Barn Find 3

I drove to the outskirts of Lancaster, PA to look at another Scout on Sunday. The weather was perfect; dry and sunny, and by the time I got to the location the temperature was warm enough that I didn’t need a winter coat. Google Maps took me the scenic way, through forest and across farmland, and I spent much of the drive out there regretting that I hadn’t driven Peer Pressure. There were so many scenic spots I could have stopped for pictures, I had to remind myself to shut up and enjoy the drive and the day, and just live in the moment.

I had hoped Brian could come with me but our schedules didn’t align with the seller. The Scout had originally been part of a package deal of two, one runner and one parts rig, but he’d sold the parts truck before I got there. He’d then listed both trucks separately for more money than the package, so I was already on the fence before I got there. What I found was better than any of the other trucks I’ve seen recently but not enough for the price he was asking. It ran, and the body was in better shape than the last two, but there were crude metal pans sheet-riveted over the floors and two red bucket seats of unknown origin sitting unattached to the floor. The driver’s door took some coaxing to open and close. The rear bed was wavy in places and not attached to the walls on either side—I couldn’t figure that one out. There was a hardtop off to the side that went with the truck, and it looked relatively solid.

I may regret it later, but I passed on the deal; I feel like the price was a little too high for what was there. The seller was cool and had a barn full of other Internationals—two D series Travelettes, a pair of Terras, and a new Scout II on a trailer ready for rehab. Brian keeps telling me that the right one will come along; I’m going to remain patient and wait until it finds me.

Meanwhile, I had Peer Pressure out for errands yesterday and today, and she ran like a Swiss watch. I’m thankful for the things I have.

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Barn Find 2

Update: The seller couldn’t find the VIN plate that goes with the truck, and I was unwilling to buy it without a title that matched the chassis, so I passed on the sale.

I was fortunate enough to be the first person to respond to a Marketplace listing the Tuesday before Christmas for a ratty-looking 1969 Scout 800. What caught my eye was the fact that it was listed in Baltimore; turns out it’s right up the road in Owings Mills. The seller and I set up a time to look it over right before the holiday on the coldest fucking day of the year. I bundled up as warm as I could, figuring I’d be out in a field somewhere, but the cold got into my bones quickly the minute I was outside.

He’s got it in a shed behind his house with minimal clearance on either side to see the driver’s sheetmetal, but the pictures online tell most of the story. It’s an 800 with a 6-cylinder AMC 232 that’s been disassembled for structural body work. He cut and formed new floorpans on each side, claiming they’re 12 gauge, and had a guy weld them in place.

He claims the inner rockers were done, but I couldn’t get underneath to see how the stringers or rockers looked. The rear bed floor was replaced, and the side walls and tops were in good shape, but he welded angle steel on the tops of the corners. There’s also a low bulkhead welded in across the rear bed.

From what I could tell the work was done well; it all looks solid and the welds aren’t garbage. There’s no hard top for it, but that’s not a dealbreaker; I’d put a soft top on it and leave it alone anyway.

The only outward rust I see is on the driver’s side rocker behind the B pillar, and the thought of cutting that out and repairing it doesn’t frighten me. The tailcaps are both bent, so I’d need to pull those dents out.

As mentioned before, it’s an AMC 232, a mid-60’s to late ’70’s engine IH offered as an alternative to their homegrown 4- and 8-cylinder options. I didn’t test to see if it spun, but that would be one of the first things to look at on my next visit. For some people this might be a dealbreaker; I don’t mind as long as it’s not either missing or locked up.

He said he had a bunch of parts to go along with it—a hood, two cowls, two extra doors, maybe a front fender, and boxes of parts—but they were in two other locations. We talked it over a bit and he told me I was first in line; he had family obligations after Christmas break but would be available after that. I told him I was definitely interested but wanted to look over the other parts—that’s a big part of the sale—and that I’d want to see the truck out in the sunlight so I can crawl over it.

I drove up to Mt. Airy today to look over the parts he’s got; he’d returned from York with two spare doors and a grille on his flatbed.

On a trailer in a storage lot he’s got two hoods—one rough, with lights cut and mounted to the surface, and the other a patina’d blue in better shape. Under that was a step bumper in good shape.

Next to those was a tailgate which was pretty well rotted at the bottom—more art than functional at this point.

Inside an adjacent trailer was another tailgate in much better shape; apart from a section on the right side the metal looked to be in good shape.

Next to that was the original 1969 cowl, which was pretty much crap.

