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I have these old red trucks. They're both pretty rough and need tons of work. Maybe someday I'll finish this work. Hopefully. Anyways, whether I do or don't, it'd be nice to have some kind of log of what all was done, and what better way to document something then right here on these forums? So onto the trucks. I have two of them. Or at least there are two in my garage. The first one is a 1974 Scout II that I posted a couple months back. While the cover story was that it was a Father's Day present for my dad, really it was more of an excuse to hang out with him more, and give him something to do post-retirement. I need to get some more newer pictures, but here it was when it was new to us.      (I also have a blue truck but it's boring and not red so we don't need to talk about it) Things we've done since then include:
That sure isn't much progress, but we're both pretty trash mechanics and only put in a handful of hours each week. Reference back to the maybe finishing this work someday. While we were able to get the engine to run, we had to cheat to do it Running power straight to the coil from the battery would get it to run, but the actual wiring wasn't getting it done. Some investigation uncovered a 90s-era security system that was almost certainly to blame. One thing lead to another and next thing you know we're dealing with this.  It doesn't show well in the picture, but everything about the wiring on this truck is a nightmare of nearly 50 years of hillbilly hackery. Some circuits go nowhere, others are missing entirely, plugs have been repinned in baffling ways, at least 3 wires have melted unrelated bits of plastic and probably more I haven't figured out yet. Thankfully the factory wiring diagrams are available and good enough to work from. This is more or less where this truck sits today as we continue to 1) learn how electricity works and 2) apply those learnings in a way that isn't poo poo. So far every wire under the hood has been replaced, well labeled and run to nice modern connectors. There's still a ton more to do, but I'm pretty happy with what we've done so far. Those engine and transmission connectors now:  Truck #2 - As with many of you, I am a big fan of the show Roadkill. Or at least was before the whole Motor Trend streaming service thing, but whatever. Of all the Roadkill vehicles, my favorite was what they dubbed the Muscle Truck. In case any of you are unfamiliar, it's a 1974 Chevy C10 2WD Stepside with an LS6 and an exhaust note to be lusted after. It looks like this:  This is the truck that made me want my own stepside Squarebody. Only in the last couple months did I decide to seriously start searching for one, but nothing I found ever panned out. That is until this one came up:  All I could think of the moment I saw this ad was Muscle Truck. Needless to say, it's sold because I bought it. Shout out to George for being a genuinely awesome guy. He got it along with a number of other vehicles when some local shop shut down and really just wanted to be rid of it. Funny story - I offered George less than the listed price minus the 305. George countered with my same price PLUS the 305. I didn't really want or need a 305 but who am I to argue with free. Here are some more pictures I already posted elsewhere:    I already love this thing. Onto new stuff now. Let's take a look around this thing, shall we. First, the interior.  Oh right, needs interior. Sure is a fancy steering wheel though. Let's make some sense of this.  That's better. There's a bit of surface rust there and a couple small holes all the way through, but nothing too alarming. I probably should get some rust inhibitor in there though. Feel free to make recommendations. Let's check out what was sitting in there. Not pictured - weather stripping and seat belts.  Score, a pretty new looking Milwaukee battery! Suppose I need some Milwaukee tools now. Shockingly there was only like 15 cents in there. Oh also, these were in there:  Hell yeah treefiddy. Let's go around to the bed.  Well, it's bed shaped at least. It's also just sitting on the frame and not at all bolted down. Side note - I love these old chain retained tailgates. Also worth noting - that's a 12 bolt under there. There will be burnouts. Someday. It also has some Peterbuilt taillights. Does anyone know the origin of this style light? I feel like they've been used on everything by everyone.  Here's where an engine will go. This is the only shot for now because I can't open the hood. Partially because I put a bunch of crap on it, but also because the hood hinges are still bolted to the fenders.  Someone has done some relatively recent rattlecan work in here. Whoever owned this before must have had some plans that never came together. I haven't fully finished searching yet, but this is the worst I can find of the rust.  I wonder what caused that.  Oh, lol. There was still more in there too. Thankfully the other side wasn't quite this bad. Anyways, that's enough for today. The plan - 5.3 swap, TBD transmission (kinda feel like it needs a 6 speed), fenders, nice comfy interior, probably more glass, entirely redone wiring, coilovers all around, modern brakes and drive it "everyday" (I don't actually drive every day, but whenever I do and am not in the Z06). Not in the plan - paint. It's going to look just like this plus black primer fenders. Will any of that plan actually come together? Let's find out!
