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SCScoutguy - Project Terra
In order to get some more activity on our forum I figured I would start up a project thread for my new Terra. It is a 1979 Scout II Terra with a 345,727 that was originally delivered to Burton International in Columbia SC and sold on Feb 26 1979 for $10,600. I got all of the original paperwork with it. Here is my webshots gallery of how it looked where I purchased it. It is now sitting in my dads back yard along with allot of my other IH iron. I am finally getting around to working on it and I will try to take pictures and document the best I can but I often forget or dont want to touch my camera when my hands are super greasy from working on the truck. I put it up on jackstands tonight in order to get a good look at everyhing under the truck.
I then took the Warn winch bumper and X9000 winch off of the truck. I am going to paint up the bumper and put the combo on the front of my dads 72 Scout II. 
This truck came with the complete skid plate package. I took the front middle and gas tank skid plates off and set them aside. If you have never taken off a front skid plate I am here to tell you it is a major PITA! I do not plan to lift this truck and only run 31" A/T tires so I will keep the front skid plate off so I can run a straight steer and shackle sway bar. I will make another post with some of the problems I found when I was looking over the truck. I finished blasting my 35 gallon fuel tank and paint it with one coat of rust converter and then three coats of rustoleum. 
I then crawled under the engine compartment after I had sprayed it all down with purple power cleaner yesterday. I knew I had a big coolant leak from the block somewhere which I suspected was a freeze plug. It looks like I will have to replace every freeze plug in this engine as the factory ones have all almost rusted out 
I went out and got six 1 5/8 dorman brass freeze plugs for the side of the block. Lets hope the ones in the head and on the back of the engine are ok. 
I then inspected the worst rust on the truck which is the passenger side quarter. It looks like it will need a new 118" rocker extenstion before I can weld on my new quarter panel. 
After that I pulled out a factory front bumper that had been painted several times and sprayed it down with liberal amounts of aircraft paint stripper. It looks like the paint might of saved the chrome on it and maybe I can polish it up to look nice. It was to dark when I got done to take any pictures. I will take some pictures of it tomorrow to let you guys see how it turned out. I didnt get a whole lot done today. I finished using aircraft stripper on the bumper to get the three layers of paint off and it looks pretty good. I am going to put some chrome polish on it and take my drill with a buffer attachement to it sometime this week. 
I found these bumper things that I forgot I had in the back of my parts Scout so I will probably use them to. I am only going to run the factory bumper until I can finish blasting my warn winch bumper and repainting it though. 
I then read everything I could on the BB about taking freeze plugs out and found that the general consensus was to take a screwdriver and spin them sideways in the hole and pull them out with pliers. Well these factory steel plugs are so soft from rust that my screw driver just punched right through them. I tried just hitting the outer rim about a million times and it just wont budge. I am probably going to make a seperate post in tech talk to see if anyone has a idea on how to get it out. 
I then looked on the other side of the blocks freeze plugs to see what they looked like. They were not leaking before so I took my hand to the center one to clean it out to see if it would leak. I then got a shower of dark greenish tinted fluid all over me. After looking at all the steel freeze plugs all over this engine it apears the only ones that rusted badly and leaked were the two center plugs on the side of the engine? The rest are as solid as they can be. 
This has got to be the dirtiest SV engine that I have ever had. After looking at everything I think I am going to have to convince my dad to give me a 5x5 space in his "wood working shop" to let me put this engine on a stand and regasket the whole thing. 
I had a little bit of success today with the freeze plugs. I used my air compressor and air hammer with a chisel bit to knock the plug sideways. 
After pulling the plug out with some channel locks I noticed some stuff sitting inside the water jacket. 
I then took a screw driver and scrapped it around inside the water jacket and had a TON of rust fall out. 
I dont think this is that huge of a problem but I am just wondering where the hell all of that rust came from? Do you think maybe the factory steel thermostat could of rusted away down into the water jacket? I am going to get some of that chemical block flushing stuff and flush this whole thing out before I put the new plugs back in. Will probably have the radiator boiled out and pressure tested as well. The plug I took out had definately seen its better days but I guess it did its job lasting 27 years. 