It’s definitely a project but a lot of the hard stuff has already been done. It looks like hot garbage but that’s never stopped me before; I’d look at buffing off the rattle-can black first to see what’s underneath, and painting it after pulling the dents later. For the price he’s asking it’s a good deal, especially after being cleaned up and made to run again. However, there’s a saying about buying someone else’s project; you never know what’s going to be there and what won’t. For this truck it’s not like there’s a ton of expensive chrome trim or unobtanium plastic that can’t be found; he might not have the original seats but I’m sure I could source some over the next couple of years.

The biggest question now is that of the VIN plate; it’s not present on the firewall of the truck. He has a title but if there’s no VIN plate, I really don’t want to mess with the DMV to sort that mess out. So he’s looking for that and hopefully he can lay hands on it. We’ll see what happens tomorrow.

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Shake Your Money Maker

One of the guys I met in Austin has a beautiful red Scout 800 that’s been featured in ads for Stetson and some other large brands; he told me he was using an online service to rent it out, which I thought was pretty cool. He told me the name of the site and I soon forgot it in the rush of meeting new people. Fast forward to last week when I was looking for photo reference for a new illustration, and stumbled across Sam’s Scout on a site called Vinty, where he’s been listing it. I don’t know if Peer Pressure is clean enough or stock enough to feature correctly in advertising, but I’m thinking it might be worth a shot. I think I’ll have to shoot a series of clean pictures of her in the spring and get her listed.

Meanwhile, the Threadless storefront has been slowly generating sales; the first deposit came into my long-dormant PayPal account over the weekend from November sales, and soon after that somebody bought two more shirts. At this rate I’ll have made my hourly rate back by the time I’m 73, but I’m not in a huge hurry right now.

Postscript

A couple of weeks ago, Bennett let the local Scout group know that there was a celebration of life scheduled for our friend Alan, and I was sure to put it on the calendar. We met up at a seafood restaurant outside of Laurel and I walked in about two minutes before him. Alan’s family had a private room set up in back and we introduced ourselves to his sister and brother in law, who were lovely and introduced us around. We were joined by John B. and his wife, and later Ray and his family stopped in; we spent the next two hours swapping stories and catching up. I met Alan’s dad and told him the story of when I first got Peer Pressure and couldn’t sort out the throttle linkage: Alan immediately contacted me to tell me the part I had was for an automatic, and sent me the correct part that week. I said that only Alan would know that, and only Alan would have the part sitting in his stash. His dad seemed to appreciate that story, because he got a little misty. On the wall behind us a slideshow was playing, full of pictures from his early life and a bunch of scouting adventures. There were a few pictures where we realized that several of the subjects were gone, and that was a little sobering. We’re not getting any younger.

As usual, the Scout guys were the last to leave. I said my goodbyes and fired up the truck; the heat blew warm and the engine was full of life. I said some quiet thanks to the Sky Pilot and pointed toward home.

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Barn Finds

Pictures never tell the whole story, and what looks halfway decent via the Interwebs is always worse in person. There are no exceptions to this rule. When you get five shots of a decent-looking truck, you know there’s something lurking that might sour the deal: square feet of rust covered by carpet, an engine block with a big hole, a dead body in the trunk, live possums—but you’ve got to go look anyway.

Brian sent me a link on Sunday morning for a Scout that didn’t look half bad, was in my price range, was relatively close by, and had a clear title. The pictures showed a tired-looking ’61 Scout 80 in about four different colors, and from what I could see the rust wasn’t too bad. I messaged the seller, we talked on the phone, and I made plans to run up and see it. It was in southern PA about an hour and twenty minutes from my house, so I hit the road at four and made it up there, through traffic, by 6. The seller shook my hand, showed me the title, and we walked down past some horse barns to the back of his work shed where it sat.

Surrounded by piles of farm implements, tools, boxes, and other stored items, sat a rusty Scout. I started by looking at the outer skin, trying to figure out if the body was worth saving. The driver’s rocker was pretty crispy, and the lower edge was perforated in multiple places. Toward the back the rear rocker was bent upwards, but could probably be adjusted back downwards with a hammer or some careful pulling. The tailcap was a different story. Someone had backed into it and then used a slaphammer to try to pull the dents out—with no success. Tailcaps for this era Scout are as common as dinosaurs, so that’s a problem.

The tailgate was in good shape from the outside, and the other tailcap was OK. On the passenger’s side the rear quarter looked OK and the rocker under the door was in better shape, but everything was filled with mud. The front fender was in decent shape but none of the panels met up. Neither of the doors opened or closed correctly; this could have been because the latches were bad, or it could have been because the body was folding in on itself like a giant taco.

