Readers of this series may remember my cute little VW Scirocco, which now developed a nasty smoking habit from all the rough play I subjected her too. Maybe I needed something a bit more butch to stand up to my sadistic inclinations. I spotted an advertisement for a 1968 Scout in the paper. Having already owned one International and being impressed with everything about it except its non-International motor, I was interested. I gave the guy a call. He said it ran, which made me more interested; and then I asked if he might want a Scirocco, and he said he was interested. This was getting very interesting indeed. Your place or mine?
Upon arrival, I discovered a hand-painted sea-foam-green very rusty Scout. I checked out his Scout and he checked out my Scirocco, not unlike swingers at their first meet-up. The rust was mostly in the roof and doors and I figured those could be replaced. It had the 266 V8 engine with a two barrel carburetor, a four speed transmission,
and Dana 44 heavy duty axles with Detroit or True-Trac lockers front and rear! It had been sitting awhile so it took a bit of priming to get it started. And when it did start it ran like it had been sitting for awhile. But no bother, I loved it already. And the owner loved the Sirocco, so after a little warm-up test-driving, we swapped titles and parted ways with our new rides.
The Scout needed a bit of work: carburetor rebuild, tune-up, etc. Once I got that all done I took her out for a real drive. But there was one problem: the front of the roof was so rusted that wind blew through it, stirring up huge rust chip projectiles which were all unerringly and magically guided to my eyeballs. So I removed the rusty roof and doors. With them off, the rust tornado was amplified, a hundred-fold. So for a time I took to wearing goggles until it all blew over.
I did locate a better top and doors. But getting around was difficult, since the gas tank was full of rust. So I took to carrying several fuel filters around wherever I went. Eventually that cleared up as well. Being that it was summer, I kept the top and doors off most of the time anyways. The hood never did quite latch right though. In fact one day whilst driving on the freeway it decided to come loose. It blew up and folded right over the windshield frame, inches above my head. So I pulled over, peering under the hood cowl gap to see the shoulder. I ended up jumping on it to get it flat enough to latch with a bungee cord.
I got back on the highway and quickly discovered that the bungee cord was not a sufficient means of retention. This time however, the hood decided to depart from the vehicle completely in a most dramatic and graceful demonstration of the principles of flight. With great luck it landed in between the lanes in the middle of the freeway. So I ran it over a couple of time to flatten it out, and this time tied it on. It looked better than ever, which isn’t saying much.
(the only remaining picture of my Scout)
Once I got most of that stuff cleared up I painted it a sort of sea camouflage (see picture above). I found that it really did drive quite nicely. The little V8 was pretty torquey and it consistently got around 18 mpg on the highway! In fact it was so torquey that I managed to twist the rear drive shaft right in half trying to do a burnout!
The Scout was the first vehicle I owned in which the traction coefficient was greater than the coefficient of driver nerve. We found that the axle lockers were highly conducive to hill climbing, so much so that one could easily climb a nearly straght up and down hill until the fuel began to pour from the filler and the engine began to starve for oil. We did once make the mistake of trying that in reverse. Now in forward gear one has seats to lean against. However in reverse one has no such retention device. Hanging from my seat belt I was barely able to get it out of reverse!
I did however have a few small problems with it.; I told my friend at the VW junk yard about its incredible feats, and he subsequently bet me ten dollars that I could not climb up the little hill next to his lot. I had to accept of course. On the first try I bottomed out on the top. So I rolled down, gave it more gas and got up some speed. I was about half way up when suddenly all forward motion stopped. It was still running but the back wheels were just spinning and the front wheels were dead. So I tried to reverse, but it would not move! I gingerly got out and had a look-see.
A most unexpected event had occurred; the front drive shaft (which I latter discovered had previously broken and been crudely welded together) had snapped in two, the long portion of which was now jammed solidly into the hillside! A borrowed shovel and ten dollars less, I was on my way to getting a new drive shaft.
I finally got tired of seeing the street below my feet through the holes in the floor and having rain pour on my lap in corners. So I sold it to a father and son for a project vehicle. I do hope it went to a good home. And if I could ever find a less rusty Scout with that same drive train, or better yet with the Nissan diesel engine, I would surely find something or someone to swap for it now.
Funny that most of these Ive seen are transparent didnt know they had a diesel option Ive only seen the petrol V8s and endless rust. Ocky straps make lousy hood catches best thing is fence wire good old No8 doesnt stretch but annoying if your driving an oil burner and need to top up often.
