This is the truck. Erm…no, sorry, let’s try that again: this is the truck. H’mm…closer, but still not quite.
This is The Truck. There, that’s got it right. A pumper truck retired from a fire brigade, as it seems.
This what a Truck looks and sounds like (in accord with Scripture, hallelujah, amen!), and it’s got super-duper-durable dual donks—that’s Australian slang for “engines”. Up front it’s got a kryptonite-tough 392 V8 equipped with what the seller describes as “CA emissions that should be taken off”. No, they shouldn’t; given the all-but-nonexistent exhaust emission standards for heavy trucks when this one was built, even in California, he’s probably referring to the dual vapour canisters visible in the engine bay, and they’re all to the good.
There’s plenty more to see under the butterfly hoods. Everything is heavy-duty big: a giant alternator (I guess it’s a Leece-Neville unit), some very hefty electrical boxes on the firewall—the nearest to us is a 150-ampere NewMar Alternator Noise Filter to keep electrical noise from spoiling CB radio reception; apparently these are still a thing. There’s a big compressor for the air brakes, some missing vacuum lines, and a large (yay) Holley (boo) 4-barrel carburetor, for which there’s an air cleaner or two on the passenger seat.
It’s an automatic, which I guess to be an Allison AT-540 or AT-545; if so, that’s a unit with a very distinctive sound of its own in 2-part harmony with the 392 engine; this Truck’s paint colour helps me almost hear that choir as I recall some of the earliest school buses I rode. Those didn’t have seatbelts, either.
Actually, check that—better make it 3-part harmony; in back, powering the pump, it’s got…
…a Slant-6! Because of course; no use having a truck that will bull through whatever hell might present if your pump’s not equally sturdy, eh? It’s painted yellow to match the truck, which is a little strange, and it has an oil-bath air cleaner equipped with a fitting for a closed crankcase breather hose. Interesting anachronism, that; oil-bath air cleaners had mostly gone extinct by the time ducted crankcase breathers came along in ’64 (California) ’68 (rest of the US)—at least on engines the average person was likely to see.
Just lookit all the gauges and pushbuttons and pull-knobs and levers and valves and stuff on the left side of the body. And the diamond-plate stairsteps and running boards. And the quad-sealed-beam rotating beacons atop the pump body, probably Unity items missing only their red domes, and the old-school chrome-and-glass aimable spotlights and red warning lights outboard of that grand wraparound windshield, oh, baby!
»aHEM!« Sorry. Where was I? Right: I’m guessing there’s a motor-driven siren, somewhere, too, if it hasn’t been liberated in the manner of the winch the seller says he’s keeping. Apropos of nothing but stuff in the vicinity of the winch, I think these Loadstars look best with the grille not painted the same colour as the rest of the body. Black’s okeh. Chrome might look bitchin’ or might look overcooked; don’t know if they ever came that way. It’s argent silver in the “Loadstar” image that pops to mind by default.
Seller says it’s one of the last units built before EOP in late 1977. I’m not an expert, but I’m under the impression the Loadstar range carried on through 1979, with the butterfly hoods being optional to a sacriligious new unitised tilt-hood before being replaced by the S-Series for 1980. In any event, It’s been on the Seattle Craigslist for at least a month; the ad is here; archived here. There’s another Loadstar parked next to it, evidently late of the Bovill (Idaho) Volunteer Fire Department; not a word about that one in the ad.
Massive hood hinges. Yep, the Front looks just like our School Busses. According to wikipedia, International made a 501 cu. in. Inline-6? There’s a Torque Beast. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_International_Harvester/Navistar_engines
They didn’t fit in the Loadstar’s short hood. But I shot and wrote up this R Series with a big six. It’d take it over this truck.
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/curbside-classics-american/curbside-classic-1966-international-r190-awd-truck-my-current-lust-object/
As a child of the 70s, that’s every school bus I ever rode on, but they were all stick shifts that I can remember and every gear had its own sound, and they all sounded better going home in the afternoon.
Ive never seen a fire pump driven by a car engine before; on the smaller 1-ton pickup-based brush trucks, its normally an air cooled 2 cylinder Kohler, B&S, etc. That truck is serious business.
Remember the charmed-snake double-curve in the gearstick on those? Straight up out of the floor for a couple feet, then a rearward curve, then an upward-lefward curve.
And most of the drivers working those school bus stick shifts were little old ladies who had admirable driving skills.
