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.
Category: Friends
Nationals 2025 Recap
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.
Bushwhacking
Here’s a video from the weekend’s fun in the woods. Bennett and I put a list of the trucks and parts together for the family, and he’s going to pass that along to them to get the ball rolling. Hauling those trucks out is going to be a challenge.
Gray Hair
When I bought my first Scout, I was one of the youngest guys at the car meetups. I was 26, gainfully employed, and knew nothing about cars other than what I’d picked up in the repo lot. I knew more about picking locks than I did fixing engines, but I didn’t let that stop me from driving a 20-year-old truck to the Outer Banks from Baltimore with nothing but a screwdriver and some electrical tape. I read as much as I possibly could and picked up bits of information from the old-timers around me. Resources like the Binder Bulletin and the IHC Digest were full of guys who had bought Scouts new off the dealer lots, and they were a wealth of knowledge and information about the little quirks and tricks of ownership.
And as time has moved on, so have a lot of those old-timers. Guys I leaned on in the early years have since passed; interesting characters with names like Doc Stewart and Ol’ Saline have gone to the big garage in the sky, leaving a big empty space where their friendly knowledge once was.
One of Bennett’s friends from his early days collecting trucks passed late last year, leaving behind a huge collection of vehicles at his mother’s house. Finley and I had been up there 15 years ago to help Bennett pull an engine from under a lean-to, and at that point the place had simply been overgrown. Bennett was asked by the family to go up and inventory the stuff left behind, and I volunteered to give him a hand.
After meeting a member of his family and getting our bearings, we checked out a truck in the garage near the house: a Traveler in mostly restored condition, but surrounded by pieces and parts that still needed to be installed. It’s still in great shape, and all of the parts required look to be nearby, but it would require some serious excavation. The garage is stuffed with tools and parts and lawnmowers and other stuff, but it’s still dry and intact, which is good news. We noted what was there and what might be missing, and some wheels started turning in Bennett’s head.
Walking around back, we found another collection of parts that had once been protected by a lean-to and tarps. In this pile were a bunch of doors, hoods, and other sheet metal, as well as a bin full of heavy engine parts. Most of the stuff was open to the elements, so we dug around to try and identify as much as we could, pick it up out of the dirt, and shoot pictures.
Out in the back field, we found that the place was wildly overgrown compared to when we were there earlier: what had been open grassland 25 years ago was now a young forest, and it took us a while to bushwhack our way to the area where he had parked a bunch of cars and trucks: a group of R series Travelalls, R series pickups, a trio of Nash sedans, a couple of Scout IIs, a couple of Scout 800s, and a few more modern cars.
As we expected, some of the trucks were in rougher shape than others. Working carefully, we got into as many of the trucks as we could, shooting video and collecting VIN numbers to trace the titles and ownership. Apparently much of the paperwork is missing, though they were stored in the house at one time.
Several of the pickups and one of the Travelalls are in very good shape and would be restoration candidates for the right person. One of the Scout 800s might make a good restoration candidate, while both Scout IIs are only good for parts. It would be very tempting to offer the family money for one of those pickups.
Then we spent an hour bushwhacking through the forest to try to find a shed that was allegedly full of parts. We walked all the way across the property and all the way back to a creek at the rear boundary without finding anything. Consulting Bing maps, I found an outline of where a shed once stood in Street view and oriented us to where it should be. We discovered it collapsed under a tangle of vines and overgrowth and realized we had walked past it twice without seeing it. Under the broken beams we found another collection of parts: some Scout doors, some R-series doors, assorted sheet metal, as well as a bunch of Scout hubcaps and some other interior parts. In order to do a full survey, someone would have to return with a chainsaw and a bushhog to get in there. We collected the best parts we could reach, carried them back to the main truck collection, and then made our way out of the field before it started to rain. Exhausted after a four hour expedition, we stopped at the local diner and loaded up on breakfast.
Bennett got to thinking about how he might swing a deal for the Traveler, and we threw some ideas back and forth. It’s an extremely worthy candidate for saving, and miles ahead of Hanky’s condition.
