Category: Trip Logs

Here’s a recap of 2025 IH Nationals. This one took a while to put together, as there was so much footage and I couldn’t do a review of the parts while it was raining.

I’m back at my desk on Monday after a 1000-mile trip out and back to Ohio, with only a minor hiccup the whole way. Overall, it was a great time, and even though the weather was damp and drizzly, the trip was filled with fun and good friends.

We changed up our strategy a little bit this year and got on the road Wednesday evening right after work in order to make it to an overnight at a cheap hotel near Pittsburgh, about halfway to Ohio. At our first pit stop Bennett found that his lower radiator hose was spitting all over the engine bay, but he produced a spare from all the parts in his cargo area. We went inside and had a good dinner before coming back out when the engine had cooled down, and had it swapped out in about a half an hour.

Refilling and burping the tank, we got on the road as the sun was setting and continued into Pennsylvania with our lights on. Brian found a hotel that wasn’t booked, and after Siri took us the long way, we parked outside and shut the trucks down. The room and beds were clean enough that we didn’t mind and 80 bucks was exactly the right price.

After a breakfast of powdered eggs and manufactured bacon, we hit the road at about 8AM on Thursday and continued our way into Ohio. The reason for getting out there early was so that we could finally stop in and see the Air Force Museum, which is in Dayton—only about 20 miles from the hotel we were staying at. It’s been there like a big giant bull’s-eye for years, and we just never made the time to check it out.

Getting out there, the weather was clear but cool and we had mostly sunny skies for the entire trip. We rolled into the Museum parking lot at about noon and were immediately blown away by the size and scope of everything. They’ve got four huge hangars, starting with the birth of aviation and the Wright brothers, who began their tinkering with airplanes not far from the museum. Each successive hangar moved forward in time, all the way up to modern jets. There was so much to see, we didn’t have enough time to get to the last two hangars apart from a quick speed walk. After the museum closed at five, we loaded back up and headed to our hotel—only 7 miles away—to register and start meeting up with people in the parking lot for some cold beer and conversation.

Friday morning is always the best morning for parts hunting, but we got a bit of a late start. The hotel we stay at is very nice and they provide a better breakfast than most. We made it to the fairgrounds at about 9:30, parked the trucks, got set up, and then hit the stands to see what we could find.

My list for this year was actually very short. I wasn’t looking for any Scout stuff, and I only had a few specialty Travelall items that I wanted to find. The vendor space seemed a little thin compared to two years ago, but a lot of the used parts guys had a wide selection of Scout stuff. There was barely any C-Series truck stuff to look through, which was kind of disappointing. I stopped at the Scout Connection tent and picked up a glove box insert for Darth Haul, which was one of the top things on my list, and scoped out a couple of other items to look at later. I also had a list for a couple of other folks, and found a six-cylinder air cleaner for Pickup David after digging through a huge pile of assorted parts.

The Friday crowd was a bit smaller than the weekend crowd, which was normal, but we met up with a bunch of old friends and caught up as we walked around. Inside the building, there was an amazing display of beautiful show trucks: 501, the first Scout 80 ever made, lovingly restored by the IH pros for display. Next to that was the last Scout II produced in 1980, a diesel Scout II.

Scout Motors had both of the new prototypes on display with a big crowd around each one. They are beautiful in person, and we spent a lot of time admiring the design and all of the tiny details they added: things like LED lights under the door handles, a trick charging port door behind the driver’s rear side marker, and cupholders on either side of the frunk. The Scout employees were very nice and answered questions all day, pausing to wipe them down with chamois cloths.

Back at the trucks, we sat under the awning and caught up with some of the folks around us. Bennett had made up signs to offer Hanky for sale at Nats, thinking someone might take him up on a deal and he could come home with a pocket full of cash for a future deal. He had a lot of tire kickers, and his price was very fair for what he was asking, but Hanky is sort of like a threadbare suit on a male model—the components are worth more than the shell of the truck.

One of the tech seminars was very interesting: Levi from Old Iron Offroad was doing an introduction to the Holley Sniper kit. I took copious notes and confirmed a lot of things I was already assuming. I’d already figured I would need to buy a beater PC laptop and learn more about tuning in order to get the most out of the Sniper, and this confirmed it. He also gave us a discount code for an EFI training course, and as a surprise, they did a drawing for the Sniper kit they were demoing—which I didn’t win, sadly.