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Oct 26, 2021 04:54
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Nice trucks. POR 15 seems to be the go-to best, most serious way to deal with rust. It's what I'm planning to do (except where I'm lazy and use rustoleum spray paint).
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Oct 26, 2021 19:36
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Word of warning with POR 15. Don't get any on your clothes or skin. I have a shirt that has a permanent rubbery section, going on 9 years now.
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Oct 27, 2021 20:02
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Subscribed. Please post every dumb IH and rust question (I repeat myself) , I've probably had to solve it. My wiring experience is that every connector was a son of a bitch to get apart and all contacts corroded, you're doing a lot better than I did by labeling them and repinning fresh connectors. If you have a paint spray gun I reccomend the Eastwood rust encapsulator, it sprays well and isn't as picky for topcoating, and I think you can leave it exposed. I used a lot of POR as well but I absolutely had to be topcoated and is a brush on event, which is good when you need that (axles, frames, small irregular pieces) but I'd rather not do a whole panel. The little 2oz cans give way more coverage than you'd expect.
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Oct 29, 2021 16:11
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Yeah, POR-15 doesn't like UV exposure, and can be picky about prep work. I think they have some products that don't require a top coat, just make sure you read the label/ website carefully. I did a motorcycle frame with it years ago that turned out OK, and wheel wells of a truck more recently, that didn't.
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Oct 29, 2021 16:41
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Captain McAllister posted:Yeah, POR-15 doesn't like UV exposure, and can be picky about prep work. They are definitely quite serious about their instructions and you’re right about the UV exposure too.
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Oct 30, 2021 02:09
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Let's get some updates rolling. For anyone that plans to follow along, I intend to shoot for weekly updates, so long as there's something meaningful to talk about. It is worth noting once again that neither my dad or I are very good at any of this, so you're best off keeping the expectations low. Let's start with the pickup. Since our last update, I've learned this truck is actually a 1978 GMC Heavy Half. The tailgate did not lie. So that's neat. Job 1 is getting the interior fully stripped, prepped and POR'd. As much as I wanted to take the pressure washer to the inside, I figure forcing high pressure water into every orifice and seam is probably a bad idea when trying to mitigate rust. So I'll make do with a wire brush and putty knife to start. Eventually I'll wipe everything down with something that'll evaporate without leaving a residue. However, there's still plenty of stuff in here. Like for example these exceptionally well installed speakers.  Ah yes, expanding foam. A key part of any good stereo install. I was quite worried about what I'd find behind these, but thankfully it was nothing more than dirt. Out they go.  Those door speakers went too. Then there's this headliner.  Shockingly it's not in terrible shape. However, it's dirty as hell and I'm pretty sure trying to vacuum it isn't going to go well. Out you go too, along with trim.  That dark stuff near the windshield hole is thankfully just adhesive. Now to the less good news - stop me if you've heard this one before, but there's more rust than I was hoping for. Here's the passenger side kick panel.  I'm sure those of you in the rustbelt type states are laughing at me, but it's a little bit of a bummer for AZ. That all ties into the HVAC, so I'm probably going to need to do something there at some point. We'll worry about that later. Oh, I also found this:  No idea what this is, but it has some kind of wick-like thing running inside of it. Drug thing? Probably drug thing. Anyways, onto the dash. I intend to do an aftermarket 3rd party wiring harness in here and replace every bit of existing wiring, so let's yank all that old stuff out. That looks exactly like what you'd expect it to, so I'll spare you of that. However, this thing is neat.  Vacuum operated HVAC doors are a wild thing. I'm sure that'll be fun someday. There's also this button.  I haven't chased this to see where it goes yet, but I choose to believe it was used for nitrous. Anyways, the HVAC removal is where things ended for the weekend. We did yank the rest of the front end. I am unreasonably excited to do under hood work with next to nothing in the way.  