I looked at the Thing last night, and while I could visualize Jen and I cruising down the highway next spring with the top off, a song playing on the radio, and a bag of beach gear in the back seat, I couldn’t get past the beginnings of rust around the interior of the tub. Overall, it was in really nice shape- the doors (mostly) closed, the outer fenders were in decent shape (and replacements can be had for less than $100) and the interior was intact. One thing that was leaning me towards the VW was the ease of repair on both the engine and the body—I’d be more comfortable taking a cutting torch to the Thing than the Scout, with replacement parts being so cheap. However, common sense prevailed, and again, I thought about the truck in the driveway, all the miles and stories we’ve shared so far, and how she deserves to be rebuilt. So I’m putting $200 into a car cover for the winter and ending the insane search for instant gratification—I’m fully aware that’s what I’m seeking here—in favor of saving the money for a new Fiberglas tub and about ten years of restoration work.
Friday Link Fun: Found last night: the Baltimore County Legacy Website, featuring some excellent pictures of Catonsville, and Jen’s old apartment house, back in The Day. | While doing an image search for a ’69 Mustang (Todd’s mechanic is selling one) I ran across Cars In Barns, a site dedicated to pictures of “that junk heap behind the barn,” which sometimes turns out to be a Shelby Mustang or a SuperBird. Pull up a chair, get out a few hankies, and browse.
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Pledge week on NPR. Ugghhh.
The medicine cabinet is finished on both sides and just about ready for a coat of paint. I followed the pattern throughout the rest of the house and milled down a smaller-scale version of the framing on the bathroom side. The next step is to build a beadboard-faced door and install that on the bathroom side with a latch. Then the whole thing gets a sanding, priming, and then we’re ready to paint.
Seen on a bumper sticker on the way to work this morning:
We are making enemies faster than we can kill them.
Amen, brother.
Close…But No Scout. I took a drive to Sterling this Saturday to look at a Scout for sale, in the hopes that the tub would be good enough for donor status. On further inspection, the A and B pillars were perfect, the hood and front fenders were almost stock, and the top was sprinkled with surface rust. The rear quarters, however, didn’t hold a magnet, and a very rudimetary bondo sanding job was visible under the paint. The tailcaps were completely shot, although he had a pair of clean replacements to go along with the truck. She started up and ran well, and I considered the deal for a long time before deciding to pass. With all the work needed to clean up the rear of the tub, I’d rather buy a fiberglas tub and never have to worry about rust again. So, the search continues.
So I focused my sorrows on something else: Three more storm windows were installed, the east side windows got their final coat of paint, and ½ of the medicine cabinet is fabricated and ready for installation. I’m hoping to finish the inside and put the door on this week—then we can paint and the linen closet will be complete.
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Today is Jen’s birthday. She spent the night at the hospital with her mother, who is still doing poorly, and is heading home today for a much-needed break. Throw her some love today—she could use it.
Song Of The Day: Shake Your Blood, Probot & Lemmy Kilmeister. This song makes me want to go out and drive fast all over somebody else’s lawn.
That Big Bag Of Money. Because I live to torture myself, I went looking online for Scout parts today. The expensive list goes something like this:
| Body Tub – fiberglas | $3,100 |
| Front fenders (outer) fiberglas | $560 |
| Front fenders (inner) fiberglas | $580 |
| Hood – fiberglas | $410 |
| Doors – Fiberglas | $1,700 |
| Tailgate – Fiberglas | $410 |
| Windshield – Fiberglas | $460 |
| TOTAL (gulp) | $7220 |
I’d like to buy fiberglas because it’s going to last much longer than steel ever would, and repairs would be easy as well. There is a chance I could salvage and repair my doors, hood, and the spare windshield sitting in my garage, but all that work is out of the question until I can repair/replace the garage and start fresh again. I’m also increasingly afraid that I’m not going to be able to get a new Scout tub much longer, given their relative scarcity. In the meantime, I need to find a dry place to store Chewbacca out of the elements while I gather the parts. So the main job will be to save up for the tub and have it delivered. Then, if the rebuilding program is still in effect, I’ll send out the 304 for an overhaul.
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I have no firsthand experience with this product, but I’m curious to try it out: the Fresh² bulb, which is one of those compact flourescent bulbs coated with a titanium dioxide coating, which creats oxidizers to neutralize odors. It’s $20 for two bulbs, so I may not get around to buying them anytime soon, but… (via cool tools)
I avoided spending $200 on a ladder yesterday, deciding to wait until I need it—I’m going to be painting the front of the house first, and I can reach everything I need to out there with the section of ladder I do have (thanks, Dad—I’m going to bring it back, I promise.) We are a go on the color choice, and I’m looking forward to this job. I think it’ll make a dramatic difference with the front of the house. We also have tentative plans to see our wedding pictures on Sunday. I’m nervous (I photograph poorly, unlike my wife) but excited. Also, I got the Superdrive installed last night in five minutes: open case, two screws, disconnect cables, attach new drive, two screws, close case. Toast immediately saw the drive, although I haven’t loaded iDVD yet—I’m going to try the Ken Burns thing on our honeymoon photos and send my folks a disc.
Uh-Oh.There’s a guy up in New Jersey selling off his entire collection of Scout parts. He has fenders, hoods and windshields for $150 each. This could be dangerous. I’ll know more later.
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Big shout-outs again to Dave, who helped Jen and I clean out the garage, driveway and basement of all the junk we’ve accumulated in the last three months, and haul it away in Clifford. She and I then planted a bunch of pretty flowers in the side bed by the driveway, which makes that side of the house look much better.