Sean Barber and his crew did a talk on taking their Scout back to Baja to race in the NORRA 1000; last year they had an accident and the truck rolled down a hill, which was the end of the race (and that truck). They built a new one, keeping some of the same components from the first truck, and won first place in their class. Then they walked us out to the truck and fired up the engine so we could hear a 4-cylinder truck engine roar.

As usual, I peeped out all of the C-series trucks and Travelalls to see how their trucks look; they were thin on the ground this year, but this teal truck and a white one with barn doors caught my eye.

And this forlorn D-series Travelall was for sale—with the trailer—and no motor.

Stephen and I walked over to check out this pretty pickup truck, which was similar to the one he used to have.

I’m betting this Terra won for Ugliest Truck, but beauty is in the eye of the beholder, as they say.

Late in the afternoon. I ran into Brian and Emma who I met years ago at the 2021 Nationals, who had trailered in her Scout from Illinois. We made plans to meet up on Saturday to catch up, and they headed off to their hotel.

The three of us packed up at about five and headed out for some dinner at a pizza joint close to the hotel, dodging rain showers along the way. Then we headed back to the hotel and parked up with the rest of the crowd there, cracking open some beers and tailgating until late in the evening.

Saturday morning, the three of us agreed to get up earlier, and I arranged to pick up Brian and Emma, whose Dodge towing rig had broken down the night before. We loaded them into my Scout and made it to the fairgrounds by a little after 8 o’clock. They moved their Scout next to ours, and we reassembled our canopy, then hit the parts field for a second run. There weren’t many new vendors out there, but we found some more good deals and offered some advice, finding them a set of good door hinges buried in the bins at Coonrods’. I picked up a set of dome-style IH hubcaps for Darth that had been painted red; I’ll see if I can strip them and shine them up. For $30 it was too good to pass up. But other than that, I was very disciplined. I did grab a C-series fender for Pickup David for $40; it’s going to need some work but better than anything else he’d find around here.

Saturday’s forecast was much wetter than Friday’s and we dealt with fleeting rain showers off and on the whole day. Bennett adjusted his signs to sell Mr. Hanky and I put more of my postcards out on my wipers. There were more seminars scheduled, but the one everyone was interested in was an update from the Scout Motors team where they talked about everything they’ve accomplished and what’s coming next.

Late in the afternoon, I queued up to do a photo tour of the plant in my truck and a security guard led us into the facility, where IH made their heavy duty trucks. I was able to park my truck on the production line itself and take a bunch of really cool photos there, which was a highlight.

Then we drove back out and parked in our spot. The rain came and went all afternoon, and that seemed to dampen the spirits of some of the people with shiny show trucks, because the field started thinning out at about 3. At this point, I’m not worried about rain while I’m out there so we stuck around until the end. That turned out to be a blessing, because we were part of something very special at the end of the day. As we were pulling out to go to the hotel, our friend Dennis flagged Bennett down and told him that the Scout Motors folks were pulling their trucks out for a photo op. Brian and I parked Peer Pressure and walked back over to watch.

For the photo shoot, they pulled the first scout out of the garage and then the last Scout and flanked the two new Scouts. We watched them align the trucks and take some photos, and it just so happened that Mr. Hanky and Peer Pressure were sitting right behind the new trucks.

Bennett even got involved and wound up steering the First Scout backwards to get it lined up while other people pushed it. Then, the Scout Motors folks asked us to pull our trucks up behind theirs, and we jumped at the chance. Originally, I was in the first row behind their Terra, but it turned out I would have been out of the frame, so they moved me over to the other side in the third row. I wasn’t complaining.

They organized all the trucks and we moved them around until they were happy with the placement, and then we stood behind their photographer to watch them do the photo shoot with a drone and a camera. I used my monopod and the timer on my camera to shoot as many pictures of the set up as I could.

While I was shooting, a couple of the Scout motors folks were standing next to us, and I asked one of them if, when they were done, we could shoot a photo with all of the owners in front of their trucks. Her eyes lit up, she said that’s a great idea! and quickly arranged it with her crew. We all ran to our trucks, and they shot a bunch of pictures and video, and then did one with the Scout Motors crew in front of their two new trucks and all of us.

As we all dispersed, Bennett quietly moseyed over to the garage and disappeared inside for a couple of minutes. He then came out driving the Last Scout, taking it for a spin around the parking lot with a giant grin on his face. It turned out that he had mentioned driving the First Scout to Mike Bolton, who owns the Last Scout. He threw Bennett the keys and told him he’d better take the Last Scout out for a spin so he could say he drove them both. Stuff like that is the reason I love going out there.

