Category: Future Plans

Prep for Nationals

I had a busy weekend moving and shaking with truck stuff. The first task was to drive down to northern Virginia for a cheap used Bestop soft top I spied on Marketplace. Saturday mornings are the perfect time to get around Washington to avoid traffic, and it took just one hour to pull into the seller’s driveway. He was cleaning out his house in preparation for a sale, and had pulled the top down out of the garage attic for the first time in decades. All the parts were present and the fabric and plastic were in excellent shape, so I made the deal and headed home.

Bestops are different than Kaylines in that the mounting hardware is a completely different design, so I’m not interested in keeping this one, even though it’s in excellent shape. I opened it up, made sure all the parts were there, then shot pictures and put it up for sale on the Binder Planet. I’ll drag it to Nats to see if anyone wants to drive home with it and hopefully make some more gas money.

Then I drove over to the local U-Haul location and hitched a tow dolly up to the Scout. Once again I’m thankful that the previous owners did a great job wiring the truck up, including a tow harness. After getting it home, I backed it up to the 800 and did some thinking on how to get the truck onto the dolly. The first and easiest solution was to drop the battery from the Travelall into it and use the starter to crawl it up onto the dolly, but the starter is old and tired and couldn’t make it all the way up the ramps. So I put the tow strap on and used the Travelall to yank it up onto the dolly where I could get it strapped in place.

I had been nervous all week about towing the truck, but after some initial starts and check stops (I had to use a ratchet strap to hold the tailgate closed) I made it out to Brian’s with no issues. Peer Pressure pulled just fine, and apart from the engine getting warmer than usual I had no problems. At Brian’s, we puzzled out how to get the 800 off the ramp, down the driveway and into the garage, and settled on pulling the dolly out from under the front wheels. Then we let gravity pull the truck down the driveway where I did a 180 and lined it up to roll backwards into the garage bay.

With that done, I pulled the CR-V up onto the dolly, strapped it down, and headed for home. Again, Peer Pressure pulled it easily, and after dropping the Honda off and returning the dolly, I took the Travelall back out to Ellicott City for some dinner and a speed run up Rt. 40. The wheels are still vibrating badly up front, so hopefully the shop I’m taking it to on Wednesday can help me balance things out.

Sunday I did a lot of prep work on both trucks to make sure they’re both ready for the drive. I cut some 1/4 allthread down and made a battery hold down strap with a length of aluminum on the Travelall. Next, I pulled the front tires off the Scout and lubed the suspension up for the first time since ever. While the passenger wheel was off I finally replaced a section of rubber fuel line that was rubbing against the brake line as well as a filter between the pump and the carb—both of which date back to the previous owner. I tidied up wiring in the engine bay and along the frame rails, cleaned out the cabin, and topped off the fluids. On the red truck I did a lot of the same, as well as adjusted the timing and idle a bit to combat some dieseling I was getting at shutdown. I also tucked the rearmost section of headliner from the green truck up into Darth, grounded the dome light, and hooked it up to the circuit so that there’s a working light over the barn doors.

Posted on   |   by bill   |   Leave a Comment on Prep for Nationals  |  Posted in Future Plans, Travelall

Preparations

We’re only two weeks away from Nats and I’m feeling the date bearing down on me. I really want to drive the Travelall but haven’t been able to get her out for a long drive yet. The weather finally broke today and we got the first sunshine in a week, so I can hopefully stretch her legs this weekend at some point. I made an appointment with a local independent shop next week to have the wheels re-balanced and balance beads added, so we’ll see how that affects the ride. In the meantime I have some small things to attend to:

  • Fabricate a battery hold-down. This just requires a length of allthread, an aluminum strap, and two wingnuts.
  • Order a set of hoses. I need the top and lower radiator hoses just in case she gets too hot on the trip. I thought I had some used spares in the Scout bins—I’ll have to double-check this.
  • Fabricate some kind of temporary mount for the Rotopax. I figure I can make something to bolt onto the spare tire to hold the gas can upright.
  • Put together the emergency kit. Most of my stuff is already together, but I need to add some truck-specific things.
  • Lubricate the chassis. I haven’t done this yet, mostly because both of my grease guns are broken. I did, however, find a working grease gun at a yard sale two weeks ago, so I’m gonna get the old girl all greased up.
  • Re-torque the U-bolts on the springs and check the tie rods. Basically just make sure nothing has decided to jump ship.
  • Check and top off all the fluids. 
  • Replace the fuel filter.
  • Hose the windshield down with Rain-X. I have no windshield wipers. If the forecast is anything like it was two years ago, I’ll probably take the Scout, which at least has some wipers.

