Baby steps

Got a wee little bit done tonight. Alan stopped by to pick up a gas tank for his Scout, so he got to see my daunting task first hand. After dinner, I welded in an under-floor brace at the inboard seam. Fit in better than I thought, so I'm satisfied. 

Time flies

How does the day just fly by? Well, bending one piece of sheetmetal wrong and having to do it over and then watching the Orioles sweep the Tigers. That's how. 

I did manage to get on patch welded in and another cut and is soaking in etching compound so I can POR15 it tomorrow. I may try to do that in the morning so that I can weld it in tomorrow night. 

Time is running short before Pinelands. I'm not going to rush it if it's ready, it's ready. If not, I still need to get this thing out of here to make room for a new addition. (You're going to have to wait for that surprise). 

A stitch in time

Got a little time with Hanky today. I had sized up a couple of little patches to tie in the mid body mount and today I got them and the mount welded in. Now it's a solid unit with the mount welded in to the body and rocker. 

I test fit the B pillar and quarter and the door gaps look right. Now to patch the B pillar and get that bolted and welded into place. 

Trying

I'm trying to get back into the groove with Hanky. Spent a little time in the garage today. I took the mid mount out and drilled the relocated hole. Or at least started too. I'll have to wait for my drill battery to recharge. Doh!

I also ground off the rusty bolts that hold on the lower end cap bracket thingy. I got it off and I think I have a good piece of pre-bent heavy metal to cut I to a new one. 

No damage to my fingers either, so that's a plus. 

Bearing the load

I've been a bit remiss in posting if late, but there hasn't been much to tell. Haven't worked on Hanky in some time, so my story telling will revolve around Heavy D this time. 

A few weeks ago, I was headed up to my mother's place to grab my brother's trailer. I was headed to Mike McDaniel's place in Glenelg to pick up Brandon Byrd's extra parts from Gigi. Going up rt. 32, there was suddenly a loud bang an clanging sound. I pulled over and looked underneath. Sure enough, the rear u-joint on the front drive shaft let go. I lashed it up with twine and carried on, got the trailer and took the shaft off when I go home. The next day I picked up the parts and dropped the trailer back at moms place. 

So then coming home, the drivers side wheel starts making a racket. As I get closer to home it gets louder. This can't be good. As I make the last toward home, it makes a crunch and get quieter so I drive the last mile home and park it. I left for vacation and business for the next three weeks, so just got to tear into it today and here is what I found. Not surprisingly the inner bearing is toast. Luckily, the race and the spindle look fine. Tomorrow I go part hunting. Gotta get it back together for Carlisle next weekend! 

The 1000 yard stare

Tonight was productive. I took off the wheel and stared at the new mount. Pondering at which points I'm going to weld it in and where I need to add a layer if metal to tie it together. That's it. Just stared. 

Job running time up to 55 hours. 

Is there light at the end of the tunnel?

I'm finally starting to out things together. Tonight I spent a quick hour welding in the inner rocker. My welds aren't the prettiest, but I'm getting better and there is good penetration. If it breaks, I'll just weld it again. 

I also drilled and bolted it to the mid mount at the other end. I dunno if those two part are 'supposed' to be joined, but they line up and I used a tiny bolt so that I could take it apart if I needed to shim it or change the alignment. I also trimmed the floor patch a bit and test fit it. I'll do some finish trimming and need to cut a new lip before I weld it in place. 

Test Fit Tuesday

Now that the POR15 is all dry, it's time to see how this thing will go together. I needed to grind down a few of the old welds to get the middle mount to sit flush, but is goes in pretty well. I decided to pile on the skins to see how it fits and found that putting this mount over what's left of an old repair moves it rearward a bit, so I'm going to have to shim the B pillar forward. 

I also learned not to trust the body mount hole drilled in the part by the fabricator. I need to redrill it about 3/4" farther outboard. Remember that support I welded in? Yeah. It looks like it's going to  be right in the way of the new hole. 😣 I'll deal with that later. 

I put in the half cab bulkhead, inner fender and outer skin and played with positioning a bit. I think I can get it all lined up. It looked like I needed to shim the front mount, so added a significant shim of about 1/2". We'll see if that is too much, but for now I'm going with it. The door still isn't right. I'm going to need to shim the hinges away from the A pillar. One more thing to deal with later. 

