Scout

[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.

[MDEnvEngr]

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.

Thanks - that's really nice to hear. Glad to provide some distraction! Bob & Finn

[72gmc]

"the Scout experts claim Scouts are known for their dimensional inaccuracy" -- this makes me smile. A friend had a Scout in college. I used to comment that unlike the Volkswagen microbus, which had to go out into the world before it was rebuilt a billion times by hippies under shade trees, International seemed to bring the hippies and trees right into the factory.

Thank you for keeping this story alive. Nice work on the bike for the wife!

[MDEnvEngr]

We have been plugging away, a little slower because we know we are going be waiting on the weather for some painting - though I have to figure out which end of the spray gun to point at the metal first. And the riding has been great, made better by a new bike for my youngest son - the ball sport member of the family. He is finally big enough to fit onto a medium sized frame - which means that when he outgrow this one it can go to Mom and we can justify a decent bike. I've built a bunch of full suspension bikes, but have some to the conclusion that they aren't work my trouble: to production FS bikes are just too good. We got him a Norco Fluid and it made him a new rider: able to keep up with his siblings and let me in the dust on the descents. All good.

Anyway, back to the Scout. We took some time working the doors and finally ended up with decent gaps:

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That was a good deal of work.

Then we worked on the seat mounts. We scored some nice VW GTI buckets from a buddy. It took us a whole weekend to get the seats where we wanted them and all of the mounts fabricated. We could have had a better thought out plan before we started in just building them, but where is the fun in that? The seat you see in this pic is an extra that my buddy provided to use for fitment, so we didn't bang up the good seats.

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Then we made a rear bumper. This was nice, easy fabrication: big relatively clean metal with bench welding.

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We ended the bumper with vertical tubes. We thought it gave the bumper ends a nice finished look and we can use them in the future for swing-away carriers if we need such things. In the meantime, Finn will 3d print some caps to finish them off.

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Test fit on the truck. There will be an appearance panel on the front edge filling the gap between the bumper and tailgate:

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The holes are for some LED lights. We are happy with the overall look.

This past weekend we actually rolled the Scout out of the garage on it's own rubber. It's starting to look like an actual vehicle now:

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When the Scout was out, we did a big scrub down of the garage in preparation for painting. We sprayed some primer on a bunch of pieces: bumpers, grill and seat mounts. And also my daughter's downhill bike - she wants to give it some custom paintjob, so it got epoxy primer to start too.

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Then to finish the weekend, Finn and I started with a little filler after dinner. We are not going to go crazy with filler on this truck - we have to fair in some patches and there is some rot pockmarks that need to be filled. But we were careful with our metalwork so we don't see a full-skim filler as necessary. There will still be plenty of filler, but nothing thicker than 1/16" I think. The doors will be the big challenge - there are a couple of wrinkles on them that we just could not hammer out.

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So, lots of sanding in our near future. If the weather give us a break we could have color on this by the end of the month.

Stay healthy everyone - thanks for looking! Bob & Finn

[Too Tall]

Fantastic update Bob. That kid-o is getting the masters class.

[72gmc]

Amazing. VW seats look to be a very good idea. A bit of bolster to keep the kid in the seat when he "misjudges" the rear wheel traction.

[MDEnvEngr]

Well, sanding. Blocking everything out with the long boards to find the lows - the ones that aren't immediately visible. We have plenty of areas where we knew there would be some filler. But, in general the tub is taking the filler about where we thought it would. Nothing thicker than about 1/16" on the tub. The doors have some more: up to 1/8" on those. The doors were a mess. We had some "oil canning" of the skin from previous damage and repairs. We had to take the pointy hammer and shrink the stretched out spots (basically you whack the door skin where the stretch is with a donut dolly on the inside and the pointy hammer on the outside and intentionally make as many pock marks as you need to shrink the skin back to shape. Then you use the knurled hammer to flatten the pock marks. The real good guys can hammer the skin all the way back into shape. We got as close as we could and let the filler do the rest.)

