I was really hoping I would be able to break the clutch free on my own, but it just didn’t happen.
With the new battery in place, the truck fired right up and when it settled in the Sniper brought the idle down to a reasonable rumble. I let it warm up for seventeen minutes and then shut it down. After setting up some cameras I followed the steps for breaking the clutch free: Put it in low gear, step on the brake, and bump the starter. I did this repeatedly with no success.
Then I figured I’d add more torque to the formula, and hooked a tow strap up between the Scout and the Travelall. Putting the Scout in low gear, I gave it about ten good tugs, enough to pull Darth forward about ten feet, but the rear wheels were still locked tight. I really don’t want to break anything, so at this point I accepted the fact that it needs to go to the transmission shop.
So I moved on to some other projects. Breaking out the sanding gear, I smoothed out the skim coat on the rear valance, prepped it, and shot it with IH rattle-can red. It now looks worlds better than it did when I got the truck.
Then I ran out to the Home Depot and pulled the trigger on a sheet of 3/4″ oak plywood for the rear bed. I’ve been looking and considering multiple different types of lumber for the rear floor: marine-grade plywood, pressure-treated plywood, and composite board used in boats. The first is difficult to find in this area; the second tends to warp over time and is hard to paint, and the third is exorbitantly expensive.
So, I figured I’d go with dependable hardwood. With a couple coats of heavy duty primer, and a good thick shot of undercoat, I think it’ll stand up to the elements pretty well. I need to figure out what I’m going to do with the inside bed. There are two options: I could cover it with rubber matting, the way the factory did it in 1963—I have a link to rubber flooring available on Amazon that someone else used in their truck. The trick there would be knowing what to use for adhesive. The second option is to polyurethane the wood, and add strips down to protect it. This option would make it a little more difficult to sleep on the floor, but might be cheaper in the long run. I cut the plywood to fit and laid it into the truck and was very happy with the results. I’ve been staring at that crappy uneven floor for two years now, and it really cleans up the interior of the truck.
I installed the cardboard glove box insert I got at Nationals. This took a lot more effort than I assumed it would: I had to remove the defrost vent and hose and figure out how to insert it through the glove box opening to get it in place. It actually doesn’t fit as well as I was hoping it would, but it’s better than having an empty hole in the dashboard.
Sunday evening I dug four sets of window cranks/handles/escutcheons from the green truck out of my bins and cleaned them all up. A trip to ACE hardware yielded three springs for behind the escutcheons, and I set up three of the four doors with proper handles.
So I’m at sort of a crossroads. It’s probably going to take a while to get the truck into the bay at the transmission shop. In the meantime, I can continue fooling with the Sniper, but I’ve got a lot of research and learning to do before I can make any major improvements there. And, it really helps when you can drive the truck around to help program the computer. There are a bunch of small jobs that can be done, but I can’t dig into anything huge.
So remember back in May when I said I thought the alternator was bad? Turns out that was fine, but my battery was sick. I’d swapped out the starter last weekend but found that the battery itself was boiling itself when hooked up to the truck.
I pulled it out and let it cool down overnight. The next evening I got underneath and re-connected the wiring to the starter to make sure it wasn’t shorting out on itself. This made the engine much happier, after I dropped the battery from the Scout in, it fired right up. I connected the old battery to the tender and let that top off while I was doing some other stuff, and when it measured 13V I put it back in to give it a shot. I got one crank out of it and then it died quickly, which told me it was irreparably sick.
Going on a tip from a Youtube channel I follow, I learned that Costco sells Interstate batteries for $100 less than the auto retail stores. I grabbed one Thursday night and dropped it in the truck. It fired right up with no complaint, and after shutting it down, an hour later the battery and its cables were comfortingly cool to the touch.
I don’t know what happened with the previous battery, but the signs were there months ago when I wasn’t getting much of a crank out of it. I guess there was a parasitic drain on it somewhere, and when I put the starter in one of the wires was shorting out, which cooked the battery to the point where it became a boat anchor. I’m going to watch this new one carefully to make sure it doesn’t get sick like the last one did, because batteries are expensive.
In the meantime, I can tackle a couple of things this weekend: first and foremost is attempting to break the transmission free. This is going to involve running the engine up to temperature, which is fine in any case; another good data log will help me get back to the real job of testing and tuning the EFI system. I dove into the training videos the other night, and realized I have a lot to learn to get this thing running optimally.
Then I’m going to sand and paint the valance panel over the barn doors to finish that project up; even in primer it looks so much better than it did all chewed up.
The good news is that I installed a brand new starter on the Travelall this weekend. The bad news is that the battery might be screwed. Let me explain:
I’ve known the starter that came with the truck was going to need to be replaced since I bought the truck. It’s made a funny noise at the end of the start cycle the entire time I’ve had it, and lately it’s been showing its damage by heating up the battery cables after just a few uses. So I bought a new one on RockAuto and made plans to swap it out. I put the canopy over the front of the truck, jacked it up onto stands, and started the difficult task of removing the old one. It’s in an impossible location: between the frame rail and the engine, and directly over both the front axle and Y-pipe from the manifold.
