight enough at first but that was quickly fixed, ready for the road tomorrow!

speedometer stopped working and checked the cables, looks like it bound up and broke where it connected to the transfer case, so that’s on order and will hopefully get swapped out early next week. Also have original style mirrors on order as these ford ones are loose in the arms, so they’re getting on my nerves.

 

Scout did great on the drive! Great to meet JJ and see his shop, and returned to Atlanta tailgate in hand. 1 hour from home the power cut out and it died and had to get towed the last bit.
Tow driver was nice and I’m 90% sure a wire isn’t supposed to look like this:
I was running 65 in the right lane just minding my business and then heard a loud noise and the radio, gauges, lights, all power cut and I was slowing down so I just got right on the shoulder. Got it home and then this morning traced and replaced the offending wire, got everything wired together:
and then on reconnecting the battery saw white smoke so instantly disconnected the battery and saw the wires are now like this:

I think I didn't tighten the nut on the starter for the wires enough and had a bad ground, little annoyed but just gonna bring it to the shop to get looked at before anything else. But learned a lot about the scout on this trip and the damn rats nest of wiring it has. under the hood.

 

Nice Scout. Glad to see you are enjoying it despite some issues. It s all part of the journey. Lol!

 

Thanks! It really is a blast, I love the Traveler. It was a good learning experience with that wire, it got to the shop and started right up first try, so the nut on the starter just wasn't tight enough my first try. Lesson learned. They are gonna take care of a few other things while its there so hopefully after this is a little longer before the next fix.