I tried to get to the passenger side center plug out but I could not get the chisel at a good angle to knock it sideways because the differential was in the way. Do you guys think maybe if I jacked the truck up and put the jackstands under the frame instead of the axle it would allow the axle to drop enough so maybe I could get in there to knock it out? Getting these things out is one thing but I am sure it is going to be even more fun putting the new ones in. Well that has been practically no work on the Terra recently because it has rained constantly for a week. We have been getting upwards of 4 inches of rain a day at some times. It slacked off for a little bit today so I went and took a look at the jackstands. I dont think they have sunk any and the plywood is doing its job. I went on a quest to find new gas tank straps today as I would need longer ones for the 35 gallon tank. After going to several metal supply places that told me they would have to cut them from a $60 sheet of 16 gage sheet metal I was starting to think I wouldnt be able to find any. On the way home I passed a truck pulling a mobile home and saw the tie down straps hanging from underneeth and thought those might work. Well I went to my local mobile home supply store and sure enough they had some high quality tie down straps that were galvinized and the same gage 16 gage metal I needed. They are very pliable and I think they will work well. They are not quite as wide as the original ones but I think they will work alright. They were only $3.90 each for 8 foot long sections. I am either going to just use the strap the way they are or take two of them side by side and spot weld smaller sections horizontially across the two straps to make them wider. I dont think I will need to but I am going to keep my options open. I will post up more details when I get to mounting the tank. 
I had a little more success today. I got two more freeze plugs out the passenger side of the block. I couldnt get the air chisel at the right angle to knock this one out and I tried using my hammer and chisel but that didnt work either. 
So I took Tim's idea and took out my dremel tool and cut the damn thing out. 
The plugs on either side of the center plugs seemed to be alright. I just used a bolt and hammer to knock them out. 
I then drained the oil pan and took out the oil sending unit. I am letting it completely drain overnight before I drop the pan tomorrow. I ran into a problem in the fact that I need to take the oil filter adaptor off to get to the front left freeze plug but I read here on the BB that the gasket that goes between it and the block can only be bought in a complete engine kit. I am either going to have to locate one of these gaskets seperatly or make my own. 
I then went to clean up my extra steering stabilzer shackle bar and found that one side was wallowed out pretty good. I am unsure if I can fix it or not. I thought about sleeving it maybe but I dont know if that will work. 
I took the front tires off and looked at my disc's and the front left one had a pretty big groove in it that I dont think can be turned out so I am going to try take some off one of my parts axle and get them turned to go on it. 
I have the freeze plugs in the freezer now and will probably put them in tomorrow if I get a chance. Jamie I doubt we could bend stock this thick to make it work. I guess we could maybe cut two pieces and weld them together at a 90 degree angle. For now I am going to stick with the stock ones that are on it and just run my straight steer. I will keep a eye out at the junkyards for a useable stabilzer shackle set in the meantime. While I was out taking pic's of the shackles I killed another 3 squirrels. One fell about 30 feet from the top of a tree and landed on my Terra's tailgate. The other two feel in my neighbors yard and there dogs got them. It apears I blew out the one that landed on the Terra's tailgates brains! Also I think this was one of the ones I hit the other day that got away from me because it has another wound that looks like it recently healed. I found my old trap in my dad's shop so I set it up on top of the 72 Scout. If I get a squirrel in it I dont know what I will do with it. It seems unsporting to shoot it in a cage. 
I got some more work done on the Terra today. I decided to take a brake from the freeze plugs for a little while and take a whack at putting in the front poly shackle bushings. I got these bushings along with grade 8 greaseable bolts from southwest 4x4 on ebay about a year ago. 
I then took out my trusty Harbor Freight 3-in-1 ball joint tool kit. 
This is when I found out my Mac 1/2" impact gun stopped working. So I fell back on my trusty old 1/2" socket wrench and armstrong power. I started on the front right shackle. I got the tool aligned correctly and found a 13/16 socket was about the same exact size as the steel sleeve I had to press out so I put it on the end of the tool. I used my 1/2" socket wrench to turn the end and pushed both sleeve's and bushings out at the same time. 
I got both of the steel sleeves and bushings out in about 5 minutes only using my socket wrench so I am sure if my impact gun would of worked it would of taken no time. 
