Category: Scout 800

I had a very nice fellow contact me through the YouTube channel when he spied the tailgate from the Green Travelall in the background of a recent video, asking if it’s still available. We traded a few emails and then talked via phone on Saturday morning. He’s got a Travelall of his own, and it’s been sitting for a while, but he said my videos have gotten him inspired to pick things back up again. He’s based in Michigan but drives east quite often, so we’re going to try to meet up somewhere to make a deal. It’s always cool to hear from people who like the videos (sometimes it feels like I’m doing them for myself only) and I’m happy that my low-key self promotion has yielded new friendships.

As I do in the middle of each week, I’m going to make a list of stuff to tackle next:

• The first and most important job is going to be sorting out the brakes on the Travelall. I want to solve the sticky brake issue once and for all so I can drive the damn thing long-distance without fear. So the order of diagnosis will be to pull the drums off, starting with the driver’s front, and:
  1. Back the adjusters way off so that they’re not so grabby.
  2. Check each of the cylinders to make sure they’re moving both directions freely and not leaking.
  3. Bleed the system again.
  4. If all else fails, I’ll replace the long line going from the prop valve back to the rear axle, which is the only one that hasn’t been touched.
• Then I’m going to pull out the buffing wheel and run it with some cutting compound on the hood to see if I can add a little sparkle to some of the remaining paint, as well as pull off some of the peeling clearcoat. That might church up the truck a little bit.
• Check the wire to the fuel tank sender and see if it’s still connected. I’d like to have my fuel gauge working again.
• While I’m behind the dashboard, I’ve got to ground the light on the right side of the panel, and add some light-blocking material around the edges of the panel.
• Wire the electric fuel pump in to the ignition circuit more permanently. Right now it’s running off alligator clips, which is janky.
• Sort out the vacuum lines on the 800. They are currently all over the place and disconnected in a way that makes no sense to me, and I suspect this is the reason the truck is dying on acceleration—much like the Travelall did before I hooked the main vacuum line back up to the carb. Unfortunately, I don’t have a Scout 800 service manual and 3 of the 4 service manuals I do have don’t cover the 196 engine at all, while the fourth only briefly talks about the carburetor and provides no vacuum line diagram.  The interwebs have been no help so far either, but a deeper search is in progress.
  • I fooled around with this Thursday evening: There were two hoses in question teeing off the side of the manifold. The first was a narrow black hose that was just long enough to reach the vacuum advance port on the distributor. I put a fitting together from my spares and connected it back up, and we’ll see if that helps any. The second was a larger red hose that led to the PCV on the valve cover, which I’d removed to get the cover off. With this hose plugged the engine wanted to die, but I figure I’ve got to adjust the timing with it connected to get the engine running properly, so I hooked it back up for now.
• Wire the electric fuel pump up with an inline fuse to the ignition circuit on the 800 as well. I don’t see mysef springing for a mechanical pump anytime soon—and a rebuild kit for the one I have is three times the cost of a new one—so the electric pump will do for now.
• Pick up another tube of TankWeld and keep chasing the leaks on the fuel tank down. I’ve got the major holes filled but I’m finding new pinholes here and there.
• Stop out at Brian’s place to run up Peer Pressure, drop off my generator for him to look over, and grab my spare PCV valve and tow straps from the truck.

I’m hoping to get the Travelall sorted out so that I can drive her across the bridge to Brian’s place next week for some EV work, but that’s going to take a series of 5-10-50 trips locally to shake out the bugs. Alternately, I’ll ferry the OG-V over to swap it for the Scout, weather permitting.

Total Scout 800 costs to date:

I’ve had the Travelall off the road for about three solid months now, busy with the spring pack swaps while waiting out the snow. In that time I wasn’t starting her up that often, and with the engine surgery on the 800 taking up a lot of time through the last two months, it’s been on the back burner. However, after getting the springs installed I was keen on taking her out for a test spin to see how things felt. The problem was, I couldn’t get her running long enough to get out of the driveway. She started easily, as she always did, but as soon as I got on the gas, the truck died. I could keep her running for short stints but any attempt to get underway stalled out the engine.

So I went down the rabbit hole of pulling the carb and cleaning it out, figuring it had gummed up over the holiday. Re-installing it, I found I was having the same issues, so I started draining the tank after finding a lot of garbage in the fuel filter. As I got down to the bottom of the tank, I found a whole bunch of water—maybe a half a pint worth. That would certainly explain the issues with stalling. I also found some small plant matter in the gas as I used an old pillowcase to filter it into a 5-gallon bucket. I poured the gas off the water and put the contaminated liquid in another container to turn in at the county landfill.

Another test run showed that there was still an issue with the carb, so I pulled the bowl and metering block off the front and broke them down to find the needle was clogged with more of that plant matter. Once I got the engine buttoned back up, a new fuel filter installed, and the bowl filled, the truck ran better—but was still not at 100%. I fooled with the idle mixture screw, the metering screws, and the timing, and got it running well enough to take a solid spin around the block, but she needs some more tuning to be in good shape: my messing with the timing has the engine dieseling on shutdown. And I need to figure out how to secure the fuel tank from water intrusion. My guess is that the used fuel cap I have is not sealing and rainwater is seeping down into the tank.

