In 2008, my friend Brian and I were looking at Scouts whenever we saw them pop up in the classified ads. I had sold my old Scout to him, he’d fixed up my rusty beater up into a jewel, and he wanted to help me find a new one. On New Years Day 2009 he sent me a Craigslist ad about a Scout for sale at an auction lot, and asked if I’d like to check it out. I wasn’t expecting anything special. The last one we’d looked at looked good in the pixelated, compressed pictures online, but what we found after driving all the way across the city was a frightening, leaky wreck.
The average condition of the Scouts we were looking at. This is one of the better examples.
This truck had “ragged out trail beater” written all over it, so I figured we’d be there for fifteen minutes and then go get some lunch. In the picture it was a hideous purple, accented with a bright yellow hood and an orangish-red windshield, sitting atop four oversized 32″ tires on blacked-out rims. As a rule, any lifted truck I’ve ever looked at has been thrashed to within an inch of its life, so my expectations were low.
We found it sitting in a crowded impound lot, and on first glance, it wasn’t any better in person, probably because it was surrounded by equally forlorn-looking vehicles. But as we started crawling over it, I was more and more amazed at the condition it was in. All of the sheet metal was straight and about 97% rust-free. It had a new dual exhaust system, new shocks, a new spring/body lift, a clean rollbar, a soft top, clean rims, and brand-new tires. The engine was listed as not running, but all the parts were present minus a battery. It was far from perfect: there were patches welded into the floors, the paint job was a 50-footer, the seats were hideous replacements, the interior hardware was pretty much gone, and it was PURPLE. Inside and out. The doors, floors, tailgate and dash were all sprayed a dark shade of goofy grape.
Our friend B. joined us, another Scout owner, and we discussed it briefly before going through the truck again. In retrospect, I didn’t actually say “I really shouldn’t buy this today”, because B., a veteran of many other auctions, went over and registered me before I could stop him.
My co-conspirators, telling me it was OK that I’d just bought an inoperable Scout.
And when it came time to auction the truck, I seem to have failed to take into account the motivation of the auctioneer to get rid of his rolling stock as quickly as possible, because I tried to remain absolutely motionless after he opened the bidding, thinking, holy s*** what am I doing?!? and he kept pointing at me, and suddenly it went higher, and I tried not to blink, but it was cold, and then it went higher, and I tried not to breathe, and he pointed at me and raised, and then it was SOLD and I owned a Scout.
After the realization sunk in, I felt a little sick to my stomach. It was, in hindsight, a screaming good deal. Scouts in good condition are, as we all know, rare on the East Coast, and I’m directly in the Salt Belt where 70’s steel oxidizes faster than snow melts. 20 years ago Scouts were somewhat common around here but in the ensuing 10 years it was as if they all suddenly disappeared.
I got on the phone with my wife, who laughed and said immediately, “I kind of had a feeling you were buying a Scout today.” She could not have been more supportive. My friends assured me that they would help me get the truck running, and if I changed my mind, they’d help me sell it or part it out for at least what I’d be paying for it.
So, the next problem: How to get this brick home. Off we went to lie to the U-Haul rep: we told him it was a Honda Civic. The trailer we picked up was more than good enough for a Scout, and it was set up with hydraulic brakes. However, we had no winch. We hoped for the best and high-tailed it back to the lot. A bunch of chuckling employees appeared, and we pushed it out of its spot and lined it up about thirty feet behind the tow rig. On the word “Go”, I aimed for the center of the trailer while they pushed. I thought I hit the ramps dead-on, but apparently I was too far right, because the left wheel slammed up against the wheelguard, sending the entire thing forward, the tongue of the trailer off the ball hitch, and directly into the tailgate of the pickup. Oooops…
Remember to lock the ball hitch down tight, friends.