Once I’d gotten that out, I bench-tested the new one to verify it was working correctly, then hefted it up into place to bolt it up to the truck. When that was done and I was reasonably sure I had all the connections correct, I moved forward, pulled the mechanical fuel pump off the truck, and replaced it with a steel block-off plate I made last weekend. There’s no reason to have a useless pump leaking oil everywhere.
I had to mess with the electrical connections a couple of times to get the truck to wake up, and I got it to start quickly and easily twice before trying to bump the transmission free, with no success. But then the truck refused to start—the electrical system refused to do anything at all, actually. I went out and found that the battery was hot to the touch, so I pulled it out and set it on the ground. It remained hot for hours afterwards, which leads me to believe I crossed wires on the starter somehow.
Update: verified. I pulled the battery out of the Scout, dropped it in place, hooked up the ground, and touched the hot lead to the battery: the starter immediately tried to engage, which means something is screwed up with the wiring. I did verify that the two extra wires are going to the right poles on the solenoid: the 12-12 wire goes to the R terminal, and the 14-12 wire goes to the S terminal. So I’ll have to get back under the truck, take the wires off, verify they’re all clean and not shorting on each other, and re-install.
Bench-testing the old starter confirmed my suspicions: it still works, but there’s a terrible noise at the end of the cycle when the gear retracts back into place—it sounds like the unit is grinding as it spins down.
In better news, I sprayed the two hubcaps I got at Nats with oven cleaner to remove the red paint; as it turns out there was a layer of red over black over white, but it all came off easily, and with a detailed scrub with some OOO steel wool I got both of them sparkling again. They look so good I’m kicking myself for not having bought four.
Finally, I took advantage of a coupon code and bought an EFI tuner training course so that I can properly tune the Sniper on the Travelall. I asked the IT guys at work if they had any decommissioned laptops I could buy, and they just gave me one they were going to e-cycle. It’s a 2021 Dell that’s got plenty of horsepower to run the Sniper software; it was gratifying to load the config file and see it in full color on the machine. From what I’ve seen in the videos so far, I’m probably going to have to spring for an extra cable to connect the laptop directly to the carb in order to make tweaks in real time.
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.
Coming back from Nationals, I started making a list of things I need to address on the Scout, stuff I’ve been kind of ignoring while I fixated on the Travelall. Here’s the list, in rough order of importance:
Fix the exhaust leak—it’s on the same side it was last time. This is frustrating. I can’t find anything yet, but I have to run it up and hunt it down.
Fix the gas tank—it’s time to drop the tank, troubleshoot the overfilling problem, and fix the broken gauge.
Check the rear brake pads—I left the emergency brake on and drove 20 miles that way; the pads may be smoked. The pads look fine.
Buy/install new brake rotors on the front—they have been warped for a couple of years; I need to swap them out. The pads look fine; the rotors are indeed warped.
Find a clip for the wiper arm—the wiper works about 45% of the way. It needs a clip to work properly. There was a built-in clip on the wiper arm; I am an idiot.
Buy and install new seat belt stalks—Finley hulked out and broke the plastic, so the male section doesn’t go in straight.
Fix the passenger door window crank—it’s binding up when I try to raise the window; I think this is because the assembly is only attached with three of four bolts. One of the bolts was stripped and the assembly is twisting under the torque. Turns out nothing was wrong; I just had to lube up the tracks.
Fix the turn signal indicator—It’s not locking in or canceling on the right-side indicator. I think it just needs to be re-centered.
Re-adjust the snaps around the doorframes on the soft top. They should go all the way around the metal doorframes and back into the canvas, instead of snapping into the frames.
Add snaps to the vertical flaps—I’ve just never done this, and they need it.
Buy and install a rubber grommet for the emergency brake—I can see down through to the ground
Add a round mirror reflector to the side mirror—My blind spot is pretty big.
Buy and install new weatherstripping for the doors—This is relatively cheap but needs to be done.
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.
On the road
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.
Setting sun over Western Maryland
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.
This plane is one of the reasons I wanted to go to the Museum.
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.
This is 501, the first Scout produced by International Harvester. It was restored just a few years ago.
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.
The Scout Motors Traveler. The Last Scout is sitting right behind it.
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.
A pretty truck. But I could see straight through a hole in the cowl to the passenger seat.
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.
This Travelall was for sale, without engine—but with the trailer.
And this forlorn D-series Travelall was for sale—with the trailer—and no motor.
Stephen and I checked out this pretty pickup. There were some choices made that were not my style (why is the bumper red?) but it was very nice overall.
