I’ve been considering a switch to my Instagram account to split out the Scout into its own account for a while now. Looking at the Top 9 results from this year, I think my mind is made up.
Holiday Dithering
The weather was a weird unseasonable 65˚ today so this afternoon, after we did family Christmas stuff, I wandered out into the garage to fart around in the balmy heat. Now that the fridge is gone there’s a big empty spot on the back wall so I moved some stuff around and aired up the tires on the engine cart. I’ve been thinking I need to get back out there and put more Marvel Mystery Oil down the spark plug holes, so I did that first and then jockeyed it around so I could reach the crank pulley. I put a socket on the end and tried moving it; it turned about an inch either way and then stopped. Obviously it needs some constant attention to get things moving, so I’ll continue going back out and adding oil to the cylinders until I can get it unbound. In the meantime I have to buy a proper engine stand and get it up off that silly cart.
Then I dug around for the spare windshield I squirreled away, figuring I could use that for practice in the spring when I take the old one out. I was surprised to realize I actually have two out there—one from one of the spare windshield frames and the other from I think the frame pictured at the bottom of this post. The older glass has some fogging along the bottom but no pitting, and the edges all cleaned up nice and smooth. The newer glass is clear but there’s a horizontal crack halfway down on one side about 3″ long. I figure I could use that one as the sacrifice to practice putting in, and if it lasts a year before it splits I’ll still be ahead of the game.
Mileage Wrap-up
Looking through my fuel/mileage notebook, and doing some revised math, I put a total of 3177 miles on the Scout this year. Now that I’ve fine-tuned the ratio calculation, I’ve updated the averages table from earlier this year to truly reflect the miles driven:
| Total Yearly Miles | Miles Minus Nats | |
| 2015 | 580 | 580 |
| 2016 | 276 | 276 |
| 2017 | 315 | 315 |
| 2018 | 1768 | 631 |
| 2019 | 1972 | 836 |
| 2020 | 1195 | 1195 |
| 2021 | 3177 | 2041 |
It certainly does feel like I’ve put more miles on her this year; from another Ohio trip to a visit out to the Scout Guru’s garage in Rehobeth to parts hunting in Western Maryland to multiple trips out to Chestertown, I’d say she’s gotten a hell of a workout.
Blast It
After waiting around for about two months, I got a UPS package on Friday with two new gas struts for my hood assembly from the manufacturer. When I first opened the box I was a bit bummed out because I thought I’d ordered the wrong parts. The connections on the ends were set up to accept ball joints instead of bolts, and I thought I might have to send them back and deal with another long wait. Then I looked a little closer and realized the connections unscrewed off the struts, so I pulled the good connectors off the bad strut and swapped them on to a new one. Problem solved.
Meanwhile, I went to visit Brian H. at his new house and caught up with he and Bennett on Saturday afternoon. He’s got an absolutely killer new space, the highlight of which is a pole barn wired for 220 and a bunch of toys left by the previous owner, including a digital welder, a metal brake, a tube bender, and a full-size blast cabinet. We spent most of the day catching up, talking cars and trucks, doing some re-arranging of his rolling stock—his Edsel is on roller carts and he needed a hand pulling the box off his Dad’s old Dodge pickup. On my way out he offered me a smaller Eastwood blasting cabinet he didn’t need, a piece of equipment I’ve been lusting after but unable to rationalize or find the space for. I offered him money but he didn’t want anything for its so I’ll have to figure out what I can bring him next time. It’s a great addition to the shop, so I spent Sunday afternoon moving stuff around the garage to find a temporary home for it. The glass is pretty frosty and the gloves are rotted through, so I’ll have to swap in some new parts in the spring.
Winter Plans
It’s getting to the slow period of the year for fooling around with the Scout, so I’ve been trying to line up a couple of inside projects to work on while Peer Pressure snoozes in the garage. There have been several parts trucks I’ve visited this year where I’ve looked for two main assemblies to grab: the steering column and the heater box. I got a good example of the former and struck out on the latter.