At that point, it was 6 o’clock, we were hot and hungry, so we finally left the grounds and hunted down some food at a pub close to the hotel. We then hit the Walmart for some supplies and made our way back to the parking lot, where the auction was just getting started. At this point, I was pretty beat and not feeling as social as I should have been and we only stayed out to talk to folks until about 10 o’clock before heading upstairs.

Sunday morning, we were up and out early. After stopping to take a quick group photo, we made sure everything in the truck was as waterproof as it could be and headed out into the drizzle. I made sure to wash the windshield with ceramic cleaner to wick off the water, but hoped we’d not drive through any major downpours. As it turned out, we did fine even though the clouds were following us eastward. Brian and I switched off driving which made the trip much easier to do in one day.

We stopped off for lunch in a little town in Pennsylvania and happened to find the same family-owned diner Bennett and I ate at two years ago, which was just the right speed.

Both trucks ran flawlessly on the way home, and we pulled into the driveway at about 5:30. Brian got a pitstop, we transferred his gear, and he continued home. I backed a damp Peer Pressure into the garage, got my basic gear out, and let her cool off.  I’ll have to address the leaking exhaust when it dries out, but other than that, she was rock-solid the whole way.

In preparation for Alan’s cleanout day, I packed up my Honda on Friday with a full suite of recovery tools and other things I thought I might need: a change of clothes, a sleeping bag, and a whole bunch of cameras. I put the pod on the roof, not knowing what we might be transporting, and also to keep the fumes from the boat tank out of the car. I left the house before dawn and drove out to the park-and-ride on Route 70 to meet Bennett. We loaded some tools in from his car and then drove two hours west to a small little town outside Cumberland, where our friend Alan used to live. His sister and brother-in-law have kept his house and have redone it into a cozy little getaway, but all of his car stuff is still packed neatly into the garage.

After a quick tour of the house, our gracious hosts left us to begin sorting out the truck and parts in the garage. Bennett and I had chatted about our plan of action on the drive up and agreed that the first best task would be to get the truck running so that we could move it out of the garage and make space to sort through parts. The truck itself is an interesting FrankenScout: it’s a Scout 800 body sitting on a heavily modified Scout 2 frame with an interior and exterior roll cage, gas shocks, and race seats. The builder went so far as to pull out the entire interior structure of the engine compartment, surround it with a roll cage, and then rehang the outer fenders. It’s got a healthy 304 V8 with a Holley 2300 carburetor and a bundle of unfinished wiring. Strangely, there are three pedals, but it’s hooked to an automatic transmission. And sadly, someone (not Alan) got their hands on a case of Milwaukee’s Best and a sawzall and crudely cut the fenders front and back to accept a set of squared-off plastic fender flares.

We checked all the fluids, made sure the ignition actually bumped it, and checked for spark. Then we poured some 50-1 two stroke oil into the bowl and lit it off. To our surprise, it started almost immediately and idled until the fuel in the bowl was gone. Then it took some time to coax back to life, because it had been sitting for over three years. Most of the seals in the carburetor were dry and the passages were dirty. After fussing with it for a while, we pushed it out into the driveway so we could run it without smogging the house. We pulled the carburetor off and disassembled it, using brake cleaner and brushes to clear the jets and gas to soak the accelerator pump.

Our hosts brought us some lunch, and we sat inside in their warm kitchen and traded stories. They’re really nice folks; I’d ment them briefly at Alan’s service a couple of years ago, and it turned out they remembered Peer Pressure from being parked in front of the restaurant (it’s hard to forget Peer Pressure, really.)

Back in the driveway, we reassembled the carburetor and put it back on the truck. We were able to get it to start again from fuel in the bowl, so we decided to put my boat tank and fuel pump on the truck. Wiring the fuel pump to the switched side of the coil, we got the truck running from the tank. Working slowly, we got the accelerator pump to mostly come back but found that the truck didn’t want to stay running when it was shifted into gear. There’s something happening with the transmission or possibly the vacuum where it just bogs down and kills the engine. We chased down a bunch of vacuum leaks and sealed them up with no effect. So we let it idle for about half an hour in the driveway.

We started looking through the boxes to try to sort out what he had squirreled away. His brother-in-law had cleaned out the house of the international parts and put them into bins, but our goal was to organize them by type and take an inventory. So we pulled everything back out and laid it on the floor of the garage. We made a pile for Scout 2 stuff, a pile for Scout 80 stuff, a pile for aftermarket parts, and a pile of unidentified IH parts. Strangely, he had collected a ton of random IH parts in their original packaging: tractor parts, parts for big trucks, and other stuff we couldn’t identify. Bennett stumbled across an entire bin of nothing but valve stems: all shapes and sizes, most unused, most with part numbers stamped in them, but more than we could go through in one day. He had collected tiny bearing sets for small engines and gigantic bearing sets the size of dinner plates. We found Scout 2 sheet metal: a decent used fender and several endcaps, and NOS B series fenders, all tucked under a shelf.

