I know it's boring, but I need to get this thing running right and smogged. Kalifornia has its issues as we all know. Anyway, it hasn't idled as well as I had hoped, although when I had been doing test runs up and down my street, it seemed basically strong. But here I am now with all the smog stuff on it and finishing up putting the front clip on it. Recent activity is as follows in getting this very beaten 1980 "road worthy" although cosmetic problems such as crunched fenders and dents are at the bottom of the list.
1) turned new neoprene body bushings, 7/8" thick. Done.
2) new frame and spring eye rubber bushings (1 of the 12 from the vendor was wrong). Otherwise, suspension done this weekend.
3) front axle completely gone through. Done rebuilt power brake booster, new m/c, rebuilt calipers, turned rotors (last time for these guys), all new brake hoses, system flushed. Done
4) power steering. Pump cleaned, painted, resealed, except shaft seal leaks worse. Bad seal. Tried to replace high pressure hose, but there's an issue with listings and availability for the i4 application (not same as v8, as we found out!). Jeff looking into this...otherwise old hose still pliable and being used for now.
5) cleaned cooling system with prestone super flush + 1 lb. Citric acid powder, flushed out lots of rust from corroded lower hose spring. Installed new stainless steel spring (used on mustangs). Installed 7lb cap. Heater system rebuilt and working aok.
6) installed correct carb approved catalytic convertor (magnaflow #39006 - carb approved for 1979-80 Scout II 196, 304, 345. Has 2.5" inlet and outlet). Referee station said they would verify if they even had to crawl under there to see the number, so be sure it's mounted down so they can see it! Done
7) serendpitously found an nos gulp valve used on 79-80 scouts w/196 (did you know they were made by Holley?). Unbelievable! Welded up new bracket to mount smog pump on left side of engine (above p/s pump) so I can have my air conditioning, eventually. Looks almost factory. Emissions air hoses lengthened to accomodate this change. Does work! When you run the engine up and let off the gas, it takes a second or two to cycle; mild popping from tailpipe is proper response.
8) still need a proper tvs to control the egr. The one in there has broken nipples (sounds painful

). Egr in place, not operating yet.
9) smog pump. The pump "on loan" is failing and howls. However, it isn't a pump from a 1980. That air pump has a different number and sss is researching the difference, so it will be good to know exactly what parts ended up being goofy for the 196s the very last year. It May, in fact, be the same as the earlier pumps with the exception of, say, having metric threads or somesuch - one can hope. There are absolutely no listings or availability for this pump otherwise. Period. Not wanting a smog nazi issue here. Sss to verify and then we'll see if a generic Scout air pump will substitute and pass the visual.
10) carb does backfire occasionally when blipping throttle. The backfire is sufficient to kill the engine (most of the time) or if not, it chugggggs and recovers. Don't know cause yet. Not happy with idle quality. The carb has been dicked with in the past but 1940s are rare birds and $$$$. Don't want to replace if it is avoidable. New fuel pump puts out a rock-steady 5 psi regardless.
11) took off the visible parts of the megajolt/edis system to get by the smog nazis. Reinstalled original prestolite distributor and timed per the emissions sticker. 0 btdc. Although the vacuum can does work and holds vacuum, for some bizarre reason I don't see its action reflected on the timing marks (using a timing light). Bizarre. Plus it is hooked to manifold vacuum all the time, per the sticker. Hmmm.... Further investigation required. In the meantime, I disconnected it to establish what the built-in mechanical curve is at this time. At 3,000 rpm I get 23 degrees.

wow, is that late! Don't have the nerve yet to run the engine to 4k to see what it will do. I would like to know what the curve for that distributor is supposed to be. Can't be that late, can it? Update: obtained the three data points for this distributor. Appears the curve is low by at least 4 degrees at all points below 3,000 rpm. Looks like I'll be tweaking the primary spring post...in this distributor there's a light spring which controls advance up to around 3,500 rpm, then there's a heavier spring that retards the
rate Of advance after that point and pushes the advance curve downward (done this once before on this type of distributor).
Engine is otherwise sound, compression test puts all cylinders within 5 lbs., and it pulls 15 1/2 inches vacuum at idle.
Any comments/observations welcome at this time!
Getting closer to getting it on the road!
Update: took the vacuum canister apart, and then back together. Vacuum advance action now works; I get 8 degrees advance (crank) with it. I believe the little arm was misaligned somehow. About the backfire situation while blipping the throttle. Nothing made sense, except that the vehicle sat for a couple of months, and thinking maybe a small amount of water condensed in tank. Put in two bottles of heet, which is essentially methanol. The backfiring disappeared. Only backfires now if I'm blipping it too quickly and the gulp valve hasn't had time to cycle (as this leans out the intake manifold). Replaced rear wheel cylinders - one filled solid with rust and crud - new shoes, cleaned all hardware and return springs. Automatic adjusters working like champs. Rear axle seals don't appear to be leaking. Replaced all wheel cylinder and caliper bleed nipples with those special spring-loaded self bleeders. One was defective - they left out the guts! Napa replaced...however, one of the remanned calpers has a bad or goofy bleeder seat, and the special bleeder won't seat and seal, so replaced with stock nipple. Oh well....pedal goes low, so I'm thinking of adding a 10 psi check valve to the rear line.
Update to the update: the rougher-than-expected idle quality has really bugged me. So when you go through the process of excluding causes, you eventually get way down the list of possibilities. To this. When I put this back together, I took out of a box the two original motor mounts I had been saving from a time when I rebuilt them for the light line and sss sold them back in the 1990s. They were potted from urethane. My originals - to prove the process - were made from a batch of about shore a, 90 durometer, stuff. Later ones were from I think 70, which is a big difference, and the heavy mass of the sv engines worked well with them. Didn't occur to me how stiff these would be - especially with a much lighter 4 banger - and they transmitted almost all engine vibrations. The cab, having virtually no interior deadening materials (carpet or jute, no door panels), just the bench seat, was like a tuning fork and the needles on the gauges would just dance. I had a pair of oem mounts with still a bit of good rubber, and just put them in (those are actually a durometer of around 55). About 1/4" clearance left shell-to-mount, which is like the old saying "putting on your cleanest dirty shirt". Almost all the objectionable cab vibration and engine roughness simply went away. A bit of playing with the idle and wow! Eventually having a full interior will make it just like it had ought to be. Becoming more civilized a step at a time.