Anyway, after a couple of weeks of fill/sand/fill this is what the tub looks like:
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The garage shop is a dusty shambles - most of the filler ends up on the floor and all over everything:

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But the warmer weather lets us open the doors and get some fresh air.

We are close to done with the hood. It came out pretty good, but it would have been worth our time to go fetch a perfect hood that was offered to us - even if it meant a 20 hours R/T. But some of the point is to restore *this* truck as opposed to source a bunch of great condition pieces and assemble them. That said, there will be pieces of 6-7 different Scouts in this one by the time we are done - some things were just too far gone to help. Anyway, here is the hood as it stands now - still some more finish work to be done:
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We also restored the dash pad. Ours was in really tough shape. Again, we could have sent it away to "just dashes" and had a pro restore it - but that would have cost upwards of $800. So, we tackled it ourselves.

Close to the start - metal backing was rotted away and needed to be replaced:
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We opened the cracks and scooped out the roached "padding":

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Filled with holes with pillar foam, filler and smoothed everything out:

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A few coats of epoxy primer:

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The we applied flocking. Flocking is the stuff that a lot of racecar manufacturer's use on their dashboards to keep down the glare. It also the stuff that GI Joe had for hair. We flocked the dashboard black and liked it a lot. We flocked the dash pad tan - hoping it would look classy like suede. It looks more like felt, but still pretty good. And a ton better than what we had.

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Yesterday we went and bought the rest of the paint we need. Epoxy over everything you see above. Then a coat of high-build primer. We will block the primer back down with 320 then 600 grit until we just kiss the underlying epoxy primer. That'll be as smooth as it gets. Then another coat of epoxy to seal the filler coat. Then the color - we are going to use single stage urethane. We didn't want to use a basecoat/clearcoat because 1 - we are amateurs and still trying to figure which end of the spray gun to point at the truck and 2 - we wanted a "duller" more stock appearance. The paint is still very expensive - though we did choose a "cheap" color.

But - we re excited to see it in color. still plenty to do after that, but the pain will be a huge milestone.

Enjoy your Memorial Day Holiday - thanks for looking. Bob & Finn

[MDEnvEngr]

We put everything back together to check gaps and such before painting. The hood was a PIA - our rebuild changed the arc of the trailing edge and the PS edge and the location of the hinge landings (by just a smidge - but those smidges add up). Dealing with the hinges came first. Of course you can't reach the bolts when the hood is installed - so it's: adjust; put the hood on and check; take the hood off and adjust; put the hood on...X20. We finally got it. We had to make a Delrin spacer for the DS hinge to get everything to line up like we wanted. Then we had to address the arcs: a little gentle persuasion - HA! We got right up there and jumped on it - Finn had a go first but he didn't have enough weight to bring to bear. So I hopped up there and got it done. We call this sort of stuff the "sausage factory" - you really don't want to see what's going on - kind of like frame alignment.

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We ended up with a decent fitting hood - but again glad we did it before paint.

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Another one where you can see just how bad the doors were. None of those splotches are thicker than 1/8" but still. If we were better we could have shrunk those valleys down with the hammers - but we are not that good yet.

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After this, we sprayed everything with a coat of epoxy. As we are still trying to figure out how to paint we didn't have the best success. We did apply a nice even coat, but there was orange peel. Not terrible as the next step was high-build primer but we needed to get our shit together before the next coat of epoxy which is directly under the color coat. So we did some more research and talked to the folks around here that know painting and basically we don't have our atomization right. It's simple: our tip is too small, or too big or the air pressure is too low - or maybe too high or we are either too close or too far away with the gun or moving too fast or too slow. Yea - basically figure it out on your own. So we went down to the cause: not atomizing well enough. We did some practicing and farting around with thinning the epoxy and adjusting the air pressure and paint flow. And technique.

