Here’s a relatively short video with the updates from the past week.
Category: Video
September Update
Here’s a video with the September progress to date. This covers painting the door cards and heater box, mounting the outside mirrors, fixing the barn door, and disassembling the door locks.
Video Update
Here’s the video update from the last two weeks, which contains all the sanding and painting I’ve done on the roof.
Harvester Homecoming Wrapup
Here’s the video wrap-up from our trip west to Harvester Homecoming.
I See The Light
I’m continuing to make slow progress on the electrical system in the truck. At first all I had was a starting truck with most of the panel lights working. After replacing more of the connectors, I was able to get headlights and taillights working, as well as the right rear blinker. There’s some kind of short in the left side preventing it from blinking—indeed, using the blinker on that side kills the light completely. And screwing the dash panel into the dash itself killed one of the dash lightbulbs that originally was working.
I pulled a front marker pot from the green truck stash and another from a pile of cheap parts I got at Nats, and tested them out on the bench. The grimy unit from the green truck worked so I hooked that to the truck and tried it out, with no success. I’m going to have to pull the circuit tester out next to see if there’s any power getting out there at all.
I’m still waiting on the firewall grommets, so I switched to doing some light bodywork on the driver’s door, grinding a bunch of rusty spots out and cleaning all of the residual holes left from various mirrors. I put the copper magnet behind the largest of the holes and welded them all up. After a coat of body filler, I sanded them smooth and got them covered with rattle-can IH red.
Meanwhile, I got the Scout ready for our trip west. I stocked up on consumables—oil, coolant, various fluids, belts, and other stuff. I pulled out my milspec snap kit and added a pair of snaps to each side of the door bar flaps on my original Kayline top to keep it from flying away on the highway. With a quick wash and topoff on fluids, we’re ready to hit the road on Thursday.
July 15 Update
Here’s a compilation of work I’ve done on the trucks before and after our vacation, starting from the heater box, moving through electrical, and finishing with some welding on the heater box.
I’ve gotten the wiring to the point where the dashboard is in the truck but I can’t hook everything up permanently for want of two rubber grommets for the smaller bulkhead connectors and several Packard 56 connectors I don’t already have, so I ordered a handful more this afternoon in the hopes that they’ll be here by the weekend.
The heater box came out more easily than I thought it would, and is in better shape than I was expecting, but still required repair. I cut two sections of metal out and welded new metal in, and bathed the interior in Rust Converter until I ran out (I’ll be picking more of that up this weekend). Once that’s completely treated it needs a skim coat of mud to cover the divots and bumps, and then I’ll paint it up and get it ready to re-assemble. I think I’ve found a local paint shop who can scan my existing paint color and mix me a pint to match. I’ve also got to figure out why the blower motor won’t work when I test it on 12v bench power and source some more coolant hose.
The other thing I ordered were a set of floor mats for the Scout, knowing that we’ll be driving through the August heat to Indiana. I figure having something else between us and the engine heat will be well appreciated. And, having something to cover the heat matting will also be welcome. I’m hopeful they’ll be here in time, but they’re handmade and the maker estimates 3-4 weeks before they ship, so it may be a futile exercise. We’ll see.
June Update Video
Here’s the update from the last two weeks. We’re gearing up for vacation so work is probably going to slow down a bit.
Video Update
Weekly Update, 5.21
Here’s the update from this past week, mainly focusing on dashboard removal, with a detour to the blasting cabinet on a rainy Saturday to pretty up a set of valve covers. I’m about 3/4 of the way done getting this thing out of the truck. I had to disconnect the mechanical linkages to the heat/defrost controls, which was easy with the radio missing, and then I had to trace the two knobs in the center of the dashboard down. The smaller knob was pretty simple, just a cable running to a mechanical choke on the carburetor. And now that I’m thinking more clearly, I’ll bet that when I run the truck up again next time and open the choke up, the truck will run a lot smoother than it has the last couple of times. I’m betting I left it closed up, making the mixture richer and idle rougher, thus fouling the plugs. You can tell I’m spoiled by the fancy electric choke on the Thermoquad in the Scout.
The second knob has been a mystery for as long as I’ve owned the truck. Even when pulling on it with the strength of a gorilla, it never moved. I traced the cable through the engine bay and down the passenger rail to a greasy lump hanging off the side of the transmission: the NX98 Power Take Off unit listed at the bottom of the lineset ticket (for which I can find no online documentation). After attempting to get the knob out of the dashboard I realized the only way to remove it is to cut the knob off the cable. I thought about it for a couple of hours and then used the death wheel to cut the cable in the engine bay. I cleaned the grease off the PTO to reveal shiny red paint, and moved the linkage back and forth—it works! I’m going to leave it on and mess with it later.
The dash is free and clear on the passenger side but there are still a couple of things holding on behind the gauge panel, so I have to keep plugging away at the last couple of linkages. I disconnected the plugs on the engine side of the firewall but next I’ve got to gingerly push the connectors through to the passenger side, which I think will free up the dashboard even more. I suspect there are a couple of connections on the steering column and I have to get an impact driver on the high-beam switch mounted on the floor. The new harness is sitting on the bench seat ready to go in, and from all that I can tell, the connectors match up perfectly.
Weekly Roundup, 5.12
Here’s a video containing most of the updates from last weekend, when the green truck was towed away, to yesterday afternoon, when I swapped out the hardtop for the soft top on the Scout.
I put the nutmeg snap top on the truck for now; it’s in the best shape of the three and will definitely seal up better than the others. Everything went on smoothly and I think I had the whole thing wrapped up in about two hours. When that was done I made some adjustments to the rearview mirror on the driver’s windshield frame. because of where it’s positioned, when I open the door beyond a certain distance it moves the mirror outwards, messing up the alignment. I was thinking I was going to move it upwards on the frame, but there isn’t enough room to go much higher than it already is. So I adjusted the bar further outwards and bent the mirror mount inwards, and that pushed the arm further outside the door’s arc.
The next thing I did was replace the gasket on the door of the IH fridge, which was sweating out the sides last summer. I sourced a new gasket from a freezer parts company and paid more for shipping than I did for the gasket. It went on pretty easily, and it seems to seal tightly, so I’m counting that as an easy win.
Finally, I did a bunch of finish sanding on the driver’s fender to the red truck, getting the curve of the fender lip to feather out into the flat section much better than I had before. I sanded it first with 320 and then with 600 grit before shooting it with some IH implement red out of a rattle can. I have to clean up some of the edges on the front before I go to wet sanding everything, but it’s getting closer to being done.