Inside, the cab was maybe a 4/10. The driver’s floor was rusty with some pinholes but the passenger’s side was perforated 2-3″ in places, and definitely a lot worse. A bench seat of indeterminate origin sat on the floor but was not attached to anything; under that the floors looked OK. The bulkhead and dash were in decent shape, and all the dials and indicators were present.

The rear bed was rusted through along the passenger and driver’s side seams at the wall and wavy at the back, but other than that not in bad shape.

The hardtop was intact, but there were several holes in the roof from a rack or some other installation, and the passenger window was missing. The inside roof was rusted pretty badly.

Under the hood there was a 4-cylinder engine with a one-pot carb which turned freely. The heating elements were present but the hoses were gone; this Scout was early enough that it had a box plenum up against the firewall vs. a heater box on the inner fender (I have one of these stored up in the rafters of my garage).

Down under the cowl there was a winch welded to the front of the frame; an inspection under the frame showed that it was a PTO driven unit connected to the front differential transfer case.

I talked with the owner a while and he warmed up as I looked things over; he wasn’t aware the winch was a PTO until I showed him the linkage. We talked Scouts for a while and I told him I’d have to think about it. It’s just on the edge of being a project I could handle but I think it’s still too much to take on; there’s more rust than I can manage right now and a lot of expensive sheet metal work to tackle. If I had a spare garage bay I’d feel much better about buying it and tucking it away while I got the parts together, but I don’t and I can’t at this point. And I think that there are better options for an extra $3-5K out there, stuff that’s much further along but still in need of help. So I’ll keep looking.

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Lighting and Cleaning

I had time to myself today, so I went out to try and solve the mystery of the dead lightbulb behind my heater controls. Now that I actually have heat it would be nice to see what the controls say; at one time I knew exactly how they worked by muscle memory, but that was in the days of Chewbacca and I got the heat in this Scout working only recently. To get to the one bulb on top of the control box I found it easiest to pull the fascia plate off the dashboard and with it the radio; this is the best way of getting back there without cutting a hole in the firewall and going in from the back. The bulb installed was weird, in that it has two wires going in and was zip-tied in place at some point. All three of the spare dashboards I own have one wire and no zip-tie. Additionally strange is that this bulb is different than all of the other bulbs in the dash: it’s a 5GE 57 bayonet (or some equivalent) so I have to source a new one from somewhere—all of the spares I own didn’t work.

On the subject of fascia plates, I’ve been thinking about dressing up the one I’ve got or replacing it, now that the rest of the cabin looks better. I own five in total, the one in the truck and these:

The chewed up green one is from the Flintstone Scout. I don’t remember where I got the woodgrain one from. The bottom two are from other rigs that I can’t remember (the good green one is left over from Chewbacca days). I’m hesitant to touch the two good ones so I’m going to see if I can use the better of the two bad ones and make a clean hole for a DIN9 receiver. That’ll be tomorrow’s project, along with sourcing the correct lightbulb.

Walking the dog through the ‘Ville today I noticed a familiar green Scout parked at my neighbor’s house. The house belongs to a nice man named Steve, who passed away a couple of years ago, but I’m still in touch with his son. I sent him an email this afternoon asking after him and to see if he needs help getting her roadworthy—the last time we traded messages he was having problems with the carb and I don’t know if he got them sorted out. I sent along info for the guy who did the brakes on PP last year, and hopefully I’ll hear back from him sometime soon.

Commerce

Spurred on by an Instagram post by another Scouter/designer, I got off my ass on Tuesday and finished building out a set of Scout II grille designs I started sometime last year. I put them up on Wednesday and got the highest number of likes on any post all year. It hasn’t translated to millions yet, but I’m hopeful that when I post the second set—Scout 80/800 grilles—I’ll get some more eyeballs, and maybe some more sales.

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On Fumes

I took the Scout out for a quick errand yesterday with Hazel to go pick up some dinner, and a small voice in the back of my head reminded me that I needed to get some gas. I’d already been to the other side of town to hit the dump earlier in the day, but our trip wasn’t that far and from what my mileage booklet said, I’d only gone thirty miles or so since my last visit to the pump.

I drove down the big hill from home into Ellicott City and just as I hit the bottom part of the road along the river, the truck died and I coasted to a stop on the shoulder. Hazel looked over at me from the passenger seat with reproach, then curled up on the seat and sighed. This is the second time this has happened at the foot of the hill—the first time it died pulling into the gas station a little further up the road—but it’s a warning I’m going to heed. I’m terrified of losing power going down that hill, and even though I know I could use the clutch to engine brake until a stop, when the steering goes out it’s like piloting an oil tanker. I’m terrified of digging in to the wiring behind the dashboard for fear the truck will never start again but the gauge situation and the wiper issue are now forcing my hand.

