So I watched all the videos and I made the plans, and Saturday afternoon I asked Jen to help me set the windshield in place so that I could start installing it. What I found was that we couldn’t get it oriented on the bottom lip of the windshield frame correctly, nor could we get the top centered without the bottom sliding out of the lip and everything going to hell. I tried several times, even pulling the guide rope out of the channel (they tell you to stuff a 1/4″ rope in the main channel and use that to set the whole thing in place once it’s properly seated) but we couldn’t get it to work. So I requested quotes from about six different glass companies in the area to see if anyone has a specialist who can come out and put it in for me.
I did finish spraying out the cowl, for the most part, and took a wire wheel to the grate inset. When I had that down to bare metal I hit it with etch primer and then a coat of red. I’m going to buy some plastic screen and zip tie it to the underside like I did with the Scout grille to keep crud out of the cowl. Then I had Finn help me put the hood back in place and screwed that back down to make things look a little cleaner. It needs to come off again and get a thorough wash, sand, and rust treatment on the underside, but for now it makes the truck look a little more presentable.
Then I hooked two lengths of 4″ PVC pipe I had behind the garage up to the exhaust to send that out and away from the house, and tried to start the engine. No amount of cranking would do the trick—I put a bunch of gas in the carb and opened up the choke, but couldn’t get it to catch. I’ve got to do some serious troubleshooting tomorrow to see if I can figure out what the problem is.
After much stopping and starting, I’ve got six Quick ‘N Easy roof racks prepped and ready to install. To recap, three were in great shape, and three had various bolts frozen in place from long-term corrosion. I finally got the right size bolts for my tap and drill and finished setting those up this afternoon only to find out that aluminum and stainless steel don’t play well together. So I have to go back out and find steel bolts in the correct size and I can call this project done.