At this point, that rollback was looking better and better, but Brian convinced me we should give it another try. We got the trailer hooked back up, tightened the hitch down as hard as it would go, and pushed the Scout back for a second run. This time, Brian took the wheel (I couldn’t bring myself to dent his truck a second time, and the yard guys all looked like they’d been asked to punt newborn kittens) and on GO everyone heaved and got it rolling, and the Scout somehow made it up and on the trailer the whole way. Relieved, we began to cinch it down onto the trailer when we discovered a new problem: The straps bolted to the trailer were made for Geo Metro-sized tires, not 32″ BFG Mud-Terrains.
On the brink of despair, I had to marvel at the simple, practical, offhand solution offered by one of the yard guys: “Looks like you’re gonna have to air them tires down.”
Um, right. I was just about to suggest that.
Once the tires were deflated, I sat on the hood while Brian cinched them into the straps, and we pulled out of the gates at 2:55. The trip home, while a little nerve-wracking for Brian, who was piloting the barge, was uneventful. We took the back way, transiting the 10-mile journey slowly, and passed three police cars who took not a second glance at us.
Once in the driveway, we had to contend with two very deflated tires and a 3,600 lb. brick with limited stopping potential (power brakes, too). After ducking inside to grab my air compressor, we aired both tires up in about two minutes. A call was made, and soon another friend appeared with an electric boat winch, which was attached to the frame of the Scout and the trailer hitch. After a few shoves to get the right tire off the rail, it only took one small push to get the Scout rolling, and suddenly it was parked in the driveway.
I did an inventory of what I had just bought. Both of the kick panels directly in front of the A pillar were crispy. Welds along the seam of the rear wheel wells were bubbling. But overall the metal on this truck was in better shape than my ’78 when I bought that. The PO had done some remediation before giving it up; there were new patch panels installed under the driver’s footwell and several in the rear bed around the edge of the wheel arches. The underside had been sprayed, at some point, with undercoating. Then the entire truck had been taped off crudely and sprayed with a dark purple paint that was faded and dull. Some time later the hood was replaced with a spare painted School Bus Chrome Yellow and a windshield frame painted Harvester Red.
Shelby GLHS seats it came with, and the shoulder belts I put in.
The original seats were gone, replaced with a strange set of bucket seats I didn’t immediately recognize until later, when I stumbled across an article about the Shelby GLHS and suddenly recognized the embroidered logo on my headrests. These had been yanked from some hapless Shelby and welded to the original steel bases.
Two weeks later, a bunch of International friends stopped over and we set to getting it started. We followed the basic cold start checklist, and B. pulled the battery from his pickup to see if we could get it to turn over. With some gas in the carb and about three tries, it fired up and ran, the idle smoothing out in under a minute. Elated, we took it for a run around the block without plates: the steering, brakes, and cooling system all worked. Back in the driveway, the guys tossed around ideas for a name (the custom in our group is that you don’t get to name your own truck) and they thankfully settled on one I liked: Peer Pressure.
The engine was in good shape: an International 345 V8, with a 4-barrel Thermoquad in good running order. International did not make high-performance engines; they were designed to power dump trucks and school buses, which means they are low on horsepower but high on torque, and over-engineered for durability. I changed the plugs, wires and oil as soon as the weather warmed up, and had the carburetor rebuilt by the same mechanic who did my first Scout, and she was running better than before. After doing some further research I could not tell what the actual mileage was on this truck: the tub dated to 1975 by paint color (the factory gold candyflake under the purple was only offered up to that year), and the frame and engine dated to 1979. The VIN plate traced back to a Scout painted Solar Yellow and built for a dealer in Aurora, Colorado. So there was no telling how it wound up here. It also came with a Borg-Warner T19w, exactly the same 4-speed stick I had in my first Scout.
It was raised a total of four inches via spring and body lift, which meant it was running with no fan shroud. I got some flat steel and fabricated a new mount for the radiator and got one installed quickly.
Because of the stiff aftermarket springs and knobby tires, this Scout drove completely differently than my first, mostly stock version. Steering was lot sloppier. The tires were loud and liked to wander more than road-oriented tires. Even though it had discs up front and drums in back, stopping was something I had to plan for.
