Peer Pressure

[bdgn01]

So I figure I should finally start a build thread on my Scout and collect all of the various threads I've started in the Tech Talk forums into one place. Some of the links below will take you to the weblog I started for it, which houses all the stuff that doesn't fit on the Binder Planet.



What I've got is a purple-over-gold Scout II titled with a 1976 VIN; it's a 1979 frame (documented here) on a 1975 tub based on the original paint color. It's a 345/T19 with 44's and a D20 transfer case. I got it with a Triangle spring lift, 2" pucks, and a new set of 31/10.5/15 Mud Terrains. It came with an old Kayline soft top and bikini top, mismatched seats, and inoperable air conditioning.

I bought it as a non-runner at an auto auction four years ago (the full story is here) right after the birth of my daughter, so all progress I've made has been slow. I'm concentrating on small projects that I can accomplish in the space of afternoons. My philosophy is to work on stuff that won't take it off the road for more than a day, because I bought it to drive, not to garage. As I go along I try to take as many pictures of what I did as well as how I did it so that folks like me who learn visually can understand what I did.



My long-term plans are to take the tub off, clean it up as much as possible, respray it in a stock IH color (right now the front runner is 1978 Bimini Blue), then have Mike Moore send me some pretty stripes for the sides.

Since purchasing it, I've done the following:

Gotten it running – thanks to Alan, Brian, Karl, Bennett, and Heavy D's battery
Replaced the throttle bracket - It's a 4-speed and had an automatic bracket
Fixed an intermittent starting problem - turned out to be a bad starter, but also meant I replaced the battery cabling
Built a fan shroud extension - to account for 3" of spring and body lift
Put a new radio in it
Dropped and replaced the original tank with a new poly tank - I'm still suffering from a dead fuel gauge, so stay tuned
Replaced the passenger side exhaust donut
Installed three-point seatbelts
Put a SSII mirror on it
Built a rear bumper/tire carrier
Added PT Cruiser Seats

As I start and complete smaller projects I'll post them up here as well as start threads for bigger stuff in Tech Talk.

 

[bdgn01]

Adding a new color

This morning I met up with Brian H. and made a run down into Annapolis to pick up a Traveltop. I was a bit hung over, but Peer Pressure fired right up and made the trip easy. After meeting the seller at his house, we wound up talking to him for a good hour and a half before we started turning wrenches. It turns out he’s been buying and parting out Scouts in the area for the past couple of years, and he wants to thin his collection out a little.



This top is in really good shape. It’s baby blue with a roof rack, and apart from some minor rust issues under the driver’s window and leaks where the chrome strips sit on the top, it’s clean. The liftgate is in fantastic shape, the handle works perfectly, and the glass is all good. I’m going to pull the sliders out of my spare top and replace these as well as the seals, and maybe weld up a lot of the holes before painting it white.



On the way back home, we got a lot of stares from people. What's so unusual about a purple truck with a yellow hood, red windshield, and blue top?

 

[dkterra]

I like it, nice thread..

 

[bdgn01]

Hydroboost, Part 1

Among the many repairs and upgrades I'd like to do is one of the (I'm told) easiest and most inexpensive improvements to the braking system: the Hydro-Boost. Following Bill USN-1's famous <a href="http://www.justinternationals.org/Binder-Bench/showthread.php?t=2785">thread on the Just Internationals forum</a>, I ventured out to the junkyard with my brother-in-law in search of a GM Astro van (or variant) with ABS brakes. We found four with and two without&mdash;the difference being the ones without ABS have the big round brake booster we're looking to discard. I found a blue ABS Pontiac Safari already propped up on tires waiting for me, so early this morning I got to work. A few words of wisdom: you're going to be dealing with metric bolts and fittings here, so pack your toolkit accordingly.



I disconnected the low-pressure hose running across the top, then the right-side hose that ran down to the power steering pump. Thankfully, someone had already pulled the radiator, so I had a ton of room to work with.



The left-side hose running down underneath was very difficult to get off (I didn't have metric wrenches, just sockets) so I punted and cut the hose as close to the top of the lower metal line as I could. I used a pair of channel locks to snip the coiled metal hose running to and from the ABS computer (the big box directly below the hydroboost assembly) below the proportioning valve because those bolts were not coming off for love or money.



Finally, I crawled inside and used a long 15mm metric socket to take off four mounting bolts on the bracket. There will be no way you can get a wrench on all four of these, so be sure to bring a deep socket. Hopefully your Astro will be cleaner under the dash than mine was.