I’ll repeat everything here on the Scout except for the first three items, just so I’ve got the backup ready to roll.

Posted on   |   by bill   |   Leave a Comment on Preparations  |  Posted in Future Plans, To-Do List

Re-Organization

Memorial Weekend was damp and rainy, so I wasn’t able to do much outside, but I did take advantage of the time to re-re-re-organize in the garage. After erecting a set of racks for my Home Depot totes and immediately filling them all a few months ago, I quickly realized I needed another stack. So I cobbled together the rest of my spare lumber and put a second stack together, which required moving a bunch of other crap out of the way. By the end of Saturday I’d built and filled the new stack, raised the old kitchen cabinets on the back wall higher, moved the fridge underneath that, moved the second pair of spare Scout doors out under the back porch, and shifted a bunch of other stuff around to make more room. Then I consolidated some of the parts in the tubs and updated my parts spreadsheet so more common items are together. There’s still a long way to go, but I can get to it all much easier.

On the trucks, I did dumb puttery stuff like install the V7 cupholder (verdict: perfect!), swap the refinished passenger fender onto the truck to church it up for Nats, and tightened both fenders down securely. I pulled a bunch of parts down out of the attic to see if there’s any interest in Ohio—this is stuff they’re not currently reproducing—and stuffed them into a bin for the trip. And the floor is bolted down with more hardware.

I’ve been chasing the issue with the fuel gauge for a couple of weeks now. I tested the sender and found that it was sending, as well as the gauge behind the dashboard. Doing some more digging, I realized there’s another thing I hadn’t considered: I most likely fried the voltage regulator when I was welding on the truck in the fall of 2024—the same thing that fried the condenser on the distributor. I pulled the original off the truck and swapped in a used spare from the green truck, but that did nothing. The Jungle site overnighted me a new one, and after swapping it and the original blackface gauge back in, I was rewarded with a working unit again! Now I just have to drive it around for awhile with a jerry can in the back until I understand what it considers empty and full.

Friday evening I got a message on the Binder Planet from a guy in South Carolina who read the site here and was wondering if I still had any spare Kayline hardware in my collection. After trading some messages and an email, I sent him pictures of what I had and we struck up a deal. He’s one of the rare examples of someone who has an intact canvas top but only some of the mounting gear—I’ve come across piles of hardware made obsolete because the canvas was shredded. Along the way I’ve rescued a number of these spares, and I was happy to pass them along to him. I made a sturdy box out of some spare cardboard and shipped it off to him Tuesday afternoon.

Posted on   |   by bill   |   Leave a Comment on Re-Organization  |  Posted in Electrical, Future Plans, Travelall

Weekend Updates, 3 Days Later

I got the steel wheel back from the repair shop yesterday, and it looks much better than it did before. I put it on the front hub and spun it to see how straight it looked, and while there’s just a little side-to-side variation it’s not as huge as it was before. This morning I took her out for a test spin, and when I got up to 55mph I did feel a shake—but not as bad as it was before. At 60-65mph it smoothed out and ran like a champ—the engine was happy at that speed and she felt stable and true. So I think I might swap the newly repaired tire to the front, put a camera on both wheels and see if I notice any vibration at speed. If there’s another wheel that looks bad, I’ll get that one repaired as well. And if I need extra balancing, I’m going to take it to a tire shop and have them add balance beads to each wheel.

Three years ago, after I’d pulled all of the carpet off the interior of the truck, I was left with a bunch of adhesive all over the bare metal. Later on I used a rubber-brush wheel on a drill to knock all of that residue off—the ancient adhesive resisted acetone, and I didn’t want to use anything stronger than that—which left a dull finish on the metal. I did a test run with the cutting compound and found that it brought the shine right back, so I spent Sunday afternoon going around the perimeter of the interior and cleaning up the metal, including the doorframes. It looks a million times better inside.

