I took the Scout out for her first long-distance drive of the year last night. The evening was warm so I had the sides of the soft top buttoned up and let the wind blow out the dust. She drove straight and true, the brakes felt great, and once I shook the cobwebs out, she purred like a kitten.
I’ve had the Travelall off the road for about three solid months now, busy with the spring pack swaps while waiting out the snow. In that time I wasn’t starting her up that often, and with the engine surgery on the 800 taking up a lot of time through the last two months, it’s been on the back burner. However, after getting the springs installed I was keen on taking her out for a test spin to see how things felt. The problem was, I couldn’t get her running long enough to get out of the driveway. She started easily, as she always did, but as soon as I got on the gas, the truck died. I could keep her running for short stints but any attempt to get underway stalled out the engine.
So I went down the rabbit hole of pulling the carb and cleaning it out, figuring it had gummed up over the holiday. Re-installing it, I found I was having the same issues, so I started draining the tank after finding a lot of garbage in the fuel filter. As I got down to the bottom of the tank, I found a whole bunch of water—maybe a half a pint worth. That would certainly explain the issues with stalling. I also found some small plant matter in the gas as I used an old pillowcase to filter it into a 5-gallon bucket. I poured the gas off the water and put the contaminated liquid in another container to turn in at the county landfill.
Another test run showed that there was still an issue with the carb, so I pulled the bowl and metering block off the front and broke them down to find the needle was clogged with more of that plant matter. Once I got the engine buttoned back up, a new fuel filter installed, and the bowl filled, the truck ran better—but was still not at 100%. I fooled with the idle mixture screw, the metering screws, and the timing, and got it running well enough to take a solid spin around the block, but she needs some more tuning to be in good shape: my messing with the timing has the engine dieseling on shutdown. And I need to figure out how to secure the fuel tank from water intrusion. My guess is that the used fuel cap I have is not sealing and rainwater is seeping down into the tank.
The takeaway from the test drive is: She feels good! The springs definitely add some spring to the suspension. All my futzing with the axles didn’t seem to have much of an effect on the alignment, because she drove pretty straight and true. One other thing I wanted to do was find out what the axle ratio is once and for all, so I jacked up the rear, marked the driveshaft and tire, and spun the tire one revolution while watching the driveshaft. It came out to 3.73, which is different than the 4.10 gears on the lineset ticket.
Finally, I drilled a small hole in the V3 cupholder and installed a rubber grommet I found at ACE Hardware, which keeps the metal drink stay from clanging on the transmission tunnel cover. Problem solved. The only thing left is to draw out some felt or rubber wings to attach to the underside of the cup cutouts to keep drink containers from rattling around.
While I had it out, I stopped and took a comparison picture of the spring packs before and after:
Meanwhile, I’m making slow progress on the 800. During the week I pulled the master cylinder off the truck, brought it downstairs to the vise and let the piston soak in penetrant for two days. Then it only took a couple of taps on a 14mm socket with a hammer to push the piston down and free up the system. I cleaned up the bowl, wire-wheeled the linkage, and put it back in the truck.
Then I pulled the wheel off the driver’s front side and spent time hitting the fittings with heat and penetrant—to no success. So I destroyed the soft line in an attempt to remove it, freed up the distribution block (which is basically just a 5-way brass block, super scientific) and reviewed the hardware. The pads are wasted: the front has about 1/32″ of material while the rear is down to solid metal, which means the rotors are scored pretty good. However the cylinders and other hardware looks fine, so I’m going to get the front brakes working good enough to drive around the house, and then I’ll worry about spending money on fixing things.
Putting the Travelall fuel regulator on the boat tank hose, I let the fuel pump run and found that it wasn’t flooding the bowl anymore. But I wanted to see how the mechanical pump looked, so I pulled that off. It was, like the rest of the truck, encrusted in grease and mud, but after a bath in oven cleaner, it came out looking shiny and new. It’s an Airtex 6857, which isn’t made anymore—which makes sense, as it features two vacuum outlets, presumably for windshield wipers. It’s also nothing like any of the other pumps I’ve got, so the next step is going to be soaking it in gas to see if I can free up the diaphragms and re-awaken it.