Moving onto the Scout. Before details, it probably seems very silly to jump back and forth between trucks like this. And yes it is, but there's some logic to it - with my dad being retired, he's not exactly a morning person anymore. By the time he's done his morning thing and made his way to my house, it's usually around 10AM. I on the other hand am usually up at 5 and itching for something to do by 6AM. So I work on the pickup up until he comes over, then we swap to the Scout (minus anything I need a second set of hands for). Anyways, the Scout. Last I posted anything about it we were in wiring hell. As of this weekend, every wire under the hood has been replaced and everything in the cab has been chased and either verified to be untouched and unfucked or replaced as well. Every circuit is now tested and either verified to be to factory spec, known removed (lol emissions), or done slightly different but in a way that I think should work. Now it looks like this.  I guess that doesn't really look that different but I swear it's better than it was. Cable management to come after it actually works. Which, unfortunately, it does not. No power to the coil or any kind of click from the starter. Troubleshooting comes next. On the plus side, we've got the trans cover and shifter back in. Boy was that way harder than it should have been on account of a tiny little cable clamp featuring 7mm nuts, bolts that required a million turns and zero room to do any of that. No pictures there because gently caress that thing. One last picture to cap things off - here's that trans cover plus shifter console all nice and refinished. This all looks 100x better than anything else in the interior, but might as well make things look nice as we go.  More to come next weekend!
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Nov 1, 2021 16:54
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WTFBEES posted:I guess that doesn't really look that different but I swear it's better than it was. Cable management to come after it actually works. Which, unfortunately, it does not. No power to the coil or any kind of click from the starter. Troubleshooting comes next. Do you have the neutral safety switch wired, correctly, and hooked up and in position?
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Nov 1, 2021 21:34
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StormDrain posted:Do you have the neutral safety switch wired, correctly, and hooked up and in position? Wired - Yes Correctly - Hopefully. We replaced the OEM T-shaped connector as it had partially melted and/or been chewed up by a driveshaft, and I'm pretty sure it's as it should be. It's probably worth noting that it was not connected to anything when we took possession of it, so it may have been bypassed previously (or just didn't work then either). My to-do list includes figuring out how to test a relay and that switch. I'm all ears on recommendations though.
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Nov 1, 2021 22:08
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I would do basic continuity testing on the wiring based on the wiring diagram, then jumper the connector and see if it cranks. Then do the same for the switch. It's a pretty simple device, I think it has four positions, one allows it to start, the next doesn't, the next allows starting and also triggers the light, and the rest leave the circuits open. Based on as much as you've done I'm sure you're capable and already knew that. For some reason the NSS came up as the issue for a ton of Scout owners at Binder Planet when I was reading that site for my own problems.
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Nov 1, 2021 23:44
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StormDrain posted:I would do basic continuity testing on the wiring based on the wiring diagram, then jumper the connector and see if it cranks. Then do the same for the switch. It's a pretty simple device, I think it has four positions, one allows it to start, the next doesn't, the next allows starting and also triggers the light, and the rest leave the circuits open. Based on as much as you've done I'm sure you're capable and already knew that. You might be giving me too much credit here. I can follow a diagram, make wires and ensure things are continuous, but how these things work and what they're actually doing are a mystery to me. However, I now have a thing to go check! Will report back with findings whenever I get out there. Thanks!
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Nov 2, 2021 00:07
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WTFBEES posted:It also has some Peterbuilt taillights. Does anyone know the origin of this style light? I feel like they've been used on everything by everyone. Yeah that thing's so old, it's been used on everything by everyone since forever. The original probably came from Signal-Stat, Truck-lite, or Grote and each just copied each other. I don't even think it has a name, just Multifunction or Combination Stop/Tail/Turn Lamp.