But, it doesn't look half bad. 

The 'new' inner doesn't seem to line up quite right with the patch I cut and fit to the wheel well. The inner has a slightly larger radius. I can probably play with it, but I'm glad that I haven't welded in that patch yet. 

Catch up

I've been delinquent in my posts of late, so here is a little catch up. 

April 26 was more cutting out rust. I finally decided that the end cap had to come off. A couple of the bolts were too rusted to get off (surprised?), so I cut the corner out. I'll need to rebuild a bit under there, including the rear mount. 

The next day I decided it was time to pull it out of the garage, but Hanky seemed all too comfortable in there. After debating the veracity of my battery, I determined that the starter needed to come out. It came out without a fuss, and so did a pound or so of Pinelands mud. 

Ain't that purdy? Took about 15 minutes to shake the mud out to my satisfaction. I had just ordered a solenoid from Rock Auto cuz I thought it might come in handy. After cleaning up the starter, sort of, and putting on the solenoid, it started right up and got to see sunlight for the first time in months. It also gave me the chance to sweep another 10 pounds or so of Pinelands out of the garage. 

On Thursday (5/1), I got a bit more time and cut the dead flesh out of the end cap and fashioned a temporary patch for the floor between the wheel well and tailgate.  I'll eventually have to replace to whole floor, so this piece may come back out at some point, but this patch gives me a lip to weld the inner fender to. 

This past Saturday, I didn't have a lot of time to spend on the truck, but I identified the horrible racket under the hood as the alternator, not the a/c pump as I had thought. Picked up a new one at Advance, so no sweat.  I remembered to pull off the pulleys, but figured I wouldn't need to swap the fan too, right? Wrong. Good thing I have another core. 

Sunday, May 4 was sand blasting day at last. I *think* I have most of the cancer out if the areas I need to address immediately. So I pulled the Scout out (and it's a lot quieter without that danged alternator), and set about my work. A few pounds of sand later and all the infected areas were clean. A little blow dry and I broke out the POR15 to hopefully put a permanent stop to it. 

 

Why is it that I get POR in my hands even when I wear gloves? And it's usually the day before I have some fancy dinner. 

I also sized up the inner rocker and trimmed the old one. The piece left over from the passenger side repair is the perfect length. I welded in a fish plate and called it a night.  

Door Prizes

No work getting done on the Scout this week, but I did get to pay a visit to ScoutCo headquarters for some bits for another project. I even got to take home a few very cool pieces of Scout swag.  Mike is awesome. If you are ever in the area, pay him a visit. And if you aren't, you can order from his Web site. 

http://www.scoutcoproducts.com/

Playing the post

Thanks to Mike Moore for posting some pics of complete B pillars so I have a reference for how to rebuild mine. I didn't get a lot done tonight, but I did get a patch cut, tack welded and drilled so I could test fit the pillar to the new mount. 

It went together easily and I think the door shuts better now than it ever has. 😜

Running time: 40 hrs. 

Testing the fit and visiting Gigi

I figured I'd spend pretty much all day in the garage today, but not long after getting out there, I got a call from Brandon Byrd saying he was heading out to Glenwood to pick up Gigi. I've been wanting to check out his truck, so off I went. 

There's no mistaking a big blue and white Metro, so the shop was easy to find. Gigi looks just as good in person as in Brandon's pics. 

And with a new 350 under the hood, it will go like a bat out of hell too. It sounds totally awesome, as a hot rod should. Brandon took it easy and didn't burn any rubber on his way out. I got one parting shot as I turned off to head home

Back at the shop, I did a little more cutting and grinding. I'm finding that I'm having to cut out a lot, if not all of the previous repair. Not necessarily a bad thing. 

The new mount fits in pretty well and the b pillar bolts up well. I still need to rebuild the bottom of the b pillar. I'll cut and fit some templates while I have it bolted together like this. Nice to see it come together, but there is a lot of work to be done before Pinelands.

Oh, and the battery is totally dead. Gonna have to chase down the short that's draining it. Hopefully the battery isn't permanently dead. It's on the charger now, so we'll see in the morning. 

Labor to date: 39 hrs. 

