Scout

[MDEnvEngr]

Hand (re) made. I'll throw up a couple of pics of the start of the restoration of a 1974 Scout we recently acquired. If there is interest I'll keep it going in a high-level sort of way just to show what can be involved. My 14 y/o son is my main helper on this project (or it might be the other way around). I've retored a few cars in the past - a 1969 Caddy and a 73 VW Thing and a Manx) but I'm by no means an expert in this stuff. I do love an involved project, and now that the boy is bigger the chance to work on something together and see his skill develop along the way is the big draw for me. The boy will likely be doing all of thew welding - he's just better at it than I am. I can still out-braze him by a mile, but am no where near the welder. He has been welding the nicely fit perfectly clean chromo bike frame tubes and learning to deal with the wackiness of sheet metal and "not perfect" metal is an interesting challenge for him.

Doesn't look too bad!

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Passenger side floor:

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Working on the removal of the rear floor:

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[MDEnvEngr]

More:

This is the area at the back of the driver's door. The B pillar is not attached to anything. Same with the rocker. And the mid-tub body mount structure is gone. For that matter, 5 of the six tub mounts are bad. the good news is: one of them is good so we have a datum to work from!

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Before we could square and level the tub and put it into traction above the chassis we had to fix some rot in the firewall. Felt good actually patching something, but we have not hit the bottom of the rust removal yet by any means. And a good place for the boy to work on his sheet metal welding - all of this is hidden within the front fender structure.

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This past weeked we spent a good portion of both days squaring up the tub and levelling it and putting jigs at the B and C pillars and braces in the doors so what metal remains stays where it is supposed to be while we are cutting and replacing critical parts of the structure. I do not know what the factory tolerance was for these things back in 1974, but I'd bet it was along the lines of +/- 0.25" at least.

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Along the way we also pulled the engine, tranny, etc. Here is the boy, and this is the kind of enthusiam that makes a project like this fun!

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Thanks for looking! B

[72gmc]

Good on ya!

Why don't you guys live closer to me? I'd roll the old truck right into your queue. I never was taught to do this stuff.

[MDEnvEngr]

We started at the rear of the tub, as locating the rear tub mounts is the easiest of the bunch. We strayed from the original design - we are not thinking of concourse restoration, we are thinking solid driver restoration. Where we have to modify the structure so that we can fabricate it ourselves, or make it stronger, simpler, etc we will. So much of the design of the original structure is influenced by the manufactoring process - exposed pinch seams to allow spot welding for instance. Our intent is to make as much of the patch panels as possible ourselves. It helps that we are on good terms with the metal shop down in town.

We repaired both of the C pillars - luckily the rot was on the wings and we did not have to rebuild the tailgate supports. And then we prepared and welded in a new rear beam. Two of the 6 body mounts are now where they should be!

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[treadonme]

Loving this thread!
We had TONS of fun in both Scouts and Travelalls bitd.

[Bewheels]

Back in the day my father worked for a International Harvester dealership.

Scouts that leaked when it rained were a regular visitor in the service area.
It got to the point where to "solve" the problem, they would drill holes in the floor to let the water out. Looks like yours didn't get that "fix".

[72gmc]

^^^^ yes. Thank you, and thank Finn, for sharing!

[72gmc]

Thanks guys. I am having a great time with this project. Savoring the time with the boy. It has impacted ride time and brought framebuilding to a standstill, but there will be plenty of lonely old man time for that. I'm right where I need to be right now. After the scout we will begin working on a 58 ford f100 which will actually be finns first car. That will be a different kind of project: not so much body work, but we will build the chassis from scratch, and lots more suspension work and such. You guys seem to like this stuff so I'll post that up when it comes. Hopefully this summer. Stay well! Bob

I am jealous of the lack of body work on the Ford. A local lady has an early 70s Ford and my wife must be getting tired of my comments about how that truck is parked outside, like mine, but the paint is not bubbling at the bottoms of the doors because Ford treated their metal inside and out.

Thanks again for posting your story. And a huge thank you for using steelies and caps! To each their own but I tend to be disappointed when I follow a rebuild of a truck like mine and it ends with 22 inch wheels and rubber band tires.

[TRuth]

Hi Bob, I just wanted to chime in and let you know I'm enjoying the progress you share on your Scout immensely. Keep it up!

[MDEnvEngr]

I would have thought that this isolation would have picked up the Scout pace - but no. It has allowed us to do some trailwork, and get for more rides while continuing on good progress though. We pulled the inner support off of the hood, and repaired the hood nose and the inner structure - we do not have the two pieces back together yet though.

We cut the whole nose lip off and replaced:

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We cut the curve off the inner structure and replaced that:

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There was a lot of rot around the hinge landings and the forward legs of the support that also needed replacing.