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Nov 2, 2021 01:38
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SNiPER_Magnum posted:Yeah that thing's so old, it's been used on everything by everyone since forever. The original probably came from Signal-Stat, Truck-lite, or Grote and each just copied each other. I don't even think it has a name, just Multifunction or Combination Stop/Tail/Turn Lamp. Box light seemed to give me the best results. And a pair of LED ones gave their lives to replace the incandescent bulbs on my truck.
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Nov 2, 2021 02:10
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Old crummy trucks that may or may not run or have engines but will definitely be money pits? This is extremely my kind of poo poo, I wanna see where this goes.
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Nov 2, 2021 05:10
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WTFBEES posted:It also has some Peterbuilt taillights. Does anyone know the origin of this style light? I feel like they've been used on everything by everyone. Jason Torchinsky did a video about it a couple years back: https://jalopnik.com/watch-me-geek-out-over-an-iconic-and-cheap-rear end-tailligh-1840046665
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Nov 4, 2021 04:23
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StormDrain posted:Do you have the neutral safety switch wired, correctly, and hooked up and in position? If it was the NSS then you would hear the starter solenoid click but the engine not turn over. This was happening to me when I was installing the new column in my Squarebody last week. You bought your C10 from Phoenix, are you in the area? If so we should hang out and complain about GM wiring. If you need fenders for a 73-80 C10 I have a pair that are nice and patina'd up. BigPaddy fucked around with this message at 21:26 on Nov 4, 2021 |
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Nov 4, 2021 21:16
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BigPaddy posted:If it was the NSS then you would hear the starter solenoid click but the engine not turn over. This was happening to me when I was installing the new column in my Squarebody last week. Start a podcast called "56 reasons to hate Packard Electric Division"
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Nov 4, 2021 23:33
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The 5 hour long rant about GM division engines would go viral.
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Nov 5, 2021 00:39
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BigPaddy posted:If it was the NSS then you would hear the starter solenoid click but the engine not turn over. This was happening to me when I was installing the new column in my Squarebody last week. Yep, I'm in Gilbert. I'm planning to do an end-around on wiring by tearing every bit out of it out as step 1, but I'm happy to gripe about things either way. Fenders - I will need fenders! I'm a long ways away from putting anything back together, but I could find storage if you've got sheetmetal you're looking to move.
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Nov 5, 2021 00:54
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I am in Glendale, I have space for them so can keep hold for now. They have the holes to add the trim and all that but we can weld those up if needed. Let me know if you need a hand with anything. There is a C10 show a week Saturday at the Westgate Shopping area off 101/Glendale Ave https://ridescollective.com/events/dinos-git-down-car-show-for-c10s-in-glendale-az/ and an Auto Swap Meet at Glendale Community College this Sunday if you were looking for stuff.
