Vinnie's Uplifting experience

[Vinnie Moscaritolo <vinnie@domain.elided>]

I recently got educated (or at least my wallet did) on the
process of lifting a Scout. So I figured I would share my
story with the list, lest someone else be aware of lay lay
in store.

So a month or so ago I picked up an 80 Scout II cheap. It
had a 304, T19 wide and a Dana 20. Somehow I convinced
myself that it would be a much better deal to rebuild it
than to spend silly monthly payments on a Br**co or heaven
forbid a P**J.

One of the first things on my list was the noisy drive
train. The driveshafts were the wrong size, (for a reason I
really want to avoid mentioning here)

So off I go to get a drive shaft, I did some research, and
the best guy I could find is Steve Johnson at Drive Line
Specialists in San Jose (of the People's Republick of
Kalifornia) at 408-995-6000. He came highly recommended by
many folks.  I visited Steve's shop and was way impressed by
the quality of his work, the welds on the product, and he
builds some honking large shafts too.

So it also occurs to me, that I wanted to replace the
spring/shocks on the Scout, (with something with a bit more
clearance)  and after some conversation with Steve, I
decided to come back after I do the lift, and he'll measure
me then for the right size shaft.

OK, fine, that means I need to do the lift first. I settled
on a set of Skyjackers and a set of Rancho 9000s, also
replace the bushings and body mounts with poly ones too.  I
visited the folks at Anything Scout, Bill was very helpful
there. We swapped the springs and shocks (and man was it
helpful to have a shop with a torch and an air wrench to
yank off those frozen parts) The lift went well, I did about
4" due to springs and about 1 1/2 with the mounts plus a
little bit more from the front shackle. So the entire op put
me up about 6"..

And as expected, the clutch rod was too short, no problem,
we yanked it out and Jim (Anything Scout) welded me an
extension. The steering raglink was wrong, so Bill put a
Borgenson in (It was on my list eventually, it just came
sooner than I expected). I was able to bend the brake lines
back a bit for now, so they wouldn't pull out on the first
bump. I figured that this January/Feb I would update the
entire brake system with Stainless steel.

I went down to visit Steve again at Drive Line Specialists
and got some shafts made, I did a regular one for the front,
and a CV setup for the rear.  Of course the rear was so big
(3" wide) that it's a bit too close to my muffler. OK no
problem, I'll go and visit the Grave Bros  at Quick-E
Muffler and have them cut and re-weld it at a slightly
steeper angle. Those guys are a hoot anyways, and they like
the Scout too.

So far so good, but it turns out that Murphy was still in my
rucksack.  The T-Case, a Dana 20 was making lots of noise,
it turns out that those wonderful lock-o-matic (or whatever
they were called ) hubs are continuously locking, and so my
front shaft is needlessly spinning, Well they are on  my
list to replace anyways.   I figured that the warn P**J
Front Axel Hub conversion kit pn 37132 (which fits Scouts
also, see http://dealers.warn.com/axles/FrontHubs.asp ) is
calling to get on my truck. They are not cheap at 235 bucks
but they are strong, they have an internal spline mount
instead the two piece "come apart on the first sign of
stress" units that come stock.

But before I can tackle that It turns out that I  have a
bigger problem. The front shaft is way to steep an angle. I
am concerned about shimming it any more than the 3 degrees
it currently is, since this screws up the castor. No matter
how I approach it most of my alternatives have major amount
of suck attached to them and as much as I hate to admit it
right thing to do is to take off the front axle, cut and and
rotate  and we weld the pumpkin to a better angle. It also
turns out that Jim (Anything Scout) happens to have a rig
for doing just that.

In the meantime, I took off the front shaft and am driving
with half a drive train. It's about a days work to mess with
the front and being that I don't have a place to garage yet
(and yes I do have years of experience of laying in the cold
mud/snow doing repairs, but I am older and smarter (hah) ) I
am going to wait for a few nice weather days to do this.

Oh and did I mention that my front tire (sidewall) ruptured
from the previous owners driving habits, so it was also a
good time to replace the tires..

The moral of the story, Lifts are now way as simple as just
changing the springs, in fact maybe I should write a FAQ
entry about what's involved and what to expect.

Oh and yes It was an expensive month, but the Scout looks
and rides better.. way better than the silly Land Rover my
friend or the even sillier Peej that my cousin (in-law)
bought for three times the price my Scout will end up
costing me..

In retrospect I want to thank Steve Johnson at Drive Line
Specialists, he's  does great work, and of course Bill and
Jim at Anything Scout. Bill busted his ass in the cold for
me was there to get me out of trouble a number of times. Jim
and Bill are walking encyclopedia's of Scout knowledge and
the prices overall were not too bad.

Stay tuned for next few months adventure with drive shafts,
locking hubs, brakes and lines, body repairs, gas tanks and
re-wiring fun.








Vinnie Moscaritolo
http://www.vmeng.com/vinnie/
Fingerprint: 3F903472C3AF622D5D918D9BD8B100090B3EF042
-------------------------------------------------------

Those who hammer their swords into plows,
will plow for those who don't."