At this point I’ve got the spare steering column on the bench, broken down past the turn signal assembly. That part is sitting on my desk waiting for me to order a replacement. There are two types, one that works for columns from ’71-’77 and another from ’77-’80. The plan is to buy the proper replacement, re-assemble the whole column, then pull it back apart to make sure I know the process back and forth. Then I’ll gather my courage and pull the real wheel on PP down to replace the assembly properly.
Next, I’d like to find a heater box worth refurbishing. The idea here is to pull the whole thing apart, replace the core unit and motor, strip and spray the box, and reassemble it properly. Then in the springtime I can swap that into place. Maybe I can trade Brendan a decent folding Scout 80 windshield for one. Or, I’ve got two of these in the basement—there’s $150 right there.
Some other ideas for inside projects:
- Pull the air cleaner off, strip it down to the bare metal, and repaint the whole thing. I think Mike Moore has the proper V8 stickers available to spruce it up…
- Drill and tap my shiny new filler-neck valve covers for the proper vacuum and hose fittings, and replace the old crusty ones original to the truck
- pull scissor mechanisms from some of the spare doors, strip them down, and refurbish the mechanisms.
Fresh Grille
On FBM earlier this week an ad went up offering several International D-series trucks and one sad Scout, warning that they would only be there until the weekend and then they’d go to the crusher. I reached out to the guy asking for some details and better pics of the Scout, and he and Bennett and I traded some messages until Friday, when he told us he’d dropped them off at his local pick and pull lot because the County was after him. Bennett and I hatched a rescue mission after my original plans for the weekend fell through, and today we made the trip.
The northern part of Maryland is absolutely beautiful this weekend, and the ride was relatively short to boot. The weather forecast called for rain in the afternoon so I repacked my tools in the CR-V. We were on the road by 7:30 and made it to the field an hour later.
The rigs were all crowded around the bottom of the intake area next to the crusher. After talking with the yard folks we carried some tools inside, waited for them to move things with a huge forkloader, and started picking. There were 4 D series trucks for Bennett to choose from: a flatbed, a pickup, a cab with no bed, and a bed with no cab. The most desirable piece from any of the trucks, a D Series hood in immaculate shape, had been removed and lay under the chopped cab on the floor of the flatbed—ouch. Bennett set to work freeing the only good fender on any of the trucks while I set to work pulling the grille from the Scout.
The Scout looked better in the photos (they always do) but had been crunched in the tailgate, leaving little good sheetmetal to pick from. The doors were trashed, the fenders were shot, and the traveltop, which looked clean in the pics, was too crusty to save (I had been thinking about how I could get it off and get it home if it had been in good shape). Most of the interior bits I’ve already got, and these were all Bordello Red to boot. Maybe the original radio would have been smart to grab, or the dashpad. I’ve got two A/C units now so I don’t need another. And there wasn’t enough time to break the doors down, although the hinge on the driver’s side broke as I tried to open it.
At about 11AM rainclouds rolled in and we spent an hour in a miserable downpour, covering our tools with tarps and trying to stay out of the muddy water running down the hill in rivulets. All of the bolts on the grille came off with little effort save two that were too rusted to secure with a pair of vice-grips. I borrowed a sawzall from the yard guys and chopped at the bolts until I could pound a smaller socket on them to grab. With those off, the whole piece came off cleanly with two of the three chrome trim rings and both headlight surrounds.
I got a clean passenger’s side fiberglas top insert (both of mine have been split on the bottom to get around the rollbar), two tailgate latch assemblies, a pile of steel marker lights, one good rear taillight bucket, two horns, a pile of emblems, and other miscellania. I forgot to grab the traveltop bolts over the windshield. It would have taken another couple of hours to grab other good things—the fan shroud (the rest of the engine looked like it had been soaking in salt water for a decade), the seat bases, gauges, switchgear, and steering wheel.