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Nov 5, 2021 01:01
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Hey let's get some updates in here. I've had a couple non-truck distractions so we might be a bit sparce here. GMC first. Interior teardown continues and is mostly uneventful but almost more or less done. Some highlights: Pulling out the duct work in the dash also required removing the big HVAC box under the hood. This gives a good look at the cab being blue, black, red and gray all at once.  "Hey, do you think we should mask off this bulkhead connector before painting this firewall?" "Nah, don't bother." -Hillbillies probably.  "Crap, we forgot to run the wire for the door speakers through the routing hole." "Eh, whatever." -Also probably hillbillies  Mess 'o OEM cab harness. See you again never.  Current state of the cab. Other than the steering column harness, we are entirely free of soft parts. I need to scrape the last of the original insulation off the firewall, followed by a thorough vacuum and cleanup. Then it’s POR time, potentially followed by nice new sound deadening.  Scout time. When we last left off, wiring was more or less together but nothing really worked. You all called out the neutral safety switch as a starting point. This was an excellent call because chasing that down lead to this.  Here we have the starting circuit and courtesy lights put into a two prong plug together, poorly stripped, twisted together and ultimately plugged into nothing. I believe the end result of this fuckery was the truck would only start if a door was open, but would do so irrespective of gear. Great work POs. Once that was undone and sorted, we eventually got to the NSS itself. This was also good because the plug was plugged into nothing at all. That’s probably a result of it being a mangled melted mess.  Guess we need a new one of those. Thankfully they put the Torqueflite 727 in lots of things so finding a new one locally wasn’t a problem. Wiring that new harness up was a 50/50 shot since it could plug in either way, but we took a guess at it anyways. Spoiler: we guessed wrong. No pictures of any of that, but imagine some shrink crimps and you got the jist of it. What I did get pictures of was the result of me laying under the truck with a putty knife for 5 minutes. I don’t feel like I’ve properly communicated how muddy the underside of this thing is. Picture this much mud for every square foot of undercarriage. Also note we’ve already pressure washed the underside to the best of my little washer’s ability.  It’s pretty absurd and needs about 50 more of these sessions. Anyways, somewhere along the line my dad got real antsy and put the dash back in. He’s not real big on electrical work and needs something more tangible to keep him engaged, so it was good. The dash itself is also no longer a peeling mess of lovely paint so that’s nice.   We really should have painted the little gauge needles, but oh well. Moment of truth – does any of this stuff work? Multimeter says the coil has power! Turning the key to start does nothing. Armed with the slightest understanding of how things work led us here:  Relay’s dead. However, jumping it results in cranking via the key! I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself, but we just may have actually fixed something. Fingers crossed for when the new relay gets here. That’s where we stand on both trucks for now. If it does manage to start, we’ll be off to checking the hundred other little electrical things, followed by hopefully turning some wrenches. Stay tuned. P.S. - I didn't bother TIMGing any of these this time. Yell at me if that's frowned upon these days and I'll go back to doing it in the future.
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Nov 15, 2021 02:24
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A somewhat related derail of my own thread – boy two projects at once sure results in lots of parts that need storing somewhere. Let’s look at my current solutions. First we have my garage futon. This critical piece of any garage is currently home to Scout doors, the pretty parts of the front end of the pickup and all that crap that was sitting in the cab.  Truck bed contains front wheel wells, lots of trim pieces, a fan shroud I’ll almost certainly never use again, a headliner that should really just be thrown away and a shop vac. Pro tip – having no windows in your truck makes it real easy to run hoses in and out the gaping holes  On the side of the house lives a bunch of front end sheet metal. Why am I keeping the original rusty fenders that I’ll never use? Good question.  And on the back patio is a really neat hood table. If you look closely, you can see the remnants of the totally rad flame stickers that once lived here.  Needless to say all this stuff needs somewhere better to go. Hey wait, what about that store shed?  This will be perfect. I do everything I can to ignore any kind of yard work, so It’s almost entirely empty in here anyways. Look at all those shelves, perfect for boxes of old garbage! And boy, it’s so light and airy in here!  Oh.   In time the Arizona sun destroys all. Check back later and maybe we’ll turn this into something to put parts into.
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Nov 15, 2021 02:40
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WTFBEES posted:Scout time. When we last left off, wiring was more or less together but nothing really worked. You all called out the neutral safety switch as a starting point. This was an excellent call because chasing that down lead to this. I mean, it's very poorly implemented, but as an idea, I don't totally hate it.
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Nov 15, 2021 19:19
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Krakkles posted:Sounds like a somewhat lazy, somewhat effective effort at anti-theft. That's been the theme of the Scout so far. Someone really knew what they were doing and did it in the shittiest way possible.
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Nov 15, 2021 20:27
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Someone once told me Scouts are great but Scout owners are terrible. Since they were the least expensive SUV a fella could get used it makes sense. An orphaned, rusted, rough and ready machine probably drew a lot of cheap bastards. I only ended up with my truck because it was less than half or maybe even a third as expensive as a contemporary Ford or Chevy.