Ditto the little old ladies. I had to admire not only their maneuvering skills and their ability to row those 5-speeds, but also their steering prowess. Our school district didn’t pony up for power steering until the late 1970’s. One driver told me it was because P/S had been problematic when they’d tried it before. Who knows, it may have been that the old-school (pardon the pun) mechanic who maintained the fleet just didn’t want another leak point to deal with.
Yup. I drove a Loadstar single axle dump truck for Baltimore County in about 1973. 5 speed and splitter axle. So much fun to run through all the ten gears at full chat. Yes, that stick was a bit odd.
All of the buses I rode were IH Loadstars with sticks, 5-speed with a 2-speed rear end. I believe they were 392’s and they certainly had a unique sound. Until the tilt-hoods, they all had argent-colored grilles, but the slots were narrower.
Yep, this was the ubiquitous school bus when I was a kid, usually mated to a bus made by Superior Coach or a few others I don’t recall. You’d see occasional Ford, Chevy/GMC, or Dodge buses too but the IH was predominant. The outlier was the occasional Bluebird school bus with a flat front that made it look more like a transit bus. The last time I rode to school on a bus we rode on new buses with the new upright chrome International grille – I assumed this was just a facelift, but I now know was an entirely new model (S series?) that replaced the Loadstar.
I seem to remember many Thomas built buses too.
Yeah, that was the other common one. Even though I didn’t pay attention to who made buses when I was a kid, you couldn’t escape the coach builder’s brand name because it was embossed on the back of the seat in front of you. Yes, the back of the seats were metal until the late ’70s when I first rode on the S series school bus which had higher-back seats that were padded on both sides.
Superior, Thomas Built, Carpenter, Ward, Blue Bird…
I remember Superior and Thomas Built but not Carpenter or Ward. Blue Birds were relatively rare and had flat fronts like a transit bus rather than the cab of the chassis maker.
I had a 1970 Jaguar XJ6 for more than 20 years. The alternator quit and I took it to my generator/starter/alternator rebuilder. I had used him for 20 plus years, mostly on Lucas units.
The Jaguar unit was branded Butec. When Elmer saw it he said Leece-Neville, just like the Highway patrol used. He added that he had never seen one that small and he didn’t have parts. In 2 days he had parts and all was well for $42.
Elmer was surely listening to this one, as he worked on the Jag’s alternator …..
Junior Brown’s “Highway Patrol.”
Happy Listening!
https://youtu.be/x_wLVCLPx0M
Probably has a Fabco front axle and t-case.
That’s a serious piece of equipment. Having a /6 on board makes it even better. A lot of work went into engineering that rig. I can almost hear the slide rules and Punch cards at work.
Why the “boo” for the Holley carb? It’s a better choice over any Carter, most Rochester and all but the 2100 series Motorcraft carbs.
I didn’t (and don’t) intend to touch off a battle in the everlasting carburetor brand wars—only to state a side of them I’m not on. :^)
No wars here. I was just curious.
Well the only choice for this application is Holley, no one else made a governor carb of the needed capacity. Even w/o the need for a governor the Holley is the only choice for a 4bbl on a SV, unless you really like fighting with a Thermoquad. The thermoquad was developed for a reason and that is the poor heat control of the AFB and a AFB is a nightmare on a SV unless you live where the temps never get over 70. Some Q-Jets will fit but most will not clear the thermostat housing.
Interesting info, thanks, though this source claims Thermo-Quads were used on the 345 and 392 in ’79 and ’74, respectively.
Still not interested in fighting carburetor wars. I generally disprefer Holleys, but they—like all other brands of carburetor—have their relative merits. And (also like all other carburetor brands and most carburetor models) for every person who says “Ew, those suck, they’re junk” there’s at least one person with an equally strong, opposite opinion. And for just about every carburetor make and model ever made, there’s at least one rockstar wizard out there who knows how to make ’em walk and talk, dance and sing.
Yes the T-Quad was used on the 392 in the 74 and 75 392 in the light duty trucks and then again in 79 and 80 on the 345 in the Scout family. But now several decades later finding and/or putting together and making a T-quad that works right is not an easy proposition. Then you have to find that low production spread bore manifold. If you’ve got that spread bore manifold finding the right Q-jet and keeping it running right economically is the better choice.
That T-quad, close ratio 4sp, 2.73 gears and the radial tire package allowed the 345 Scout to get a 20mpg hwy rating beating out the best 304 or 196 combination.
Gee whiz, that’d be excellent mileage out of a 345 Scout. I didn’t approach it in my ’89 Dodge D100 with TBI 318 and highway rear end ratio.
