I had a bunch of stuff on my punchlist to knock out after spending most of the week in Washington DC at my day job; by the time I got home each night I wasn’t in any shape to face the garage. When I’d gotten home from Ohio I kind of threw everything from the Honda in there on the Scout, so I knew I had at least a half a day of organizing to do before I could get any work done.
Of primary importance was to clean and store the new glass for the Travelall. I bought some 2x3s and used an old 4×8′ sheet of plywood to build a top and bottom cover, then used some pipe insulation and old blankets to cradle and protect the glass from moving around. Some scrubbing with 409 and some acetone got all the dirt and weird black sealant off everything; the glass looks 100% better now.
I carefully boxed it up and stored it next to the blast cabinet standing up with a big set of arrows on the front so I know which side is up (I don’t want to store it with the curved side down).
With that done I reboxed a bunch of Travelall parts that have been overflowing around the garage, hung a new LED light over the workbench, and straightened up the work surfaces. With that put away I had some new room under the workbench, and unboxed a pretty new Eastwood 140 MIG welder I’d gotten on sale before leaving for Ohio. I have to pick up a gas cylinder for it when I get paid. I moved all of my welding gear into one new plastic tub and finally found my old Jalopyrama hat, which has been missing since welding class—sitting in my helmet bag the whole time.
Then I pulled the Scout backwards and drained the oil from the rear plug out into a flat catch pan, looking closely for any signs of metal shavings on the plug or in the pan. Not finding anything there I pulled the front plug and drained off the rest of the oil (the pan is humped to clear the front axle; I’m lucky enough to have a truck pan with two plugs) figuring something might be hiding there—but I didn’t find anything.
I ran a rare earth magnet in the pan and then drained off the top of the oil, being careful to collect anything I could, but found nothing. I figure if I wiped out a cam lobe I’d find all kinds of metal floating around down there—there’d have to be something. Maybe it’s in the pickup or somewhere else, but I won’t know that until I drop the whole pan to see what’s up there. In the meantime I’ve got a sample in a Blackstone container and that will go off to them early next week for a chemical diagnosis; we’ll see what they come back with. But I’m not panicking yet.
Being pretty tired after that, I got some steel wool out and cleaned off the new hubcap I’d bought at Nats to fill out my collection; with a little dish soap and #3 wool I was able to get a pretty good shine out of it. So there’s hope for the other three, although I’m kicking myself for not having bought two to replace the one I’ve got with a giant crease in the middle. Oh well, there’s always next year.