I covered the polyurethane bushings and sleeves with a liberal amount of white lithium grease. It took banging on them with a hammer to get them to seat in the opening because they are a really tight fit. 
Then I took my new grade 8 greaseable bolts out of their package. They are a little longer than the stock ones but that really isnt a problem. 
They went in rather easy and were no problem at all. 
I then moved onto the other shackle and did everything over again. 
Here is what they look like installed. The longer bolts face inward so I dont think they will be a problem. 
I got the rear sleeves out the same way as the front. 
I ran into a problem at this point. The poly bushing have a flange around the outside of them that made them to thick to go into the rear spring hanger. 
I solved that problem with a pair of old scissors I found in my dads shop. 
This is what I had left at the end of the day. 
I was pretty happy with the finished product. 
Now I just need to do the rear and after that I plan to take the front leaf springs out and wire wheel them down then paint them and put them back together with new center pins and clamps. I did a little more work on the Terra today. I went into my leaf spring pile and found the set of front springs with the most arc in them. My plan is to take these leafs apart while the original ones are still on the truck and rebuild these. 
I then took one of the packs apart. 
I am going to go to Napa tomorrow to see if they can get me new center pins and clamps. If they cant there is a place near my school called "spring services" that sapousedly rebuilds leaf springs so I will hit them up to see if they can get me any. 
I went ahead and pushed the rubber bushings and sleeves out of the springs while I had them out of the truck. 
Then I chucked up a wire wheel in my air die grinder and went to work wire wheeling the living daylights out of all the leafs in the pack. 
When I got them all down to bare metal I took a can of gloss black Rustoleum and painted one side of them. I plan on painting the other side tomorrow after this side drys. 
I am going to do a little research here on the BB and the net in general to see what kind of substance I should put inbetween the leaf's to give them less friction. I will probably ask the spring services people what to put inbetween them and buy some stuff from them if they will sell it to me. I will fill you guys in tomorrow when I get my clamps and center pins. Well during my lunch today I went to the spring place and got the stuff I needed. That place was huge and they actually build leaf springs there. The guy was really nice and took me in the back and showed me some leaf springs that they were building for a dump truck. I got the center bolts and clamps I needed for my front springs for the grand total of $8. I asked about adding teflon or spraying anything between the leaf's and he said do not put anything at all between them. He said he has been building leaf springs for over 40 years and has found that adding anything between the leafs only attracts dirt and hurt performance. He said to just make sure the surface is really smooth and to make sure you get the leafs extremely tight against each other and you will be fine so I took his advice and that is what I did. Here are the clamps and center pins I got from them. 
Here are the leafs all wire wheeled down to bare metal and then painted with rustoleum. 
I then placed the pack back together and got everything lined up really well. 
Then I torqued down the center pin being very careful to keep the leafs aligned. 
Here is what the rebuilt pack looks like next to the other one. 
Here it is after I got the new clamps on all snug and tight. 
I am really happy with the way it came out. In the end I will have probably $10 invested in rebuilding the front leafs and about 3 hours of my time. From what the man at the spring plant told me now that the surfaces are really clean and slick and the clamps are new and tight I will have a much better ride and handling. I will have to wait a while to test it out though. 
I worked on the spare axle tonight. I took off the hubs and all the brake hardware. I put all of the small hub parts into labeled ziplock bags so I wouldnt lose them. My plans are when I get the axle all torn down I will begin to grind the knuckles. Then I will bolt it under the truck and twist the outer C's until I have 6 degrees of caster and tack weld them into place. Jamie works at a place that has allot of people who weld so we are going to get a professional welder to weld them back on. Then I am going to take the 3:54 ring and pinion out of the rear 44 from one of my parts Scout. I am going to buy a master install kit and take it and the r and p to the technical college where they said they will install it for free. Then blast the whole thing, paint it and then install all new wheel bearings and brake parts etc. 
The only problem I ran into this afternoon was my passenger side short shaft would not clear the knuckle and come out. I tried getting it perfectly lined up several times but it just wont come out. I am going to take a wire brush to it tomorrow and attempt to pull it out again. 
I am going to take a crack and taking the knuckles off tomorrow. I will be sure to post up what I get done. 
