I was really hoping I would be able to break the clutch free on my own, but it just didn’t happen.

With the new battery in place, the truck fired right up and when it settled in the Sniper brought the idle down to a reasonable rumble. I let it warm up for seventeen minutes and then shut it down. After setting up some cameras I followed the steps for breaking the clutch free: Put it in low gear, step on the brake, and bump the starter. I did this repeatedly with no success.

Then I figured I’d add more torque to the formula, and hooked a tow strap up between the Scout and the Travelall. Putting the Scout in low gear, I gave it about ten good tugs, enough to pull Darth forward about ten feet, but the rear wheels were still locked tight. I really don’t want to break anything, so at this point I accepted the fact that it needs to go to the transmission shop.

So I moved on to some other projects. Breaking out the sanding gear, I smoothed out the skim coat on the rear valance, prepped it, and shot it with IH rattle-can red. It now looks worlds better than it did when I got the truck.

Then I ran out to the Home Depot and pulled the trigger on a sheet of 3/4″ oak plywood for the rear bed. I’ve been looking and considering multiple different types of lumber for the rear floor: marine-grade plywood, pressure-treated plywood, and composite board used in boats. The first is difficult to find in this area; the second tends to warp over time and is hard to paint, and the third is exorbitantly expensive.

So, I figured I’d go with dependable hardwood. With a couple coats of heavy duty primer, and a good thick shot of undercoat, I think it’ll stand up to the elements pretty well. I need to figure out what I’m going to do with the inside bed. There are two options: I could cover it with rubber matting, the way the factory did it in 1963—I have a link to rubber flooring available on Amazon that someone else used in their truck. The trick there would be knowing what to use for adhesive. The second option is to polyurethane the wood, and add strips down to protect it. This option would make it a little more difficult to sleep on the floor, but might be cheaper in the long run. I cut the plywood to fit and laid it into the truck and was very happy with the results. I’ve been staring at that crappy uneven floor for two years now, and it really cleans up the interior of the truck.

I installed the cardboard glove box insert I got at Nationals. This took a lot more effort than I assumed it would: I had to remove the defrost vent and hose and figure out how to insert it through the glove box opening to get it in place. It actually doesn’t fit as well as I was hoping it would, but it’s better than having an empty hole in the dashboard.

Sunday evening I dug four sets of window cranks/handles/escutcheons from the green truck out of my bins and cleaned them all up. A trip to ACE hardware yielded three springs for behind the escutcheons, and I set up three of the four doors with proper handles.

So I’m at sort of a crossroads. It’s probably going to take a while to get the truck into the bay at the transmission shop. In the meantime, I can continue fooling with the Sniper, but I’ve got a lot of research and learning to do before I can make any major improvements there. And, it really helps when you can drive the truck around to help program the computer. There are a bunch of small jobs that can be done, but I can’t dig into anything huge.

So remember back in May when I said I thought the alternator was bad? Turns out that was fine, but my battery was sick. I’d swapped out the starter last weekend but found that the battery itself was boiling itself when hooked up to the truck.

I pulled it out and let it cool down overnight. The next evening I got underneath and re-connected the wiring to the starter to make sure it wasn’t shorting out on itself. This made the engine much happier, after I dropped the battery from the Scout in,  it fired right up. I connected the old battery to the tender and let that top off while I was doing some other stuff, and when it measured 13V I put it back in to give it a shot. I got one crank out of it and then it died quickly, which told me it was irreparably sick.

Going on a tip from a Youtube channel I follow, I learned that Costco sells Interstate batteries for $100 less than the auto retail stores. I grabbed one Thursday night and dropped it in the truck. It fired right up with no complaint, and after shutting it down, an hour later the battery and its cables were comfortingly cool to the touch.

I don’t know what happened with the previous battery, but the signs were there months ago when I wasn’t getting much of a crank out of it. I guess there was a parasitic drain on it somewhere, and when I put the starter in one of the wires was shorting out, which cooked the battery to the point where it became a boat anchor. I’m going to watch this  new one carefully to make sure it doesn’t get sick like the last one did, because batteries are expensive.

In the meantime, I can tackle a couple of things this weekend: first and foremost is attempting to break the transmission free. This is going to involve running the engine up to temperature, which is fine in any case; another good data log will help me get back to the real job of testing and tuning the EFI system. I dove into the training videos the other night, and realized I have a lot to learn to get this thing running optimally.

Then I’m going to sand and paint the valance panel over the barn doors to finish that project up; even in primer it looks so much better than it did all chewed up.