Meanwhile, we got it back on its own wheels for the first time in a year, and placed the door just to see what it would look like:

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And that was exciting. Then we fit the doors. This has been something I've been dreading for a year. I knew it would be a miracle if everything fit up nice: we didn't have much in the way of reliable datum or dimensions when we re-built the tub. Not to mention we had never seen a Scout in person and it's our first time, etc, etc. Seems like the rear of the tub is skew by about 1/2":

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Not real happy about that, but not much to be done now. The Scout experts claim Scouts are known for their dimensional inaccuracy and this looks fine. Whatever - we learn. And then there is getting the doors to fit in the door holes: a little trimming and re-welding and a little addition of 0.125" rod and the doors eventually get to be acceptable. No, pics of that part - mmaybe because it was too much "sausage factory" for recording, IDK.

Then, we got the parking brake hooked up. We decided to use a 12v linear actuator. It has a 4" stroke and a 225# pull. We hooked 2 75# @ 4" springs so that the parking brakes would have ~150# on them when the actuator is fully retracted. Works good - and overall cheaper than a parking brake handle. We pulled a tube over the whole assembly to keep the crud off.

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We have started stripping all off the panels down to metal and spraying with epoxy primer as the weather cooperates. Then assembly and filler/sanding/primer/sanding/etc. And a million other details too.

Meanwhile the isolation allowed us to make Mom a new bikepath cruiser. The frame build goes fast when I can miter and braze and let Finn join the main tubes with the TIG:

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My wife wanted something more upright because her neck hurts. A couple of rides in and she is asking about fitting drop bars. Anything is possible.

Hope this finds you healthy! Thanks for looking - Bob & Finn

[Bewheels]

Fantastic!!!!

Keep the updates coming.

[Todd Amunrud]

My son who’s 11 and I pour over your details and process. We have no plans or anything, just really enjoy the “tackle a project head on” shown. Thanks for providing wonderful moments for us.

[72gmc]

What a great project. Not just the work but the planning and getting it done. Enjoy the summer cruises.

[MDEnvEngr]

We've been finishing up all of the little things while we drive it around and it has been a lot of fun. It does not get the attention that our old 69 DeVille convertible got, but that is fine. Those that know what it is are very enthusiastic. We got the mirror, windows and door cards installed. Got the radio installed. Chasing some squeaks and rattles.

And tuning- we have had a lot of fun driving around with the computer in Finn's lap while he refines the tune. Amazes me: going up a hill lugging the engine a bit - hear a bit of a knock - he's looking at the spark advance table and says, "I'm going to take a couple of degrees of the advance out of it at this load". And the knock goes away. He's watching the AFR all the time and tweaking the fuel load table to get it where he'd like it. At 15 I didn't know what stoichiometry was - he's saying "stoich" and telling me where he'd like to see the AFR a little above or below "stoich". And ajusting the VE table in real time as we drive around. Amazing! This project has been a great learning experience for both of us - but I do not think I could have timed it any better for Finny - he's just so into it.

This is what it looks like now:

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Interior:

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We just have to finish the roof and then we can call this one done - and start on the next one: a 1958 Ford F100.

Good day - Bob and Finn

[Clyde]

Blue-green with envy!

[Matthew Strongin]

Still the best thread! I'd love to do a project like that when my kid gets older. Keep the updates coming!

[TRuth]

This is really fantastic, nice work!

[72gmc]

A double header! Thank you.

[MDEnvEngr]

Plugging along: lots of hammer and dolly work. We have gotten better at knocking dents out and shrinking the metal back to where it should be. We are not trying to get the skin perfect: we plan on keeping some "texture" and go with an "old work truck" theme.

Fab work done on the cab, except for the tunnel which will depend on how the cab fits over the transmission.

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We've found patches on top of patches on top of patches: the former owners were just concerned with keeping the mud out. Who would have thought that this old work truck would someday be desirable.

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Both door bottoms needed replacing, here partially through the metalwork:

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On this door, we had to cut an access to get a hammer in there and reshape the skin. Easier to just cut it out and replace than try to wrangle a hammer into the space.

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Finny had saved up a good chunk on money from his bike shop gig and he bought some wheels. We had to mock them up - this is actually a couple of inches lower than it will really be. We do want to go around corners:

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You might think that it's early for the wheels, but there is a method to our madness: we are designing and building the front suspension ourselves. So, you need the wheels to know where the spindle goes, and the spindle to know where the ball joints go. Once you know that you can start to determine where the other end of the A-arms go, and therefore the length of the arms. And in our case, as we are building the chassis, where the chassis rails end up. Yea, simple - ha! There has been lots of studying the suspension design books. All good stuff. Thanks for looking! Bob & Finn

[JoB]

this thread is the best. thanks for posting!