{"id":3884,"date":"2023-06-30T09:13:30","date_gmt":"2023-06-30T17:13:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.billdugan.com\/scout\/?p=3884"},"modified":"2024-04-01T15:15:40","modified_gmt":"2024-04-01T23:15:40","slug":"weekly-roundup-6-30","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.billdugan.com\/scout\/2023\/06\/30\/weekly-roundup-6-30\/","title":{"rendered":"Weekly Roundup, 6.30"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m anxious to diagnose the issue with the Scout, because I want to know what ‘s wrong but also because I want to drive<\/em> her. I went out after dinner Monday night to check the timing to see if it was advanced or retarded, which could be the cause of my mystery sound. I had an old yard sale Sears timing gun that I hooked up to the battery and #8 wire (Scouts use the #8 wire instead of the more commonly used #1 wire on most GM\/Ford products) but I got no light from the gun at all. On the bench I broke it down to reveal old capacitors and components that had probably fizzled out during the first Bush administration, so I hit the Harbor Freight for a new unit.<\/p>\n

Back under the hood I cleaned off the timing marks and chalked the pulley. When I set the gun to 0\u02da and ran it, the chalk hit at about the 15\u02da mark\u2014but I hadn’t run the engine or disconnected the vacuum advance yet, which meant the reading wasn’t entirely correct. It was getting dark by this point so I shut her down and put her back in the garage to avoid the rain forecast for the evening.<\/p>\n

Thursday evening I went back outside to give it a second go; this time I was able to plug off the vacuum advance and get things ready for a proper diagnosis. While I was getting a wrench on the hold-down bolt, I was holding the distributor body and it spun under my hand with a little bit of pressure\u2014which told me it wasn’t tight for a while. When I put the gun on it, the chalk showed up at about 15\u02daadvanced, so I spun it back to 5\u02da and listened to the idle settle down.<\/p>\n

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Tightening that off, I noticed some smoke coming off the manifold on the passenger side, which makes me wonder if there’s a leak between the manifold and the block. I’ve been smelling something from the engine for a while, and I wonder if that could be the culprit\u2014it would certainly explain the additional noise.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, my oil sample is safely in the hands of Blackstone<\/a> as per the USPS’s tracking service. Going on past experience, it’ll take 2 weeks or so to hear back from them on what the oil can tell us. I’ve got a new Fuel-Pro gasket sitting behind my desk for the next major step: dropping the pan to see if there are any chunky bits at the bottom.<\/p>\n

While I had the timing gun out, I figured I’d throw it on the Travelall for giggles to see what the timing looked like there. I’d solved the high idle issue I had before by re-connecting the PCV valve on the back of the valley pan, but because I’d cranked all of the idle screws in all the way, I had to spin them back out. The engine is running sloppily now, loping around like it’s not firing correctly, and the exhaust is abhorrent\u2014the girls flipped out because it quickly filled the house. I’ve got to get this thing mobile quickly so I can move it away from the windows to properly work on it. In any case I couldn’t get a good enough look at the chalk before I was forced to shut her down. New PCV valves from that era are hard to find, but I think a new one will help out immensely.<\/p>\n

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While I was digging around in my parts bins I pulled the two mirrors out and mocked them up on the side of the truck. They look great! I’ve got to go back through my reference photos from Nats and see how other owners mounted the top mounts to their doors; I’ve got a very small vertical area to work with and I’d prefer not to mess up the mounting surface for the weatherstripping, which may be my only option.<\/p>\n

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