Stephen and I walked over to check out this pretty pickup truck, which was similar to the one he used to have.
That Terra on the left is uglier than Peer Pressure.But beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
I’m betting this Terra won for Ugliest Truck, but beauty is in the eye of the beholder, as they say.
This K series pickup made me weak in the knees.
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.
One of the highlights of the day!
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.
501, the Scout Motors Terra and Traveler.501, the Scout Motors Terra and Peer Pressure!Another shot of the same.That’s the Last Scout, 501 (the First Scout), and the Scout Motors Traveler.
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.
Taken from my monopod. Peer Pressure is over on the left.
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.
(copyright Scout Motors)Bennett taking the Last Scout for a spin
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.
We rolled in after a 9-hour drive; I’ll just drop a few photos here right now and preview the recap by saying it was amazing.
Peer Pressure inside the IH Springfield Assembly Plant.On the actual assembly line. PP didn’t actually roll down this line (that was in Fort Wayne), but Darth Haul did.Foreground to background: 501 (the first Scout assembled in 1961), the Scout Motors Terra prototype (due in 2027) and Peer Pressure.
Excellent news. Peer Pressure is back from the garage; after waiting around for IHPartsAmerica to get back to us, I took matters into my own hands and asked the heads on the Binder Planet for help. Within two hours I had a solution, and passed that along to the mechanic. They got back to me this morning and told me it was fixed; the solution I offered was exactly the problem. We ran out to pick it up after getting Finn from school, and they sent me on my way free of charge. If I can’t get Darth moving under her own power, I’m definitely getting it towed to this shop.
On the way home I stopped at a gas station to top off the tank and spied a CJ-7 at the far pump, so I drove across the lot and stopped next to him. He was happy to see another Scout, and as it turns out he’s got two of his own—and he’s just on the other side of town. We chatted up our trucks for a little bit, and I wrote my number on a sticker and gave it to him.
Back at the house after dinner, I vacuumed out the truck, cleaned everything up, and started packing for Nats. Before it got dark I got the snap kit out and made some repairs on the soft top, but there are a couple more I need to re-install tomorrow. This year I’m trying to travel lighter, but I’m also bringing some parts along to sell—I’ve got a buyer lined up for the ’61 grille and light rings which should pay for the entire trip out and back. So I’m super psyched about that.
Saturday afternoon was free of commitment, so I made a plan Friday night. I’m still working backwards with the EFI to try and diagnose the fuel/air mixture issues, so I thought I’d try to replicate the success I had two weekends ago by swapping the old carb back on, run the engine up to temperature, and then slap the Sniper back on to see if it would begin learning.
The first thing I did was download updated firmware to the SD card and updated the handheld and computer in the carb. The original file was six years old, so I figure they’d made a lot of updates since then.
I set the worktable up in the driveway, hauled all of the tools and hardware back out, and set up a camera. Pulling the Sniper off and putting the old carb on is easy at this point, and while I was there I removed the clear fuel filter I’d installed after the first two on the EFI fuel line. I strapped the boat tank to the bumper, connected the battery leads to the electric pump, and filled the float bowl. It only took two turns of the key to get it to light off, and with one adjustment I had it idling happily. I let it run for about ten minutes with the cap off the radiator, and then noticed it began bubbling, so I put the cap back on. I’d topped the cooling system off with about 3/4 of a gallon last week so I wasn’t afraid to run it this time.
When it was good and hot I shut it down, capped off the fuel, and pulled the 2300 off the engine. The Sniper went back on easily (I hadn’t disconnected anything) and I connected the electrical leads back up to the battery. Crossing my fingers, I fired up the engine and smiled as it started idling smoothly—faster than I wanted, but smoothly. I let it idle for a while and recorded a couple of log files for diagnosis, then shut it down to see if it would start and run consistently, which it did.
Then I tried to use it to bump the clutch, where you basically put it in middle gear, stomp the brakes, and start the engine. The force of the starter is supposed to break the clutch away from the flywheel. But my starter is very sick, so I couldn’t get it to budge. I shut the engine down and let it cool off for the evening.
Sunday morning between showers I walked back out and tried a cold start. This was the real test: to see if the Sniper unit had learned anything. I said a prayer, turned the key, and it fired right up—but more importantly, it idled smoothly and a lot slower than it had when it was warm. I did hear the fuel pump whining on the rail when I gave it gas, so I have to ask the pros whether or not that’s normal. I took another data log and saved it to my computer, and buttoned the truck up as it began raining.
The other thing I noticed was that the engine is leaking at the mechanical fuel pump location, so I fabbed up a flat steel block off plate out of 16 ga. steel for when I get under there and pull the pump off.
That’s about all I can do this week with our trip to Nats coming up; I haven’t heard back from the transmission shop yet, but I’m going to call on Monday to see if they can give me a time estimate, and that will dictate my travel plans.