The takeaway from the test drive is: She feels good! The springs definitely add some spring to the suspension. All my futzing with the axles didn’t seem to have much of an effect on the alignment, because she drove pretty straight and true. One other thing I wanted to do was find out what the axle ratio is once and for all, so I jacked up the rear, marked the driveshaft and tire, and spun the tire one revolution while watching the driveshaft. It came out to 3.73, which is different than the 4.10 gears on the lineset ticket.

Finally, I drilled a small hole in the V3 cupholder and installed a rubber grommet I found at ACE Hardware, which keeps the metal drink stay from clanging on the transmission tunnel cover. Problem solved. The only thing left is to draw out some felt or rubber wings to attach to the underside of the cup cutouts to keep drink containers from rattling around.

While I had it out, I stopped and took a comparison picture of the spring packs before and after:

Meanwhile, I’m making slow progress on the 800. During the week I pulled the master cylinder off the truck, brought it downstairs to the vise and let the piston soak in penetrant for two days. Then it only took a couple of taps on a 14mm socket with a hammer to push the piston down and free up the system. I cleaned up the bowl, wire-wheeled the linkage, and put it back in the truck.

Then I pulled the wheel off the driver’s front side and spent time hitting the fittings with heat and penetrant—to no success. So I destroyed the soft line in an attempt to remove it, freed up the distribution block (which is basically just a 5-way brass block, super scientific) and reviewed the hardware. The pads are wasted: the front has about 1/32″ of material while the rear is down to solid metal, which means the rotors are scored pretty good. However the cylinders and other hardware looks fine, so I’m going to get the front brakes working good enough to drive around the house, and then I’ll worry about spending money on fixing things.

Putting the Travelall fuel regulator on the boat tank hose, I let the fuel pump run and found that it wasn’t flooding the bowl anymore. But I wanted to see how the mechanical pump looked, so I pulled that off. It was, like the rest of the truck, encrusted in grease and mud, but after a bath in oven cleaner, it came out looking shiny and new. It’s an Airtex 6857, which isn’t made anymore—which makes sense, as it features two vacuum outlets, presumably for windshield wipers. It’s also nothing like any of the other pumps I’ve got, so the next step is going to be soaking it in gas to see if I can free up the diaphragms and re-awaken it.

I’ve got two trucks who need some troubleshooting, and I’m trying to keep costs down by borrowing parts until I know I need to buy something. So here’s an ordered list of how I’ll try to tackle this weekend, just to clear my head:

1. Pull the boat tank from the 800 and move it to the Travelall. Flush out the lines and get the truck running, then pull it out of the driveway and park it facing outwards. This is done. The culprit was the main vacuum hose off the back
2. Drain the rest of the gas out of the tank now that the plug is on the low side, filter the crud out, and pour clean gas through it until it runs clear. Done. hopefully all of the water is out of it now, but I’m going to add some HEET additive to get rid of the rest.
3. Hook the internal tank back up and see if it clogs up again. I think we’re in good shape now, although I need a new fuel cap ASAP.
4. Jack up the rear so the wheels are off the ground, mark a drum and the driveshaft, and count revolutions.
   1. Is it limited-slip or open?  It is limited-slip! Both wheels turn in the same direction.
   2. What is the actual gear ratio on this truck? The ratio is officially is 3.73, which is good for a mixture of highway and towing. I’d prefer mostly highway gears, but this is better than what I thought I had.
5. Test drive!
6. Flush out the 800 engine block with a hose. I’m sure it’s completely full of crud. This was somewhat successful. I flushed out the top end but I don’t think I got enough pressure to get everything out of the bottom.
7. Hook the bottom hose back up to the radiator, and fill the system with coolant.
8. Pull the mechanical fuel pump off the 800 and compare it to the spares I have here. Will any of them fit? (the original I’m sure is dried out and useless). This is like no other fuel pump I’ve ever seen: there are two inlets and two outlets and the clacker arm looks like it was forged on an anvil.It’s an Airtex 6857, which hasn’t been manufactured for 10 years.
9. Pull the fuel pressure regulator out of the Travelall, put it in the 800, and see if the carb still overflows. It doesn’t, but I need to replace the shite hose clamps it came with. Looks like it’s sending gas to the carb but not overflowing it, which is a good sign.
   1. If yes: pull the carb off and free up the needle, which is clearly stuck.
   2. If no: run it off the boat tank/electric pump and see if we can adjust the idle a little bit.
10. Pull both front wheels off the 800 and assess the brake situation.
    1. Are the cylinders garbage? The driver’s side looks good.
    2. Are the soft lines garbage? I basically destroyed the driver’s side soft line and the hard line to the distro block getting it off. Whoops.
    3. How do the pads and drums look?  TERRIBLE.
    4. Get part numbers for the drums and pads, and put them on the future list.
    5. Order soft lines and more brake fittings—We’ll most likely need these at a minimum.
11. Continue trying to unstick the master cylinder, which has been sitting on the bench soaking in penetrant for two days. Unstuck. I haven’t opened the rebuild kit. It’s now mounted back on the truck.
12. Check the spare pads in the garage to see if they might fit by some miracle. Nope. They are 11×1.75″, and I need 10×1.75″ for the 800. Rats.
13. Pull the headlight switch out of the 800, clean it up, and see if it works.
    1. If yes, celebrate!
    2. If no, do any of my spares match? Not at all. This is an entirely new switch from the Scout II and Travelall.

Additionally, now that the salt has been washed off the roads, I have to prep Peer Pressure to go over to Brian’s for hibernation. That shouldn’t be too hard; I just need to pull some spares out of the toolbox and bring the battery tender.