Saturday Tinkering

Gas has hit an all-time high of $5 per gallon around here, so my trips in the Scout are generally limited to short errands around town. I wound up leaving it at home for my trip up to New York last weekend, partially because the forecast for both travel days called for rain, and partially because of gas prices. As it turned out, there was little rain both days, and the weather was cool and mostly sunny. But I got 33 MPG in my Honda, and I can’t beat that.

This weekend, I spent some quality time messing around in the garage, and some of that time was spent on Scout stuff.

The gas tank has been sitting for a month or so waiting for me to get around to putting the sending unit in place. I didn’t know how to get the unit screwed in place with the thick rubber washer they provided. There’s a locking ring that goes over the sender and under three flanges welded to the tank, and the washer is too thick to make it easy to install. What I finally did was get one of the wings on the washer under a flange, and then carefully get the other two started with a couple of screwdrivers and some luck. Then, with some gentle taps with a hammer to spin the washer, I got the whole thing mounted and working. I have to take it back off to test the whole unit (and troubleshoot the wiring issue) but at least now I know I can get it installed.

The next thing I fooled with was pulling the trim off of one of the Flintstone doors to see what it would look like on Peer Pressure. I’ve had the guts of the door open several times, so it took about five minutes to get into the door, and then it was a simple matter of pinching the clips to release the trim.

I have to say, it looks kind of cool but also like I’m dressing up a pig. I like how the trim breaks up the big slabby purple area, but if I was to put a full trim kit on, that would imply I like the purple color, which I really don’t, or that I intended it to be this color and have now given it my stamp of approval. In any case, I don’t have a full set of trim pieces for in front of the doors or around the rear wheels, so at this point it’s not even an issue. It’s interesting to think about, though.

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Additions and Omissions

As mentioned elsewhere, I inherited a beautiful new piece of IH gear: my friend Stephen passed his fridge on to me, the one I helped drag out of a basement and haul up to his house before the pandemic. He’s downsizing and his girlfriend doesn’t have a place to put it, so he gave Bennett and I first right of refusal. It’s a 1951 HA-84 model, and it’s complete with all racks, trays, and hardware.

Overall it was easy to move and get into the garage, and I spent a good bit of Memorial Day scrubbing the insides down with Simple Green and washing out the interior shelves and racks. After letting it sit upright for a couple of days to settle, I plugged it in last night for two hours (in 95˚ weather) and it chilled down to perfect beer-keeping temperature. So I’ll keep cleaning the outer shell and do some longer-term testing when I’m back from my New York trip to see how it does over a week. The plug may need to be replaced, and I’d like to look over the wiring inside.

Peer Pressure is running really well, and did great moving a boat and hauling the fridge from up in Towson. I’m taking it up to my mother’s to a family wedding this weekend, which will be the first time it’s been up to New York. The forecast is calling for cooler temperatures and a 30% chance of rain on Tuesday, the day I come back, so I’ve got the Rain-X handy for unscheduled showers.

One thing that’s been happening since I fixed the turn signal cam is that the horn has been going off randomly for no clear reason. We stayed in Solomons about two weeks ago and when I left the hotel to pack the car I heard the horn blaring from across the parking lot. A tap on the center of the wheel silenced it, but it happened several more times since then. I took the cover off and disconnected the horn lead for now, but at some point I’ll have to figure out what inside the plastic horn assembly is creating a contact (I can’t disassemble it without destroying it).

I’ve got the long-distance travel kit for the Scout assembled, and I have to throw my crusty old clubs in the back on the off chance we get 9 holes in at the College course. I haven’t played golf in 15 years but it would be fun to throw back some Bloodys and fuck around on the course.

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Gasket

I had some time to tinker on Saturday, and I got tired of tripping over a big box in the basement containing my windshield gasket. Naturally, I saw this as a sign and brought it out to do a test-fitting. I’ve always been confused as to how this thing gets installed, as it’s a huge circle of rubber with the weight of a Burmese python and the cross-section of West Virginia. Which side is up? Which flap do you fit into the groove on the windshield?

I did some tinkering, looked at an old video I’d saved, and finally solved the puzzle: the flattest, squarest section is in the back (facing the passengers) while the part with 17 folds goes in front. Once the glass is in place, one of those folds tucks down into another fold and forms a self-sealing lock, holding the glass in place.

This was also a good time to make the call on which frame will be the replacement: It’ll be the darker gold frame, which has less rust around the inside lip and elsewhere. I’m going to try to repair some of the rust damage on the lip when I get a welder, and then I have to figure out how to paint it before it goes on. But that would be an excellent project for the summer (and long overdue).

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Electric Scout?

My (somewhat limited) social media feeds, email inboxes, and texts all blew up with people sending me the news that the Volkswagen group is thinking about making a new electric SUV called the Scout. It’s a long, convoluted story, but the Autopian breaks down how VW has come into possession of the Scout trademark through its purchase of Navistar after a colossal strategic mistake in building diesel engines.

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Blackstone

I drove the Scout across town to welding class last week and one of the questions I got in the parking lot was, “how many miles on that thing?” I had to answer honestly: “I have no idea.” The engine has always been a mystery. It’s original to the frame but not the body, so the odometer isn’t a reliable indication of age or wear. IH engines were overbuilt to run all day and night, so 300K on a properly maintained 40-year-old SV engine isn’t surprising at all—as long as it’s not treated like a top-fuel dragster. All that being said, it sure would be nice to know more about this engine, and the condition it’s in.

