And here’s the new plan, based on lots of mocking up and thinking and head-scratching and more than a little beer-drinking:

Allowing for the height of the spindle, we decided to move it outboard of the tailgate by 1/2″ and scoot it down as much as possible. This means the swingarm no longer sits on the face of the bumper. Now, when it’s closed, the bottom of the swingarm aligns roughly with the top of the bumper. (We couldn’t simply mount the spindle through the top of the bumper, because the spindle is only 4″ tall and the bumper is 6″).

With that in mind, we trimmed the end of the swingarm to fit the round weldable sleeve of the hinge and tacked it into place. Then we pulled the bumper off and mocked it up on the garage floor to eyeball everything.

What we found was that moving the hinge further outboard moved the swingarm offcenter by about 1″, so we pondered this over a delicious steak lunch (thanks, Mr. Scout!) and glass of IPA, and then got to grinding the swingarm triangle off the bar. After we cleaned up the edges, we moved it 1″ and tacked it back together then mocked it up again to check the fit.

One surprise benefit to the new design is that it frees up the face of the bumper to mount a Hi-Lift directly under the swingarm, as opposed to the swingarm itself. So we tacked in two square rests and made provisions to drill holes for mounting bolts through the bumper.

So the plan from here is that Mr. Scout is going to take the two parts to his welder and have him burn everything together. Then we’ll bring the Scout and the parts, mount the bumper, and get the swingarm just the way we want it before welding it on for good.

* * *

Today also marks the first time Peer Pressure has run out of gas. I was about a mile outside of Centerville when I lost all power at the pedal and she slowly coasted to the side of the road. Thank GOD I wasn’t on the bridge when that happened. I emptied my 1-gallon jerry can into the tank, primed the carb, and she fired right back up again.

I put 5 gallons in as I was leaving home, and PP made it 54+ miles to Centerville before running out. It was extremely windy today, and I had my foot in the gas the whole way over (60 indicated, which equates to about 68MPH) but 11MPG sucks balls.

Now, a little history: We built the design around a hinge we found online, which was rated for 3000 pounds and built for hanging fence doors. With that in mind, we decided to mount the hinge to the face of the bumper and have the swingarm come off the front, vs. a pole hinge on top. The reason for this was to keep the pivot of the arm closer to the middle of the bumper instead of the top of the far corner, and to allow for more clearance between a lowered tailgate and the top of the bumper.

What wound up happening was that there is a lot more vertical play in the hinge than we’d anticipated—it looks like it was designed to carry a heavy vertical load in tandem with one or more identical hinges, but never to deal with shear loads by itself. When it’s pulled free from the receiver, it immediately droops by about 1.5″ under the weight of itself, a Hi-Lift, and spare tire. This is, as you might imagine, not optimal. We decided to move forward with the design and materials we have, and if we come up with a better solution, grind it off and replace it.

On the other side, we cut down a section of 2.5″ box tube and added a trailer pin to close the swingarm.

To mount to the body, there are two standoffs of 2.5″ box mounted to plate, using the four holes from the OEM standoffs. We also welded angle support to the backside of the frame to beef up the mount point.

Provisions for a Hi-Lift are on the swingarm; Brian drilled bolt holes and welded two supports to the underside for the jack to rest on. I’m going to swap ends with my mount so that the foot of the Hi-Lift is on the hinge side.

So. Yesterday’s labor started with two angle grinders and a lot of noise. With three people working, we had all outside surfaces clean, deburred, and straight in about an hour.

It was during the grinding portion that I discovered the main tube is tuned to a high A#, according to the app on my iPhone.

The first things we did were to tack in the endcaps on the main tube, then put the Hi-Lift notches in place. We’re having a pro lay in the full welds; this is all just for placement and transport.

We moved on to the top swingarm, measuring and correcting for clean 90° angles. Once we’d straightened it out, it got tacked into place. Then we measured and tacked in the side supports to brace everything together.

Once the arms were in place, we measured (again) for the diameter of the spare tire (mine is 32″, Brian’s is a 31″) and added a few inches for clearance, then welded a mounting plate to the standoff, tacked that to the vertical arm, and added a 45° gusset directly below.

After taking a break, we cleaned up a little bit and got things ready for mockup. First, my OEM bumper had to come off, which took some PBBlaster and air tools. Then, we clamped the OEM standoffs to ours and drilled out the holes. Next, we mounted the new standoffs temporarily and then lifted the new bumper into place, supported by a single 2×4″. After careful measurement, marking with a sharpie, location of a fire extinguisher, and a few Hail Marys, we tacked the standoffs to the back of the bumper tube.

Looks good!

By this time, we were pretty tired, I was facing an hour and a half ride home over the bridge, and anything else we wanted to do would take some serious consideration. The hinge is the big question; we’re thinking about alternatives to the mechanical problem, or changes in the geometry (angling the hinge slightly upward to account for droop).

And, on the plus side: the manifold replacement surgery is holding strong, quiet, and smooth. It no longer sounds like a thundering herd of doom, and the cabin doesn’t stink of exhaust anymore.

Peer Pressure is quiet again. There’s no backfire coming off a heavy foot in the gas, and exhaust fumes in the cabin are all but gone.