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Nov 15, 2021 21:16
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I wish I bought a scout when they were cheap. I'd love to have one now. I'd say that's pretty accurate - I know someone who has bought many scouts over the years (and is a Good Scout Owner), and whenever he's acquired one from someone else there's universally something terribly stupid happening with it.
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Nov 15, 2021 21:40
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New update time. It's been a slow couple of weeks on account of some non-truck distractions. One of those distractions was that shed. Besides just needing a roof, the shed also needed to move from the weird sandbox it was sitting on to a more sound foundation. So we dug out a big rectangle, laid some pavers, drug the thing over and threw some plywood on top.  Good enough for now. I’ll nail some shingles or something to it eventually. Probably. This was nice because I can now fill it with crap from the garage.  Even better, my garage futon is no longer buried under a bunch of parts.  At this point I imagine you’re wondering why any of this should go in AI. Let’s get to that. At this point the pickup now looked like this.  See you later bed. I guess you no longer count as a pickup. Now it was so easy to get to everything I figured I might as well ditch all these fuel lines, two sets of trans cooler lines and the last bits of wiring.  This part hurt a bit, but while I like the center exit exhaust, it’s not going to work with a fuel cell between the frame rails, so off it goes too.  Leaving us with not much truck left.  So little truck that about here is where I decided to go fully frame off with this thing and ditch the cab too. That’ll have to wait until I con enough friends into helping me lift it off, but it’ll fit nicely where the futon is today. Sorry futon. Our next few rounds of GMC updates are probably going to be pretty boring. The frame is going to get a whole lot of degreasing, wire brushing / wheeling and power washing before getting a coat of something. Which something is TBD. There’s zero actual rust on the frame, and I doubt that’s going to change here in AZ, but I might as well protect it in some way. In the meantime, feel free to laugh at me for going to these lengths for a final product that I intentionally want to look trashy. Scout time. I'm light on pictures for this so you'll have to deal with words. When we last left off, the Scout wire unfucking had wrapped up but still wouldn’t start. Troubleshooting led us to the neutral safety system. After an afternoon of poking around and getting nowhere, one of us asked what should have been question one – “Hey what if the truck is in gear?” While this probably should have been an obvious first thing to check, it had been in park last we intentionally messed with it and the shifter had since been removed for access to transmission wiring. There were probably five smarter ways to test this theory, but we jacked all four wheels off the ground, jumped the relay and lo and beyond we’ve got spinning tires. Reassembling the shifter and shifting into actual park confirmed that our wiring actually works as expected and against all odds we appear to have sorted things out. Let’s put this junk back together.  Dash is mostly reassembled including new defroster flex tubing, manual choke knob (which just wasn’t present before) and HVAC cables connected. Next stop – get the speedo connected and in, cram the rest of the wires up and out of the way and finish bolting the dash in. If all goes well, we’ll be moving to actual mechanical things after that. Fun last story for you all to laugh at me over – after all the wiring work on the Scout, I decided I wanted an actual set of wire strippers instead of those combo crimper / cutter / stripper things. A few minutes on Amazon later and these arrive.  Neat. I don’t need them yet, so let’s find a space in the toolbox for them. I’m a bit tight on space, so I’ll ditch these old things that I’ve had forever and never used.  Hey, what are those things anyways? Zoom / Enhance!  Oh god drat it.
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Nov 29, 2021 00:01
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That park-sense problem is infuriating. I remember dropping by a friend's place to help him diagnose a "turn signals no worky" issue with his just-completed Subaru turbo swap and us spending a few hours chasing down the wiring diagram until I realized the four-way-flasher switch (which apparently included the blinker relay) wasn't installed in the dashboard.
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Nov 29, 2021 04:35
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Are you going for an aftermarket fuel cell between the rails or just getting a blazer/suburban tank that mounts right in since they used the same frame? Since yours is a short bed you likely won't want to the largest suburban tank as I don't think it fits over the rear end. If you are planning to lower it then I don't think the standard between rail tanks will work at all without clearance issues.