I’ve got two trucks who need some troubleshooting, and I’m trying to keep costs down by borrowing parts until I know I need to buy something. So here’s an ordered list of how I’ll try to tackle this weekend, just to clear my head:
Additionally, now that the salt has been washed off the roads, I have to prep Peer Pressure to go over to Brian’s for hibernation. That shouldn’t be too hard; I just need to pull some spares out of the toolbox and bring the battery tender.
Here’s the video from the past two weeks, with the 800’s first roar to life.
Following my unscuccessful attempts to get the 800 started last weekend, I had time on Sunday afternoon to diagnose the starting issues. But the first things I did were to put the 2300 carb back on the Travelall and drain gas out of the tank to see how much crud is in there. I cut down some old cat litter jugs and let the gas drain out, then filtered that through an old pillowcase into a 5-gallon bucket. There was some dark particulate at the bottom of each jug, but not as much as I thought there might be. The truck is parked on a slight angle with the drain plug at the top, so I have to get her running long enough to turn around to properly empty the tank all the way, and then I’ll flush it out with clean gas. Hopefully that will sort out the dirty gas issue.
During the week I was able to sneak out during lunchtime, test all four of my spare starters (one is dead-dead, one runs weakly, and two sounded healthy) and swap the old mud-encrusted starter on the 800 for one of the good ones. This sounded MUCH better when I tried it out.
The first weekend task was to do a wet compression test. I dribbled a small amount of oil into the cylinders and checked each one again, and the compression rose dramatically on each one (125-125-150-90) which told me it’s definitely the rings that are stuck. I fiddled with the distributor for a while, adjusting it all the way counterclockwise and then to the opposite side, thinking the timing might be off a little bit, but that had no effect. Then I pulled the cap and rotor off and looked again at the position of the rotor—when I re-stabbed it, I got the rotor pointing a little ahead of the #1 cylinder, but not directly at it. So I pulled the distributor out and fiddled with it until I could line the body up and re-stab it with the rotor pointed directly at the cylinder. I buttoned the engine back up, shot it with some starting fluid, and it fired right up until the ether burned off.
Halleleujah.
From there, I played with the carb and the electric fuel pump to see if I could get it to run from the boat tank, and got it to idle happily for a few minutes. At this point I jumped in and tested out the transmission, and got it to move forwards and backwards under its own power. That was a huge relief. I didn’t want to run it for too long, as I’d pulled the radiator out to get to the crank, so I shut it down and started looking at next steps:
Total costs to date:
| Item | Cost |
|---|---|
| 1966 Scout 800 | $500 |
| Lunch for the recovery crew | $85.00 |
| Curved points | $7.00 |
| Battery cable | $33.37 |
| Carb Rebuild kit, fuel pump | $46.30 |
| Spare plugs, wires, used starter, coil, fluids | $0 |
| Total | $671.67 |
I put in another day of work on the Scout 800 to try and breathe life into the engine over the weekend (and before the snow fell), and I was met with failure at almost everything I tried.
When I left off last week, I was looking at an engine that would crank, a distributor sending spark to the plugs, and a carburetor backfiring when I sprayed it with ether, which told me the timing was way off. So I started the new day by cranking the motor over until I felt air coming out of the #1 cylinder, which indicated the compression stroke. I pulled the distributor back out, lined it up properly (rotor pointing at cylinder #1) and re-stabbed it, then verified I was getting spark at the plugs. I also pulled the coil out of the Travelall and dropped that in, figuring that maybe the used coils I had weren’t providing enough power. But no amount of cranking, fiddling with the wiring, adding the battery from the Scout, or fooling with the carb got the engine to catch.
At this point, I think it’s one of a couple of things:
During the day, I took a bunch of breaks to think over next steps. This keeps me out of trouble and away from going off half-cocked and getting myself in trouble. One of the things I did was to pull the old bias-ply spare off the tailgate, jack the truck up, and put it on to see how it looked. I actually dig it a lot! The original wheels are skinny—16×6″, which is perfect for a set of military-style pizza cutters which would look period-correct on this truck. I’m pretty sure I saw the other two up at Dan’s place behind the garage, in which case I’ll grab those next time we’re up there. In the meantime, the white wagon wheel spare I got with Peer Pressure turns out to be the exact same size and backspacing as the wagon wheels already on this truck, so I’ve got five of those now.