I read the Autopian every day, an auto-centric website founded by two Jalopnik alumni who I follow pretty closely. One of the writers has written several stories about testing the oil from several of his high-mileage project cars to diagnose engine issues, using a service from Blackstone Oil Analysis. Blackstone takes a sample of your oil and does a metallurgical breakdown of the elements found inside to give insight into the wear on different elements, and possibly offer an idea as to the age and condition from inside. I’ve now got an envelope from Blackstone sitting on my desk waiting for an oil change—hopefully in May before a drive north to my cousin’s wedding. An added bonus: Blackstone is based in Ft. Wayne, Indiana—home of the IH plant my Scout was born in.

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Canceled

The weather on Saturday was 70 and sunny, so I decided to tackle the turn signal canceler not he steering column. I’ve previously covered how I pulled apart my spare column but this time I took more pictures, and I’ll repeat it here. The only difference between that column and this one is the shape; my  spare has a round horn button while the one on Peer Pressure has a larger triangular horn button.

First, park the truck with the wheels pointed straight. Now unscrew the horn cover: it’s a two-piece mount. There are six screws on the backside that need to come out. From there you should be able to pull it off and see the mount:

Pull the horn leads off (you did disconnect the battery, didn’t you?) and pull the three screws visible out. The mount should come off, leaving this:

Next, unscrew the locking nut off the center bolt (it’s already out in the picture above). Use your steering wheel puller to get the wheel itself off: screw the two long bolts into the holes at 1 and 7 o’clock above, put the center bolt on the head of the nut, and start cinching down.

With that off, you’re looking at the plate that holds all of the guts in place. You need a different tool now to push it down and expose a lockring on the center of the stem. I built my tool out of some steel bar and bench stock bolts:

Use a couple of small flathead screwdrivers to widen the locking enough to slide it up out of the groove, and then slide it off the stem . The plate should come off easily then. You’ll see the turn signal canceling cam:

There should be a post holding a spring sticking out of the cam. Grab the spring and pull the cam off. (The post on mine was cracked and broken; this could be why mine wasn’t working).

From here you’ve got to unscrew both the turn signal lever at 9 o’clock and the hazard button at about 4 o’clock. Next, there are three bolts that hold the entire lever assembly in place—you’ll have to use the selector to move the assembly to reach all three.

Now, scoot down below the column and find the wire harness on the right side. Carefully unclip the smaller section of the two from the larger with a flathead screwdriver and push it aside. The entire lever assembly should now be free to pull up through the column. Take note of how it snakes down through the collar and mount, because you have to feed the new one through the same way.

Visually, there isn’t anything wrong with my stock harness. The plastic isn’t completely exploded like the spare was; I have no idea why it wasn’t working correctly, but I suspect it had something to do with the cam being broken. I did notice there’s a spring missing at about 9 o’clock in the picture below, which I never found in the column. Regardless, I fed the new one down through the mounts and clipped it back into place on the column.

Then, I used some steel wool to clean the rust off the turn signal lever and put that back in place.

From there, it’s just reassembling what you just took apart, in the right order. Remember how you parked with the wheels straight? make sure you align the wheel up correctly (I aligned mine in a Y shape so that I can see the dashboard through the top of the spokes).

Hooking the battery back up, the truck roared back to life, and both of the turn signals now cancel as advertised! My days of puttering along in the middle lane with my blinker on are (hopefully) over with.

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Wing Window Rubber

Well, looky here. There was rumbling on the forums and through the interwebs that someone was working on producing new wing window rubber for the Scout II, as nobody was making replacements and everyone’s rubber was/is cracked, rotten, hard, or about to be all of the above. I’ve got, between spare parts and whole doors, about five spare wing windows per side, and all of them have either  cracked rubber, a spring mechanism where the weld is broken, or a busted hinge. It was with great pleasure that I saw an outfit in North Carolina is going to be producing new rubber, for the eye-watering price of $375/set. Yeah, yeah, this isn’t an F-body Camaro or a ’66 Mustang, for which brand-new parts are everywhere, but I’ll have to really consider the purchase before I pull the trigger.

Tomorrow night, I’m headed out to the first proper welding class I’ve ever taken, and I’m pretty excited. My first “training” was in college in the sculpture lab after hours; a very brusque and attractive TA gave me a basic lesson in MIG welding for a six-pack of beer, and while she was detailed in her description, I had about 20 minutes of hands-on learning before she had to leave, and I was on my own to booger-weld anything I could find. I did a basic refresher in 2014 at the Baltimore Foundery, and while that was fun it didn’t improve my skills at all. This course is a professional 36 hours of training and in-class practice, and at the end of it I should know what I’m doing a lot better.

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Hubris

This interesting specimen showed up recently in my usual Scout sales feed, and I almost spit out my coffee when I read it. This “Inernational” is a work of art. It looks like the rockers on either side are held together with Elmer’s glue and Ritz crackers; the interior looks like a bear was trapped inside and ate the cushions for breakfast. Naturally, the owner spent money on the most important elements and put a stupid-looking set of wheels on it. I’ve heard of a lot of carbs in my day but a Daytona is not one of them, and not for an IH engine.

He’s right, you will definitely be the only one around with anything close to this.

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Grenoble Green

I saw this Scout for sale on Marketplace, and something about it caught my eye. Not only is it a good-looking rig—the tires and lift are just right—but I like the color and condition of the graphics on the side. I believe this is an IH color called Grenoble Green, and it’s a value that isn’t too light and isn’t too dark, with a bit of metalflake added. I’ve been all over the place with colors in years past, but I think this might be the new frontrunner. I’d even consider the striping on this, as well—I think it’s probably my favorite design IH offered.

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