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Nov 29, 2021 17:04
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I haven't really looked at the other OEM tanks, but have been thinking aftermarket fuel cell. It'll be as low as reasonably possible on coilovers (no laying frame) and getting EFI, so it would be nice to solve a couple problems all at once. Also racecar stuff is rad and I love the look from behind when they peek out from under the bumper. Very important considerations.
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Nov 29, 2021 18:58
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I believe you can get EFI ready OEM tanks that go between the rails for later Suburbans. I am thinking of doing the same and ditching the dual saddle tanks. Mine is a long bed so I can fit the 31 gallon tank and weep every time I fill it.
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Nov 29, 2021 19:01
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Alright, you've got my attention. I'll probably wait until post-suspension to do anything as some of the 4-link setups replace crossmembers and obviously take up different space, but that option is on my list.
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Nov 29, 2021 20:34
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It’s amazing how you can work all weekend, accomplish everything you set out to, feel good about the progress made, then look back and realize your progress amounts to like 6 bolts tightened. Sure would be nice to be good at things. Well whatever, here’s some more pictures and my nonsense. Pickup – Here’s a pile of stuff. This stuff used to be bolted to things. Not the fan though. That just sits there.  I called it a bit premature last week, but we’re really down to a cab and the parts needed for rolling purposes.  I’ve got a group of people coming over for New Year’s where we’ll get the cab moved. I don’t think I have much else to do until then, which is kinda a bummer. Scout – Last we saw it, the dash was coming together. After a good bit of fighting, I am happy to report it’s now more or less entirely together.  Bonus togetherness – trans tunnel cover and shifters are back and all nice looking.  An annoyance – The transfer case knob sticker is clocked all wrong when actually tightened. Nice attention to detail there 1974 person.  Still to-do – maybe put something into the radio hole, mount the under dash AC bar thing and do something with the glove box. Problem with the glove box is someone decided the inside of the box should be made of cardboard. Predictably, it now looks like this:  We may just bolt the door on and find an alternate storage for gloves. Also, remember when I mentioned how dirty / muddy this truck is? This is what was left behind after moving that hunk of cardboard.  How do you even get that much dirt in a glovebox. Moving on – next up for fixing is the steering. We had trashed the original (?) rag joint while pushing the truck around a couple months ago. After noting what a dumb name for a part “rag joint” is, we put that aside for another day. Now that the steering column is back in, today might as well be that day. Lets just go ahead and bolt all that up and we’ll be onto the next thing.  Oh. Turns out we had collapsed the steering column somewhere along the line and it was way too short now. After a bit of panicking and thinking we were going to have to take the dash apart again, we decided to get creative.  Here we have a ratchet strap through the u-joint of the steering column.  And here we have blue truck being useful. Thanks blue truck. While I’m sure there are a number of better and smarter ways to do what we did, this did manage to work and uncollapsed the steering column. Even better, it worked two more times when we needed to recolapse and then unrecolapse it after we repeatedly screwed things up. End result?  Functional steering! Bonus tech tip that I am sure is old news to many of you with big trucks – The Scout is tall. It’s got some kind of lift and 35” tires. Even at 6”4”, I struggle to work under the hood from ground level. We’ve been standing on the tire or dragging a stool over to do any engine work, but today we got smarter.  Jack truck up, remove tires, put truck down on jack stands. Everything is so much easier to get to now. Probably should have done this about 100 man hours of underhood work ago. That’s it for this weekend. What’s next? Probably something muddy. 
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Dec 13, 2021 04:42
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My shifter knob has been moving a bit clockwise too. Yours is way clockwise. Probably every time it tightens it gets a little deeper, or alternately it isn't tight enough. Someday I'll get a new sticker for it, or put a tiny shim in the hole to back it out a little. I notice the spark plug wires are all together. I don't recall if you have electronic ignition or not, the original routing (with points) has plug #7 route around the back of the intake to avoid inducing a spark in #5. I guess when they are parralel that can happen and cause a misfire. When you get plug wires that are the right size one of them is crazy long for that purpose.