Meanwhile, Brian H. took delivery of his Wagonmaster today, and will be selling his red Scout to make room for the new acquisition. Pretty, isn’t it?

I also got an email from my friend in Wheaton, who mentioned he’d been up to Crazy Ray’s in Mt. Airy to look around, and found a Scout II that hadn’t been picked over much. Because they were already in the area, I let Brian and Bennett know, and they made a trip up to look it over. Apparently there wasn’t much left of the body, but they pulled some engine parts and left the rest for the crusher.

The first thing Brian did, months ago, was find us the hinges. He got them here: Guardian Gate hinges He got the 2000 series unprimed model.

From there, we worked with the specifications some other folks had used, and bought a length of 6″ x 2″ 3/16″ box steel as well as two pieces of 2″ x 2″ in the same thickness. The first step was cutting the bumpers down. We used a very durable Porter & Cable circular saw with standard metal cutting blades. We decided to keep the width the same as the stock steel bumper, so they got cut to 64″ wide.

Next, we cut the swingarms 54″ long and mocked them up roughly on the bumpers. We originally debated mounting the swingarm on top of the bumper or on its face, and finally decided to mount on the face 3/4″ outside the edge of the endcap so that the tailgate can be lowered with the swingarm at a 90˚ angle.

Next was the cradle for the swingarm, which came from 2.5″ box steel. Brian notched out one side by hand and we sliced two of them off.

From there, we pulled out our spares and laid them down on some board to mock up the vertical tube. Originally we were going to mount Hi-Lift jacks on the two support bars below the tire, but as we looked at it in person, we thought it would raise the tire too high. (we’re both paranoid about the welds giving way and the whole thing falling off the back of the truck into oncoming traffic).

We both agreed that we’re not going to be running anything larger than a 32″ tire for the foreseeable future, so we settled on that as our baseline size. We decided to lower the spare to about 1.5″ above the swingarm–mine will be 1″ higher than his–and mount the jacks on the face of the swingarm. The vertical bar is 28.5″ high. We lengthened the support arms so that they make a triangle right where the standoff for the tire mounting plate will go.

With that figured out, we cut four support arms down and laid out the triangles on the floor. It was looking like we were going to finish it all up quickly, but then it slowly dawned on us that we had a ton of smaller cuts and pieces to make.

Luckily it was about this time we took a break for lunch, changed into clean clothes, and stopped over to a friend’s house to watch him brew a Belgian triple while being interviewed for the local paper (and sip on a Dogfish Head 90 Minute while doing so). Suitably refreshed, we returned to the garage.

I’ll probably remember this out of order because it was hotter than the hinges of Hell that afternoon, but next we cut two standoffs for the tire mounts and attempted to cut braces for them. Then we measured for standoffs on the frame and cut those from the 3″ box so that the new bumpers will sit roughly at the same height and depth as the stock steel bumpers do, providing enough clearance to lower the tailgate and access the hitch below.

Brian took on the four most difficult cuts himself, which were the shallow angles on either end of the bumpers. We sloped them 6″ from the ends and 2″ from the bottom.

Then, we used some cardboard to measure and mock up flat steel for the spare mounting plate; that piece is a 6″ x 9″ rectangle aligned vertically so that we can use three of the five bolt holes on the spare. Then we cut a bunch of small plates to seal up all of the open ends of tubing.

We made notches for jack mounting points on the bottom. We sliced our remaining 2.5″ box in half and then cut four notches out of the top. Then we measured 12″ from the ends of the bumpers, centered them on that mark, and notched the bottom out. This cut is the only one we couldn’t make with our limited tools; we’re going to hire a professional welder to connect everything and have him use a plasma cutter to chop those bits out before welding in the notches.

The last four cuts were angle iron for mounting the whole assembly to the frame; we’re going to weld the angle so that it’s on the outside edges of the frame rails and bolt the bumper plates to that, as well as the crossmember–we are taking everyone’s warnings into consideration.

By this point it was about 5:30 or so and we were whupped, so we called it a day and cleaned up the shop. I think we probably have a couple of small things left to do–cutting plates for the bumper standoffs comes to mind, as well as gussets or braces for the tire standoff–before we’re ready to call in a welder. We also need to run power out to the arm and come up with some kind of lighted license plate bracket that’ll mount inside the wheel. Brian’s goal is to get his bumper mounted and ready by September 1 for a vacation trip, and I’d love to have mine by then too, if possible.

This took two guys about six or so hours with minimal steelworking equipment: A circular saw, four metal blades, some clamps, angles, and a flat surface in the shade.

Bright and early Saturday morning, we got started by using a cheapo Harbor Freight siphon to pull the gas out of the tank. It worked great after I finally looked at the bulb and realized the big arrow was pointing in the wrong direction.

After we drained the tank, we disconnected all of the vapor lines still existing on the driver’s side, the fuel line and the sender wiring from the passenger side. (make sure to have a bucket handy to dump the remaining fuel in the lines).

I’d sprayed the bolts with PBblaster the day before so it only took a little coaxing to get the nuts started, and the straps loosened up quickly. We rolled a floor jack underneath and braced it with blocks, then let everything down slowly and pulled the tank forward.