I also pulled the original steering wheel off and replaced it with the one I refinished a year ago. I had to clean up the threads on the new wheel and sand paint off the copper horn ring, but it went on with no complaints and the horn works fine. Interestingly, there is a turn signal cancelling mechanism in there, but one of the contacts was broken years ago. After a test drive with the new wheel, I found that the left turn signal will now cancel, but the right side won’t. I’m going to see if I can source a new mechanism at Nats.

The outside paint is…better than it was, but nothing short of a full sanding job is going to get it to look any better. The cutting compound knocked all of the oxidization back, but the patchy nature of the original paint, remainder of the clearcoat, my bodywork, and rattle-can IH red gives it a true farm-implement look. Thankfully, the fresh paint on the roof and wheels plus four shiny hubcaps make up for a lot of these sins.

On Tuesday a replacement fuel sender showed up, and I started testing it. Using a multimeter, I tested the new sender to make sure it was working (using the Ohm setting, put test leads on the body of the sender and the contact point, and move the float arm. The reading should rise and fall based on where the arm is) and then working backwards from the tank, tried to isolate where the signal was dropping. It got dark very quickly so I wasn’t able to get very far, but I’ve got a plan for how to proceed.

SendCutSend tells me I’m going to have two modified cupholders in hand Thursday, which I’ll weld up for Nats. The goal there is to show them to Light Line vendors to see if they’ll distribute them for me. I’ve done some basic math, and I figure I can make some decent money producing these in volume if I get enough interest.

At Harbor Freight on Saturday, I happened to spy a speed controller box designed for a router. Essentially a potentiometer wired in between power from the wall and the tool, it’s meant to slow the router speed down. This is exactly what I need for a circular saw cutting steel or aluminum, so I grabbed it and a 10″ aluminum blade for the DeWalt miter saw my brother-in-law sent me home with last Christmas. I gave it a test run with some of the aluminum channel I bought last fall, and it does work as advertised, although it pops the 8V fuse on the back of the box. I’ve got to see what the draw from the saw is, but I can’t imagine it’s any more than a router would be—the Porter-Cable unit I’ve got is a monster. I’ve got a box full of glass fuses for the Scout so I can mix-and-match until I get something comfortably between constant tripping and nuclear meltdown.

The test cuts I did worked pretty well. My idea is to do a carpentry-style set of pie cuts to allow for gentle 90˚ rounded corners, which would then get welded solid after they’re bent. I’m going to need to be surgically precise on these, as well as find a way to lay things as flat as possible for the straightest joins. I bought extra aluminum to practice with, but I figure this is going to take some time to do correctly.

Posted on   |   by bill   |   Leave a Comment on Weekend Updates, 3 Days Later  |  Posted in Future Plans, Repairs, Travelall

Slow Progress

I’m currently waiting on a local shop to straighten out the new (to me) steel wheel, so I put the 15″ wheel that came with the truck back on to putter around the neighborhood. While I’m waiting I took care of some small stuff in the driveway.

All four of the cargo tiedowns are countersunk into the rear floor and mounted securely with a steel plate underneath, which means I have two mounts for seatbelts and two for cargo in the rear of the truck. The 800 came to me with four removable seatbelts, so I pulled one of the female seatbelt sides out, soaked it in detergent, and scrubbed the lichen and dirt out of the webbing with a toothbrush. That will make the final pair complete, and I can belt in four people safely.

I’ve spent a number of hours with a buffing wheel and cutting compound, trying to bring the original paint back. It’s been hit or miss, because the paint is in such lousy shape across the truck, from clearcoat to bare metal with about five layers in between. I can’t get the paint to polish evenly, which has been very frustrating, and I may just give up on it.

Last weekend I bought a sheet of 4×8′ lightly textured plastic meant for use in bathrooms to try out as headliner and cut it down to fit over the driver’s seat back to the second bow. Unfortunately it’s not quite the size I need: It’s 50″ between the border lip above the sunvisors to the middle of the second headliner bow and I’ve only got 48″ so the edge doesn’t hide neatly, and the material is too saggy in any case. I’m on the hunt for some kind of fiberboard that would be malleable enough to bend on the sides without breaking, but I haven’t found the right stuff yet.