Actually, the Nissan six cylinder diesel came along later; the one in the last picture is one I shot (four cylinder gas) that someone put that DIESEL badge on. Wishful thinking?
nice story! i like the big bar of soap with wheels shape of the original scout. my brother bought a scout ii w/ the inline 6 from my buddy in arizona & had it shipped to new york. some new paint & it was ready to go fishing:
That first photo looks like an airport tug!
Sigh.
This brings back memories, and makes me wish that some company would once again sell a worthy competitor to the Jeep Wrangler in the U.S.
It’s not that I have something against Jeep…it’s just that I can’t help feeling that the lack of competition has caused the Wrangler to get a bit pudgy and inefficient.
I share your frustration; but it’s not that the Wrangler doesn’t have competition.
It’s that the market for Scout/CJ vehicles has evaporated. Off-road four-wheelers can be set up for work as well as play, now, with plows…I believe I even saw one rigged with a snowblower. You can load it in the back of your Quad-Cab pickup, along with the beer and fishing tackle…get to the edge of the pavement, roll it/them off, and go for it.
In the 1950s-70s, the Jeep’s heyday, there wasn’t that kind of option available.
My father had a 1970 Scout in dark metallic purple (!) with the 4-cylinder and 3-speed. Everything on that rig buzzed, clattered, or rattled, and if you had the window open the wind would tear your left ear off at any speed over 35. Its forte was definitely the woods, as it was narrow enough to squeeze between trees into places a Blazer couldn’t go, and it would plow through six-inch-deep puddles without missing a beat, something Jeeps I rode in couldn’t do. It had a tendency though to suddenly lose all its oil pressure when driving down backwoods trails; I was a bit scared the first time that happened, but I discovered that a willow branch had intruded into the engine compartment and pulled the wire off the oil pressure sensor.
My folks took the Scout exploring in Nevada the first year they had it, checking out some of the old mining claims or something, and they were in high enough country to get it thoroughly stuck in a crusty snowbank on the shady side of a hill…in May. They ended up spending a quite chilly night in the Scout, and in the morning Pop hiked back to a line shack he’d seen, and there turned out to be a shovel in it. He was kinda lucky that way. That was the last back-country ride Mom ever took with him though.
The year he was 75 he took it prospecting in Alaska in some remote place where he had to ford a river to get to it. He had a D8 dozer that he rented for the summer and had to keep his food in a garbage can under the dozer to keep the bears out of it. I think he lost a bit of weight that summer. The next year he flew to his Alaska claim and rented a pickup, and I had the Scout all summer, when I learned how good it was in the woods. Before I returned it to him I washed it and cleaned out the interior, and found almost a full box of dynamite caps in his little junk box between the seats.
Sounds allot like my grandfather who would always leave blasting caps in his Hudson Hornet for the kids to find.
So many trucks…so little time. So few left and not enough funds…
The Gen-1 Scout was once ubiquitous where I grew up, Northeast Ohio…it was the favored gas-station gofer car and snowplow. Long before four-wheel-drive became common on pickups, which were none-too-common themselves then; long before Western and Myers became well-known words; it was the local Mobil or Atlantic station, with the crude plow on the Scout; with lights on the roof…which dug out your gift-card-shop parking lot for you. Sure, Jeeps were around…but a canvas top doesn’t go will with 12 inches of wet snow. Nor did an F-head four Jeep get around well at all, in the new Interstate America.
Alas, the Scout, like everything of the time, rusted so fast you could hear it. But unlike everything else, there was no Scout, no real Scout, in America’s future. The Mobils and newly-signed Arcos and Citgos…slowly acquired jacked-up Ford and Chevrolet trucks with plows with fancy lighting. And the small business owners, slowly acquired mass-marketed snowblowers.
Again like the Jeep, the Scout saw its era come…and go. So long, old Scout…
My first car was a 1973 Scout II. The thing was also a complete rust-bucket buy the time I got it in 1980. It had the 304 V-8 and an three speed automatic. Driving it on a dirt road indeed caused dust storms inside the vehicle! I sucked gasoline and a prodigious rate and had enough low end torque to move a mobile home, which I did with it one time. Said trailer was stuck in the mud and the semi could not budge it. With a stout chain and my four retread snow tires, the Scout unstuck in in 4-Lo. Bought me a lot of cred with my buddies, too.
The thing was as tough as nails. Soon after getting it, I took it to the local gravel pit and did Dukes of Hazzard jumps with it. I went through roads that should not have been driven on, overgrown conglomerations of ruts and interconnected pot holes. I made it to lakes people only saw on maps and caught enormous lake trout.