On Sunday morning, one of those old hands came through for me again. My Scout has been at the transmission shop waiting on a callback from IH Parts America as to the clutch issue; this being the height of show season and Nats being next week I figure they are pretty busy planning and packing the trucks, so I haven’t heard anything back from them. Beginning to panic, I put a post up on the Binder Planet asking for help diagnosing the issue and within two hours I had an answer: one of the bolts is installed backwards and needs to be flipped around. This will require dropping the transmission again, but if that’s all it’s going to take, I’m glad it’s at a transmission shop. Hopefully they can get me in and out ASAP this week so I can get her prepped for the road.
Finally, a nice fellow from Instagram had reached out asking me for some advice on a C-Series pick up truck he bought locally. After trading some messages back and forth it turned out he was only about 20 minutes from the house, so I offered to stop down on Sunday morning to look over his truck.
The pickup in question was one I’d looked at back in 2022 when I was first searching for a new project vehicle. I met him in his driveway, where he was replacing the Holley 1940 carb on a six-cylinder engine. After meeting his dog and shaking his hand, he explained that the carb that came with the truck was leaky and had a lot of play in the butterfly valves. He’d rebuilt it, but water had gotten into the gas tank and rusted out parts of the carb.
He was looking at using a Chinese-built replacement, but the linkage on that carb was set up for a Ford so there would need to be a lot of re-engineering the throttle linkage to get it to work with his truck. So we futzed with the old carb, trying to find a gasket that would hold the gas in the bowl, but the two that he had didn’t work and it kept dumping gas when he ran the fuel pump. While we worked, I answered questions and passed on advice on what to prioritize and how I’ve done certain things on my truck. He’s facing the same issues I had with my Travelall: the cowl vents are leaking into the cab and need to be cut out and replaced, requiring major sheetmetal surgery. He doesn’t have any experience with bodywork or welding yet, and picked my brain about how to tackle the project. I explained the process I had followed and gave him advice on where to look for parts and how to disassemble certain things. We weren’t able to get the carb to work properly, so I told him I would look out for replacements at Nats.
I realize now that I am the old-timer. The brutal truth is that my peers and I are the graybeards, and we’re slowly passing on and leaving our stuff behind. I’m not a professional, and I still need to learn so much, but it feels good to give back to the community as much as I’ve learned from it, and to be an ambassador for the brand and for the hobby.
Long-Distance Radio
Butch from Alaska wrote in the comments about following the radio project I was working on, and gutted his radio to work with the same Bluetooth receiver I found. He mentioned he had a plain uncut radio faceplate painted black, but was looking for a chrome version for his truck. The one I pulled from the ’67 was chrome with black plastic inlay that came with Custom trim, so we worked out a swap. I got his in the mail last week and tried it out with the ’67 radio—and strangely enough it’s just a little off. The cutout for the central controls is perfect but the stalk widths are just a little off, which is baffling. Didn’t they standardize this kind of stuff back in the ’60’s? I hope he can use the one I sent up last Friday—it may be that he’s got to narrow the stalk openings to work with his unit.
Weekend Recap
Looking through the Sniper install instructions, it’s looking like the most complicated part of the whole thing is going to be dealing with the fuel tank. Essentially, I’m going to need to empty it completely, drop it again, let it dry out, fill it with water, and drill a hole in the top for a return line. Fuel injection requires a return line to the tank for somewhere to put the extra gas, so I have to sort that out. Thankfully, the kit comes with all the hardware required, so that isn’t an issue.
The next puzzle is figuring out where to put the fuel pump and prefilter. Because the fuel tank is under the passenger frame rail and the fuel outlet is directly behind the passenger wheel, the fuel line routes up through the passenger wheel well and up to the fuel pump, only about 2 1/2 feet in total length. The pump and prefilter aren’t small, and when they’re mounted together they’re about 18″ long. I really don’t want to mount the fuel pump right next to the wheel, so I’ve gotta find a different place to put it. Ideally, it would go inside the frame rail, but that means I have to reverse the direction of the fuel outlet, and find a way to loop the fuel hose around without kinking it. The extra added problem is that the exhaust pipe is on the passenger side of the truck, about 8 inches away from that frame rail, so whatever goes on there needs to have heat shielding.
