1973 Scout II
A restoration from the dead
The Scout was found (rescued?) from a man who had decided to use it as a parts storage shed, once he parked it under a small grove of tress. He wanted $150 for the sad thing, we offered him $50 and he took it. It looked pretty bad, we were gonna part it out when we got back. Hey, you can't BUY scout parts for $50.... any of them. So we went to load it up only to discover the rear brakes were frozen as was the driver's front. It looked real bad, a winch, 4x4 beams and come-a-longs to get this thing loaded.

Once we got it home and dragged it off the trailer with Pepe', we went to further investigate it. These pics show what we found. Its was pretty sad.

Well I was asked if I wanted to abandon my 1971 CJ-5 project to have a 1972 Scout, as the Scout had a better frame and the body looked to be in decent shape (except where you could see the ground around the gas tank from inside the bed). I agreed and we started work, first we had to clean it out. Alternators, starters, LOTS of beer cans/bottles. The gas tank was rusted FROM THE TOP, and was still holding water. Well I wasn't going to put my hands in there, something would come out and BITE me, so I got my Colt and put a round through the gas tank to drain the water. And when the water was gone, I STILL didn't like it, so I didn't bother with the tank, just removed it to put it in the garbage.
So I decided to enter into a restoration of the poor little Scout, instead of mutataing it into an unstoppable armoured truck. The basic premise being when its done, to have it stock, or if it wasn't built by the factory, it should have been built this way. For example, dual batteries, full roll cage, reforced springs on a spring over... you get the idea.
First we had to get down to what we were starting with. Obviously we had to clean it out, remove the floor material and torch out all the BAD rust in the rear. I torched out the rusted flooring, the rear brace, bumper and removed the tailgate. All we can figure is that someone was hauling fertilizer back there once, and that ate the metal.

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