I also found a couple of 5/16″ bolts and used those to fasten the rear of the cab top to the truck. There are only two at each corner right now, but it’s got five mounting points across the bulkhead, so I’ll add more later on. I can’t figure out, however, how the front of the top is supposed to attach to the windshield. I assume there are holes that go down into the windshield frame, but the top hangs out over the front of the windshield frame far enough that I don’t think it fits right. More investigation is warranted here.
Here’s the running total on this truck so far:
| Item | Cost |
|---|---|
| 1966 Scout 800 | $500 |
| Lunch for the recovery crew | $85.00 |
| Curved points | $7.00 |
| Battery cable | $33.37 |
| Carb Rebuild kit, fuel pump | $46.30 |
| Total | $671.67 |
Meanwhile, I ran the Travelall up with the intention of taking it for a test spin after torquing the U-bolts down tight. But I had the same problem that popped up last week: the engine bogged down and died on acceleration every time I got on the gas. I limped it across the street and then right back into the driveway, and looked things over: the clear fuel filter right after the pressure regulator was filled with crud. So I replaced that and parked the truck, then pulled the carb off to hose it out with brake cleaner. I have no idea where I’d be getting crud in the fuel from, but it’s pretty obvious I’m going to have to empty the tank and check it for dirt again.
I did take a little time to install one of the new cupholders on the bench seat, and I’m really happy with the way they turned out. I think this looks fantastic. The only thing I want to add now is a hole in the center of the drink crossbar to add a small rubber bumper of some kind to dampen vibration between it and the trans tunnel cover.
In another example of late-stage capitalism, a huge conglomerate of auto parts manufacturers has been imploding over the last couple of months after the company failed to meet its debt payments—debts racked up by purchasing more companies. This means that known brands like Raybestos, Autolite and Anco are shutting down completely. I use parts from each of these manufacturers on my trucks, so I’m going to spend some money I hadn’t budgeted to stockpile some parts: brake shoes, cylinders, wiper blades, and spark plugs. Brake parts are some of the hardest things to find these days, so I ordered a spare set of Raybestos shoes for the Travelall, a set of Autolite 85 plugs (good for all IH engines) and a set of Anco wiper blades for the Scout II.
Saturday morning broke sunny and warm. The temperatures by 11AM were over 40˚ with a forecast in the mid-50’s, so I made a beeline for the driveway and got to work installing the passenger side spring pack on the Travelall. At first things went very smoothly, and I was thinking I would be able to wrap the project up in a couple of hours, but hubris had gotten the better of me. I had to clean up the threads on both shackle bolts (I’m re-using the originals because they’re nonstandard shoulder bolts pressed into the fang mount and shackle). Once I’d done that I was able to get the rear shackle in place but the front fang took a bunch of time, clamps, and adjustment to wiggle into place so that I could get new bolts secured.
Once that was done I tightened up the U-bolts on each side and started the truck up to get it up to temperature. My intention was to take it for a quick spin around the block, but I found that it was stalling on acceleration. I’m not sure if it’s an issue with the accelerator pump or something else, but it was getting dark and I didn’t want to strand the truck out on the street somewhere, so I pulled it back in the driveway to diagnose later.
On Sunday I had a little time after doing some house projects and set up the MIG welder to assemble three C-series cupholders I got from SendCutSend. These are the Version 3 design, made from 14 ga. steel with wider openings for drinks, a revised curve around the front edge, and a simplified drink stand underneath. I’m pretty happy with these, although I’m going to make one final modification to the drink stand, but these three will go out for powder-coating and then I’ll see if I can market these to the Light Line dealers as premade units.
I slapped together a recap of the last two weeks’ work on the trucks during a boring Superbowl last night, which actually went together much quicker than I thought it might.
Because I am insane, I put three layers of work clothes on and ventured out into 12˚ weather (with the wind chill, feels like 1˚) to see if I could make some magic happen on the 800. The first thing to do was to chip the ice/snow melt away from the garage doors, put the Scout into 4WD and pull it out on top of the crust to warm up. With the garage clear, I cleaned off and sanded the points from the 800 and re-installed them in the engine. Pulling the battery out of the Travelall, I removed the spark plugs and bumped it over to blow out all of the remaining ATF from the cylinders. With that done, it was time to yank the distributor and pre-oil the engine.