I immediately set to work making it more livable by adding a set of shoulder belts to the rollbar, increasing my chances of survival in any kind of accident by about 2%. I yanked the discount tape deck and installed my Kenwood CD player with a pair of 6×9 marine speakers in the two jagged holes next to the rear bench. I pulled a dumb set of Pep Boys “performance” covers off the pedals and replaced the plastic side mirror with a solid metal Jeep-style unit.
With oversized tires, the speedometer is more about guesswork than science.
I started looking around for spare parts through Craigslist and over the next couple of years sourced a bunch of extra sheet metal: two fenders and two doors from a guy in Virginia, a hood, cowl, and two bins of parts from a guy in Silver Spring, a spare 1972 grille and a cherry black dashpad from a friend in the area who was parting out his project truck before moving (wish I’d gotten his winch bumper) and two clean doors, a tailgate, and a plastic gas tank from a guy in my neighborhood who had a sad ’78 sitting in his driveway covered in vine and moss. Through horsetrading and reselling I came out a little ahead on cost, making it as cheap a hobby as possible. Pretty much the only thing I haven’t found is a clean tub, but my cousin in San Diego, who bought a Scout of his own five years ago, is on the lookout for me.
Metal cut and mocked up, waiting for tack welding
After a year or two, Brian and I made plans to build a custom bumper with a swing-away tire carrier based on some other bumpers we’d seen online. After drawing up some plans, we sourced the steel and started cutting and tacking the parts together in his garage. He took the two units to a welder near his house and got both of them finished and ready for grinding and paint.
Bumper in place with full-size spare and relocated license plate holder.
Over the course of two months we put them together and then returned to the welder to add gussets to the frames of our trucks to support the extra weight. I ran mine for about six months before taking the spare and swingarm off, because I wasn’t happy with the amount of wobble the spare tire put on the frame, and the pitch and yaw it added to the steering at speed. Because the springs are so stiff, any movement from the weight of the spare amplifies through the frame and makes everything squirrelly above 50mph. I’ve got to go back and rethink the mounting points to stiffen it up further before I’m sure it will be safe.
New PT Cruiser seats (sorry this is dark).
About 3 years ago I found a pair of clean PT Cruiser seats in the local pick-and-pull and mounted them to a spare set of seat bases I had in the garage. Some friends on the IH forums claimed they were a simple bolt-in replacement, and they were right; it took me a short afternoon to swap them out after sanding and painting the new bases. They wound up being taller but loads more comfortable than the GLHS seats or the original IH seats I’d had in my first Scout.
A new hardtop, in Glacier Blue
Another Craigslist ad led me to Annapolis, where a nice fellow was moving and liquidating his stockpile. He had a light blue hardtop that was priced right, as well as a bunch of other parts that a friend bought for his project. At this point, I’ve got enough sheetmetal that I could put a different-colored panel on every part of the truck to call it a Harlequin.
In 2014 I started sanding all of the interior paint off in preparation for spray-in bedliner that I’d bought as a package deal with two other Scout friends. It had been sitting in my basement in a reasonably climate-controlled environment for a couple of years but I was aware that it wasn’t going to last forever, so I made it my summer project. Over a long weekend I took all the paint off, washed it, etched it, painted it with POR-15 and prepared to shoot it with liner. When I opened the jars I found that two of the three ingredients had hardened, so I had to postpone the job for a week while they rushed me new materials.
After the bedliner went in.
With a borrowed compressor, I shot the liner the following Friday, let it sit overnight, and replaced the seats in time to drive it to Carlisle the next day. It made a huge difference in the amount of rattling and squeaking the tub made, as well as deadening some of the road noise outside.
That’s a GM Hydroboost system in place of the original vacuum-operated booster. I need to clean up the battery cables.