Bennett made out with a good driver’s fender, a pile of hubcaps, trim rings, side trim and other emblems, two hubs, IH-branded cab lights and side mirrors, and a pile of other stuff. If we weren’t cold, wet and hungry we could have stuck it out for another couple of hours, but we were all of those things and we are old. Up in the lot he was able to get a replacement taillight for his CR-V, and in the same car we found a Honda-branded rubber mat for the back of mine.
All told, the trip was cheap and fun, and it was great to hang out with Bennett and get dirty and not draw any blood wrenching on old rusty trucks. He’s got a line on some more near here that he’s trying to pin down, and if he can, another trip will be in the works.
Evaporust
How is it I’ve owned a Scout for 20+ years and never used Evaporust before? This is incredible. I’m going to buy a gallon of this shit.
This is the hood latch mechanism from the Flintstone Scout after just 24 hours of soaking. It looks almost brand new. The top photo shows the before and after—I only had a quart so the latch only went 1/2 of the way into the liquid. I soaked a bunch of bolts in with it, and while they didn’t clean up to new metal finish they look worlds better than they did.
Parts Sorting
The other night I went through the pile of parts I picked from the Flintstone Scout to store them properly in the garage (and get them out of the way). I’d pulled both of the horns off, but one fell apart in my hands so I left it in the field. At home I hooked the “good” one up on my bench tester and got no response, even after cleaning the contacts. So that one goes in the trash; my search for a more American-sounding horn continues.
I soaked a container full of fender bolts in some industrial chemicals Brian H. gave me; it’s some stuff he used at his daytime job to clean rooftop AC condensers and it removes paint and neutralizes rust in just a week or so. I pulled them out and rinsed them off really well; over the weekend I’ll put them in a can with some pea gravel and shake it around for a while to knock the rest of the flakes off.
The dash I pulled is in great shape, although the metal around the speedo mount was bent (this is typical when someone is trying to replace a bulb and can’t get behind the speedo unit). All of the controls are still there, and both switches are in great shape. I’m still diagnosing my wiper issue, and if a used wiper switch is going for $130, then that part alone was worth the whole recovery trip. I’ll add this to the untouched dash I already have and the cleaned-up black dash I painted years ago. The dash pad is pretty much toast but cores are worth some money now that they’re being reproduced, so I’ll store that away for later.
The liftgate I pulled is in worse shape than I originally thought. There’s a ton of rust around the lower inside edge where water got in and sat year over year; I didn’t see that when I was taking it off. I think it could be saved if I get desperate but for now it’s tucked away in the back of the garage.
Next, I brought the windshield glass in, cleaned a decade’s worth of grime off the surfaces, and scraped all of the black silicone off the edges. It’s in really nice shape and doesn’t have any of the pitting or chipping Peer Pressure’s current glass has, so this will be the prime replacement candidate when I get enough stones to attempt installing it myself. I’ve got a second set of glass from one of the other windshield frames, but it’s fogging around the edges and likely wouldn’t be worth using.
Opening the hood to install pigtails on the battery terminals for the trickle charger, I found it much harder to lift than usual. the gas strut I’d installed a couple of years ago looks like it’s lost the will to live, so I tracked the part number backwards and found a replacement from the manufacturer online for about $30. I’m considering asking the vendor if they’ve had any other reports of strut failure—it’s been over two years, so any hope of a warranty is long gone—but it might be worth letting them know.
Picking Gristle Off the Bone
I drove out to my friend Dave’s house in Flintstone Sunday morning to see if there was anything else I could pick off the Scout II and Scout 80 he’s got beached up on the hill behind his house. Picking parts is fun but also like walking into a loop in the time-space continuum: after the first two hours, you think you’re ahead of the game. By 4 o’clock, you’re racing the setting sun and scrambling to do a cost-benefit analysis to gauge what’s worth pulling before you have to leave, and you still have to figure out how to stuff it all in the vehicle you brought.