In the meantime I’m going to revise my mileage tracker to give me a better estimate of what my MPG actually is; my records show that I went down to empty in October of last year, which means I can use that and the records up until now to give me a better understanding of what my range is. Doing the math between now and then, I put 2887 miles on the truck, which converts to 3280 true miles (the ratio is 88 indicated to 100 true). I’ve put 296 gallons of gas into her between now and then, which works out to 11.08 miles per gallon. Not as good as Chewbacca did—Chewbacca was a 304 with a 2-barrel Holley 2100 carburetor and stock wheels, and she averaged anywhere from 12 to 14 depending on the type of driving and whether the top was down or not. Peer Pressure is a 345 with a 4-barrel Thermoquad on 32’s, and while I don’t spend my time racing from streetlight to streetlight, a 4-barrel is a lot thirstier. Also, all of the stupid emissions bullshit tacked on to my engine surely isn’t helping. To put things into perspective, my Jeep XJ with a 4-liter V6 got about 14mpg on average—keeping in mind the curb weight of the XJ was a full thousand pounds less than either Scout.

I’ve always figured no better than 10MPG as a rule of thumb, using my experience with Chewbacca’s low end and figuring 1-2MPG as a cushion was a good idea, but knowing exactly what my range is will help estimate even better. And there will be some digging around behind the dashboard come springtime: First, to hopefully diagnose and repair the gas gauge, and second to find the issue with the wipers and fix that.

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#Goals

Brian, tired of me texting him various Marketplace links, suggested I make a vision board for what I’m looking for in a new project, which I thought was a pretty good idea. My search has centered on one of two types of truck; I’d like either a Scout 80/800 or a ‘61-‘68 C-series pickup.

I’ve always liked the look of the original Scout; it wasn’t until I’d done the research to buy Chewbacca in ’96  that I learned about the earlier model. It looks great with or without a top, and even better without doors; I like the utilitarian vibe and would actually prefer something as close to 60’s spec as possible—wheels, tires, suspension, etc. but with a rollbar, 3-point seatbelts and maybe an upgraded powerplant. As a platform designed in the late ’50’s, it’s even more utilitarian than the Scout II, little more than an engine, transmission, steering wheel and a seat. As they iterated on the design it got things like power steering and electric wipers and a choice of engines, but the majority of them were basic, no-nonsense trucks.

This is a nice 1966 2WD with a 3 on the tree.

With the pickup, my favorite are the final design iterations of the C-series trucks. They started out with a face only a mother could love but were restyled in ’61 to a much more pleasing design, and the improvements to the dashboard and interior made a huge difference. There’s something delightfully ’60’s about the styling, and the interior is also no-nonsense. There have been a few D-series trucks I’ve liked but they are usually not my cup of tea, and it’s hard to love the cab design.

For a Scout, I’d like to find a body that’s not Swiss cheese. If the floorpans or rear bed are holed, I can work with that. If the rockers are gone, or if the outside sheet metal is damaged, I’ll have to really think about it. Early scout sheet metal is rare, and if I can’t source replacements I’d be fabricating what I need. If it’s missing doors, that’s not ideal but it’s ok. I don’t care about seats. If it has a top, that’s great but it’s not a dealbreaker either—but havng a top usually means it hasn’t been completely exposed to the elements for twenty years.

This Scout is very local but I’ve never heard back from the seller, even though the ad is still up on Marketplace. It would be worth the short drive and small sum of money just to drag it home and see what’s savable on the chassis.

I’d like for it to have enough sheet metal that I can cut away the bad stuff and still weld good metal to; if the cancer is so bad there’s nothing to work with, that’s a hard pass.

This Scout is in Maine, which is too far to drive just to look over a worthless carcass.

In terms of running gear, the ideal would be a V8 installed, but I don’t care if it’s running. a 4-cylinder will take more modification to fit a larger engine, but isn’t a dealbreaker. It’ll have the weaker Dana axles as standard equipment but that’s not an issue either. And I don’t think many early Scouts came with an automatic, so a manual would be perfect, even though it’ll be a non-synchro first gear. I prefer a stick, and I like the added bonus of theft deterrence. I will avoid any cobbled together suspension mods; if someone has attempted a spring over or backwoods lift kit, I’ll walk away.

This one looked very good from the pictures but was shot through with rust almost everywhere.