Could you show a citation/link for that? The only one I found from the EPA showed combined ratings of 13 mpg for all 345 V8 Scouts. There’s no way I can see a vehicle getting 20 mpg rating on the highway and getting a combined rating of 13.
Also, these are the old, unadjusted EPA numbers, which need to be reduced by some 30% to reflect the modern adjusted numbers. These old numbers were way too optimistic.
I can’t see a 345 Scout getting anything near an actual 20 mpg EPA rating, never mind achieving it in real life.
I loved the old Loadstars. My employer had one, a ’77 1600 with the 345 and a 5 speed. Most all that I ever saw had the ‘small’ IH V-8, usually the 345 or 392. A few of the later ones had DT-466 diesels, some of the early ones had the BD-265 in line 6. The 6V-53 Detroit was also an option for many years, Loadstars so equipped had a different grille and a fiberglass tilt hood.
This truck shows another uniquely trucky characteristic in the ’70s: Wraparound windshield. Passenger cars gave up the stupidly fashionable trend in ’62, but Dodge and Ford and IH continued using wraparounds on some of their bigger trucks through the ’70s. No reason to change.
The Loadstar shared its doors and windshield with the smaller A-series trucks that were introduced in 1957 (1959 pictured). Even after IHC restyled the light trucks for 1969, the Loadstar continued to use the older components to the end of production in 1979. The Loadstar was never a beauty but it was popular and got the job done.
“the Loadstar was never a beauty”. Some might disagree …
I’ll grant that the Loadstar looked better than the Sightliner COE, which also used the Loadstar doors and windshield.
Yeah, what dman said!
external rectifier?
Interesting thought. Maybe; the three cables coming off the top of the alternator (one for each phase) do suggest the rectifier’s external, and Leece-Neville (now a brand/division of Prestoline) do make external-rectifier alternators. But while I’m not finding an image online of what such a rectifier looks like now, let alone what they looked like in the 1970s, I don’t think that big rounded black box is a rectifier. For one thing, it’s where the output (“BAT”) of the alternator noise filter connects, and that wouldn’t be the case if this were a rectifier unit. Also, the mystery box’s uppermost threaded-stud terminal is labelled “IGN”, and the wires attached to it and its fellows are much smaller gauge than the triple cables coming off the alternator. I think it’s some kind of a junction/power distribution box. Wouldn’t mind being able to read the dataplate on its front.
My company uses 120v. AC power inverters that require the truck to be equipped with this type of Leece-Neville alternator. The inverter unit has a built-in rectifier and 12v. voltage regulator to supply the vehicle electrical system, and makes 120v. AC right off the alternator. This equipment requires external connection to the alternator phase connectors, and as far as I know Leece-Neville alternators are the only ones that offer this feature. This is the company that manufacture the inverters:
http://www.vanner.com/
Ah, I hadn’t even thought of an inverter, but that’s gotta be at least a sturdy guess at what it is.
Not absolutely sure, but I think some slant sixes had yellow painted valve covers in stock form. I’m thinking of the 198 offered for a while as the junior /6 for trucks.
’63 (possibly late ’62) through ’69 225s in Dodge trucks and vans were painted yellow, but not this yellow—more like a paler, slightly cooler John Deere yellow. But that was long in the past when this truck’s 6 was built; Dodge truck engines got the same blue paint as the car engines starting in ’70, and black starting in ’83 or ’83.
The 198 supplanted the 170 as the base engine in the compacts (Dart, Valiant, Duster) for ’70, and was dropped after ’74 making the 225 the base engine. Wikipedia claims (with no support) the 198 was available in the A100 van for 1970 only; other than that, AFAIK the 198 was not offered in the bigger cars or in the trucks and vans.
I’ve always liked the Loadstar trucks and I also remember them powering Bluebird and Wayne bodied school buses in th e70’s as well as various municipal and commercial trucks. The winch makes me think it might have been a brush or wild land rig.simular to the more modern S-Series and Freightliner crew cabs the Forest service uses.
I’d love to have one as a show and hobby truck, although lack of funds and space make it a long term goal.
You can argue the merits of various carburetors all day. This is a real truck. Real trucks had governors on the carbs in those days. Now, it’s done in the ECU, but then it was done with springs and diaphragms on the carb’s throttle linkage. The governor is clearly visible in the picture of the engine.
When was the last time you saw a governor on a Thermoquad? On a Quadrajet?
This truck has a Holley because Holley built 4-barrel carbs with governors.