Wires.
I ordered a set of plug wires from RockAuto yesterday afternoon, as well as five dash bulb sockets and lights. Originally I was going to buy a gas tank sender and get the new tank ready for installation, but I suddenly came to my senses and realized that I don’t have an entire weekend to deal with that project. So, I ordered wires to go along with the plugs I’ve already got, and I figure I can get them installed in a couple of hours.
I also worked with the third bench seat a little more, and have it almost to the place where it’s ready to go in—but I have to do some POR-15 work on the mounting plates and bed before it goes in for good. The bed itself needs a good media blasting and sealant coat soon, because there’s some light rust coming up under the purple paint that I’d like to mitigate immediately as well as some flaky areas around the wheel wells.
I’m moving up my plans for a welder to near the top of the list, because I see some metal repairs in my future.
Emergency. Break.
One thing that happened yesterday that I wasn’t expecting was a complete failure of the emergency brake mechanism. I stomped on the pedal as I parked at my destination and it just bounced back up at me. So I’m going to have to spend some time underneath with the cable assembly this coming week to see what’s going on.
Seating.
I took about a half hour last night to try and install my third spare bench seat, but wound up having similar problems as the first one: The bench is aligned too far to the left, so the catches don’t meet the pins at the base of the wheel wells. With the third seat, I can probably adjust the lateral travel (side to side) and bang the catches outboard with a hammer, which might give me enough room to center the seat and meet the pins. If all else fails, I can go back to the original bench, but my reason for pulling it was its lovely pillow-top vinyl design and busted zippers.
The other thing I found out was that I installed the Tuffy console too far back, so the fold-and-tumble is more like a fold-and-lean. So I’ll have to consider drilling new holes sometime in the future.
High Technology.
The other day, while waiting at a stoplight, I happened to notice the small headphone jack on the faceplate of the RoadGear (Wal-Mart) brand radio in the Scout. Intrigued, I filed this away for future investigation.
This afternoon, I pulled a 4″x6″ speaker from a spare dash and plugged it in to one of the lamp cord speaker wires coiled on the floor and tested the radio out. Success! I was pulling in stations, which means A. the antenna is connected, and B. there’s power to the unit. It even turns off when the key is out, which means it’s connected to the accessory circuit correctly. Next, I plugged my spare iPod into the jack and held my breath. Success! The headphone jack auto-switches to the accessory (something the fancy-shmancy Kenwood in the Jeep can’t do).
Lastly, thinking I was pushing my luck, I tried plugging the iPod charger into the cigarette lighter to see if it still carried power. Success!
I can hardly believe it. Now, to find a cheap pair of 6×9 speakers to cover up the big jagged holes in the rear walls.
Happy Trails.
Peer Pressure is back on the road and running like a top. After a long three weeks at the mechanic, the carburetor problem was finally solved; the reason for the leakage was a set of tiny O-rings which were actually supposed to be X-rings. Once he’d torn it down for the fifth time and put them in, she buttoned up and ran like an excited puppy at the edge of an empty field. I’ve had her out on several junk runs, a trip to the Home Depot, a trip to Columbia, and into Baltimore City on a day with record-setting heat, and the temp gauge stays obediently on the left side of the indicator. She starts with one twist of the key and idles like a satisfied kitten. Best of all, the obnoxious stink of gasoline and rich exhaust is almost completely gone—there’s less exhaust backwash on this truck than there was on Chewbacca, as a matter of fact.
Clickity Click.
I finally broke down and bought a new battery for the Scout this weekend after the donor battery from the Jeep decided it couldn’t crank the engine over anymore. While I was dealing with that (crank engine, jump out, twist the terminals down, jump back in, crank engine, repeat, repeat), the driver’s door latch spun itself around 180 degrees so that the latch would just prang off the striker uselessly. So, I tore the driver’s door down again and got inside to see what was happening with the mechanism.
A little backstory: In order to get the latch body out, the window needs to come out, and then the guide track closest to the handle. One bolt on my track was pretty well frozen but a little PBBlaster made short work of the other three. Once I had the track pulled away from the edge, the latch came free, and I compared it with another one I had in my spares (it’s the one on the right). Somehow the cam had gotten completely turned around and jammed itself into place. It had been “repaired” at some point in order to fasten the main pivot arm into place with a flattened bolt and nut, and the clip holding the door release rod was long gone—so they replaced it with a locknut hastily threaded onto the end of the rod. Instead of wasting time trying to fix the original, I shot the spare up with plenty of white lithium and used that instead.
