The other night I went through the pile of parts I picked from the Flintstone Scout to store them properly in the garage (and get them out of the way). I’d pulled both of the horns off, but one fell apart in my hands so I left it in the field. At home I hooked the “good” one up on my bench tester and got no response, even after cleaning the contacts. So that one goes in the trash; my search for a more American-sounding horn continues.
I soaked a container full of fender bolts in some industrial chemicals Brian H. gave me; it’s some stuff he used at his daytime job to clean rooftop AC condensers and it removes paint and neutralizes rust in just a week or so. I pulled them out and rinsed them off really well; over the weekend I’ll put them in a can with some pea gravel and shake it around for a while to knock the rest of the flakes off.
The dash I pulled is in great shape, although the metal around the speedo mount was bent (this is typical when someone is trying to replace a bulb and can’t get behind the speedo unit). All of the controls are still there, and both switches are in great shape. I’m still diagnosing my wiper issue, and if a used wiper switch is going for $130, then that part alone was worth the whole recovery trip. I’ll add this to the untouched dash I already have and the cleaned-up black dash I painted years ago. The dash pad is pretty much toast but cores are worth some money now that they’re being reproduced, so I’ll store that away for later.
The liftgate I pulled is in worse shape than I originally thought. There’s a ton of rust around the lower inside edge where water got in and sat year over year; I didn’t see that when I was taking it off. I think it could be saved if I get desperate but for now it’s tucked away in the back of the garage.
Next, I brought the windshield glass in, cleaned a decade’s worth of grime off the surfaces, and scraped all of the black silicone off the edges. It’s in really nice shape and doesn’t have any of the pitting or chipping Peer Pressure’s current glass has, so this will be the prime replacement candidate when I get enough stones to attempt installing it myself. I’ve got a second set of glass from one of the other windshield frames, but it’s fogging around the edges and likely wouldn’t be worth using.
Opening the hood to install pigtails on the battery terminals for the trickle charger, I found it much harder to lift than usual. the gas strut I’d installed a couple of years ago looks like it’s lost the will to live, so I tracked the part number backwards and found a replacement from the manufacturer online for about $30. I’m considering asking the vendor if they’ve had any other reports of strut failure—it’s been over two years, so any hope of a warranty is long gone—but it might be worth letting them know.