And, I measured and ordered a set of CocoMats for the Travelall. I’m really happy with the ones I bought for the Scout, and I figure any sound abatement/heat insulation in the cab will help this summer, at least until I can get air conditioning installed. Hopefully they will arrive before our trip to Nats.

Here’s the Nationals to-do list, if I get the Travelall sorted out:

  • Fix the driver’s headlight, which has stopped working. I think it’s because the battery has landed on the connector one too many times. Fixed: The connector had come undone. 
  • Sort out the wheel situation. I’m going to see if someone local will add balancing beads to the tires, and maybe that will help at speed.
  •  Order and weld up two adjusted cupholders from SendCutSend. I’m shortening the arm by 1″ to pull them away from the shift lever so that shifting into second gear doesn’t slam into my coffee cup. With that, I’ll be ready to show them to some of the Light Line vendors at Nats and maybe set up a distribution channel. Done. I’m much happier with this design now.
  • Swap the clean passenger fender on to the truck. I’ve been running the original, which had some crude bodywork done, but the spare in the garage is in really good shape, so I think it’s time to re-hang it. Done. It really cleans up that side of the truck.
    • For that matter, the fenders need to get bolted on more permanently, at least for the drive to Ohio.
  • Swap the new steering wheel on. That’ll clean up the interior even more. Done. It looks great.
  • Fix the damn fuel gauge. As I’ve mentioned before, it did work at one point, so I have to chase down the issue with either the wiring behind the dash or the sending unit itself. Done! It was the voltage regulator, and fixing that also seemed to make the ammeter happier to boot.
  • Check all the fluids.

And if I take the Scout:

  • Replace the temp sender, which has stopped working. I’ve got a spare ready to go in. Done. And I found a bag of used senders in my stash, a few of which will go in the travel parts kit.
  • Check all fluids
Posted on   |   by bill   |   2 Comments on Slow Progress  |  Posted in Future Plans, To-Do List, Travelall

Snowy Trucks

I had the Travelall out to run downtown to pick up some lunch before the County sprayed the roads down with salt. I have to admit, the electric fuel pump I installed has really spoiled me, because it only takes about 3 seconds to prime the carb and one pump of the pedal, and she fires right up. I do have to bleed the brake system again, and I suspect I’ll need to replace the last legacy line left (the one going down the driver’s side frame rail) to permanently fix some lingering sticky brake issues.

The Scout has always taken some more judicious stomping of the pedal and cranking to get fuel up to the bowl, but fires up and smooths out almost immediately. I let her idle for a good 15 minutes and used her toasty defroster to warm my fingers up before finishing the front walk. She’s back in the garage napping peacefully.

Meanwhile, I’m firming up the plans for a Scout recovery mission next weekend. Brian has volunteered his truck and trailer, Bennett is on board, and our friend David asked to come along as well. Provided the field isn’t a muddy swamp, it should be relatively straightforward to back the trailer in, swap some good wheels on for the bad ones, and winch it onto the trailer. With all of that in mind, I’ve got a recovery list started:

  • Ratchet straps
  • Two solid wheels (these are checked and ready to go)
  • Lug wrench
  • Hi-lift
  • Compressor and short hose with tire inflator
  • C-clamps for the top
  • 1/2 bolts for the top?
  • Snatch straps
  • Impact wrench/toolbox
  • PBblaster!
  • Come-along (I know we’ve got one; maybe Bennett has this?)

The only question mark is where the halfcab and rollbar will go. They’re not currently on the truck and the hardware is MIA, so we’ll have to ratchet them down to the truck in the worst case—I can always throw the doors in the back of my CR-V.

The dropoff plan is to back the trailer up the neighbors’ driveway and basically pull or push it down the hill across my backyard to sit between the garage and greenhouse. This way it’s out of eyesight from the street but close enough to the garage that I can throw an air hose or extension cord out the back window.

Posted on   |   by bill   |   Leave a Comment on Snowy Trucks  |  Posted in Friends, Future Plans

A New Project?