So, anyway - the next step was to spray everything with 2 coats of high build primer and then block everything down to 600 grit: it feels so smooth:

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So it's as straight and smooth as we are going to make it. Wouldn't cut it at Pebble Beach but sure will cut it at Norton Point Beach on the Vineyard. I've got to admit I enjoyed the sanding and blocking. It was very satisfying getting everything to look and feel straight and smooth. Takes some time. We have about 30 hours into the doors alone. And probably another 30 in everything else.

So, we practiced and finally got our epoxy to spray the way we wanted it to and it came out nice:

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And here are most the parts laid out for painting:

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So today is color day. No stress wondering how my newbie technique is going to work with a $400 gallon of paint - but that is where the thrill comes in. We will end painting 5ish coats, one after the other. We will start at one end of the parts and once we are through the beginning will be ready to go for a second coat. Round and round.

Thanks for looking - Bob & Finn

[mnoble485]

Sounds like the sanding was a Zen “thing”. As always, thanks for taking us along for the ride.

Mike

[Bewheels]

@MDEnvEngr
Thanks for the update.

Keep them coming!!

[MDEnvEngr]

When last I posted, we were just getting ready to spray the color. Well, we have learned a lot since then. Turns out the urethane is not nearly as forgiving as the rest of the primers we have been spraying such that you actually have to know more than which end of the spraygun to point at the truck. We sprayed our color and it came out bad. Orange peel on everything. We thought maybe we could buff it out, but not so. We bit the bullet and sanded everything back down to 400 grit smooth and did some more studying and talking to people who know how to do this stuff and resprayed. It was just an extra 25ish hours of sanding, but we ended up with a perfectly smooth color matched base to spray onto.

So this is how it looked after the first spray - the pic makes it look better than it is:

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Then we sanding everything back down to 400. Mostly wet sanding, but some dry-sanding touch up at the end - it is easier to see what you missed with dry sanding:

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So our problems boiled down to not enough air and not enough paint coming out of the gun. We made all sorts of changes to correct those. There was also the new knowledge that our little 2 hp compressor is just barely adequate for what we needed. My sources told me too just take my time and shoot a panel and let the compressor catch up. So, there was also some technique changes in there. The second go-around came out worlds better than the first:
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We did end up with some orange peel on the doors, so we figured we'd just sand those down again and re-spray. But before we did that we could practice our run-removal and cutting and buffing. Turns out we could cut and buff our way through the orange peel to a really nice finish:

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So - do we need to respray or not? We have to deal with removing some 600 grit scratches we can still see, and then there are a few gouges were we tried various methods of run removal. I think we can spot fill the gouges and buff them smooth...so maybe. Today I'm going to go at the door again starting with 1000 and then working 1500/2000/2500 and buffing to see if I can get rid of the scratches. If I do, we are ahead. If not we will respray and nothing lost.

Most everything else came out great, and the cut and buff will go fast. Here is the truck with the second coat of color on, also showing the color-matched smoothie hubcaps. We like the look:

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And we sprayed the interior with Monstaliner truck bed liner. We used the Monstaliner on our camper a few years ago and that stuff is great:
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So meanwhile we are waiting on the big stuff to harden as much as we can before the cut and buff. And working on other things. Like shoe-horning the radiator in. Because we swapped in a newer jeep 4.0 and a 5 speed and a Dana 30 transaxle we either had shoehorn the radiator end or the transfer case end. We didn't plan it - rookie mistake really. We just placed the engine where the shifter came through the existing shifter hole. And essentially forgot about the front. So, anyway, the radiator gets squeezed in there, the plumbing seemed like it was going to be tough, and the fan needed to be forward of the radiator. In the end it worked out fine: the plumbing is clean, the mounting is good and we just had to clearance the nose sheet metal and the plastic grill a bit. But everything fits where it should and looks normal from the outside - except for the radiator motor just inside the plastic grill. We fretted over it for months but it took only a few hours to get it sorted:

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We have also been putting the dash together. We are waiting on some defroster hose, otherwise we'd be finished with this. We do like the way the flocking looks and we will see how it hold up:

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And then we mounted the seats. We scored some GTI bucket from a buddy cheap and will cover them with some neoprene seat covers. I have owed a string of GTIs and the seats fit me perfectly. I think they would look better without the headrests, but removing them would be silly.