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Dec 13, 2021 05:14
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StormDrain posted:My shifter knob has been moving a bit clockwise too. Yours is way clockwise. Probably every time it tightens it gets a little deeper, or alternately it isn't tight enough. Someday I'll get a new sticker for it, or put a tiny shim in the hole to back it out a little. Is the thread not long enough to get a jam nut on there, so the knob can be locked into place in any orientation?
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Dec 13, 2021 07:58
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I always sort of wondered what you could do for shift knobs, my current car doesn't have one like that but my old one was always orientated at 2o'clock if you tightened it, man it was annoying. Could you just wrap the threads with thread tape or stuff some into the hole to make it tighten sooner? Now I wish I'd experimented with my old car. Enjoying this thread and seeing what you get up to with these trucks! E. ^^^ good suggestion, mine was too short as it was made so that all the thread was concealed inside the shift-knob when tightened.^^^ Project M.A.M.I.L. fucked around with this message at 08:03 on Dec 13, 2021 |
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Dec 13, 2021 08:00
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StormDrain posted:My shifter knob has been moving a bit clockwise too. Yours is way clockwise. Probably every time it tightens it gets a little deeper, or alternately it isn't tight enough. Someday I'll get a new sticker for it, or put a tiny shim in the hole to back it out a little. I'm glad you mentioned that. We've got some trash tier Autozone plug wire separators on there, but they're worthless and really just need to be torn off and done according to this very official service bulletin.  
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Dec 13, 2021 17:01
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WTFBEES posted:I'm glad you mentioned that. We've got some trash tier Autozone plug wire separators on there, but they're worthless and really just need to be torn off and done according to this very official service bulletin. And of course they show the firing order starting at 1 and you time it on 8. Number one hiccup of new IH mechanics.
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Dec 13, 2021 17:17
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Quick / short update for this week: Pickup - Nothing.  Scout: Ready to move out of the interior and to something else, we jumped under the hood. It had been a while since we had fired the motor, so let's do that first.  Oh right, this thing smokes a lot. Smart people would wheel it into the driveway before letting it run, but we thought we were clever and took the front wheels off. Once the smoke cleared we took a look under the hood and happened upon a not insignificant oil leak.  This picture is bad and hard to make out, but the leak manifests itself on the frame mount for the driver's side motor mount, and it's coming out under some amount of pressure (not a geyser, but much more than a dribble). We should probably sort that out. Let's start with the valve cover gasket. We recently replaced both gaskets so they should be good, and it doesn't quite look like the source but couldn't hurt to check.  Ooh, shaft mount rockers. That's some race car poo poo right there. No evidence of a leak though. The source must be lower. Finding anything lower gets tricky though as there's a oil filter and the aforementioned motor mount in the way. Let's pull the oil filter and filter receiver... thing.   No before picture here, but here's after. Oh boy everything sure is oil muddy. Looks like our leak is still higher though. An aside - the sensor under the freeze plug in the first picture above sure is strange. I presume it's the OEM oil pressure sending unit, out of which sticks an uninsulated rigid and solid length of copper. It goes nowhere now. Unless I come across a good reason not to, I'm going to chop it off one of these days. Anyways, up higher is the motor mount. Let's jack the motor up a bit and pull that too. It got hard to take pictures at this point because jesus everything is a mess and I don't want to touch my phone. Here's what the mount looks like when freed though.  Dear Santa, I have been very good this year. Please bring me a parts washer. Love, Bees. Let's see what we can see now. From the rear, facing forward -  Peeking in from the wheel well -  Nothing. That's where we retired for the day. So question for International / Scout knowers - Any idea of what else this might be? Are we missing some kind of fitting or plug? We're narrowed down to the driver's side, below the valve cover but above the motor mount. As best I can tell there's nothing to report on the front of the engine, so I don't think it's the timing cover. As a reward for scrolling this far, here are my sister's very silly dogs. 
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Dec 20, 2021 20:10
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Ah yes the flat faced doge, all the snoring and farts one could desire.
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Dec 20, 2021 21:07
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