A couple of months ago I went bushwhacking with Bennett at Dan’s place, helping him catalog all of the vehicles up in the woods so that the family could sell them. I wasn’t interested in anything up there, and I had no idea what condition anything was in.

As we talked to the family, and they talked with another friend who was in a position to buy the majority of the vehicles as a lot, he gave a market price for each truck, and that number got me interested in one of the Scout 800s still up there. It’s the tan truck that was run and parked right behind the house, and when we first looked at it, the entire back half was covered in vines. I’d peeked underneath and found that it was full of garbage but the rear bed waas mostly intact, as well as the front footwells. We peeked in the engine compartment and found everything was still there.

Thinking it over some more, and being heavily invested in Brian’s EV project, I considered buying both of the Scouts for “research”. Bennett told me the blue Scout was mostly Bondo but the tan Scout was solid, and had been in excellent shape when it was parked. So I drove back up on Saturday to look it over.

Let me be clear: it’s not pretty. Having sat out in the elements with no top for ten years, it’s filled with dirt and debris. The paint is faded, and two of the four tires are flat. The aforementioned vines had covered the rear bed and trapped moisture underneath, as well as the rear bench seat.

The sheet metal on the outside is in reasonably good shape, although the rockers and B-pillar on both sides are shot—which is no surprise. The front fenders, cowl, and hood are in decent shape, and the tailgate looks good. Inside, the passenger footwell has several holes at the corner, but the driver’s side is solid. Both sides will need to be replaced, but it’s flat metal and easy to fix. The rear floor is the worst part: after years under two inches of dirt, the rear section is crispy. The worst part is the section behind the bulkhead, where the rear seat disintegrated and trapped water up against the vertical section. There are several holes in the metal here.

The original seats were pulled out and replaced with plastic racing buckets, which are interesting, to say the least. The dash has been exposed to the elements, so it’s covered in surface rust, and the padding is long gone. But the transmission hump is in great shape, and all of the parts are there.

Under the hood the engine is complete. It’s a 4-cylinder 196 with a frozen Holley 1904 carb and oil bath air cleaner. I put a socket on the crank and was able to move it slightly; in hindsight I never checked to see if it was in gear.

Having looked it over, I walked back into the woods to find the doors and bring them back out to the truck. Brendan had done a lot of work to drag the trucks he wanted out near the road, so it was much easier to walk back there and get to the parking area. I hauled both of the doors back out to the truck and hefted them up into the bed. They’re both in reasonably good shape for having sat on the ground for years. The lower edges haven’t crumbled to dust, which was a relief.

Behind the garage is a pile of extra parts that I wanted to look through, and I found a semi-intact half cab roof with a window that looks like it went with this truck.

I told Dan’s family I’m going to buy this truck. The price is too low to pass it up, and Scouts are getting rarer on the ground in this area. it’s just good enough to be worth something, and the price is right. I’m not too worried about being able to free the engine up, as I’ll have plenty of time to soak the pistons and get things moving, and the experience I’ve got with the Travelall will help me troubleshoot any issues. I’ve got three spare Scout wheels under the porch, so I can swap out the flats to get it rolling.

A long time ago we told Finley I’d fix a Scout up for her, and I did mean it, but always wondered how I’d swing it, knowing they’re not getting any cheaper. This could be the way into that. The long-term plan is to make this into a runner, and then maybe we’ll see about making it another EV project.  I think it would be fun as hell to have a typical crusty Scout body on top of a slick EV chassis, but that’s in the future. For now, I’ve got to make the deal and drag it home after the Thanksgiving break.

Posted on   |   by bill   |   Leave a Comment on A New Project?  |  Posted in Future Plans

Recovery

Bennett sent the Old Line Mafia a bunch of pictures last night that he got from Brendan, showing the the trucks at Dan’s being pulled out of the woods. It looks like Brendan went in there with a bushhog and a dozer and cleared out a ton of the brush and trees. He’s now got all the trucks staged to where he can haul them out one at a time.

He also pulled the blue Scout 800 up to the front where Brian and I can haul it out. If Dan’s family can find the title, we are hoping to grab that and the tan 800 for scientific research and R&D on the EV project.

Posted on   |   by bill   |   Leave a Comment on Recovery  |  Posted in Friends, Future Plans