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So, more wet sanding and buffing in our future. Finish up the dash. Filled the brakes, coolant, install windshield, figure out the window regulators and door handles - plenty left to do but we are starting to say driving, "next month."

Hope all you fathers had a good day yesterday - thanks for looking. Bob & Finn

[Too Tall]

Love love love this thread. Thanks and happy Father's Day.

[MDEnvEngr]

Got the dash assembled - and incorporated some bike stuff: brake cable and housing for the heater valve actuator and the defroster valve. Exciting to see things come together. Still, everything needs to be touched - there will be almost nothing on this truck that has not been changed in some way. We have learned a lot, for sure and feel good about the next project which will take a lot more up-front design work. But anyway, it's step by step. The big things left are a cut and buff of the fenders. Respray one of the doors. Cut up the roof and make a "tin bikini" out of it. Fabricate and install a roll bar. Seatbelts, etc. Oh yeah - tune the engine - we had it running earlier so no reason to think that it wont run again, but there will be all sorts of learning there as we tweak the AFR tables and fool around with all of the features on the megasquirt ECU.

We have some fish eyes on the hood and the tailgate. There is a way to fill and cut them back down - but we start to wonder when is enough? Do we spend 2 more months chasing every last paint defect only to cover the nose of this with a zillion bugs when we head up to the Adirondacks? Nah - we are getting to, "good enough is good enough". There is also the fact that Finn and I see every flaw. We've asked the rest of the family to come out and take a look from time to time and they don't see what we do.

Still a couple of grounds to land and a radio to install:

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Installing the windshield was an adventure. Finn and I fought it for an hour or so and then finally realized we had it on the frame inside-out. Once we figured that out it went on easy. The wipers went back in pretty easily, except the aftermarket arms needed some tweaking before they sat correctly.

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Getting closer - perhaps now we can say we will be driving this "by the end of the month"...we will see. Enjoy the holiday weekend everyone. Thanks for looking - Bob & Finn

[lumpy]

Oh boy.

[MDEnvEngr]

Things have moved along quickly this last week. The local bike shop was closed - Finny works down there a couple of days/week - so I had him virtually full time. So we got a bunch of stuff done. We got all of the odds and ends ties up on the engine and there were no more reason to not re-start the engine and see what happens. So, we did that, and nothing leaked or burst or destroyed itself. There are some mysteries to solve, and a bunch of tuning ahead of us - but that is going to be good fun. It you remember from up-thread, we installed a megasquirt ECU. Here Finn is watching the computer during a run. The early questions include: why is the throttle position sensor so erratic; what should timing at idle be and how to we adjust that; is the idle air controller working like it should. An easy one was why is the fan not coming on when we told it to (the answer there was a mis-wiring of the relay: I forgot that the trigger output from the megasquirt was ground). And, I've got to say the I-6 sounds great with the intake and exhaust all opened up. Not like a V-8, more like a bark - cool.

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We got a door on, and all of the window and handle stuff installed. We were kind of dreading this part, but it wasn't too bad afterall. I don't know how guys do this stuff solo. Hanging the doors by myself would drive me crazy. We are OK with the fit of the door. Seems like we didn't get the lower curve of the B-pillar correct when we re-built it because the rear quarter is a little "shallow" and there is a little bit of a gap there. It is what it is. I think we learned something - I hope we did. But everything works: the door latches and the window goes up and down - even the lock works.

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We got the fuel filler installed.

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We completed a bunch of wiring stuff. And there are some mysteries there too. Like why do the front signals come on when we push the brake? So, the dash will come back out and we'll get in there and figure it all out. A little frustrating: this is why one buys the painless pre-assembled harness. We won't do that for the next project. I think it would be easier just to do it all myself from scratch. Hoping it is just some wacky grounds, but we will see.

