Last week, Mr. Scout texted me about playing hooky sometime in the near future to hit the junkyard. As it turned out, I had an office holiday this Friday, he was on this side of the river, the sun was out, and Mama had Finn with her for the majority of the day. So we made the best of things.

Our wishlist was long, but one of my top priorities was to find a new taillight for the Slattern, which had been suffering from a bashed lens since last summer. Last fall, I couldn’t find a donor Saturn of compatible vintage for love or money over several visits, but we stumbled upon three candidates almost as soon as we walked in the yard. Two twists of a star-head screwdriver, one unplugged socket, and I had an unblemished replacement in my hands. Score!

We were also looking for Scout-related stuff, including replacement shoulder belts that could be retrofitted, or a decent set of rearview mirrors.

Meanwhile, picking over the lot from one side to the other, we found all kinds of humor, intentional and unintentional.

I’m a sucker for old, rust-prone, unusual vehicles, so whenever I see something interesting, I stop and shoot pictures.

This Le Car looked almost pristine, even as it sat up to its axles in muddy water. I tried to find a way to pull the single rearview mirror off the door, but I was foiled by strange French engineering and a fear of wet socks.

Next to it sat one of three British survivors in the yard, a rusting heap of an MG. The wooden wheel had already been pulled, as well as the hood (that’s bonnet to you, mate) but the rest of the car looked pretty clean. I was tempted to pull the rest of the chrome badges off, but the entire panel felt like it was going to come with them, so I left it all in place.

Returning home, we lunched on some burgers and then set to work checking out Peer Pressure. We pulled the thermostat and tested it out in boiling water; the valve opened exactly as it should have. So we got to work pulling the radiator out completely. This is a job we’ve both had experience with before, so this time we knew what we were doing (mostly), and had it out within about 20 min. We drained the tank, made short work of each of the mounting bolts, struggled to pull the lower hose off, peeled back the fan shroud, and slid it upwards and out of the truck as pretty as you please. Over a couple of pails, we flushed out the interior and waited until the water ran clear, then flipped it over and hosed out the bottom. Once that was done, we threw it back in, tightened everything back up, swapped the battery in from the Jeep (the Scout battery was dead, dammit) and fired her up.

I’m happy to say she idled for 20 minutes and the needle stayed where it’s pictured above—at the far left of the gauge. Mr. Scout had to leave, so I bid him farewell and then took the beast out on the road for some short mileage, figuring if she broke down I’d be close to home. I had her on the road for about ten minutes and didn’t see the needle budge an inch, at speed or sitting in traffic. I’m going to do some more short-distance test runs in the next week, but if she makes it through those, I’m calling her fixed!

Once again, and as always, thanks go to Mr. Scout, without whose help I’d still be working on the first bolt.