Spitter Spatter

Ok, I finally broke out the welder this weekend. Got the front rocker extension all lined up and tack welded in place. Of course, while being a little aggressive with some 'realignment' I broke it off again. That just confirmed that I suck at welding. I definitely need practice. I welded it back on again, but couldn't get a nice bead going to save my life. Before I try to put in that inner rocker, I'll definitely need to practice on some scrap.

As it happens, I might need to grind that extension back off again and try one more time. I got it nicely lined up in two dimensions, but the third is a bit off. I might be able to work with it. We'll see.

Your door is a jar.

Last weekend I got about an hour in on the Scout and pulled the body to line it up better (hooked a come along to the pillar in the garage) and it worked. Last night I finished buttoning down the mounts, with the exception of the two passenger mounts amid ship. The front one, of course, doesn't exist at the moment and the rear needs to have some more metal welded in. Once I did that, I *tried* to line up the door, so I could start welding in the rockers. As it sits (with suppor under the firewall to the point of lifting the frame), the door is sagging about 1" and isn't even close to closing. This tells me that the bottom of the A pillar is pushing forward towards the front (probably from the weight of the door). Not surprising, since there isn't any metal there to hold it in place.

If I jack the door itself, I can get it to shut cleanly, but the gaps are not square (more gap at the top of the door and less at the bottom, less at the top of the wing window, less at the bottom. In fact, when the door skin is lined up square with the quarter, the top of the wing window is nearly touching the windshield frame. I may have to hang the fender to see how the front of the door is lining up with the fender (whoa is me, that means taking the door off again). The hinge-to-body bolts only adjust the in-out of the door, so I don't think that any adjustment there will help me. The hinge-to-door bolts might be where I need to play some. Of course, this not the door that I ultimately will be using, so perhaps all this fine tuning isn't necessary, so long as I can get the A pillar squared up enough for the door to close easily. I hate adjusting doors.

...or not

Well, this will make two years in a row at Nats without a truck. I found that one of the sidewalls on Big Red has a nasty gash in it, so rather than risk a blow out, I'm driving the Crossfire again. There is always next year.

Mr. Hanky? No, Big Red

Since Hanky isn't going to Nats, I figured I better get to work on cleaning up Big Red. So, today I reinstalled the transfer case shifter and got the shifter boot mostly screwed back on. What a pain trying to locate the screw holes through a new floor mat.

I also located two more wasp nests while I was at it. One in the A pillar right under the upper door hinge. Found that one when a wasp flew out past my head. Another was under the passenger rear fender well. I'll bet there is at least one more in there somewhere. Ray must live in primo wasp country. I don't think I've ever seen this many nests in one truck (including the nearly 10 that we found when we picked up the truck.

The under side of the truck could use a good cleaning. While under there, I also noticed that the driver's side fuel line is a little closer to the tail pipe than I would like. I'll see if I can't get it mounted a little higher and wrap it with some dynamat or something.