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.

I was heading to Columbia yesterday on business and as I pulled Peer Pressure to the end of the driveway, a teal Scout happened to pass by slowly. I honked and they pulled over to chat. It turns out the owner lives in Bethesda but grew up in the ‘Ville, and his Dad lives right around the corner. He just bought his rig a few months ago from Pennsylvania and he’s looking at fixing it up. I would have taken them up on their offer of a beer in the shade but I was under a time crunch so I only chatted for about 10 minutes. I turned him on to the Binder Planet and the ODBA, as well as mentioned the local crew we’ve got in the area. His plan is to drive it up here to his Dad’s place and work on it there over the summer and through the winter. His truck is in really nice shape–little to no rust anywhere but the rear arches and in the rockers; his engine is so clean you could eat off the air filter cover. It’s a V-8 with a 2bbl but he doesn’t know which one yet, so we’ll have to do some sleuthing for him.

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.

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.

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.