87_Pioneers

1990 Grey Long bed with tan bench interior. Tear down to restore underway.

1989 was grey at one point with a 4.0 AX15 combo and grey full console and buckets. Remainder of the truck is headed for scrap by the end of the month.

So I have 2 small areas of rust through the unibody on the new Comanche I just picked up. Everything else appears to be solid but this area had the carpet over it and wet mouse nest in the frame rail causing some isolated holes. I have been thinking of the best way to tackle this that would remove the rust and keep things structural. I am also planning to do frame stiffeners after the repair and coating everything as best as possible. I have drawn a very crude CAD drawing of the frame with the affected area and my thoughts. Option 1 is simple cut out the affected channel bend up a new plate and do a butt weld to put in new metal where the rust is. However I don't like I have no way to fish plate it or anything of the such. Option 2 would include cutting out and butt welding in a new piece of metal but on the inside of the frame doing another plat with a fish tail on the inside of the unibody spanning the length of the patch area out another 4" or so either side of the repair. I am just not sure if this is going to be to overkill or to much heat in an area before frame stiffeners go on as well? or am I way over thinking this and I should just cut out the rusty areas as needed and put in new metal without bending up whole new sections of "rail". The truck is not going to be wheeled hard and will be mostly a driver with occasional trips to wheel or camp.

Well things went a little sideways pulling the bed and getting the trucks pulled in the shop. The parts truck broke in half and basically has no frame left. The planned Grey project truck has a little worse then I expected. Which leaves me torn as I think it is still able to be saved but more work then I was originally thinking. I may be on the look out for a new base and make the Grey truck a longer term project.

I won't be able to get a better look until this weekend as I decided to go back to school for some reason while still working 40+ hours a week lol. The black truck is totally and completely beyond repair. I originally had a pipe dream of a truggy but I do not see that happening. I am torn between hacking the short box up as patch panels for the long box. It seems like the short box may he worth it to someone else in need as it is very clean with minimal rust under the flares. The Grey truck I noticed today has a couple small holes starting in the unibody by the cab mounts. The rest seems very sound so I am hoping a little surgery and some fishplate reinforcement will work just fine. I also have a pile of parts in the bed to comb through. So expect several items to come up for sale in the classifieds soon lol. Plan for the weekend is to finish cleaning my barn now that it is warm out and I sold my scout II that I was way over my head on. Pull the box on the short box and then wheel it in the barn. The Grey interior I will be keeping and the drive train as part of me wants to manual swap down the road. Which leads me to question if a short bed drive shift from an AX 15 would work on the long box?

I have been wanting a comanche since I turned 16 many years ago. However the timing was never right or we didn't have the space or they would sell before I could purchase. I had just sat down after coming home from vacation and saw these posted on marketplace and got lucky the other two guys no showed. So $800 later and 4 hours in my old sad chevy I brought home 2 87s. The Grey long bed is going to be the project and then black short bed will be striped for parts and scraped. The unibody is completely beyond repair however the bed is surprisingly good which would be great if it was also a long bed. More pics to come as I get them both in my barn and start working on them in the coming weeks.

I am beginning to notice that. But also the way this thing rotted out is bizarre. The passenger side floors are in somewhat on shape. Not saveable by any means but they are there compared to the drivers. The rear is the complete opposite. We will see how it goes I plan on cutting more into it tonight and hopefully getting the body mount tacked on this week. And see if that helps my.door problem. I will feel much better to pull the doors off then. I am also at a somewhat standstill waiting in a bead roller die, and waiting for another week for my dad to be cleared of covid so I can go steal his cherry picker and hopefully bring back a more seasoned eye to look things over.

Spent quite a bit of time out in the barn over the holidays. Dash is pulled and most items stripped off the firewall. I braces the tub with some angle iron and supported it with some screw jacks. My passenger door shorts great. However thr drivers is a different story. Even with the bracing it sags about a half inch due to the lack of support on the frame side. I can watch the footwell flex when I lift up the door to close it. I was planning to take the doors off however due to this I think I might do some acrobatic welding with the doors on to try and keep it close. I will be doing the rest of the body mounts before getting to far, to see if that helps. I would get the wedge mount installed so I can hopefully get everything to line up for the first time in many years. The passenger rear quarter is quite the item to look at. At some point in time duct work was riveted to both sides where a very large section of both inner and outer where cut out. Not exactly sure if it was some "rust" repair or what but it did not do this thing any favors while sitting outside over the years.

Not bad one spot on the cowl cover for the wiper motor is soft. I haven't pulled the windshield yet to look under it. Looks like the inside corners at the dash are a little rough but once I remove the dash I should be able to patch it from the looks of it.

Pretty much what 89 mj said. Most common parts, floors, supports, rear quarters, can all be purchased new. Thankfully the front fenders are in good shape one has a dent and the other needs a small amount of rust repair. I am actually looking at buying a complete parts truck for the engine, hood, and header panel.

Took advantage of the nice Michigan November weather of 40 degrees yesterday. Stripped the inners and heater box out. Took some measurements for records of putting it back together and cut out what was left of the drivers floor. With covid we won't be traveling for Thanksgiving this year so I am hoping to take advantage of the long weekend to start working on cleaning up the drivers side floor and rocker. The plan is to get it repaired and the floor sitting on the frame again. So I can weld some supports and try to have thr body as square as possible when I pull it out. I also picked up a an Woodward bead roller to help with some of the patch panels. Plan for today is clean the shop, set the wife up on dashboard removal and finish cleaning out the "bed" area. I am hoping to be able to roll it out this week and pressure wash everything as well to make it a little easier to work on.

Little more tear down work. Progress has slowed due to needing to cut, weld, grind bolts off. But the passenger fender is absolutely spotless which is surprising. Wife has been working late so no help from her currently which does help speed things up. Nice to give her small tasks to tackle that free up time for me to work on the more difficult items.

I have looked into SuperScout and Anything scout but Superscout seems cheaper for the same parts? The floors I am going to try my hand at making from scratch.

I had a 1220 and we shared a love hate relationship lol when it worked I loved it but didnt work often.

So the wife was jealous of the fact she drives her 12 liberty year round and I have the lifted JK in the summer and the lifted XJ in the winter lol. So we had been shopping around for something she wanted. Tried to find a comanche but sadly to much money currently. I remember when I first joined this site a running driving one in the area would be less then 1k. Anyway we looked at square bodies, broncos, yes, tjs, etc. Finally one day she sends me a link to an international scout. So after some haggling and finally getting a free weekend. What should have been a 4 hour trip turned into 10 after my friends truck blew a wheelbearing on the highway and we had to wait for his dad to bring us parts to change it. After all of that this is what we came home with. It is for sure more of a project then I have ever tackled alone and I am very new to body work so it should be a good learning experience. Plus part of the deal is since its her car she has to help work on it which I was surprised how cool and excited she was about it. The scout is a 77 Scout 2 SuperScout. A 196 4 banger with a T19 4 speed, dana 20 Transfer case, and 44s front and rear. Sadly part of the SS package was thr soft top and doors which were completely ruined and the guy I bought it from didn't bother to grab. Even if the material is bad the frames would have been useable or at least a good template to start from. Originally I was thinking a 5.3 ls from a 99+ silverado but I have a free dodge 360 from my dad that he also offered to build that may be the new heart down the road. Pretty excited to see how this build goes over the winter. Should have it gutted by the end of the week and I have a new MIG and metal on the way. Will be posting pictures here to document the build as it goes. Plus hopefully give me something to look at when I loose motivation when it hits zero degrees here in MI.