I had about a hour to work on the axle this afternoon so I didnt get a whole lot done. I still could not get the axle shaft out of the knuckle. After looking at it very closely it apears that it will fit through the knuckle with no problems so I think something in the differential is hanging it up. I will probably take the cover off tomorrow and see if a spider gear is broken and jaming it in or something. I will probably make a seperate post in tech talk to see what everyone thinks. Here are some pictures to show the axle shaft that will not come out. 
I then moved on to the problem that I did not have a socket big enough to fit over the castle nut keeping the ball joint in. Now I know you guys will laugh and make fun of me but I dont have the cash to run to Napa to buy the correct tools all the time so I used what I had. I ended up taking a pipe wrench and a piece of fencing tube to get it off. I know it looks redneck but it works. 
On previous axles I have taken a hammer and punch and knocked the adjusting sleeve out of the outer C but this time I think I am going to actually buy the correct tool so I dont damage the threads. I found this one on ebay but I am going to check Autozone and Napa tomorrow to see if I can just buy one there. 
Also I just thought I would add that I bought this really nice black and decker tool box to put all of my air tool stuff in at walmart yesterday for only $10! 
I will go and see if I cant find the right socket tomorrow and hopefully get some more work done. I went to Napa today to see if they had the socket and they didnt but could order it for me for $24 which is almost what a new ball joint costs. I can not see paying more than $10 for this thing so on my out of Napa I walked across the street to the pawn shop and bought a handful of 3/8" sockets that looked about the size I needed for $2. Then I went to see which was the closest and the 13/16" was about perfect just a hair to big. I then chucked up some grinding disc's into my grinder and some cutting wheels into the dremel tool. After about 10 minutes of work I came up with this. 
I still couldnt get the passenger side axle shaft out today. Thanks Carey your idea did the trick! It looks like from the wear on the axle shaft that something in the diff was holding onto it pretty tight. 
I took the knuckles off of the axle today. 
Once again my cheater bar came in handy. 
Then knuckle fell off after I hit the top ball joint with my 4lb hammer. 
I then broke out the HF ball joint tool that I have used for everything up to this point except ball joints. 
My Craftsman 1/2" impact gun did not have the strength to press the joints out. 
I then fell back on my redneck engenuity and placed the knuckle on the 2" ball on my homemade rear bumper making sure the knuckle could not turn. Then I broke out my trusty old 1/2" socket wrench and fencing tube cheater bar. 
That method worked out pretty well. 
I did the same thing with the upper ball joint. 
I did the same thing to the other knuckle and ended up with this. 
I then took off the differential cover and found that the passenger side bearing cap bolts very lose and almost falling out. The gears looked to be in really good shape however. 
I went ahead and took Nathan's advice and took the gears out. 
Any advice on what I need to use to clean out the housing? Can I take my pressure washer to it after I soak it in purple power overnight? Should I paint inside the housing once I get it cleaned? 
Should I try and take my axle seals out or should I let the guy doing the regear do that when he puts in the new ones? I am thinking about pressure wasing out my axle tubes but I am open to suggestions. I think I might take a wire brush and push it down the tube a bunch of times first to break everything up. I have to figure out how to get the yoke off the pinion tomorrow. Didnt really do anything today except take the yoke off and the pinion out. 
I am going to Harbor Freight in the early AM tomorrow to buy a sand blaster and 20lbs of media to blast the housing with. I got my dad to get the Timken wheel bearings for me through his supplier at the paper mill and they ended up costing me $38 instead of $68 which is the shop cost for them at Autozone. I went and talked to the guy at the technical college today and he seems to think he can get the axle back to me in two days after I drop it off with the new 3.54 gears in it. I will probably buy a few packs of grinding disc's at HF tomorrow and go ahead and grind the knuckles. I will keep you guys updated on the progress. I did some grinding this weekend. I set my axle housing up on my workbench aka parts Scout tailgate 
Then I commenced to grinding. 
Ground it all the way down like Randy said parallel to the yoke. I think I might need to take a metal cutting disc in my air die grinder and cut parallel so I can find the crack. I have yet to see the hairline crack seperating the C from the axle tube because I think the grinder just cant make it into that tight angle. I am going to attempt the air die grinder idea today probably. I am wondering if I can go ahead and hit the C's with a BFH while I have it out of the truck just to make sure they will actually turn? I would hate to bolt it under the truck and find that I have not grinded enough to make them turn. Do you guys think that 6* of caster will be to much or should I go with say 4 or 5? This is what I am going to be using to measure it. 