And, like a fool, I sold it after two summers because it was not cool enough. I only had like $700 into it. I should have kept it as a boonie-basher.
I had the chance to check out another old Scout about a year ago. It was a good deal and not to rusty. But driving made me remember why I sold mine. It really is just a rusty metal box on wheels.
Come on, Micheal I use my Scout IIs for commuting among other things though I don’t know if I’d do the same in an 80/800..
Made in my hometown of Fort Wayne, Indiana. During my college years in the late ’70s, I worked for a place that used one of these to plow the parking lot. I think it was a ’67 or thereabouts. Red with a white roof, 4 cylinder and a 3 speed stick. It was a little rusty, but not bad, probably because it didn’t get out on the roads a lot.
I drove it for about a half hour once, from one side of Fort Wayne to the other. It was noisy, rough riding and not that fast, but I had an absolute blast driving it. You are right, it seems that every little gas station had one of these.
I have always had a little soft spot for really crude vehicles, and the Scout scratched that itch. I spent a lot of time in a friend’s ’74 Scout II (6 and auto) and it was a LOT more refined than the little gen1 4 banger. Like a lot of you, I would love to see a new Scout-type vehicle, but must be honest enough to confess that I am not likely to be one of the guys buying one.
In eastern Canada, every gas station had one to plow snow in the winter. They were especially good at this as the Gen 1 model was quite small and even the four banger made enough torque to push a substantial blade around. The same could not be said for Jeeps, which were also much more expensive.
Yup…I worked at a car lot and we had Scout with a plow.
I’m suprised nobody brought up the one Bert Reynolds drove in “Deliverence.
Sorry but Burt drove a Bronco ;o)
Guess again. 1970 Scout 800.
http://www.imcdb.org/vehicle_211053-International-Harvester-Scout-1970.html
Ive rarely seen a really old Inter Scout mostly the larger versions and nearly always dead and parked amongst the other failures, The really old ones would have competed with Land Rovers with little success as they were nearly unstoppable and the late models I saw mainly in rural OZ were up against Toyota Landcruisers and Hiluxs which rule the blacksoil plains, snow aint a problem out there black cracking clay is, there arent many paved roads and gravel is only a joke you still get bogged. Scouts were tried but by the 80s had been abandonned for Toyotas who had a dealer network and were reliable and diesel powered, Farmers in OZ can claim fuel tax rebates and for hard working vehicles petrol is only a joke diesel is where its at
There are still Scouts and Scout IIs running around down under pulling out the stuck Land Rovers and Land Cruisers.
As to reliability and durability that is not why they didn’t sell so well down under, it was the pricing. The Scout because it was built heavier duty and with real MD truck parts was more expensive back home, by the time it was shipped all the way down under and the import taxes were adding they were priced out of reach for most people. IIRC what my Scout buddies down under said it was about twice the price of the Land Cruiser. So only rich people drove Scouts.
I’m not sure if any of the Chrysler-Nissan diesel equipped Scout IIs were exported at all, other than to Canada. IH purchased the engines from Chrysler the sole north American importer/distributor. Chrysler only had a license to sell them in north America. So it wouldn’t surprise me if as part of the contracts they couldn’t be sold out of that area even after being installed in a finished product.
Went to Panama Canal Zone in 1972. Had to hold sick call for four different stations. Threw the more common medicines in a fishing tackle box and traveled around to see those who couldn’t come to see me. The reason that this info belongs here is that courtesy of the U.S. Navy, I was given a 1964(?) navy gray international scout to make the rounds. Four cylinder engine with lots of torque and sucked fuel like a peterbilt. Didn’t matter much because gas was $.25 on base and I didn’t pay for it. Seemed like it was always in the shop so can’t say much for dependability but it was real big on being strong. I think that if it had a good mechanic it would have been more dependable. Last I saw it someone else was driving it and I was on my way to an amphibious ship out of Norfolk. I must say though that it was an interesting four years and the scout was a big part of it.
One of the reasons that Scouts of all vintages were/are so popular as plow trucks is that unlike the Jeep you could order your choice of Western or Meyer snow plow “factory” installed. So it would roll off the transporter ready to work. The reason I say “factory” is that the weren’t installed on the assembly line but down the street at the TSPC or Truck Sales Processing Center. The TSPC was where they installed the soft tops , electric and PTO powered winches as well as doing any paint work that didn’t conform to one of the 2 tone masking scheme.