This winter a bunch of friends stopped over and helped me with another project that’s been gestating for years: swapping out the stock brake booster with a hydroboost system sourced from an Astro van. I’m told this is a pretty common mod in the hot rod world, and promises better stopping power without the use of vacuum in a smaller package under the hood. In the space of an afternoon we had it installed, the lines plumbed, the front pads replaced, and the lines bled. Unfortunately all that new power blew out one of the cylinders in the rear drums, so we’re going to reconvene and get that fixed next.
My ongoing rule is to tackle small projects I can do myself so that it’s not off the road for an extended period of time, and always keep it running. My fear is that I’ll disassemble it to the point where it’s inoperable for a month, and then a year, and then it becomes a rusting hulk in the driveway that never runs again. I want to keep this Scout on the road and moving, even if that means it’s four colors I dislike for the rest of my life.
My daughter, with her tools, helping me work on the truck in 2010
We get a thumbs-up every time it’s on the road, and looks and questions wherever we park it. I’ve had people drive up next to me in a parking lot and offer me cash for it. I’ve had people pull up in the lane next to us and take pictures. Almost everyone who recognizes it tells me they had one (or knew someone who did) and then tells me how they used to beat the snot out of it. Which is nice, I guess.
And again in 2016
As a car hobby goes, it’s as inexpensive as things get; because it’s a truck we use it for utility, but with the top off in the summertime it also doubles as a true sport. My daughter has grown up with it and prefers to take it anywhere in the summertime over the other two–more boring–cars. I’d say I have to agree. I’ve already told her it will be hers when she’s ready to drive. For this reason I don’t take it offroad like my other Scout friends do, because I know that will hasten its demise, and I’m not interested in seeing that happen again.
On the way back from picking blackberries, with the safari top up
My eventual goal for this truck is to hang on to it and slowly take it back to a more stock appearance, with a professional paint job in a true International Harvester color. But that’s after we get college out of the way. For now, it will stay four colors and keep a smile on my face while I watch people snap their necks as we drive past them.
There’s a sad postscript to this story that I hesitate to share. Last fall, Brian had a catastrophic fire in his house that burned his garage to the ground. Inside was Chewbacca, my old Scout, and it did not survive the fire. Not all is lost, though. He had it insured properly, and after he finishes constructing the new house this spring, he and I are going to start hunting for Scouts again.
Wonderful story as usual. Buying the same car the second time around isn’t always as good as it was in this case as the desire often camouflages the faults…Having a bunch of friends into the same things and willing to help makes everything all the more enjoyable.
May the Purple Scout give many more years of faithful service!
I rather like the horizontal 1972 Scout grille myself. Next to the 1980 square-headlight front, it’s the best-looking.
Tonyola, you and I disagree on the 1980 grille, but the ’72 grille is my favorite. It so happens that my spare grille is a ’72 also.
When I was first infected I did think about “upgrading” to the repo 1980 grill. Saner heads prevailed and I switched my 72 back to looking like a 72. It had a 1975 grille on it only it had the round trim rings used from 71-74 and the holes for the snap in bushings to hold the square bezels used when they recycled the 74 grille.
I like the 71-73 grilles about equally. For some reason the silver paint on the vertical 73 grille doesn’t work for me like painting it body color as they did in 73. For the 71-72 I can go either way, body color for the 71’s and silver for the 72’s. And I admit to thinking of trying to match the charcoal grey used on the pre-production prototypes that were also used for the early ads and brochures.
An interesting fact about the body color vs silver grille is the fact that the body color 71,73 are spot welded to the valance and are painted as an assembly. For the silver painted 72, 74-up they were bolted together from the factory. On my 73 the holes for the bolts are present, don’t know if the 71’s do or not since I’ve not had one and they aren’t too common due to the short run.
There’s something about old IH Scout owners that separate them from the ubiquitous Jeep guys. I think it’s the fact that Jeeps can easily be bought and kept (mostly) running by any schmoe, leading to lots of poseurs. The rarity and skill necessary to keep an old Scout serviceable rules all of them out. Young, single, outdoor-loving girls drive newer Jeeps – they don’t drive old Scouts.