Then, a bunch of wrestling, tugging, pulling, and twisting got the whole assembly free. GM didn't leave a lot of room in the engine bay to work with, so I removed the top fitting to clear the cowl and put it back on when I was done. My total bill from the junkyard was $35.



Stay tuned. Next I'm going to assemble all the parts needed to retrofit the assembly.

 

[bdgn01]

It's definitely a version 1.0 and there's a lot to be desired in the execution, but I got the top off today by myself without having to call in any help.



Right now it hangs in the back of the available parking area of my garage, which means I can't back the Scout in with the soft top up. I think the next iteration might involve a winch and a stronger bracing system for the top itself, and some way of scooting it backwards before it gets hoisted up. Maybe I can make some simple sawhorses and walk it backwards onto those before it goes upwards. I'm definitely going to add a third set of ratchet straps to the current setup to sleep soundly at night.



My soft top hardware is tacked in place, but I'm headed out to the store tomorrow to buy stainless hardware to mount the rails before I put the canvas on.

 

[gpa]

With that Blue top, it looks like an Easter egg!

 

[JeffR]

I think you're intention to only do 1 day projects is brilliant. I wish I would have had similar advice three years ago.

Looks good man.

 

[bdgn01]

I think you're intention to only do 1 day projects is brilliant. I wish I would have had similar advice three years ago.

Looks good man.

Thanks! It makes for very slow progress, but also means I can take the top off and go for an evening cruise (the weather was 70 degrees last night).

 

[customtronic]

Nice! That looks like a good, solid truck to start with. Mine was no where near as nice when I bought it. If I only knew then what I know now.

 

[bdgn01]

A couple of weekends ago I got an uninterrupted half hour to pull out the A/C ductwork under my dashboard. It was inoperable when I got the truck, although there was power to the blower fan. When I bought it, there was no compressor on the engine and the supply/return hoses had been cut just outside the firewall. Figuring it would be a number of years and several Lotto tickets before I’m able to buy an aftermarket A/C system, and because I’d like to get under the dash itself to replace bulbs and fix electrical gremlins, I decided to yank it out.



The vent bar came out easily (in part because one of the bolts was already missing) and the PO had thoughtfully installed quick connects on all of the wiring. Once that was out, I tackled the condenser unit under the passenger’s side. This was trickier because my glove box latch is hopelessly broken, so I jimmied that open, removed the box liner, and pulled the door off. There are four bolts holding it onto the firewall, three in the wheel well and one in the engine bay. They all came off so easily I had to look around to see if anyone was pranking me.



Once that was disconnected and the hoses underneath came off, the whole assembly lifted right out. It’s definitely seen better days. The picture here doesn’t show five pounds of dog hair and mud caked into the rear of the condenser unit.



Now I can get underneath and sort out the wiring, replace all the bulbs, and (possibly) even pull the purple dash off and replace it with the black one I refinished four years ago. But I’ll have to be careful not to anger the Scout electrical gods. And hey! look at that! Original carpeting! Ecch. I tore that right out and threw it in the trash.

 

[bdgn01]

Things have been slow on the Scout front lately, but I did sneak away for an hour last weekend and start cleaning up the bed floor with a stripper disc. This was what I started with: purple no-name paint over the original gold poly. The whole thing is pretty beat up and there are lots of surface rust patches, but no holes. I'm using a Norton disc on a cheapo HF angle grinder, and the paint just flies off.



This is how far I got in 45 minutes:



the bed was repaired by the PO with some kind of sheet metal behind the wheel wells. I stopped at the edge of those welds and about 1" from the edge of the well itself-the joint there is rusty but not gone completely, so the plan is to marine clean, etch, and POR-15 the whole thing (from tailgate to firewall) and shoot bedliner on the whole interior.

If anyone is reading this, I have a quick question: Should I use seam sealer after POR-15 on all the edges? If so, where's the best place to buy it?

 

[bdgn01]

Bedliner Weekend, Day 1

Here's where I am at lunchtime. I got started at about 10AM (I had to mow the lawn first). I've burned through three 4 1/2" sanding discs: 1 Norton, 1 Harbor Freight, and 1 Gator. I'd say the Norton disc holds up the best.





The seats came out easier than I hoped for. Next up is the Tuffy console. Also, Brian Huver is going to stop by and lend a hand, which should speed this job up even faster. IH friends are the best!