I haven’t run the Scout in about four months, because I’ve not had the time or the heart to look at her sitting idle in the driveway. Needing to get the area cleared out, I shot a few squirts of starter fluid into the carb and she fired right up—choppy at first, and loud, but smoothing out after a minute. She shifted into first gear easily, and I pulled her out onto the street to a parking spot. As I came to a stop, I felt how familiar the leather of the steering wheel felt in my hands. I wanted to keep going…to peel the top off, get her out onto the open road, open it up to 60 and enjoy the sunshine with Jen.
God, I miss my truck.
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This afternoon, I decided I was going to see what my garage is actually built out of. I’ve had dreams ever since we got in this house of backing the Scout into the garage, pulling the top off, and starting the long process of tearing the body down to the frame for a retub. Pipe dreams, perhaps, but the backing the Scout into the garage part has been sounding particularly good given the amount of snow we’ve received in December. There are two reasons I haven’t done this already: a makeshift front wall where the garage doors used to be, and a 6″ raised wooden subfloor inside the structure. So it was with great curiosity and a mild fear that I jacketed up, crowbar in hand, and walked outside to face the unknown. The Scout started on the second try with a squirt of starter fluid and I ran her until the idle smoothed out (God, I love that truck), and while she warmed up I went inside and moved the assorted car parts and lumber out of the way to areas that didn’t look like they were wet.
The first floorboard came up pretty easily, and to my dismay I found no concrete underneath—the original footprint of the garage is an uneven dirt floor. At some point in the last ten or twenty years (based on the age and color of the concrete) a 2′ footer was poured down the middle of the foundation and 2×6’s were laid every 18 inches from edge to edge, then covered with plywood. Given the grade and condition of the wood, I’m going to have to find some other way of protecting the Scout for a few years until I can dig the dirt out and have someone pour me a new floor. In which case I may just have somebody bulldoze the whole structure and start from scratch. Sigh.
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Snowfall, 12.7.03
In the parking lot of my office building this afternoon: a beautiful half-cab Scout—as beautiful as the half-cab can be—a 1980 (the only year they galvanized the steel and Zeibarted at the factory) diesel with a Meyer plow, with nary a dent or spot of rust. Sweet.
Get Out Of The Way. People in Baltimore just don’t get it about the snow. For the love of God, people, just drive. Don’t slow down to stare at that guy on the side of the road—he’s just pulled over to make a call, not because he’s bleeding from an axe wound. I have to get to work before noon, for cripes’ sake.
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This morning, among the seventeen things I needed to get done before I left the house, I noticed that the muffler on the Scout was hanging mighty low. I dropped down to inspect it, and found to my amusement that the other muffler has rusted through, so both straightpipes have failed in the exact same spot, a week apart from each other. So now the Scout is officially the Loudest Thing In Six Counties. I can’t move into the new house fast enough, people.
Meanwhile, I got a call from my mechanic the other day to let me know that they’re getting to the Tortoise hopefully today; that should be a funny phone call. I’m half expecting that he’s going to tell me to simply take it out behind the barn and shoot it.
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I’ve had my Scout for about five years, and in that time it’s gone from a strong-running, reasonably clean rig to a strong-running, rusty and dirty rig. In the time I’ve had it in the city, I’ve done curbside work on it twice, eventually giving up due to severe anxiety. The normal leisurely wrench-turning process became a mad dash to and from the house to grab [tool I didn’t bring outside] while being paranoid that some jerk would come walking down the street, casually pick up my socket set, and walk off with them all. Plus, I’m sure my neighbors weren’t so pleased with me working on my truck outside their houses; I’ve had enough “Abandoned” stickers left by the city to let me know just how some of them feel. So I’m looking forward to getting in the new house and being able to tear the engine down, pull off the fenders, hell, re-tub the whole body before it falls off around me. In the privacy of my own driveway.
I’m typing this in the basement of my house, on the futon, where it’s dry and cool. The top floor of my house is an uncomfortable 85 degrees or so. This is the first week of really hot weather that we’ve had in the city this year, and it’s nice to be able to come downstairs and enjoy the temperature. I’ve also been reading about the outages up north, and I’m thinking that being in New York City right now would be a hateful experience.
I wish that NPR encoded their feeds in a format other than RealPlayer. I love being able to listen to Morning Edition at 2-3PM in the afternoon while I work, but I refuse to install that shit software on this Mac.
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The Scout woke with a throaty roar—on the first start. Problem solved. The old battery was new to the truck when I bought it (it was stamped 10/97) so $60 later I have a new Exide 6-year battery in there and the starting problem is gone. So now I just have to get the exhaust fixed before the Man pulls me over for a noise complaint.
We are off tomorrow for the day to Jen’s parents’ place to do the Family Birthday; please send her your good wishes. She and I are going to order a bushel of crabs Sunday, throw some paper on the coffee table (or, maybe, in the backyard), crack some beers, and enjoy summer in the city. Hopefully I can catch the ice cream man out front too.
Break it down. More thoughts on Strays, the new JA album. Why is it that Dave Navarro, an otherwise outstanding guitarist, has to include some kind of break in the middle of an otherwise excellent song? Back in the day, JA used to be able to pull this off expertly (see: Three Days) but in 2003, it’s getting irritating. The tune Riches, which is a rip-roaring good time in the beginning, gets watered down in the last minute and a half or so with a buzzkill down-tempo coda. Another one of my favorite Navarro-written tunes, Transcending, off the RHCP disc One Hot Minute, began with a captivating Flea bass riff, building into a woven tapestry of guitar, drums, and vocal. At its peak, the song fell apart into a down-tempo sludgefest with an annoying chorus. Why? I ask you. Why?
Memo to this simple son of a bitch: Don’t come back, punk. I’ll buy a gun and shoot you for being a dumbass.
(thx to Todd for pointing this page out.)
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