The amazing thing about many of the plow Scouts is that many of them were only used for that purpose. I know lots of guys who have drug them home with only 20, 30, or 40K on the clock. Still ran and drove like a top but the bodies are so rusted that they literally falling apart and sometimes have “cabs” tacked together with plywood and 2x4s.
Here is a “good” one.
Thats what I recall rhem looking like see thru
Yeah but as the say at the tow/charity donation auctions “it’s red and running” even if the red is the rust.
Here is one still earning it’s keep last winter.
Thats the other thing I remember about internationals they just keep going
So . . . many . .cornbinder . . stories! My best friend in high school had TWO of these (1st gen, early 60s models), and I of course was the more experienced wrench-turner (not that it was very hard to work on these, quite the contrary).
His both had the half-a-V8 motors in them coupled to manual trannies. You would think that you could use a head gasket off of the full-V8 cousin, but then you would have coolant pouring out your tailpipe as fast as you poured it into the radiator!
Another time, shortly after a certain wrench-turner had rebuilt the 1-hole carburetor, the engine started making a loud banging noise but it still ran just fine. After long discussions analyzing the options, my friend in desperation finally yanked the head off and found a smashed-up bit of brass that used to be an air bleed jet that had loosened up inside the venturi of the carb and found its way inside the motor. Surprisingly there was absolutely no valve or piston damage that we could see, so he buttoned it back up again and put it on the road.
I distinctly remember driving it for the very first time after I had done my super-duper tuneup on it (I was a genius with point-type distributors), and here is what happened from a red light in the left turn lane:
1. Light turns green.
2. Start out in first gear; (oh crap) run out of first gear half-way through the intersection.
3. Oh yeah, turn, turn, TURN DAMMIT, I’m going straight toward the center island in the intersection!!! (30:1 ratio manual steering box with a 20″ diameter steering wheel and no spinner knob, what a disaster)
4. While frantically spinning the tiller using both hands, I had to shift into second but the throttle sticks open too, so I had to use my right toe to lift up on the gas pedal as part of the upshifting process.
5. Ahhhh, 2nd gear, now KEEP STEERING!!! (barely clear the center island)
6. Now frantically spin the wheel the other way about 50 times to put it on a straight line, and then grab third gear, remembering to do the toe-lift of the gas pedal of course.
That thing was slow as molasses, but darn did it have personality, and yea verily, it would climb up and down about any crazy-steep hill that four teenagers were willing to try (I remember scouting the downside slope once and strongly advising my friend to “put it in compound low and first gear” and boy were we all glad that he did as the engine wheezed and whined all the way down – to a locked gate at the bottom, but that’s another story!).
The head gasket or a 152 is the same as the one for the 304 and 345. The 196 uses the same head gasket as the 392 of the same version. There is the rub, there are IC and non-IC 196s and 392s. In HD use there were issues with localized hot spots around the cyl walls so IH redesigned the cooling system. The smaller engines and the non-IC 392/196 the coolant goes into the head, down into the block and back up to the head. The IC puts the coolant in the block and then it goes into the head. So the head gaskets are different and use the wrong one and you end up with coolant pouring out of the block to head surface. There are also different head gaskets for the different bores so there are 4 different gaskets. 266, 152/304/345, 196/392 and IC 196/392.
By IC he means Improved Cooling.
Most entertaining!
I recently bought my second Scout. My first was 20 years ago, a ’75 Scout II, 304 V-8/3sp., power steering/brakes. What a tank! Other than having to hold the range selector with my foot while in low range, it was awesome! Almost no rust (1 hole behind passenger door, some bondo in the rear fenderwells), electric trailer brakes, receiver hitch and super-stiff springs. Rode like a buckboard, especially on 1800 + mile interstate trips, but had stump-pulling torque – flat towed cars like they weren’t even there. 15 MPG city/hwy/towing @ 65 MPH – faster and motor whined like the pistons were going to come through the hood. I still regret selling it, but I had a wife and kids to feed.
My “new” Scout is a gen1, AMC I-6/automatic, no power options. Made when dinosaurs still roamed the earth. In pieces, being reconditioned. Rust in front floorpans, driver’s side gas tank, a bit at base of tailgate. Once the floorpans are replaced, I plan to replace the wiring harness, fuel and brake lines, repaint and reassemble. I can’t wait to get this beast on the road…
I have a 68 that I have babied over the years. Don’t get me wrong, I have done my share of speeding through corn patches after the harvest. I have had people fly out of it, and not know it in those patches. I am in love with her, would never let her go.