{"id":5897,"date":"2026-05-28T17:28:24","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T01:28:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.billdugan.com\/scout\/?p=5897"},"modified":"2026-05-28T17:28:24","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T01:28:24","slug":"preparations-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.billdugan.com\/scout\/2026\/05\/28\/preparations-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Preparations"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>We&#8217;re only two weeks away from Nats and I&#8217;m feeling the date bearing down on me. I really want to drive the Travelall but haven&#8217;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&#8217;ll see how that affects the ride. In the meantime I have some small things to attend to:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Fabricate a battery hold-down.<\/strong> This just requires a length of allthread, an aluminum strap, and two wingnuts.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Order a set of hoses.<\/strong> 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\u2014I&#8217;ll have to double-check this.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Fabricate some kind of temporary mount for the Rotopax.<\/strong> I figure I can make something to bolt onto the spare tire to hold the gas can upright.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Put together the emergency kit.<\/strong> Most of my stuff is already together, but I need to add some truck-specific things.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Lubricate the chassis.<\/strong> I haven&#8217;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&#8217;m gonna get the old girl all greased up.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Re-torque the U-bolts on the springs and check the tie rods.<\/strong> Basically just make sure nothing has decided to jump ship.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Check and top off all the fluids.\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Replace the fuel filter.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Hose the windshield down with Rain-X.<\/strong> I have no windshield wipers. If the forecast is anything like it was two years ago, I&#8217;ll probably take the Scout, which at least has some wipers.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I&#8217;ll repeat everything here on the Scout except for the first three items, just so I&#8217;ve got the backup ready to roll.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We&#8217;re only two weeks away from Nats and I&#8217;m feeling the date bearing down on me. I really want to drive the Travelall but haven&#8217;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 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3,56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5897","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-future-plans","category-to-do-list"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p58Ac2-1x7","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billdugan.com\/scout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5897","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billdugan.com\/scout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billdugan.com\/scout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billdugan.com\/scout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billdugan.com\/scout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5897"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.billdugan.com\/scout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5897\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5898,"href":"https:\/\/www.billdugan.com\/scout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5897\/revisions\/5898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billdugan.com\/scout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billdugan.com\/scout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billdugan.com\/scout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}