I am going to see once I get it all set correctly if Jamie will be nice enough to come over one afternoon and weld it so it wont move. Then we can take it to the professional welder to get welded back up. I got a pretty neat little tool while I was at HF on clearence for $4. Basically you bolt your grinder into it and it into a metal cutoff chop saw. 
I was going to see if I could use it on the C's but there just wasnt enough clearence for the axle tube to fit in. I am sure I will use it for other projects though. 
My dad and I went to the flea market saturday before we went to HF and I got at set of Warn hubs for $2. I wasnt sure if they would fit my axle but for $2 it was worth it. 
After putting a stub shaft into the hub I know they will work. These apear to be exactly the same as my loc-o-matic's but I wonder if I can use the standard spindle nuts with them or do I have to use the rare loc-o-matic hex nuts? The axle in the Terra right now has fairly new Mile Marker manual hubs on it but since this is going to be a daily driver I am going to go with automatic hubs. I wonder if Warn still carries a rebuild kit for these hubs? 
Well I tried to turn the C's yesterday with no luck. First I put the axle housing on a cinder block to keep it stable. 
That did not work out so well as you can see.... 
Then I found this piece of I beam so I decided to use it. 
I beat on this thing like a red headed stepchild and it still didnt turn. After about half a hour I gave up since it was getting dark. I am wondering if I need to grind some more in order to break it free? I am really hoping to get this done before the weather turns cold but it isnt looking good right now. 
The outer C's are scared pretty good from where I hit them with the hammer but I dont think that will effect their use. I am going to take a good look at it this afternoon and see if I need to grind a little more. Randy I figured by rotating them it would break the weld and then I could knock them off. I guess I will take a stab at just knocking them off tomorrow. Here is what I came up with to keep the axle stable. 
I scared up the outer C pretty good so I am going to have to grind it back down to keep a level mounting surface for my knuckle. 
Well Jamie came over this afternoon and lent a hand. He actually did almost all the work. I let he take a try and knocking the knuckles off first. He took revenge for red headed step children everywhere! 
Jamie then determined that I had not grinded into the outer C enough to cut through the weld. A few minutes with a cut off wheel fixed that. 
Then some well placed whacks with the BFH produced this. 
I can not thank Jamie enough for his help. Without his idea to cut more into the outer C I would of been hitting that thing with a sledge for a week. Now I still need to determine what amount I should turn them. Right now 4 degree's is looking pretty good. Anyone else have a thought on it? I think I have decided on 5 degree's of caster at this point. I got my wheel bearings and spindle bearings today. 
I decided to take the slingers off my axle shaft. 
Then I put the shaft in the vise to take the ujoints out. 
After I go the U joints out I figured I would take a crack at taking my spindle bearings out with my HF bearing puller. 
Well the HF tool wasnt exactly like the tool shown in the service manual but I figured I would give it is a shot anyway. Well one of the ends of the HF puller broke off trying to pull the spindle off. I dont think it was because the tool was low quality I just think it isnt the right tool for the application. I am going to have to do some research and find a better tool or method to pull the spindle bearings out. I will let you guys know what I come up with. Didnt do much this afternoon because I didnt have much time. I got the new leaf springs bolted to the axle with the old U bolts just so I can hang it under the truck and turn the C's. I never thought 27 year old U bolt nuts would be so hard to put back on. I took the poly bushings out of the old leaf springs and put them in the new ones. I have to go to Columbia tomorrow so I wont get any work done but hopefully Friday Jamie can come over and help me mount the axle in the truck and then tack weld it after we set the caster to 5* so it wont move. After that it is going to the professional welder to get welded back up. 
Here is also another little update on my spindles. I could not get the HF puller nor the snap-on one I borrowed from my buddy to pull them out. I then bought a set of punches from HF and tried to punch them out from the end of the spindle downwards and that only broke the bearing casing open. So I figured since I am not going to be reusing these bearings anyway why dont I just cut them open with my dremel and that is exactly what I did. After I broke the casing with the dremel the punches pushed it right out. I knicked the side with the dremel but I dont think it is anything to worry about. I will probably smooth it out with my die grinder. I am thinking about using my HF ball joint tool to press in these bearings but if that doesnt work I think my big vise will work as a press as well. 
