My mechanic got back to me on Friday and asked for a little more time to work on her, which means Monday or Tuesday. The fact that I missed a week of almost perfect convertible weather has me bummed, but the payoff will be worth it when it’s back in the driveway and running well.

In the meantime, plans to recover the local Scout went off without much of a hitch at all. After Finn and I got some doughnuts down the street, Mr. Scout met us at the house and helped blow up her new inflatable pool while we waited for Alan and his friend to make it up with the trailer. After some jockeying around the narrow streets of the neighborhood, they got the tow rig pointed in the right direction and we headed over to the seller’s house.

Where's the red? It's all green

At first, the Scout didn’t want to start. Gas down the carb made it fire up fine but there was no gas getting through the lines from the tank. After a quick trip to the gas station for a couple of gallons, the seller blew out the line and then the filter himself (can you say “motivated buyer?”) and we tried a few tests with everything disconnected. Once we made sure the fuel pump was working—squirting gas alarmingly all over the engine—we hooked everything back up and tried it again. It turned out that I was closest to the driver’s seat, so I fired it up and it finally stayed running, and everyone cleared a path out for me to crawl down the driveway and line up behind the trailer. This time I got up onto the trailer without doing any damage, put it in 4lo and shut everything down.

We ratcheted it down tight, closed the doors up good, and money exchanged hands. All was good!

On the trailer and ready to roll

The seller was very happy to have it out of his driveway, as was his wife.

Mr. Scout's new steering wheel

Mr. Scout has a new steering wheel for his truck, which makes him happy. We weren’t able to pull it while we were there, so he and Alan will do the swap through the mail, most likely.

Brand-new poly tank and skidplate

Meanwhile, I continued hoarding parts for Peer Pressure. The items above are the reason I organized the whole deal in the first place: a brand-new poly gas tank, unused, with a matching skidplate. I hosed the dust off the tank and looked it over; everything appears perfect. Score!

Clean passenger fender

The next item is a passenger’s fender in excellent shape; this apparently came off a Terra donor rig. It’s in better shape than the fender I’ve already got, which makes me happy.

Side note: I’d say roughly 2/3 of the spare parts I have are or originally were Tahitian Red when they came from the factory—coincidence, or something more sinister? You decide.

Clean tailgate

I also took home a clean tailgate from the same rig, which is in excellent shape. It even sports a factory “Scout II” sticker.

Clean Terra doors

From the same donor rig, there are two clean doors, which are in far better shape than the two spares I have. They still have Terra glass in them, which will get sold or scrapped. The rest of the chrome looks like it’s in excellent shape. There’s some slight rust on the underside of the interior, and some bubbles under the trim on the drivers door, but it’s definitely repairable.

AC Compressor

Alan also brought me some gifts from the last set of scrapped vehicles we picked up: the first is a clean IH-serialed compressor for my AC setup.

Holley 2300

The next is a used Holley 2300 carb, which will be my rebuild testbed. I don’t have an air cleaner housing to fit it, but I’m hoping the ThermoQuad air cleaner might.

Update: The serial number off the carb doesn’t match anything from a standard Light Line application, which means it’s not an exact match. I’ll have to find out exactly what I’ve got so that I can order the right replacement kit.

Holley 2300 with adapter plate

Following that is a Holley 2100 with a spreadbore adapter mounted to the bottom. I’m not as excited about this one, but I’m going to do some reading to learn more about it.

Crappy windshield

Finally, I took the crappier of the two windshields. I figure the wiper linkage and motor might be worthwhile to have, but the rest is definitely scrap metal.

He had this stuff called white lithium grease, which sprayed out of a can, and which worked incredibly well to lubricate the regulator mechanism. I’m going to go look for some this week so that I can tear both my doors down and get the windows working correctly. It made a huge difference rolling the window up and down. I was also very impressed with his PT cruiser seats, which are incredibly comfortable, and which I’m now considering for Peer Pressure. As I documented here, though, there are a few caveats to this upgrade:

• His came with captains’ armrests on the inboard side, which interfered with his Tuffy console. I think we used a Torx 45 bit to pull them off, as well as the female side of the seatbelt buckles, which are also built into the side of the seat. The driver’s side needs some kind of plastic plate to cover over the bolt mounting cutout, while the passenger’s side had one built into the seat. Strange.
• The driver’s side seat does not lean forward at all. Rear passengers will need to enter on the passenger side (where the seat folds forward almost flat, which is very cool).
• If you run a stock full-size wheel without a tilt column, there isn’t a whole lot of clearance between the bottom of the wheel and the top of the seat. You will probably need to switch out the wheel to a Rallye-style or an aftermarket Grant model.

After some lunch, I busied myself by helping to install his Tuffy console between the seats. We scribed out an arc in the rear mount to clear the transmission tunnel (something I’m also considering for mine) and set it in place with two bolts we had on hand. Meanwhile, Alan sorted out a bunch of electrical gremlins under the hood and helped get the license plate holder we scavenged from the brown donor scout mounted and lit.

Before I had to hit the road, we fired her up and Brian let me take her for a spin around the block. She purrs like a kitten, and with a little adjustment in the clutch and carb she’ll be a very enjoyable driver. It felt good to take her out again, even if she’s 3/4 new fabrication!

My local friend Karl is selling his Scout in preparation for a move north into Pennsylvania, so I’m also stopping over to pick through his stash and see if there’s anything I’m interested in besides two clean seat bases—which will replace the ones I currently have installed. The plan is to clean these up, mount the old seats from Chewbacca, and replace the strange aftermarket seats it came with.

Not to be discouraged, I continued on to my friends’ house (a few knocks on the tank verified there was sufficient gas available) and made it home alright. But now I’ve got to source a hose that won’t disintegrate with exposure to gasoline.

* * *

Last weekend I removed the entire soft top and folded it carefully for storage in my basement, along with the door frames, bed rails, and hoops. With soft tops being scarce and expensive, I’m going to try and keep this one in good shape for as long as I can. I replaced it with the bikini top, which went on easily, although I’ve got to add a tiedown on the driver’s side and redrill the holes at the edges of the windshield to secure the rail. This is the first time I’ve had a bikini top, and I have to say, it’s very nice.

He’d gotten everything off the tub prior to this morning, and soaked the body bolts in WD-40 to make for easier removal, so we got right to work. The body bolts came off, the steering linkage was removed, various electrical connections were removed, and the tank got drained and dropped.

Then, it was Miller time.

The next step was to get it as close to its final destination as possible so as to save our lower backs from years of chiropractic reconstruction. After removing a length of fence, we angled the truck out of the carport and into the backyard within a stone's throw of a flat concrete pad. Experimentation with 2x4s and leverage determined that we needed to lower the front of the frame to get the tub high enough to clear the transfer stick, so we removed the front wheels and lowered the body onto jackstands.

Once that was accomplished, we heaved the tub off the chassis and the four of us got it over to the concrete with only one (hopefully) minor strain. Boy, was I glad that went quickly, and surprised at how much that thing weighed. Note to self: this is a 6-man job.

Then, it was a matter of redoing what we’d undone to get the frame back on four wheels and into the carport. A little shoving, a little kicking, and the chassis was under cover for the evening.

All in all, it was a very successful day—the four of us got a lot done in five hours.