Friday Frights

The day stayed off well enough. I etched and POR15'd the other side of the mid mount first thing in the morning. Then while that dried, I figured I'd make a run to Crazy Ray's to get a hydroboost for Heavy D. 

As I set out, I noticed that the brakes were really soft. Thankfully, before I had gone to far, I found that the brakes were pretty much gone. I only had enough pedal to stop it from about 15 MPH. Gah! Having a brake failure is the one recurring night are that I've ever had. Here I am living it. Again. (I'll tell you about the other time sometime). 

I decided that I was close enough to the parts store to stop there (hah!) and get some fluid. Topping off the master didn't help. There is air in the lines for sure. So I limped it home and piled into the car to head to Crazy Ray's. Ironic that it's a hydroboost that I was after? I found what I needed, tho it took me a bit longer than expected for lack of a 15mm socket in my bag. 

Back at the ranch, I finished POR15 touch ups on the b pillar and mount, so those should be ready. Just have to fab up a new bottom on the b pillar. 

I then cut out a bit more of the old mount so the new one can go in. I also noticed a little bulging under the floor, so some exploratory surgery was done. Sure enough. Rust was pancaked between the layers of metal. Haven't quite gotten it all out, but it looks like I'll need to replace some of that floor. Even though from the top side it looks fine, it's pretty thin. 

Clock ticking at 37.5 hrs. 

Bit by bit

Put another hour in tonight. This time welding in the support to the mid mount, then etching and painting one side of the mount with POR15. Every little bit of progress helps. 

Back in black

Had a little time for Hanky today, so after grinding down some spot welds on the b pillar, I gave the outside a coat of POR15. I'll hit the inside tomorrow. 

Then, I turned my attention to the center mount. It won't fit over what's left of the original, so that has to come out. 

So, I need to add a support for the body mount bolt.  I happened to have a piece of a small car square tube hitch in the garage, so I cut that down to fit. All I need to do is weld it in place and I'll be good to go. 

Running time: 33.5 hours

A day at the beach

Today was sand blasting day. One of many to come I think. I found that a trash can makes a half way decent blast cabinet. After an hour of blasting, the b pillar looks like this. 

Hour count: 32.5

31.5 hours in and no end in sight.

I've been a bit delinquent in posting, but I've been tearing into Hanky bit by bit, a few hours here and there. By now the inner and outer quarters are off. As is the b pillar most of of the driver's side floor. 

Before I took it all apart, I made up some cross supports so that I could line things up before I cut them out and get them back into place when I put it back together. You saw them a few posts ago. 

I'm just over 30 hours into cutting. I could have done it faster with bigger blocks of time and better tools, but so be it. I think I'm getting down to usable metal. A sane person would bag it and get a new tub. But like I've said before, I have more sheet metal and welding wire than I do sense. Plus, I figure if I can get this thing back together, I can do just about anything. Plus I've had some neat ideas along the way. Perhaps I'll share those later too. 

I'm going to start from the front and work my way to the back. I'll probably leave the floor out until I get the b pillar and center mount put back in, then do the end cap and a piece of the rear floor before putting the quarters back on. 

As you might surmise from prior pics, or if you've seen Hanky in person, there wasn't much left of the mid mount. Or anything else for that matter. If so, you were right. Not much left of the floor either. Or the...  Well here, have a look. 

I've gone through a few cutting wheels. But I'm starting to fit in new panels. I'm scrapping a shop cabinet and an old waging machine for sheet metal. If I cut it right, I can get the bends already done. I was even able to get the lip for the floor where the door weather strip attaches. The first patches fit pretty well. I had to cut out a section of the vertical seam under the floor and some of the middle floor panel, so I cut two separate pieces to fit and retain the seam. 

Tonight I cut and chiseled off the remnants of the inner and outer quarters from the b pillar. The spot welds on the inner came off easily with a chisel, but I had to cut and grind the outers. No biggee, less than half an hour. 

Most of the chalky stuff is left over from the acid bath it got. I'll hit it with the sand blaster to clean it up before I weld the bottom back together. 

Next up is test fitting the mid mount repair panel. 

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

You never know what you are going to find inside a Scout. After tearing down the passenger side of Hanky a few years back, I had a pretty good guess as to what I would find when I cut off the driver's side quarter.  Even so. Well. Pictures are worth a thousand words, so they say.