Then I went to take the oil pan off the truck. Whoever at IH thought to put two phillps head bolts at the back of the pan was a idiot. On every SV oil pan I have ever taken off these have always been a pain to get out. 
Then I knocked some more rust out of the water jacket. 
There was no cam bearing material in the oil pan so I was pleased. I took a good look at the crank and cam and they both looked good as well. 
Jamie helped me bolt the new axle housing into place so we could turn the outer C's to gain 5 degrees of caster. 
We then set the angle finder on the C and hit the it with a BFH until we reached exactly 5 degrees of caster on each side. 
By this time it was getting dark and I did not have a extension cord that was big enough to carry enough amps to power the Lincoln pro 135 wire feed welder so Jamie used my little Campbell Hausfield stick hobby welder to tack the C's in place so they wont move. 
Jamie got them tacked on really well and I will probably take the axle back out tomorrow and seperate it from the leaf springs. I will probably take it to the professional welder next week to get all welded up. I will keep you guys updated on the progress. I met Jamie up at his work today and picked up my axle. The was very happy with the work and the welds looked awesome. 
Then I blasted the whole axle housing and and put two coats of krylon rusty metal primer on it. 
I did the same thing with the knuckles. 
I am going to ask around tomorrow to see who I can get to setup my gears for me. Once I get them installed I will install the ball joints and put the axle back together. I will keep you guys updated with the pictures of my progress. I didnt do any work to the axle today as I still have some painting to do on it. I think after talking to a few people I am going to attempt to setup my own gears. I ordered a book on how to do it and bookmarked several websites with instructions. I might not have all the correct tools but I think I can probably go to my brother in laws work and get them to pull the bearings and press the new ones on for me. I blasted one valve cover and then put a good coat of paint on it. The paint is some I got at my agri supply store and it is called "Farmall Red". I blasted my oil pan the other day and painted it as well. 
I bought some glass black paint at my co op called "Industrial protective coatings" that is made to paint fences and industrial equipment with. It seems to be pretty high quality stuff so I painted my knuckles with it. So far I have been really impressed by it and a big plus is that it is only $2.50 for a 16 oz spray can. 
I asked a few friends of mine who are mechanics what to use on my valve cover gaskets and oil pan gaskets and they both said 3M weatherstip adhesive. I thought they were kidding so I went to talk to a old man I know that worked as a mechanic for the state bus fleet for 40 years and has turned many a wrench on a SV engine and he told me the exact same thing. I went to my locally owned parts house and asked about it and the guy said "Yea we buy it by the case load because we can never keep it in stock". He said he uses it on all of his engines and it is great stuff. So I bought a tube of it and I am going to use it to stick the gaskets to the covers and pan and then leave the engine mounting surface clean and just let the gasket seal inbetween. That way if I have to pull them off I can pull the covers or pan off and possibly reuse the gasket. 
I am probably going to put the oil pan back on in the next few days and I will let you guys know how the 3M stuff does. The weather was nice today so I decided to get some work done on the truck. I knew I was going to put the oil pan on today so I installed the gasket on the pan yesterday with the 3M weatherstip adhesive. 
I put the adhesive on and let it sit for about 15 minutes to get tacky. 
Then I installed the gasket and let the pan sit overnight. 
I also put the final coat of paint on my valve covers yesterday while I was doing the oil pan. 
I put the pan on today and was careful not to torque the bolts to tightly so it wouldnt push the gasket out and make it leak. 
Then I started to remove everything from the intake so I could take it off. 
Lifting a 70 lb intake off of the engine of a truck that is high off the ground on jackstands was not to fun. 
The place I got the Terra from in Columbia has lots of oak and walnut trees so I am guessing the squirrels or mice had a field day under my intake. 
A few minutes with a shop vac cleaned it up. 
My correct ball joints came in today from Rockauto so I am going to take a crack at installing them into the knuckles tomorrow. I hope the Napa machine shop can have my intake back to me in a couple days time so I can go ahead and put it back onto the engine as well. I will post tomorrow night with what else I got done. It was around 55 degree's today and it misted rain pretty much all the day so I only got around a hour of work in. I started off by taking the valley pan off and scraping its old gasket off the engine. 