With a Scout, it’s more than a lifestyle vehicle. If you’re driving and maintaining a rugged Scout, you’re an honest believer in owning an elemental, go-anywhere 4×4 , even more so than lovers of the pre-1978 Ford Bronco before it was upsized (and upscaled) to the pickup truck class.
So is a Scout tougher than a Jeep – or is that a question to start a fight?
I don’t think I’d say that. All US vehicles of that era rust at about the same speed and suffer from the same manufacturing quirks. CJ7 production numbers were roughly equal to the Scout II year over year, but for whatever reason the aftermarket favors Jeeps heavily. You can buy everything from a new steel tub to a crate engine for Jeeps. The only maker of fiberglas Scout repro parts ceased production about eight years ago. With Scouts you’ve got to be clever, cheap, and lucky to keep one on the road.
Now, if you ask me, “What kind of Jeep is that?”…
I love classic 4×4’s. I recently bought 79 Chevrolet Blazer K5 4×4 brown ext with beige interior. All original 50K miles with 1 Repaint and dual exhausts 305 2B auto, PS, PB, Factory AM/FM radio, manual windows, rear seat, rally wheels . he was asking 23K I got it for 20K!!
Your long-term experience with your Scout reminds me of my far shorter one with an FJ40 Land Cruiser, which lasted only 3 years. My FJ40 was the end result of the sort of gradual repair and modification that you were undertaking, with a Chevy 350 V8, Saginaw power steering, and otherwise original with improvements such as a full Rhino lined floor and (underseat) fuel tank. It was a blast to drive without speeding, and every drive required setting aside time to talk to people about their family FJ40 experiences and waving to gawkers in passing cars. Alas, I decided to sell it since it was too small to be useful as a cargo carrier, a decision which I still regret. If I could find a good example of a bigger Land Cruiser, I would grab it without hesitation.
Why would a body lift mean no shroud for the fan? My 4×4 knowledge is lacking.
Lifting the body also moves up the radiator, so the fan is no longer centered in the shroud and hits the bottom edge.
You can either remove the shroud, or modify the radiator mounts to align the radiator with the fan. The previous owner chose option 1, where as the author went with option 2, which maximizes airflow though the radiator.
Exactly what PVDave said. The radiator is an integral part of the body–it’s one of the things holding the front clip together. As the body rises so does the radiator, so the PO just hacked off the bottom half of the shroud. I was having heating issues so I fabbed up a shroud mount and solved them immediately.
Fantastic! I don’t share your apparent aversion to purple paint per se (Plum Crazy/Inviolet FTW), but I can get onside with wanting to have an original IH colour, or at least one that looks like it could’ve been original.
One thing, though:
Disagree!
And how does that not count as performance? Not every race is a sprint; there are also endurance runs and hill-climbs and otherwise like that. I’ve been getting into this same discussion for most of three decades in re Slant-6 engines, and even though I’m less than a couple of weeks away from being done with them, it still kinda bugs me.
Daniel, what I mean to say is that International’s engines were not screaming 500HP race motors, which is what every other person I talk to thinks I should put in it (the ubiquitous SBC swap). I guess that’s what I mean when I say “high performance,” but I see what you’re saying about other types of engines too.
Please keep it an IH engine. They have a sound like no other. Plus IH did have some success at BAHA. Their maybe some performance parts.
Sorry. There. No edit mode at the time. By they way I learned to drive stick on my Uncle’s 1970 800A. 3 on the floor. Those engines sound so COOL! No sbc belongs in there.
I still remember my 1st ride in it when I was 11 years old. IH’s “new car smell” was cosmoline. Later replaced by wet Labrador, his dog. I was stunned when that engine fired up!
No worries Bob– one of the many spare parts I’ve got stashed in the garage for it is a spare 345 V8 with, what I was told, was only 60K miles on it. Having looked at the top end with the valve covers off, I’d say that’s correct. The only modern upgrade I’m considering is aftermarket fuel injection, which may come in the next couple of years.
