I got a lot to say about Scouts, in terms of “laying down of knowledge that would be useful and google-able”. I wouldn’t mind starting my own build thread at Binder Planet OR doing Youtube vids. I kinda aspire to that as a “cool thing”. But it isn’t a burning “to do” for me and it would require, for me, a whole new regimen of composition. And I already got this wp blog. So it goes here, at my generalist blog. I’m going to lay down the knowledge. If I want to transcribe it later at BP or yT, it’s done.
But I had come up with a name. Scout Bill’d. Get it.
I got 4 new cab mounts in this bitch. They’re in, did it. I think I been working on this Scout seriously since Sept, 2020. I got this truck in what, 1993? It had bad cab mounts then. The universal, governing, running joke is a guy who won’t sell his parked shitbox because he’s “going to restore it someday.” Well alright, I started… I got to “someday”, having parked the truck 17, 18 years prior.
I did worry about the wisdom of keeping that commitment to myself though, and it was because of the cab mounts. They were shot to non-existent. Ya know, the money expenditure.. and… am I the guy who makes it a worse truck than it is now and can’t fix it and basically can’t then liquidate it for meaningful money? Am I going to kill this truck? But then, you’re sitting there in 2020 and you got a vintage truck that’s worth 2k if you look under it, and thing is I didn’t need the 2K, and I was emotionally attached to the truck. So I was going to fix it.
Just saying, I had doubts. Doubts I could do the job properly.
Well I fixed it. I had most of the tools and what I didn’t have, I could easily afford cuz the magic of Chinesium (Menard’s / Harbor Freight). I had a bit of the knowledge, and what I didn’t have I got from aforementioned Binder Planet and yT.
So the Scout community is amazing for the fix and restoration knowledge stuff they’ve canonized. Encylopaedic, amazing stuff. What I have to say about cab mounts is: the Scout community has a best practice knowledge kernel around cab amounts that says buy them from Super Scout Specialists, cut your old ones out, and weld your new ones in…. And this should not actually be the superseding piece of insight on the topic.
Here’s the thing: those SSS cab mounts, which are OEM copies, are exceedingly difficult for handy amateurs to install properly on a rusty Scout to the point where I don’t think it’s very often the proper remedy for said rusty Scout. If you have a nice-ish Scout and the mounts are easy cut outs – or – you’re doing rotisserie restoration… yeah, do the SSS cab mounts.
If you got a rusty Scout and no rocker panels and floors, contemplating putting those SSS cab mounts in is beguiling to the point it may make you think you can’t save your truck. I had bought a set of the SSS cab mounts cuz I just assumed that was “the way”. You go to put them in… my floors were so gone, I was like, “what do they even weld to and how do you know they’re welded in at the proper height such that you might tack them on “somewhere?”. I thought… “This can’t possibly work, I can’t save this truck.”
The answer is, you don’t use the SSS cab mounts, not for a rusty truck that’s not a super best effort restoration. If you have a totally rusted out floor, and you want to merely get your truck back on the road in a safe way: you go to the metal store and buy some 1 x 3, 14 gauge tubing. You cut 2 foot pieces, you need 4 of them.
In the front, you’re going to run your pieces from the bottom of the A pillar to the corner edge of the transmission tunnel, directly over the cab mount flange on the frame. You stick ‘em with a combination of robust bolts and welding.
In the rear cab, you on each side cut out the existing mount spot that is integral to the rear cab, under cab support. So what you’re left with on that is a center support that is factory tubing, and you’ve exposed open ends on each side. You slot your back 1 x 3s to fit those openings, and you get as tight a fit as you can. You sleeve those 1 x 3s in there, and you run those to the B pillars on each side, directly over the mid rear frame cab mount flanges. Weld them in.
Aforementioned Scout community, maybe car community as whole, actually has this prevailing moral disapproval for repairs “not done right”. Which is paradoxical such that guys might make bubba fixes to their bubba trucks. Well, these tubing cab mounts end up looking a hair bubba or more, particularly the rears. The question though is, are they strong and safe?
Yeah they are. I don’t mean to be flippant, and I’m cognizant of what I don’t know as an amateur… but as a handy guy I know there’s no way they couldn’t be strong enough. You’re putting in a beefier piece of metal (14 ga vs factory 16 ga) and you’re actually welding it extravagantly compared to factory spot welds that prioritized efficiency of material and effort in the mfg process.
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These cab mounts work. Do them that way, and then find your references for floor and rocker placement, and build to that. A detail worth noting, you may end up needing different height body pucks to level the cab front to back, where proper installation of SSS cab mounts assumes you use pucks that are all the same height. Well… small price to pay. I just think there’s no way the handy amateur tacks those replica cab mounts in “in spec” vertical heights. You’ll end up adjusting puck heights anyway. You know you’re level when the doors close properly.
AND THEN EVEN BETTER: you got those 1 x 3’s under there as cab mounts, then with a sleeve cut you can tie your new rocker panels to them under the A and B pillars. Gives them more structural support than the way they actually left the factory.
Gusset the shit out of stuff from your new supports to wherever on your shitbox will take a good weld. The more elegantly you can do it of course, the more credible your restoration job looks. That small stuff does add up.
What you need…
Misc: Big Jack. probably a $150 item, IDK
Demolition and fab: Big 7 inch cut off, grinder, sawzall, welder. You can get it all for less than $400.
Material: $80 in steel, 1 x 3 tubing, 8 ft of it.
Cab mounts are done. It’s a big deal.
Zingy Skyway Lunch 