1978 Scout II New To Me Project

Worked my butt off this weekend to get to this point, finally after a whole day of prepping and dealing with a bunch of must do small things for this to happen, 2k urethane primer finally sprayed, and very happy how it turned out. If you are not sure if your body work has been done good the primer will definitely show you where you need to touch up, but that is ok, better to fix now before the last stage. Any way here are some pics,

 

A couple more picks of the second set of panels, not enough room in the booth for everything,

 

Now its time to get started on that frame and motor!!

 

that's the plan I hope, first is to try and get the chassis and drive train power washed, hope the weather will hold out for a bit.

 

Well the weather held out for me this weekend, so I couldn't wait to attack the frame, first I had remove the wiring harness for the motor then I had to scrap off what I could of 40+ years of grease mainly around motor area and front suspension, had to do this over a tarp in the shop. Then I had to get it outside with a little help from my lawn tractor. I used every type of degeaser I had available and let it soak for a while. Hit it at high pressure with the power washer and watched the grease fly off in every direction most of it was to my direction.
The frame and motor didn't come out to bad, you can actually see the colours and hidden silicone around the back of the valve covers. Now I have to decide how I want to deal with the surface rust on the rest of the frame once I pull the motor and tranny out.
Here are some before and after.

 

The tarp wasn't white once I finished with the power washer.

 

Got some time in on the project this weekend. Still working away on prepping the frame and got it pretty naked looking, , I spent most of Saturday taking off the small things and decided to take of both axles and springs.. I went hard at it with my wire wheels, grinding discs and my small hand held sandblaster for the really tight areas to help remove the rust, hauled it out of my shop on to my yard, brushed the whole frame with some heavy duty (rust remover) and let it sit for a bit. Got out the good old power washer and gave it on last blast, now it's ready for paint. Also degreased both axles and gave them a bath too, (sorry no pic of the cleaned axles.)

 

Nice job!!

 

what product did you use on the frame for rust removal? Looks fantastic! As does your nice green grass HAHAHA

JJ in TN

 

Thanks.

 

I used this, once I was done with the wire wheel for the heavy scale. Thanks on the grass, hope I don't get dead spots after what I put it through.

 

Frame is finally painted, 2 coats of red iron oxide primer and 2 coats gloss black Rustoleum . Also popped out all the bushings in the springs and the shackles, (that was fun). For anyone who plans on replacing bushings, best way to go is with ball joint remover for old ones, the one that looks like a
' C ' clamp, and the socket size I used was a 22 mm to push the old ones through and the steel sleeve together with plenty of penetrating oil and with the help of a large breaker bar and impact gun, sorry no pics of this process. Once I had everything apart I decided to fab up some new shackles for all around as the old ones are pretty bad and the holes in them are out of round. Stock was 1/4" thick, I had some 5/16" thick steel so made them a little thicker. For now I drilled the holes to 7/16" but I probably will do what many have done and go to 5/8". Just waiting on my new bushings to come in before I redrill anything.

 

Nice job Geo!!

 

Geo!
can you make me some shackles? HAHA.

I too am a fan of the Evap O Rust. I have a build thread on here called "Easy Afternoon Project" where I rebuilt a Nissan screw jack that probably should have been scrapped.



There is a MUCH easier way to remove the spring bushings. Mike Moore at Scoutco turned me onto it, and it worked like a charm. Hole saw. zip zip and your done.

JJ in TN

 

thanks,

 

If you weren't so far away ,( not that I haven't been to your State before) you could most likely teach me a few things when it comes to these Scouts. Didn't think about the hole saw idea, I'm just glad to have those antique bushing out.
Those jacks came out pretty darn good. If you let the parts sit long enough with the rust remover it does make the job easier. As they say "patience is a virtue".

 

You are welcome here anytime! We could certainly exchange Scout ideas. Your truck has come a long ways.

JJ in TN

 

You're at my favorite part of a resto. Bet it feels great to have most of the heavy lifting done.

What did you use for a paint booth filter fan? I need to make a small booth. So tired of dragging out plastic to cover everything.

 

Well before all this Pandemic stuff happened the wife and I had planned to come down that way and I had planned to stop as some of the Scout shops along the way and actually pic stuff up that I needed.
Once things get back to some kind of normal and our Border opens up for travel we sure hope to come down and meet up with some of the Scout crowd.

 

I will get some better pictures of my set up, I thought had some but will get some tomorrow.