60 OCTOBER 2019 4-WHEEL & OFF-ROAD 4WHEELOFFROAD.COM
ULTIMATE INTERNATIONAL
1
W hen we lef t of f l ast month we had done
a bunch of strange and unnatural things
to the Scout’s vintage sheetmetal, including
chopping 3 inches out of the top (“Ultimate
International,” Part 1, Sept. 2019). Tech Edi-
tor Verne Simons TIG-welded the top and the
other sheetmetal modifications using the new
Miller Multimatic 220 AC/DC welder, which is
a combination MIG and TIG machine. It’s really
handy being able to switch back and forth
between welding processes quickly (thanks to
the dual tanks of shielding gas). Simons used
silicone bronze rod to give the weld seams a
vintage farmhand-looking fix.2
Chopping the top was fairly easy, but one
byproduct was that the front portion of
the roof needed to stretch a little to meet the
now shortened windshield frame. It didn’t
need much, but there was just enough of a
gap to be annoying. We contemplated doing
several things to fix it, including scabbing a
short piece of sheetmetal to the roof, but the
corrugated roof would make this dif ficult and
it wouldn’t look ver y good. W hat we really
needed was the front section of another top.3
Amazingly, we found exactly that! On a
whim we reached out to some local Scout
enthusiasts we had sold the engine and
transmission to. We asked if there was any
chance they had a junk top we might be able
to scavenge. Twenty dollars and a day later we
had the front section of a top that had been
heavily damaged in a windstorm, but the front
portion was still intact. It was exactly what weneeded and the best solution to our problem.
Sometimes being a hoarder pays off.4
We cut our top about an inch ahead of the
forward rib and then cut down the new
piece so that we added about 1^1 ⁄ 2 inches of
overall length to the roof. Like the rest of the
cuts, we used painter’s tape as a guide and
then used a small reciprocating saw to make
the actual cuts.5
After tack-welding the two sections of top
together on the vehicle and making sure
everything lined up, we removed the top and
Simons finished stitching the top together.
With this complete, the top and windshield
frame are ready for a local glass shop to install
new shorter glass. We may try to even out the
patina to make it less obv ious that the t wo
sections of the top came from different places,
but we probably won’t get around to it.6
While we were whittling away at sheet-
metal , we al so star ted on the rollcage and
rock slider s. We turned to Industrial Metal
Supply for all of the tubing and sheetmetal
we will be using for the project. We picked up
1.50x0.120-wall and 1.75x0.120-wall DOM
tubing for the rollcage, 2.00x0.188-wall DOM
for the rock sliders, 1.00x0.095-wall for vari-
ous fabrication projects, and a 4x4 sheet of(^3) ⁄ 16 - and (^1) ⁄ 4 -inch steel, among other things. It
was nice to be able to source ever y thing all in
one place, and IMS even did some custom cuts
for us at no additional charge.
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