Then I noticed my heater hose fitting was rusted to pieces. 
I removed it and went looking for a suitable replacement. 
No auto parts supply place in town had anything like it so I went to my local Ace hardware store and got this. It is a 1/2" thread to 3/8" hose barb and should work well for what I want. 
I then installed one of the newly painted valve covers and nicked the paint a little getting it underneath the smog pump bracket but oh well I don't really care about that. 
I wanted to take off the smog pump bracket and put on a regular power steering bracket simply because I don't like stuff sitting there that I am not using. This is where I ran into a snag. I got two of the smog pump bracket bolts out but the third is right behind the water tube and wont come out until I get the water tube out. I think took the clamp off the water tube but could not get it to budge at all. I tried to get the water tube to come for about half a hour but it still wont budge. I tried to get a picture of it but it came out blurry but you get the idea. Anyone have any tips for getting these tubes out? 
I am going to go and buy a new valley pan gasket tomorrow and finished blasting and painting the valley pan. I will post pictures of what I get done. I went ahead and took the shroud, radiator and fan out to give me better room to work with today. 
I got the water tube out this afternoon. I ended up taking a 2x4 and my BFH to it and just hitting it from the side several times until it finally broke free. The freeze plugs in the front of the head and engine appear to be alright so I am going to leave them for now (knock on wood). 
I am glad I decided to replace the smog pump bracket with a stock one because if I didn't I wouldn't of known the water tube had a hole in it and the ends of the tube are totally rusted beyond use. 
I went scrounging in my parts bin and found a water tube that was in really good shape so I wire wheeled it then taped off the ends and painted it. 
Then I painted my valley pan which I blasted and primered yesterday. 
Then I figured if that water tube is in that kind of shape the other one has to be in sore shape as well so I took the other extra water tube I had tapped it off and painted it as well. 
I took out one of my big boxes of O rings to see if I had one that would work to replace the old ones. It looks like the biggest size in my box will probably fit but it will take a little bit to stretch it over the end of the tube. 
Lastly I took the stock none smog pump power steering bracket that I had blasted and primered yesterday and painted it gloss black. 
I am going to rebuild a stock Scout II power steering pump housing with a GM pump inside it from a 1 ton truck so I will have stronger steering. I went and ordered my new valley pan gasket today and they only came in cork. It should be here by Saturday though so if the Napa machine shop is done with my intake tomorrow like they said I might be able to put everything back together on Saturday sometime. I did some more work on the truck this weekend. Yesterday I went and picked up the intake from the Napa machine shop and they did a great job once again cleaning it up. 
I am glad the plugs on the bottom were in good shape because I really dreaded having to replace them. 
I then taped off the intake for paint. 
Then I painted the intake, thermostat housing and water neck. 
While the paint was drying on the intake I decided to take a crack at installing my own ball joints. 
I put the knuckle into my vise so I could keep it steady while installing my ball joints. 
I used my HF ball joint tool to install them. 
I also finished painting my new water tubes yesterday. 
Today I took a crack at installing my valley pan. I cleaned up the mounting surface on the pan to make sure I got a good stick with the gasket and RTV. 
Then I installed my gasket. 
Then I installed the pan and it was a perfect fit. I didn't have to take it out and straighten it at all. 
I then installed some of my fittings onto the intake. 
Then I installed my Corteco composite intake gaskets which go on dry with no RTV. 
I then placed the intake on the engine just to see how the machine shops decking was and it was a perfect fit as well. 
That is about as far as I got today. I have the intake bolts soaking in carburetor cleaner to get all the grime off of them so they will be clean when I use them tomorrow. I went and got allot of parts today when it got dark so I will have them ready when I go to install the thermostat housing and water neck as well as the new heater hose's, PVC grommet, power brake vacuum hose and carburetor gasket. I priced out a new heater shut off valve and it was $28! I think I will be looking for a alternative to the stock valve or maybe pull a good usable one of one of the parts trucks. I took a shot at installing the new water pump with the new O rings and I have to say I sympathize with Tim because I tried for about 15 minutes and still didn't get it installed. I f it doesn't rain or get to cold tomorrow I am going to take a crack and doing some more work and as always I will fill you guys in on the progress. I bolted my intake down today and installed some of the bolt on parts. I will probably have it back together tomorrow. I will then tackle installing the rest of the new freeze plugs. The next thing I need to do is finish installing the new 33 gallon tank so I can actually run this engine some. Anyway here is where I am now. 