Can you add fuel injection to an IH engine? That rocks! If in my lifetime if I ever find a Scout with a GM LS whatever engine? That engine is out and on Ebay. A proper cornbinder engine would go in. The 11 year in old me says so. The 4 best V8’s I ever heard in no order, Olds V8 IH V8, Ford FE V8’s and some Mopar HiPo V8’s. The rest, even SBC’s, sound great but kind of generic.
Bob, you can put FI on an International! It’s a bit of backwards engineering; you can either pull a working unit from the junkyard and convert it yourself, or buy a new kit from a Scout guy online, who has a solid rep in the community: hamiltonfuelinjection.com.
Thank you. By the way that white over green (looks like an 800A or B) Scout (with the wrong front fenders) in your photos tugs my heart a little. They are more primitive than the Scouts you have had but those were the Scouts of my past. More so than the Scout II. Thank you so much for sharing.
You bring tears to my eyes. Cornbinders forever my friend!
We’re on the same page about performance.
As for the dillweeds and their diktats about SBC swaps: when it’s their truck, their vote will count. Until then, “Thanks for [their] input”. As you might imagine, one gets a lot of that when driving a Slant-6 car (“You should put a 360 in it”, etc).
But, seriously, you really should put a 360 in it.
Why I oughtta…!
My friend,A cornbinder engine is best in these. It keeps their personality.And these Scouts rocked in the BAJA races of their day!
Hey Dan,
Did you know at 1 point IH considered putting Mopar slant 6’s and V8’s in in the late ’70’s – early ’80’s? Apparently IH was looking at less expensive alternatives to meet emission standards.
Bob.
I didn’t know that, but that’d’ve been a good match, durability-wise.
Does your daughter like the purple color? If it’s going to her eventually, you should paint it her favorite color!
I remembered this cover from when I was a kid.
Great read Idiotking. I’m a fan of this shape, and I love the bitsa nature of your colour scheme. There’s something to be said for refurbishing the exterior, but I suspect you’ll miss its ad hoc nature once that’s done.
So what is the deal here?. Scouts rocked in BAJA during the ’70’s. No videos or anything? I can’t find them. What’s up?
Bob,
Take a look on the Binder Planet for race scout information. You can start here:
http://www.binderplanet.com/forums/index.php?threads/racing-scouts.104085/
Do a search for SCORE, Baja, and Balch on that site and see what comes up.
Thank you!
Sounds like you’ve got enough of a stockpile to keep that Scout running for a long time, either as a piece-by-piece replacement or a more full refurb down the road. I also wholeheartedly agree with this quote: “My fear is that I’ll disassemble it to the point where it’s inoperable for a month, and then a year, and then it becomes a rusting hulk in the driveway that never runs again”
This, or at least the delayed-repair analogue to it, is why I have three cars which are not currently road-legal, one of which hasn’t moved in two years (though it runs) and one of which hasn’t run since 2001. Keep it rolling unless you decide to do a full-scale rebuild (perhaps for when it becomes your daughter’s ride?)
By the way. I remember passing our local IH dealer in late ’70. They had a brand new green 800B on the lot. 304 V8, 3 speed. 4 wheel drive. A back seat. AM radio and standard white top travel top. Black steel wheels with black wall, (maybe Winter?) or whatever passed for off road tires at the time.No wheel covers. I was just a kid at the time and I liked it. But the window sticker was just under $5000! That was close to Olds 98/Buick Electra territory back then!
What was the depreciation rate on these back then?
The 1st Scout II I remember there was early Spring 1971 and it was all white, Travel Top, 4 wheel drive. Black steelies, and a 304 or 345, 3 speed manual. Radio and nothing else. Don’t remember the sticker on that one.
International has a special place in my memory. Drove a 64 Model 4 cylinder all over the Panama Canal zone back in the early 70s. Stump pulling power for a little 4. It was a Navy truck and had been beaten like a rented mule. I would say that they are tough.
Have a 4runner now and can’t do the work needed to keep something old running any more. Both are 4wd and that’s where the similarities end. Great story and good work.