The obvious solution to this whole problem would be to cut the receiver hitch off the back of the truck and hang a new gas tank under the center of the rear floor. Of course, I’d have to figure out how to plumb a new filler line and solve a bunch of other problems that I’m not ready to face. So that’s out.
While thinking all of the stuff through, I scraped and wire brushed the inside of the frame rail under the passenger side, hit it with rust converter, and then coated it with rust encapsulator. Both frame rails need this treatment, as I’ve done almost all of the outside edges, but because it sits so low to the ground, it’s really hard to get to the inside.
Stalling for time, I spent Saturday afternoon trimming out the already butchered original radio faceplate for a single DIN-sized radio head unit from the Scout. Then, I repaired the wiring and mounted it in the truck along with a set of old school carpeted truck boxes we got from the repo lot thirty years ago.
On Sunday, we had plans to help our friend Brian install a two post lift in his new garage across the river in Chestertown. I met up with Bennett at a park-and-ride where he was waiting in his 67 Mustang with a seat full of parts and a warm coffee. From there, we caravanned across the bridge to Brian’s house. The plan was to drop the Mustang off at Brian’s so that he could install electric steering in the Ford like he did in his Scout 800.
After getting a little coffee and taking the tour, we started by sorting out all of the pieces and parts of the posts of the lift. We hefted the first post onto dollies and moved it into position. With three of us, it wasn’t too difficult to push it up and sit into place, and Brian drilled the holes in the concrete to set it. Thankfully, the concrete only got poured a year ago, so it was easy to drill into. Then we moved the second post in a place and assembled the crossbar to hang between the two posts.
The weather was absolutely perfect for working outside and by lunchtime I had changed into shorts. The instructions that came with the kit were lousy, and didn’t explain which hardware went to what. This would not have been a problem if all of the hardware was the same size, but we had to guess between sizes for different applications. Once we sorted all that out, we hung the equalizing cables, electrical line, and hydraulic lines. While Brian was sorting out the wiring for the hydraulic pump, Bennett and I hung the four arms off the lift shuttles and set the pads in place. We left the entire thing anchored in the ground and ready for electrical hookup, which Brian is probably going to finish this week.
Bennett and I packed up my Scout and we headed back west with the sides rolled up in full Safari mode, enjoying the cool evening air. We stopped for a tailgate dinner of gyros right before we hit the bridge and made it back to his house as dusk was falling. I got word in his driveway that my niece and nephew were waiting with the girls at our local ice cream stand, so I hightailed it back to our neighborhood for a chocolate shake with the family.
Video Update, 3.27
Here’s a video recap of last weekend’s trip. I’ve got next week off from work, so I’m going to make an effort to get the Sniper kit installed and running—stay tuned.
Garage Investigation
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.
Cleaning House
We lost one of our Scout friends a couple of years ago unexpectedly. A. was an encyclopedia of Scout and International knowledge. If you needed to know the size of a particular bolt on an engine or the diameter of a piece of hose, he knew exactly what it was. If you needed to know what carburetor came in a particular truck for a particular year, he knew. When I first got Peer Pressure, I was having problems diagnosing accelerator cable issues and shot a picture of what I was dealing with to the local Scout group. He reached out to me within a couple of hours, told me I had the wrong throttle cable mount, and offered to swap with me for the correct manual mount. He mailed me the part the next day and within a week I had the truck running much better than it had been before.
Later on, he was part of a group of guys who joined me in parting out a truck we dragged out of the woods, and we got up to all kinds of fun scout shenanigans. He was also one of the group who came and swapped the brakes out on Peer Pressure when I was recovering from cancer. He was a good guy and our little Maryland scout group misses his knowledge and expertise.