In terms of looks I’d prefer if I didn’t have to deal with some asshole’s spray can camo job, or a full Rhinoliner treatment over the paint. The more patina the better. If the original paint is half worn away, that’s actually perfect. Anytime fresh paint has been applied the price goes up by the thousands, and I almost always don’t like the color they’ve chosen anyway.

Running or not, I’d like for it to be within a three hour drive from here, but I won’t mind if I have to go a little further for the right truck.

For a pickup, the ideal is a 2wd full-length with a V8. The key is the cab. I want something with clean cowl vents, as that’s the hardest area to fix. The second hardest place would be the cab corners which are all compound curves.

The glass isn’t impossible to find, but not cheap. If the floors are holed, that’s fine, I wouldn’t practice cutting and replacing them—within reason. I’d like for the fenders and hood to be in decent shape, as the sheet metal isn’t easy to find either.

This one looked very good from the pictures, but when he sent me detail shots it got very ugly very quickly.

For the bed, I’d like to find a full length example, either fleet or a stepside bed. If there’s some damage, that’s ok, I don’t mind cutting that out and repairing it, and ultimately I’d strip the whole thing and bedline the shit out of it anyway.

This truck was for sale last winter, and I should have jumped on it when I could. It’s pretty much perfect in my eyes.

For the running gear, there are a million different possibilities. I don’t really mind any engine variation, but if it’s an inline 6 that will make replacing it a little harder. I do want a manual, and in a perfect world it will be a floor shift, not on the column.

I’d love to find one with power steering. The trailer special I looked at in PA was the perfect drivetrain combo- a V8 floor shift manual with power steering, but the clutch was fucked and the engine was locked.

Here’s the Holy Grail: a crewcab C series in fantastic shape. If I had $16K of disposable income I’d already own it.

For the looks of the thing, my ideal is the same as the Scout—original paint in any condition is preferred, and actually the more faded the better. I don’t mind some dents but I don’t want a demo derby loser either.

This is a fancy model; look at all the chrome spears on each side. It’s a 2WD based on the hubcaps.

The goal is to own something I’m not afraid to drive; a 100-point paint job would ramp my anxiety up enough that I’d never take it out of the garage. Scrapes and dings and patches aren’t discouraged. I’d like something that looks well-loved but not like it’s held together with duct tape.

The best case would be a roller with minimal modifications from stock, where I can get in and fix rust and damage at my leisure while hopefully keeping it running. I’d like to get whatever I buy into resell shape, or something I can had off to Finn for her high school vehicle. Brian is still moving forward with his plan to electrify vehicles, and with either one I’d entertain either an EV or an LS swap happily.

Several possible trucks have come and gone; there have been a couple that are 75% of what I want but have some things I’m not interested in, or the rust is too much to deal with. I’m going to bide my time and be as patient as possible, and hopefully the right truck will come along.

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New Seating

I put PT Cruiser seats in Peer Pressure seven years ago and I’ve never regretted the upgrade. They are comfortable over long distances, provide ample lumbar support, and are easy to clean—all things I’ve tested extensively. They sit two inches too high off the floor, but that’s something I’ve learned to live with for the moment until I get a pair of Binder Boneyard’s upgraded seat bases. The one thing I don’t like about them, now that I’ve switched almost everything else in the cab over to black, is their color. Chrysler made a bazillion PT Cruisers, and the majority of of them had gray cloth seats like the ones I’ve got. I set up an alert on my pick-a-part app to let me know when new stock rolls in the yards, and a flurry of them came in last week. Lo and behold, a gold 2005 came in and the VIN check said it had the correct upholstery. I got some basic tools together, loaded Hazel up into the Scout, and set out for Mt. Airy on Saturday morning to check it out.

I set her up in the truck with food, water, and a comfy blanket and set out for the yard. As I would have expected, the Chrysler section was all the way at the back of the lot, at the top of a hill, so I knew I’d be humping seats a long way. The car itself was in decent shape, and the seats were dirty but showed no major signs of damage, so I unbolted them both and hauled them up to the front desk in a wheelbarrow. Hazel was curled up on the passenger seat dozing in the sun.

The weather was so beautiful, we took a leisurely drive home through the country, stopping here and there for some photos. Back at the house, it was a pretty easy process to pull the old seats out and swap the new ones in on the bases. There are just two holes to drill at the front and everything bolts up smoothly. I hit them both with upholstery cleaner and some 409 on the plastics, and in about two hours I had them both installed.

They’re not perfectly black, but they look a million times better with the rest of the interior, and they should last a good long time.

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