Looking high and low through all of my bins, I could not find the fancy pre-oiling tool I inherited from somewhere, even though it was clearly noted in my spreadsheet. So I found a steel bar in my stock, cut it down to size, and welded a bolt to the end to make my own tool. With some careful filing at the end I had a workable tool. I marked the distributor location and pulled it out carefully, then put the tool in the bore and ran it for about three minutes. I’d pulled the valve cover off to see if I could see any of the oil making its way to the top of the drivetrain, but I didn’t notice anything.
In the garage, I aimed the space heater at my hands and used a plastic scraper to clean years of mud and oil off the distributor housing, revealing an original IH part number. This is a Prestolite unit, with curved points and female connectors on the cap, and with some brake cleaner and a rag I was able to get it to shine up pretty good.
Stabbing the distributor back in the engine, I re-connected the ignition system and put a spark tester on the #1 wire. At first the starter didn’t want to catch, so I whacked it with a hammer a couple of times to wake it up. After turning it over, I got no spark, so I popped the cap back off the distributor and checked the points with the key in the On position. I did get spark with a screwdriver between the points body and the shaft, but not at the points themselves, which tells me they are toast. A new set of curved points were only $7 on the jungle site, so I’d bought them last week but they won’t be here until Tuesday, so I’m at a standstill. Which is OK, because the battery did not want to crank at this temperature, and my fingers did not want to continue taking direction from my brain. So I buttoned up the 800 and returned the battery to the Travelall. With a little bit of choke she fired up immediately and settled into a good idle, so I let her warm up while I put my tools away. Man, I love that truck; I can’t wait to get the other spring pack installed.
Inside the garage, I had a plan to get my storage bins up and off the floor. Searching for the pre-oiling tool underlined just how annoying it was getting to move crap around just to get into a particular bin. With a handful of 1×3″s I built a frame and sliders on the far side and was able to get six bins stacked from floor to ceiling, cutting their footprint in half. There are still other bins that had to go next to them along with some other miscellaneous parts, but that freed up a huge amount of space at the back of the garage.
And because it’s so damn cold out, I need other projects to work on. So I modified my cupholder design again. I guess I never updated the progress here: In December I’d modified the design to widen the cupholder openings, deleted the vertical support, added two holes for the mounting bolts, and rounded the top edge. When I ordered it I made a mistake and specified 0.12″ thick steel, which turned out to be SUPER-beefy and overkill. And somehow the openings for the cupholders were still the original size. So I modified it again to verify the holes were larger, and redrew the edges a third time to match them better. With that done, I sent it in to have three examples cut and bent out of 0.071″ thick steel; hopefully the third time is the charm, and these will be fit for production.
So for the 800, the next steps will be:
Here’s the running total on this truck so far:
| Item | Cost |
|---|---|
| 1966 Scout 800 | $500 |
| Lunch for the recovery crew | $85.00 |
| Curved points | $7.00 |
| Total | $592 |
The weather hasn’t gotten above 25˚ outside this weekend, but I did fight the good fight and get outside when the sun was out to tackle a couple of easy things that didn’t require digging into or laying on snow.
I really want to figure out the backstory on this truck, and there is no VIN tag or data plate anywhere visible. So I dug into the snowbank on the driver’s side to free up the wheel, and jacked up that side. Once I was able to get the wheel off, I used a wire wheel to clean off the frame in front of the shock mount. Way up toward the bumper I was able to find the serial number stamped into the steel: 
That’s hard to read, but it says G219425, which roughly decodes as a 1966 model 800, one of 24,410 made that year. There is no easy information available beyond that (when IH went to the 13-digit VIN in 1972, it was easier to get some basic info from the number) but I’ll have to order a lineset ticket from the Wisconsin Historical Society on Monday to learn more.
While I was in there I put the ratchet on the crank bolt and turned the engine over about two full revolutions. It’s sticky in one spot but not stuck; I think when I run it up and clean the cylinders out that should clear up pretty quickly.
Next up, I pulled the distributor cap, rotor, and cover off to get a look at the points and condenser. They’re pretty dirty but might still be serviceable, so I’m going to try them first before buying any parts. I do need to identify this particular model, as it doesn’t look anything like the one in the Scout or the Travelall (sigh.)
Then I scraped off the stamping boss on the side of the engine and confirmed that it is in fact a 196; this engine was a new option for 1966 and could very well have been a 152, but it appears I got lucky—the extra 10 horsepower will make this truck feel like a rocket.