Anyway, there we are - good day - Bob & Finn

[MDEnvEngr]

A couple of weeks of little steps everyday. It seems so close, but there remains a ton of stuff to do. In the past couple of weeks, we completed the wiring. Then had to track down some mysteries. We got it figured out, but it took a bunch of laps around the scout muttering to ourselves, "why does the front turn signal come on when you hit the brakes..." etc, etc. We had to replace the wiper motor, which required taking off the windshield frame again. We converted a jeep motor, but that came with some clearance issues - of course only known after the frame was back on the car. So, off *again* and then some clearancing - code for whacking with a hammer.

Then we started it up and started working on the tune, which is really fun/interesting but takes a bunch of studying as this is our first self-tune EFI. Balancing the fuel supply and spark to get the AFR you want for a given load (which is something you have to figure out for yourself). And other mysteries like why is the throttle position sensor so erratic. Suffice to say that we are getting an education in engine management. I know more about this engine than any other engine I've ever had in a car. Good stuff, Finny is eating it up and he often figures it out before me - the power of a focused teenage brain cannot be beat.

We took it for a short cruise around the neighborhood and a water leak found us. So, water pump was replaced, which meant we had to take the hood off and the nose off and the radiator out - the problem when all that stuff is shoehorned in there.

This is how it looks now:
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We did some rocker-replacement work on a buddy's truck. This buddy is a sign guy and is going to make us some custom vinyl stripes. The Scouts came with all sorts of stripe packages, but it will be cool to have some of our own. The stripes will be white.

We cut the roof apart - our plan is to make a "tin bikini" out of it. Us red-heads don't do well in the full sun. Also, we carry the kayaks and paddleboards around a lot and need a support for the roof rack. We will paint the roof white. Here we have it mocked up and figuring how much to leave:

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I was voting for a little shorter - right behind the back seats. But I got voted down by the rest of the clan - they like it long.

We got the tubes for the roll bar bent up. We need the roll bars installed to mount the seat belts so we can start driving this thing around and really get to tuning. We will have to work with it to get the height/angle correct to play nice with the roof. Very close!

Good day - stay cool everyone - Bob & Finn

[d.bancroft]

Thanks for bringing us along this journey. always one of my favorite threads to watch!

[MDEnvEngr]

Well we got it out on the road and smashed some bugs. And it was great. After all these months of working on it, it was fantastic to get it out on a summer's night. We went for some ice cream. Then we dropped off Mom and younger brother and Finn and I took it for a ~40 mile shakedown cruise. Finn has the computer on his lap, watching the VE (fuel load vs RPM) table and the computer do it's thing auto-learning and adjusting the VE to meet the AFR we want. Every now and then he has to stop the computer and do some manual adjusting. And it just runs better and better as the cruise goes on. Once we get the VE table where we like it we can mess around with the accell enrichment (think accelerator pump for you carb guys - we just have much more control over how it works). And then we can further tune the timing advance and the AFR. Good stuff - and lot of learning over here.

We have plenty of small stuff to finish up: put the mirrors on so we can get the door cards installed. Paint the roll bar. install the radio. Finish and paint the back bumper. Mudflaps. And the roof: we have to figure out what to do with that. Like I've said before us redheads need the shade in the summer , but nothing beats topless motoring on a nice night...we think we have a solution to get both. Stay tuned for that, it'll take a couple of weeks as we take a little break to just drive this thing around.

We also drove it around with some 6 degree castor shims installed and it steered very nicely: good self centering, etc. But we took them out because they make the front diff point at the ground. So there is a cut-and-turn in our future. In fact we might turn to 12 degrees and then put some 4 degree castor shims in backwards to get the diff pointed in the right direction. But that will be a winter thing...

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Thanks for looking - good day - Bob & Finn