 

[BrandonBerkosky]

Re: Hydroboost, Part 1

Among the many repairs and upgrades I'd like to do is one of the (I'm told) easiest and most inexpensive improveents to the braking system: the Hydro-Boost. Following Bill USN-1's famous <a href="http://www.justinternationals.org/Binder-Bench/showthread.php?t=2785">thread on the Just Internationals forum</a>, I ventured out to the junkyard with my brother-in-law in search of a GM Astro van (or variant) with ABS brakes. We found four with and two without&mdash;the difference being the ones without ABS have the big round brake booster we're looking to discard. I found a blue ABS Pontiac Safari already propped up on tires waiting for me, so early this morning I got to work. A few words of wisdom: you're going to be dealing with metric bolts and fittings here, so pack your toolkit accordingly.



I disconnected the low-pressure hose running across the top, then the right-side hose that ran down to the power steering pump. Thankfully, someone had already pulled the radiator, so I had a ton of room to work with.



The left-side hose running down underneath was very difficult to get off (I didn't have metric wrenches, just sockets) so I punted and cut the hose as close to the top of the lower metal line as I could. I used a pair of channel locks to snip the coiled metal hose running to and from the ABS computer (the big box directly below the hydroboost assembly) below the proportioning valve because those bolts were not coming off for love or money.



Finally, I crawled inside and used a long 15mm metric socket to take off four mounting bolts on the bracket. There will be no way you can get a wrench on all four of these, so be sure to bring a deep socket. Hopefully your Astro will be cleaner under the dash than mine was.



Then, a bunch of wrestling, tugging, pulling, and twisting got the whole assembly free. GM didn't leave a lot of room in the engine bay to work with, so I removed the top fitting to clear the cowl and put it back on when I was done. My total bill from the junkyard was $35.



Stay tuned. Next I'm going to assemble all the parts needed to retrofit the assembly.

what's done is done but you didn't need to save the hoses. the Scout has flare style fittings. the Astro van has o-rinGs. you can get little brass adapters that hammer into the oring fittings in the booster then you just use pre 1980 Scout2 power steering hoses

 

[bdgn01]

Here's where we ended up at 7PM this evening. If Brian hadn't come over, I definitely wouldn't have gotten this far.

This is what I found when I ground the bolts off the metal strip holding the weatherstripping down. There was carpeting underneath, which leads me to believe these had never been taken off before.



After Brian came by, we made short work of the front floor and the remainder of the tub:



Once the paint was off, we used Marine Clean and Metal Ready to prep the bed, and then rolled it into the sun to dry out. Then it was time to paint:

what's done is done but you didn't need to save the hoses. the Scout has flare style fittings. the Astro van has o-rinGs. you can get little brass adapters that hammer into the oring fittings in the booster then you just use pre 1980 Scout2 power steering hoses

Brandon– Yeah, I just figured I'd grab them for the heck of it. I picked up two Powercraft 70793 hoses to replace them, got the bushings that Bill USN-1 recommended, and I have to go find the brass T and npt fittings this weekend. So the Hydroboost project is drawing closer...

 

[bdgn01]

Go here for a time-lapse from start to finish yesterday. It's one picture a minute from 10AM to about 7PM, give or take (my camera had to be reset a couple of times, and I filled a memory card without knowing it).

 

[Brian Huver]

Bill,
That came out really nice. I like the slide show too. Looking forward to seeing how the bedliner comes out. We couldn't have asked for a nicer weekend to do this.

 

[Grim_Rod]

Bill - The tub is looking great. I love the time lapse photo idea, and it revealed that you also had a 2nd helper other than Brian there for a while! Somehow, I don't believe a similar time lapse set of photos on any of my projects would look the same. Even if you sped it up x5, it would probably just look like normal speed to the rest of the guys on this forum!

 

[bdgn01]

Here's the update: it's sanded, scuffed, cleaned and taped. Brian T. came all the way over from Chestertown with his compressor to help me shoot it, but unfortunately my cursory check of the kit last week failed to reveal the adhesion promoter had frozen solid in the jar. Nobody is open on Sunday and the nearest dealer is about 50 miles from here. So we wrapped everything up and I'll have to wait until they can send me more.










Now I'm going to take my daughter swimming in the neighbors' pool and drink a beer. Many thanks to everyone for their help this weekend- both Brians went above and beyond and I never would have made it this far without their help.

 

[bdgn01]

OK, the official word from Al's is that they can't overnight the primer, because they can't ship it by plane. So I have to wait for UPS ground to get it here. Making it to Carlisle in the Scout is looking less and less likely...

 

[bdgn01]

I got home tonight and there was a box from Al's on my doorstep! I'm going to shoot the liner tomorrow night after work and thrash on it Friday night to be ready for Carlisle. Fingers crossed...