Once it was clear of the straps, we disconnected the sender leads and pulled it free. It was in decent shape but the sender unit had been sealed in with some kind of goo that came off in one piece. A couple of the vapor lines had been capped with non-fuel grade hose (two years ago, I replaced the fuel neck hose it came with, which was actually radiator hose) and several others just dead-ended up into the fender cavity.

We put the new sender into the tank, made sure the seal was tight, and set it into place. The poly tank I got is a little smaller than steel, so the straps aren’t quite as tight as I’d like, but once we cinched it down, it’s won’t go anywhere. We had to scoot it over to the driver’s side slightly to make the fuel neck hose fit (nobody in Chestertown had any to sell us, and the piece I had was about 1″ too short) but once that was done everything went smoothly.

We removed the plastic evap assembly from inside the fender (it wasn’t hooked up properly) and tightened the fuel neck up to the body (it wasn’t, originally), then double-checked our hoses and started putting fuel back in the tank. While that was happening, I worked on splicing new connectors onto the sender wiring.

When the last bit of gas was in the tank (and after Brian pranked me by pouring some of his water out on the floor under the tank while I wasn’t looking) I primed the carb and fired it up.

She ran smooth and didn’t die, which meant the engine was pulling from the tank properly, and I pulled her out into the driveway to idle for a moment. The gauge still read zero, so we decided to ground the wiring when we got back from Dogfish Head out in Rehoboth.

The next day, we tied the ground into a bare spot on the frame, hoping that would solve the issue with the gauge, but there was still no reading. So I’ll pull the gauge itself, test the wiring, and swap it with a spare, then look at adding a new wire for power all the way up to the dash. (I get good power to the gauge itself, and the ammeter works correctly). The ride home was uneventful and easy; I put 5 more gallons in it before crossing the Bay Bridge and didn’t have any problems with the pump shutting off or fuel coming back up the filler neck.

All totaled, it took two guys about four hours with minimal air tools, a couple of jerry cans, a siphon, and an assortment of electrical connectors.

Saturday evening, while moving three benches around the garage, I finally noticed something missing from the original bench, and everything suddenly made sense. IH mounted two feet on the bottom rear of each seat, which propped it up off the floor by about 2″. These feet were missing from the bench the truck came with—they had been knocked off with a hammer. I reasoned that once the feet were gone, the seat sat lower on the floor and the latches were able to swing under the posts correctly. So I busted out the POR-15 and painted up two mounting brackets in preparation for Sunday afternoon.

After I’d knocked the feet off of one of the spare benches (no pillowtop, thank GOD), I sat it in the bed, adjusted the sides, and bolted it into place just as easy as could be. The only thing left to do now is scoot the Tuffy console forward about two inches so that fold becomes fold-and-tumble. And, after unbolting the set of belts it came with, I can get rid of the original bench and reclaim that much more space in the garage.

Sunday afternoon I took a quick trip down to visit Brian H, who has taken a Sawzall to his driver’s floor, and we shot the breeze for a half hour or so. He’s making adjustments to his cab before welding in all new metal—floor mounts, rocker, the whole works. What he’s got done so far looks good, and his welds are really coming along. He’s trying to get her back on the road for next weekend’s trip to Bennett’s farm…I’m pulling for him.

Thus began the replacement process. I pulled the old unit out and put it aside. A dremel wheel attached to my corded drill cut most of the hole for a DIN-9 sleeve, and an angle grinder trimmed the hole to fit. Once I’d made an allowance for the radio, I needed to get a constant power source to it in order to supply power for the memory and presets. Fortunately the new positive battery cable I’d added when the starter crapped out had a pigtail right from the terminal, so I soldered a 14 gauge wire to a male lead, fed the wire through the firewall at the heater wire, and soldered a 5-amp inline fuse to the end. Once I got everything connected to the radio, it all went back in with a snap, and I took the extra time to replace a couple of bulbs in the speedo (the ones I could reach, at least) before replacing the dash panel. Voila! Digital tuning, iPod accessibility, a CD player, and a detachable face.

New head unit

It looks like I’m going to need to drop the A/C ducting in order to get anywhere near the underside of the dash, which is a drag, but I won’t miss it since it doesn’t currently work. Plans for another day…

My next short-term goal is to POR-15 the seat mounts and put a rear seat back in; I’d like to use one of the nicer benches I’ve got so that I can get the other two out of the garage, but that’s going to take an afternoon of adjusting that I don’t currently have.

Looks like someone boosted my tunes

Last night I finished grinding a dash cover plate down enough to fit a DIN-9 sleeve for my spare Kenwood radio. I stole out into the garage at 10:30 and pulled the Wal-Mart special, marked off the relevant wires, and test-fitted the Kenwood. Unfortunately, there was no juice. I think part of the problem is that the new deck needs constant power and switched power from the key; I’ve got switched power but noplace to draw constant power from the battery. So next I have to figure out how to make that happen.

In other news, I ordered two replacement J-hooks from SSS yesterday in preparation for my gas tank swap. Now that the weather is calming down, I need to set aside a day to make that happen.