I put another 180 miles on the Scout yesterday going down to and coming back from my father-in-law’s house. The weather was perfect for an early summer drive: 80 degrees and sunny with a constant 5mph breeze. The truck ran flawlessly even when we were stuck in 45 minutes of stop-and-go traffic directly outside of Baltimore. The only thing I noticed was the temp gauge creeping up from its usual spot on the far left to sit under the left side of the indicator line. The only time I’ve seen it get any worse was in August traffic in Ohio on the way to Nats the year after I’d installed the aluminum radiator, and at that point it was in the center of the dial and slowly continuing to move right. I think a solid coolant flush is in order when I get back from our vacation; in fifteen years I’ve never flushed the block out.
The Travelall is coming along nicely. All of the original filament bulbs to light the dashboard have been replaced with LEDs, and I cleaned each of the sockets to ensure a solid connection. I ordered and received a package of Packard 56 connectors last week and swapped out the crumbling 6-way connector at the steering wheel for a new one. I’d already repaired a hack job splice directly above it but realized the connector was falling apart, so that had to go.
After I did that, I looked a little closer at the three sections of butyl tape on the passenger’s side of the transmission tunnel. After scraping it off, I found that they were covering three cuts in the metal made for reasons unknown. I scraped as much of the butyl off as I could and then removed the rest with brake cleaner. Because the answer to every problem is now welding, I pulled the Eastwood out and started tacking metal together. Working with the metal was pretty easy with the tools I’ve already got, and using my copper backer I was able to join sections that were wider than a standard butt-weld. I wound up setting some of the insulation on fire but the truck didn’t burn down, so that was good. After a series of welds and grinds, I got things closed up and covered it with some primer.
Then I wire-wheeled the remainder of the glue and insulation from the vertical sections of the firewall and hit them with rust converter for good measure. The duct for the defrost/heater in the center section was easy to remove, just two bolts, so I took that out and cleaned off the center section and prepped it. The goal here is to cover the entire vertical section of the firewall with heat/sound matting like I used in the Scout in place of the old fiberglas stuff. I used some thin cardboard to form templates, trimmed and edited them with painter’s tape, and cut out the patterns on the matting. With a little trimming and sectioning the first pattern went in smoothly, and I added two sections on either side. I’ve now got to take out the heater unit on the passenger side to access the firewall behind it, bench-test the blower, and make sure it’s not rusted to oblivion on the back side. Once I’ve got the firewall cleaned and covered I can put the unit back in and hook up the flapper to the cowl vent.
The driver’s side needs some sort of rubber gasket around the steering column; I have to ask the heads on the Binder Planet what went there back in 1963 and try to fab up something similar. I’m still waiting on The Scout Connection for firewall grommets, but I’m going to follow up with them on Monday.