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Here’s a great article on a heater box rebuild from the Binder Planet.

The excellent Mr. Clean and Brian H. stopped in this Sunday, despite two inches of snow, to help motivate me enough to tear down the coolant system on Peer Pressure and see what’s what. One of the things holding me back has been my inexperience with this particular section of the engine, and my fear that I’d get it pulled apart without knowing how to get it back together again.

With three sets of hands, we made short work of the pulleys and hoses, and had the water pump separated from the engine within an hour. What we found was confounding: there was no gasket on it at all—just a hint of RTV. The impellers were still shiny gold. Could this be the reason for the intermittent leaks?

The consensus was that if it’s not the water pump gasket, the next thing to check will be the thermostat, which means tearing down the top coolant hose and outlet. New thermostats are inexpensive, so that’s not as daunting a job as the water pump is.

While we had the fan off, we figured we’d put the fan shroud on in order to get it ready for fabricating a new mount, which went well. We pulled the clutch portion of the fan off, after remounting the pump, and carefully eased everything back in place. I think that a few carefully cut sections of steel will tie things up perfectly.

So, while she’s not ready for the road, she’s closer than before. Thanks guys!

Looking over my Scout this weekend, I was filled with the urge to tear something apart and start making things better. I didn’t have the time to do anything other than drive her to the store and back, but I found some advice on the BP this evening here, the important bits I’ll quote:

Don’t do any “mod” that you can’t finish in one (1) weekend
Don’t start something else until you finish the last thing
Don’t try to go for “perfect” unless you have plenty of time and money
…It’s alot more fun to be able to drive your truck during the build, the have it sit there inactive the whole time

Excellent advice, which I’ll be sure to remember.

Hm. I found this unhappy puddle under the old girl when I came back up from work to go home.

When I got home and let her sit for a few hours, there was nothing at all underneath. Which either means the water pump was unhappy this morning, or she’s just trying to get my attention.

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So on Saturday morning we returned A’s shop to finish stripping our parts carcass, which meant pulling the last few parts from the body, then flipping it on its side to pull the axles. As you might expect, we did it redneck-style, which involved a very heavy towstrap, a very heavy pickup and a very balky Scout.

After four tries with the pickup (the carcass just kept spinning around), we gave up and used an engine hoist to get the body over its center of gravity, then pushed it up the rest of the way. After that, it was pretty quick work to unbolt the axles and pull them off the carcass-with only one minor scare when the front axle almost brought the body down on us. Yee-haw.

Once that was done we took a Sawzall to the remainder of the body and cut out anything that might give its life for another Scout, then called the job done. After enjoying a cold home-brewed steam ale from Brian T., the rest of the afternoon was spent taking inventory of all the stuff we’ve got-I have two full double-column pages in a notebook which probably doesn’t cover the whole haul.

A final note: I drove my commuter Saturn down because I expected it to rain that afternoon. When I was backing out to leave, I misjudged the distance and put the left rear taillight into the rear quarter of the carcass. D’oh!

Meanwhile, I’ve got a windshield, green vinyl rear bench, and two surprisingly clean inner fenders sitting in the back of B’s pickup in Columbia waiting for me to pick them up. Sometime this week, methinks…

This Sunday A. and B.H. met me up in Finksburg to finish hauling off an engine and a top from the seller we’d visited last weekend, and within about an hour’s time we had a 345/727 combo loaded onto a trailer, with three spare tire/rims and a Traveller top secured over everything. After a brief detour to pick up another 727, we headed down to A’s shop to begin disassembly of the roller Scout in earnest.

In about four hours’ time, we got:

• The engine stripped down (it’s waterlogged and stuck, so the distributor is stuck)
• The hood, inner fender, heater box and grille off
• The windshield off (it’s in great shape minus a little rust around the edges)
• The top unsecured (it’s also in great shape, even though it doesn’t have any gasketry)
• The dash completely broken down–lots of good spares there
• The emergency brake assembly out
• The rear driveshaft mostly disconnected (the U-bolts are gunked up)
• The tailgate off and stripped (the license plate assembly came off with a chisel and the latch mechanism popped out easy as pie)
• The doors removed (they are in decent shape, although there’s some rust around the inside bottom metal)
• The door hinges off
• Some of the evap/emissions gear off
• The fuel filler neck off-B.H. will use it to replace a wonky fiberglas filler neck in his rig, which is awesome

Meanwhile, A. had already started unloading the parts that were inside the rig, and it was amazing how much stuff kept coming out. Under the spare fenders we’d piled in back, there were

• Four chrome bumpers (plus the two on the rig)
• Two hood mount bars
• Four fenders, two right and two left-including one exceptionally clean passenger side that was an unknown bonus (it was under the Traveler top, and B. and I never saw it until the day we hauled it away)
• The other inner fender from the roller
• A complete interior AC unit, including uncut hoses
• Assorted side trim
• Another heater box
• Assorted door glass
• Assorted electrical gear-two looms, one from a late-model rig with large fusebox
• A 4-bolt clutch fan
• A set of engine plastics in good shape
• Spare gas tank evap gear

This doesn’t include the five crates of other parts we got, plus other gear that was in the front of the rig. I know there’s a bunch of other stuff I’m forgetting, but that’s off the top of my head. I left my camera down at A’s shop, otherwise I’d post some pictures here.

Sunday morning Mr. Scout and I coaxed a few local Scout guys out of bed to drag a carcass out of the woods and onto a U-Haul with us. We pushed, pulled, and winched a tired but pickable ’74 (304/unknown 4-speed/44’s) stuffed with all kinds of parts, a spare 304 and 345 (with 727), several seats, Traveller doors and a good hatch, and boxes of spare parts filled with stuff we haven’t had the time to go through yet. Another friend was kind enough to offer up his shop for temporary storage until we can pick it clean and divvy up the pile.

We still have to return for the 345 and possibly some miscellaneous parts, but overall the day went very smoothly-anytime the seller and his wife invite you in for coffee after you’re covered in sweat and grease, it’s a good thing. Mr. Scout earned his CDL by not only driving the trailer down a long curved driveway and backing it out, but then by turning it around and backing it down again to line up the Scout. Wisely, we didn’t repeat our trailer mishap from January-we opted for an electric winch over a running start.

Next up, we’ll return for the other engine, and begin disassembly of the parts rig.