Back at the truck, we figured we would try to plug in the existing fuel system and fuel pump, so we took my boat tank off and hooked the fuel cell up after making sure the gas inside was clean and diluting it with the remainder of our good fuel. I took some time to shorten the fuel line loop in the bed of the truck, which was about 5 feet too long, and after attempting to get it running with the fuel pump in the engine bay, I moved it back to the fuel cell in the rear of the bed. We messed with this for a while and got the truck running again to attempt to move it, but at that point we were almost out of gas and it refused to budge.

By about 6 o’clock, we had five big piles of parts laid out on the garage floor, mostly shaping up into identifiable groups. Our hosts kindly brought us some warm dinner, so we went back upstairs and enjoyed a lovely meal at their table. We talked about our plans for the evening: we both had brought overnight bags, but figured we could probably get through the rest of the work and leave late that evening, so we pushed on and started cataloging the different piles of parts and bins. We wound up with about five bins full of Scout 2 parts, a bin and a half of Scout 80/800 parts, four or five more bins of universal Scout parts, and two full boxes of unidentifiable International parts. Then we labeled everything and started replacing them on the shelves.

As we had been going through the different bins, we each set aside a couple of things we were both interested in: Bennett found a bunch of parts for R-series trucks, including a set of NOS shocks, a spare ashtray, and some other goodies. I found an air cleaner for a Holley 2300 2-barrel which fits the carb on Darth Haul. Darth came with a period-correct oil bath air cleaner which is a messy PITA, so I was excited about that. I found a Robert Shaw thermostat in its original packaging, and some ’71–’72 headlight trim rings for a Scout 2—an exact fit for Peer Pressure. Also, a mint Scout 2 AM/FM radio which might be a good replacement for the older model I have on the bench. But most interesting was a Holley Sniper EFI kit in the box on a shelf, waiting to be installed on Alan’s 2-barrel 304: identical to the engine in Darth.

After sweeping out the garage and returning everything to the shelves, we got the truck running one last time, and Bennett was able to start it in gear and get it to move under its own power back inside. We buttoned up the last of the stuff in the garage, washed our hands, said our goodbyes, and hit the road at about 10:30. I didn’t make it back into bed until 1AM, so I was pretty knackered Sunday morning.

After unpacking the car, pulling the pod off the roof, and sorting things out, I catalogued the parts and looked through the Sniper kit. The fuel box included everything the instructions mentioned, but the carb box was missing the instructions and some wire looms. I sent them an email update to work out a fair price, and we’ll get that taken care of.

I was pretty tired, so I spent most of the day finishing small projects; I installed the last seatbelt, organized the garage, and then took a wire wheel to the new air cleaner to blast the old paint and rust off. After a wipe down with acetone and a coat of etching primer, I shot it with black semi-gloss and let it dry on the carburetor. It makes the rest of the engine bay look like garbage.

Before this trip, I had decided my first and biggest goal for the spring after wrapping up a bunch of smaller projects left over from the cold winter would be to get the truck running and moving. My original plan of action was to sort out the original carburetor so that it was starting and idling reliably, swapping out the starter (which I suspect is tired) and the positive battery cable. Then I could attempt to bump the clutch enough to unstick it mechanically; the nuclear option is to have it towed to the transmission shop for them to fix it—after which it could theoretically be driven home. With the Sniper now on the bench, the plan has changed: I’m going to source the missing parts and install the EFI system instead, swap the starter and cable, and get the truck running that way.

I’ve found two main themes with my truck hobby: It’s brought me a lot of fantastic friendships full of adventure and knowledge. It’s also been full of amazing synchronicity: When I was finally able to let go of Chewbacca, Brian came along at just the right time to give her an excellent home. When I was ready for a new project, my friends enabled helped me with Peer Pressure and re-ignited my hobby and those friendships. When I had cancer, those same friends stepped in and helped me get back on my feet—and Peer Pressure out of the garage. Alan’s passing was unexpected and unfair. He was a great guy with tons of knowledge and always full of support. I choose to believe his EFI kit came at exactly the right time to get Darth on the road, and that somehow that was his final gift.