I spent a couple of minutes looking over the truck this afternoon when the light was at its brightest, and overall some things look better than I remember and some things look worse.
Starting from the back, I looked over the tailgate and found it in very clean condition. Interestingly, the lousy purple paint job didn’t cover up the original color of the tailgate, which is gold on each side. From what I can see, the bed of the truck is also gold under the purple, which might help in dating the body of this particular truck. It looks like there was some work done on the hinge pins as well as two sections of the rear bed, which look like they were cut out and patched with new metal. The electrical passthrough hole on the passenger’s side is a bit rusty and will need some attention. Both of the fenders look exceptionally clean inside and out-even the top rails are in good condition.
Moving forward, there’s some pinhole rust just in front of the passenger’s rear wheel well which looks like it was blasted and painted over. There are some old bolt holes from what may have been the original rollbar on each of the wheel hoops, and there’s some ugly hacksaw holes in the fenders where a pair of 6×9″ speakers once lived. Other than that, the bed is clean. The fold-and-tumble seat works, and looks like it will be functional after it’s zipped back up.
Inside the driver’s door, both A and B pillars are in reasonably good shape, but not perfect. There’s a patch welded in the corner behind the driver’s seat, and the inner sections of the doglegs show some rust damage. The driver’s floor has been patched several times and hit with some kind of black sealant. All of the gaskets on the firewall are intact but loose. The fusebox is clean and in place, although some of the wiring looks shoddy. It looks like the instrument panel and floor was originally green, then sprayed black. The driver’s door was sprayed entirely purple and the metal skin sprayed a darker color. The armrest is missing and the crank is hard to move, which means the inner springs and scissor mechanicals need to be lubed and cleaned. The hinges are replacements from an orange donor, and the VIN plate is attached with machine screws.
The steering wheel is a different type than my old one, but it’s full-size truck style. Wrapped around the column is a steel-braided cable which ends in frayed threads. Mr. Clean thought it might be a choke cable, but I still say it was for an aftermarket tachometer. The dashboard was painted purple at the same time as the rest of the truck (why? WHY?) and many of the secondary indicators were painted over completely (lights, wipers, etc). It’s rocking the late 70’s shiny-decal-over-black gauge cover, and the whole thing is topped with a hideously upholstered dash pad in some sort of light blue or beige.
Between the seats (and I won’t even get into the seats, except to say that Mr. Scout is donating the old highback buckets from Chewbacca) there is an OEM console done up in some kind of wooden/nautical theme. I don’t think it was original to the truck, because the interior is standard Scout blue, but one never knows. It will be replaced by a Tuffy console anyhow.
There is also a Scout A/C system installed under the dash, and it does in fact run. (Meaning: There is power to the system, the condenser spins up on the pulleys, and air blows from the ductwork. I don’t know if it blows cold air, as it was tested in January on a 20° day).
Behind the passenger’s seat, there is some surface rust in the corner behind the B pillar, but the floor is dirty enough that I can’t tell how bad it is. The floor by the A pillar is probably the worst place I can see on the whole truck. it’s been patched once and coated with some kind of sealant, but there’s more rust coming through. The inner wall under the A pillar has some cancer coming through which will need to be cut out and patched.
Both doors close, although the passenger door takes some muscle. The hinges will need to be adjusted to move the whole thing forward 1/8″ or so. Both outer door skins look like they’re in beautiful shape. All of the hardware is present on the passenger door, although I haven’t tried the window yet.
The windshield has some kind of gnarly aftermarket tinting applied to the top 1/4, which must go. Otherwise, it looks to be in decent shape. The cowl is bubbling a little here and there, but nowhere near as bad as the cowl on my last truck. From this angle, the truck reminds me of the old VW Harlequin models from ten years ago.
Interestingly, the front grille is from a 1971-72 model.