While the driver’s door bolts were soaking, I tore the passenger door down and pulled the original regulator in there out. It looks to be a replacement unit like the ones sold by LightLine dealers (some of the original paint is still evident under the rust). I dropped the new one in, greased it up, buttoned the door back up, and then remembered that I need to tighten the outer door handle. D’oh! Eventually the window will need to come out and be replaced, because there’s some serious rust happening at the bottom of the channel on the inboard side, but that’s why I’ve got spares.
I also finished fabricating a strap stay for the bikini top out of a cut-down decking bracket and bolted that into place, as well as replaced six of the original grade 5 bolts holding the rollbar down with grade 8 hardware. I still have to drill four holes for bolts at the feet of the rollbar, which were never installed (there are only two on each side).
Finally, I’m going to order a ThermoQuad rebuild kit today. Wish me luck!
A Little Help For My Friends.
I took a little time off on Sunday and cruised over the Bay Bridge to help Mr. Scout work on Chewbacca. He’s getting down to the final details, having been out on the road for the first test run, so he’s got a long list of small items to knock off: glass, lighting, seatbelts, dashboard, etc. He and Alan and I set right to work after a delicious eclair from the bakery in Chestertown. I started by looking over the door regulators and doing a test fitting inside the old steel doors to make sure I had the right orientation, then got to work on the passenger side. After an hour or so of fooling with it I’d figured out how to mount it correctly, set the glass in place, and put the wing window in. We pulled it all out to press new felt into the door, and then bolted everything permanently in place. The only thing left to do will be to buy some longer bolts and fabricate a backing plate for the door handle as well as the latch plate, because it’s all bolting into fiberglas at this point.
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!
AHA!
I have just identified the source of the donor bucket seats in Peer Pressure, compliments of Jalopnik.com and a weekly feature run there called Down In The Junkyard. It seems they were originally in a mid-80′s Dodge Shelby Charger, a vehicle produced during the Malaise era of Detroit, where turbocharging a 2.2 liter, 106-hp engine was considered “fast”. The telltale sign: The Shelby logo embroidered on the seats, something I’d never recognized until now. Woof, what a pig. And to think I’ve been seriously considering replacing them with the original seats from Chewbacca (or even a set of donor seats from a PT Cruiser)!
In brighter news, the top is off and stored in the basement for the summer, and the bikini top has returned!
Battery Not Included.
So, this Tuesday, the Scout made her maiden 2010 voyage into the city after having a new water pump installed. As recounted elsewhere, everything went smoothly until the 5-year-old battery decided it was finished, and stranded me in the parking garage after work. Jen came and gave me a jumpstart and I made it home fine, so it’s pretty obvious what the next outlay for the Scout will be.
After that, we move on to the carburetor. The mechanics tightened the Thermoquad down and plugged up a vacuum hose that was open, and the engine sounds a heck of a lot quieter now. They warned me about gas leakage from the carb, though, and suggested a rebuild ASAP, which has been on my radar since the day we got the truck started. I’ve been doing some research into rebuilding the Thermoquad, and from what I’ve read it sounds like a hassle to get dialed in correctly (and moreso to find someone competent enough to do so).
So I think my plan of action will be to buy a new or rebuilt Holley 2300 series and install that in place of the Thermoquad. From what I’ve heard the 2300 is more common, easier to work with, and generally a friendlier unit to n00bs like me. IHOnly North is offering rebuilt carbs for a decent price, and I will definitely give them a ring when I’m ready to swap out what I’ve got.
Home Again.
A pressure test and one new water pump later, Peer Pressure is sitting in the driveway again (well, technically, it’s across the street so we can get the CR-V out). Turns out it was the shiny new water pump itself that was bad. It was more expensive to have it fixed professionally, but I was tired of fooling around with it here and there and still not getting answers. I bought the thing to drive, and now that the weather’s getting nice, I’d like to take advantage of that. Plus, we still have a ton of stuff around the house that needs to get hauled to the dump…
The mechanic also mentioned the leaky carb, and they tightened the bolts while they had the hood open, which was nice of them. The result of that is an excessively low idle, basically one step above stalling—but the carb isn’t leaking as much as it was. My next major outlay will be to have the carb rebuilt professionally, something I hope to have done in the next month or so.
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