Both times I’ve been there before I scrambled for the whole day to pull as much as I could in the time that I had, and I always left thinking, “dammit, I meant to grab ____ and ____ and ____.” Looking over the photos before I left, I knew there wasn’t a ton of stuff left, but there were some things worth going back for. Scouts on the East Coast are getting rarer and rarer on the ground, so I’m trying to get what I can while it’s still available. Dave is a nice guy and knows his stuff isn’t going to roll across the stage at Mecum, so he’s fair on price and happy to lend a hand or grab a tool.
Originally I was going to drive the Scout, so I put the traveltop back on Friday night and prepped a set of recovery tools. When that was done I installed the liftgate gas struts from IH Parts America and marveled at how much nicer they feel than the old mechanical lift. I also put the pod on the roof of the CR-V to hedge my bets. The forecast was wishy-washy about rain and I didn’t want to drive out in the Scout if I was going to get caught in a downpour.
The morning looked lousy so I loaded up the CR-V and hit the road a little after 8. Dave hasn’t sold anything since the last time I was up there, so I was able to pick up right where I’d left off. I walked around both trucks and hit all of the target areas with PB blaster before I busted out the impact driver and a new set of bits. Over the course of the day I was able to grab:
- The entire dash assembly with all wiring and mechanical switches
- The windshield glass (the frame is beyond toast)
- Both slider windows
- The rear liftgate with glass—it’s not perfect, but it’s better than the spare I have, and has hinges
- Both door strikers (I’d tried to get these last time, but the impact driver today was clutch)
- The A/C box
- The hood catch/release mechanism
- The passenger fender—it’s crispy in areas but might be worth repairing in the future. This took too much time to remove.
- An entire Scout 80 folding windshield with glass (score!)
- Other bits and bobs I can’t remember
I had the hood off the 80 and ready to load up, but Dave asked to keep it over the engine to keep the rain off. I also asked him about the 80 doors but he was keeping those for parts for his running truck.
On the dammit, I meant to list:
- I tried my best to pull the dashboard from the 80 but it’s fastened with some of the largest, stickiest Phillips-head screws I’ve ever dealt with. I want the IH speedometer BAD but couldn’t figure out how to get that without destroying it.
- I also tried to get the steering wheel assembly out but was stymied by several bolts down at the steering box and one up under the fender.
- The cowl was cut for a plow years ago, but I tried to get that too. There are several bolts inside the fenders that were rusted solid. If I ever go back I’ll ask Dave if I can Sawzall it off the front.
- On the Scout II I got stuck pulling the emergency brake assembly off—the brakes are likely frozen and I couldn’t get any slack to release the cable.
- The transmission tunnel cover—the automatic shift lever assembly gave me fits
- I meant to grab the power steering pump but ran out of time there as well.
I was pretty amazed that I was able to fit it all in the CR-V; if I’d taken that hood and door it would have been a very tight fit. As it was the pod came in super-handy: I put both the liftgate and the 80 windshield up there, freeing up space for the other bulky stuff in back. Driving home, covered in grease, PB blaster and dirt, I was happy to have gone back out and grabbed some of the last best junk before the snow started blowing and it all rusted away even further.
Gold Poly
I ran across an auction for a Scout in Gold Poly the other day, and grabbed the photos while they were online. This is exactly what my tub looked like from the factory complete with a true ’75 grille:
Minus the west coast mirrors and black aftermarket wheels, of course. This rig even has the chrome trim strips, which mine was drilled for (Chewbacca did not have this exotic decoration). This one also has a factory step bumper, which Peer Pressure did not.
As much as I despise the purple, I think I like it better than Gold Poly. And I’m much happier with a ’72-73 grille than the odd ’75 grille design.
I also saw this gold ’75 at Nationals this year, parked several rigs down the line from me:
Gold with a white top and Rallye wheels—I like that look a lot more. And interestingly the grille surround is silver as well, something they did on the ’71-’72’s from the factory.