My good friend Brian H. tells me he’d like to move the spare engine he’s got out of his shed, and asks me if I’d like it. Who am I to say no?
…Now I just need to figure out how to get it onto a truck and over here. I wonder if the wooden floor in my garage will hold a ~800 lb. engine?
I met up with an old contact this afternoon to sell a pair of Terra windows I’ve had kicking around the garage for a while, as well as a pair of spare door panels. He’s the son of the fellow we bought the brown parts Scout from, and he’s inherited his father’s truck. It’s in great shape, and his plans are to put a steel bulkhead in it with a Terra top and sell the traveltop on it now. It was good to finally meet him, and he wants to join us for the next local gathering (which I have to start planning out).
And, now I’ve got some money in the Scout kitty. What to do with it?
A couple of years ago, when I was in between Scouts, I rode along with a neighbor of mine to a Land Rover meetup at a restaurant in Columbia. We hung out, talked trucks, and then walked inside for some lunch. It was a real easygoing way to meet new people.
Recently I got to thinking about all the guys with Scouts who I’ve met over the years who don’t know each other or haven’t found the Binder Planet, and thought I might try to get a group together for the same kind of gathering. I started emailing folks in the Baltimore area and soon the word was out.
We met at the Famous Dave’s in Columbia this morning, and by noon we had about 15 guys with 6 trucks in attendance. First to arrive were Erik M. and Stu S., followed by Stephen G. with a beautiful red 6(6?) 1200 pickup. Next was Brian T., coming in from the Eastern Shore with his Scout, and Jesse A. from Annapolis came in with his Scout right after noon. We also had a bunch of guys who have trucks in the shop– Jason H., who is doing an engine transplant and bodywork, my neighbors the Dunmires, who have a Scout II in the middle of bodywork, Brian H., whose Wagonmaster is currently with Mike Moore in Virginia, and Pate M. from the Eastern Shore, whose Scout II is also in the middle of serious surgery. Carl B. came in from the west side of town as we were finishing up lunch, the victim of some overheating issues.
We hung out in the parking lot for a couple of hours with our hoods up shooting the breeze, and every once in a while someone would slowly cruise past and stare at our trucks. We even got a nod of approval from a guy in a lifted diesel Ford.
Then, we went inside for some beer and barbecue. (I took no pictures inside, sorry).
When we walked back outside, gray skies had turned sunny, and we stood out in the lot for another hour or so talking trucks.
I had run into the Target before everyone arrived to see if they had a couple of Matchbox Scouts, meaning to give them out for stuff like “rustiest truck” and “farthest distance driven”. This guy got one just cause he was cool.
All in all, it was a great day, and I hope everyone had a good time.
I’ve got a pile of T-shirts drying in the basement waiting for a turn with the heat gun. We should have about fifteen guys and six trucks gathering to meet up, talk, and have some barbecue on Sunday morning. I’m very much looking forward to it.
A couple of weeks ago, I started thinking about a Land Rover meetup I went to with my neighbor, who (at that time) owned a Defender 90. We met at a barbecue restaurant in Columbia, parked our trucks in a corner of the lot, and spent the next two hours shooting the shit. It was friendly, informal, and fun (I was Scoutless at the time), and I thought it might be fun to gather the IH guys I’ve met in the area for the same kind of day.
I sent out a big email to everyone I could think of, and within two weeks’ time I’ve got fifteen people committed with five trucks (many are immobile due to ongoing restoration efforts) and possibly more. The cool thing is that there are people I’ve met through the weblog and parts gathering who don’t know or haven’t met the other guys, so it’ll be good to get everyone together in one place. I also suggested doing an informal swap meet while we’re together, and hopefully there will be some horsetrading happening too.
Mike C. sent me a link to this Scout II Dana 44 Rear Disc Brake Conversion Kit, which is several hundred dollars less than I’ve seen in other places. This is on the list of things I’d like to do to Peer Pressure when money isn’t so tight.
Update: looks like the original vendor is gone. I’d go with a couple of the Light Line vendors instead–both of whom have been active in the IH community for years:
Back Country Binders – $600
D&C Extreme – ~$550
D&C even has an instructional video, which is excellent.
Our friend Mike, out in Colorado, put together a site for his Scout project. He’s a lot deeper into his project than I am into mine (by that I mean total restoration) and he’s got a ton of great pictures documenting how he’s doing things. A recent post on his steering column rebuild has me dreaming of a turn signal that cancels correctly…
In other news, one of the smaller things I picked up on Sunday was an incomplete set of rollbar pads. Due to their age and exposure to the elements, the zippers on both downtubes were frozen stiff, but the crossbar and rear arm pads came off with a little coaxing. The zippers are all pretty rough and some are missing teeth, but for $10 I figure I can have new zippers installed and buy some crash-rated foam to replace what they came with.
Last night I used an old trick for fixing the zippers: I rubbed them liberally with candle wax until I could get all three to catch and zip. I think I’m going to have Jesse cut the other two off for me and set them aside, so that I can have a full set to work with.
This morning I met up with Brian H. and made a run down into Annapolis to pick up a Traveltop. I was a bit hung over, but Peer Pressure fired right up and made the trip easy. After meeting the seller at his house, we wound up talking to him for a good hour and a half before we started turning wrenches. It turns out he’s been buying and parting out trucks for the past couple of years, and he wants to thin his collection out a little.
This top is in really good shape. It’s baby blue with a roof rack, and apart from some minor rust issues under the driver’s window and leaks where the chrome strips sit on the top, it’s clean. The liftgate is in fantastic shape, the handle works perfectly, and the glass is all good. I’m going to pull the sliders out of my spare top and replace these as well as the seals, and maybe weld up a lot of the holes before painting it white.
He threw in a set of Kayline bows he had laying around, and I picked up a spare windshield with a tiny crack in the side as well. We made sure to invite him up to the next wrenching day in the springtime, and hopefully we can get a couple of other locals to meet up when the weather gets warmer.
Colorado Mike has been feeding me steady updates on his resto project via text. The other day he asked me for paint advice, and I sent him my collection of IH paint codes for the entire Scout II run. He’s leaning towards Lexington Blue, a bright shade offered in 1979. It got me thinking about the distant future, when I can strip Peer Pressure down to the metal, POR-15 everything, and paint it in a more pleasing color. Originally I wanted a shade of English green, but Mr. Scout has that one covered. My second choice is a color from the Scout in a movie called “Fools Rush In”. Based on the grille pattern, it’s a ’75 or a ’76, which could only make the color Glacier Blue (it’s the only light blue offered in the ’74-’77 timespan). Looking at the paint chip, it’s a light, flat blue which looks too powdery at first glance.
It could be the film transfer, the lighting, or wear and tear on the truck, but the blue here looks darker to me.
The other candidate is a shade called Bimini Blue Poly, which is a darker blue with candyflake. I can’t find a good example online, but I’ll keep looking.