To be honest I don't remember but I believe the shorter side goes toward the rear of the truck. I will take a look tomorrow and let you know. The only thing I got done today was I sprayed down the front of the engine with purple power and scrubbed it with a wire brush and then hit it with the hose. It still looks greasy and dirty but it is allot better than it was. I took the water pump housing off yesterday and blasted it. Today I painted it and put in my new heater hose barb. I took my dremel tool to the inside of where the water tubes go and cleaned out all the rust and scale so the tubes should have no problem going in now. I will post pictures when I get it installed tomorrow. 
Today I found a hour as the sun was going down to work on my gas tank straps though. I started out by measuring and marking where I wanted to cut the strap. 
Then I checked to see if my measurements were correct and they were. 
Then I marked where I wanted my holes for the rivets and used my punches to mark the holes. 
I didn't have any metal drill bits so I tried using a cheap wood one at first and I learned quickly that it wouldn't work. I had to put my thinking cap on and then busted out my box of self tapping metal screws and used them to drill the holes for me. 
Then I took out my trusty $5 HF rivet gun and riveted the two mobile home tie down straps together. 
That is all I had time to do tonight. I think the individual straps would probably work just find but since I have a 35 gallon after market fuel tank I wanted to make sure that my straps held so that is why I am putting two of them together. I will try to work on this some more tomorrow in between studying for my other finals. I wrenched a little bit on the engine today with what time I had. I started out by bolting the water pump housing back to the engine. Then I tackled installing the water tubes. I used a tip that I got from Will Marsh in chat about using Vaseline to coat the inside of the housing and the outside of the tubes and O rings. After I did that the tubes went in without any problems. 
Then I installed the regular style power steering pump bracket in place of the smog pump style power steering bracket that was on the Terra when I got it. 
After that I installed a brand new thermostat housing to water pump housing hose with new hose clamps. 
Then I installed a new gasket on the old water pump and got it ready to go back on the engine. 
I then installed the water pump back on the engine. 
At this point the sun was going down so that is all I got done. I might have some time tomorrow after noon to work on it so if I do I will be sure to post up what I get done. I had a hour to work on the Terra this afternoon before it got dark. I started out by putting my clutch and fan back together after a quick paint job. 
Then I installed my pressure tested and repaired radiator along with the fan shroud. 
I got this gasket for the thermoquad that I am going to run until I get the fuel injection going. I used the same one on my 392 in the trail truck and I was not impressed. I think I am probably going to go with the felpro Marine gasket which is probably 5 times as thick as the Mr. Gasket one. 
Then I bolted my thermoquad down after I had cleaned it up a bit with carburetor cleaner. If this one leaks I believe I am going to build one of the Holley 4175 spreadbore replacements that Bruce and I found in Charlotte this year to go on the 345. 
I have to put on some new radiator hose and heater hoses along with other small odds and ends but I should be able to crank it up pretty soon. Once I get it up and running well I will start on the transmission. I had a hour or daylight this afternoon and since it was 70 degrees I decided to go and see what I could get done on my Terra. When I walked up to the truck I heard something wrestling around under the hood. Since I hadn't opened the hood in about 3 weeks I popped it open only to have a squirrel jump out and run away. I chased it down but it got away. Then I looked at the intake manifold and saw that they had made themselves at home. There were shells and feces on both sides of the manifold and those little tree rats had chewed through my brand new heater hose! 
I started to put my transfer case back together last night and finished this afternoon. I ordered a seal kit for it from border parts almost two years ago and am just getting around to using it. The entire rebuild kit was $139 and I didn't want to pay that so I just took it apart and gave my dad the bearings that came out of it. He ordered the new timken ones through the paper mill at their price and the entire Dana 20 rebuild ended up costing me $43 when it was all said and done. I soaked the parts in degreaser for a few days while it was apart and then sandblasted them before I gave it a fresh coat of paint today. 
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