When he passed, his estate went to his sister, and he left behind a truck and a whole bunch of parts at his house. She’s been storing it ever since and reached out to Bennett to help her figure out what’s there and what it’s worth. So we’ve organized a scouting trip up there to survey and catalog everything, and figure out how we can help her sell it. Bennett and I are driving up next weekend and we have no idea what to expect. Part of our plan is going to be to getting the truck running. We are told it ran a couple of years ago, but we don’t know if he had done any extra work to it or what shape any of the major systems are in. So I’ve got a list of tools and parts for an engine revival ready to go.
We’re also told there’s a bunch of parts that he had collected over the years, but we don’t know if they’re organized, or for what vehicles they might be. His truck is an original scout 80 or 800, but from what we remember he had collected a bunch of Scout II parts. So it’s going to be a very interesting trip.
Unfulfilled
Saturday I had the afternoon to fiddle with the truck, so I focused on getting the clutch unstuck. First I stopped at Hobo Freight to pick up some long pry tools to separate the clutch plate from the flywheel. Later I climbed under the truck and tried to get the tools where they needed to be, but found that the angle required was too great—the bellhousing made it impossible to get the tools I had in the proper position.
The next possibility is to run the engine to temperature and heat soak the clutch, so I focused on getting her started. While I was able to get her to idle last weekend I couldn’t get her to catch at all with gas in the bowl.
Sunday morning I had a little time before a junkyard run to pull the plugs on Darth. All of them except #5 and 7 on the driver’s side were pretty fouled with gas and oil, so I cleaned them off and put them back in. I also checked the other wires for corrosion and re-routed them all above the water pump neck. With that done, I connected the boat tank behind the filter, powered the electric pump and tried cranking the truck over, but still couldn’t get it to catch. At this point I’m thinking the carburetor needs to be pulled off and cleaned out again, because I can get fuel to the bowl and I know I’m getting spark to the plugs.
At 11, Bennett pulled up to the house in his Scout. We transferred tools and drove Peer Pressure to a junkyard on the eastern side of Baltimore to pick parts off a Chrysler Crossfire they’ve had in their yard for two weeks. He’d already been over there once to get some stuff but wanted to return for some other things before it got scrapped. His Crossfire is almost 20 years old now and a lot of small things are breaking, so he had a long list of plastic parts and other fasteners to grab. The two big things on his list were an intact windshield and the corner of the rocker panel behind the driver side door. The car had been picked over pretty well, so we got what we could and he focused on cutting the rocker out with a Sawzall while I tried to cut away the glue around the windshield. He was stymied by a thick section of structural metal under the outer skin and a dying set of batteries, and I was stopped by rock-hard glue that prevented any blade I had from cutting.
The junkyard on this side of town has always been an interesting place to experience the wide spectrum of humanity; all the self-service yards around here have the same grubby, slightly institutional feel of a prison, but this one is the grubbiest. It always feels like one is visiting a shady uncle doing time for a meth bust. While we were pulling parts we had two different men stop by and ask to borrow our impact driver; both reeked of pot and could barely stand, let alone talk. I demurred, assuming I would never see my tool again—figuring the chances were equal they would either steal it or wander off, forget where they were, and fall asleep in one of the cars.
We then found a 2009 Nissan Versa and proceeded to demolish the plastic dashboard to expose the electric steering unit underneath. The one I’d disassembled last year had already been partially deconstructed due to a head-on collision, but this one was intact so we had to get physical with the plastics and fasteners. Once we’d cut away half the dashboard and wrapped it up over the passenger side, the guts were easier to reach and we got the unit out in one piece. Then we had to prop the column up over the wheelbarrow and remove the airbag, steering wheel, and control stalks so that he wouldn’t be charged for the extra elements. With those safely collected, I made a brief stop at a CR-V to pull the driver’s sunvisor and then we headed for home.
So there wasn’t much forward progress with the truck, which has me feeling blue. But here’s a recap video from the last two weeks: