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.

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.

With the thick supplied gasket installed, one of the linkage rods isn’t long enough to reach, so he had to call around to find the correct gasket and have it overnighted for tomorrow—which is great, because we can’t pick it up until tomorrow evening anyway.

• Appointment made to see if the local parts Scout will run: check.
• Appointment made to have my mechanic rebuild the Thermoquad and look over the rest of Peer Pressure: check.

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!

I also started replacing the bolts fastening the rollbar to the body. The PO used some kind of zinc-plated hardware, so I bought a handful of grade-8 replacements and started swapping things out. I also found an angle bracket in the decking section of the Home Depot that I think I can modify to use as a secondary tiedown for the bikini top straps. (There’s one tiedown fastened to a passenger-side rollbar bolt, but the driver’s side has nothing).

Still on deck: A rebuild kit for the ThermoQuad. Stay tuned.

Install Holley 2300
buy rebuild kit – $60+
buy 2bbl. intake – $50

Rebuild the Thermoquad
buy Thermoquad rebuild kit – $50

Finish sanding and painting the seat bases, weld in some support on the bottom
Sand the bed and floors – buy stripper & discs
Fix the driver’s window scissors – It’s binding when pressure is first applied to the crank.
Clean sand & paint
Inner fenders
Windshields
Travel Top
Dogleg

Fix the rear bench seat – I’d like to replace the upholstery with something cleaner. The replacement bench seat I have doesn’t fit correctly (the latch doesn’t meet the striker on the wheel wells).
Fix the brake light indicator – the switch on the pedal is bent.

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.

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.