This Scout has been in my family since the early 80's, my dad traded a non-functional projector for a big screen TV to a friend of his for it in I think 1983 or 1984.
I need to find some OG pics of it but it was all the way legit.
I mean check out this interior - swivel bucket seats, green shag carpet floor to ceiling plaid...does it get much better?
Stock it had a Nissan SD33T diesel that my dad had all sorts of trouble with getting it to run right reliably.
I remember he had a head put on it, then had it completely rebuilt. Then the crank broke and he decided he was done with the diesel.
My grandpa worked his whole life at a trucking garage that at the time of his retirement ran a fleet of International straight trucks. So, he got the inside line on a freshly remanufactured 345 IH V8.
He and dad spent a winter putting that in it and boom, it was a reliable good workhorse.
Dad drove it quite a bit through the late 1980's, had the body fixed up 1988 style(filler) and painted before relegating it to a wood hauler/hunting rig and parking it down at the farm in the shed the rest of the year.
Once I reached driving age my old man passed it on to me and I drove it through high school.
And drive it I did. Anybody who says these trucks are built tough is telling you the truth.
MANY a good time were had with it, with the power-lock in the rear end and some all terrains it'd go nearly anywhere I needed to go.
Plus did you know the back seats folded down on these? It's the extended wheelbase model so an air mattress and a nice cooler would fit in the back just about perfect.
By my senior year the body was starting to fall apart again so I spent the summer before grinding out the plastic and patching the floors then had it painted that winter.
I drove it the rest of the year but decided to park it when it was time to go off to school. It has 3.73's and the 345 doesn't like RPM so the 100 mile + drive each way to Iowa would have taken a quick toll on it. Plus it was easy to break in to and I didn't want it to get stolen or trashed in dorm parking lots.
So, it has sat for ~20 years in the shed at the farm.
Since I am about done with the C10 and grandpa's pickup I decided it was time to get this thing back on the road again again.
While sitting hasn't been the best for it, it has fared better than most and it looks like this will be a fairly easy project going forward.
So, enough with the backstory.
A month or so ago we threw it on the trailer to get it out of the shed to get the some concrete leveling work done.
I brought it home and dumped the old oil out of it, ran some fresh in with a couple bottles of zinc additive and primed the oil system.
It built pressure good so I cranked it over but did not try to start it as I want to get the gas tank boiled out before I do that.
Last weekend we took it back down to the farm and put it up on the lift to really get serious about working on it.
Yesterday we went back down and pulled the rest of the interior out to really get the lay of the land.
The rear and cargo floors are nearly perfect with only some minor surface blistering with the exception of the rear body support/crossmember.
The front floors on the other hand seem to have suffered a rougher fate due to a leaking windshield gasket - it looks like it will need floorpans, supports, body mounts and wedges on both sides.
The drivers side I replaced most of the pan on in high school and the patch seems to have held up ok but the area around it has gotten quite a bit weaker so I'll be cutting it out and replacing it all.
The passenger side is a fair amount rougher, similar rot over the body mount but also bleeding into the kick panel and up into the firewall.
Nothing fatal by any means but it's gonna take some more loving to get it to where it should be.
I'm going to run up to a Scout shop about 30 miles north of town Weds or Thurs after work and grab the panels, hopefully next weekend we can get to trimming and fitting the components into place.
Current plan is to do my best to wrap up structural repairs the week of Thanksgiving, spend the period between then and X-mas focused on getting it running, install hush mat and knock out some minor stuff, and if time allows I'd like to install the 4L80E I have sitting here for it but I don't know if I'll get that far.
Then over the holidays run it down to a guy in TN that specializes in them and have him to a lot of suspension work - spring over, reverse shackle, do some axle upgrades, and if funds permit have him replace the fiberglass liftgate with a steel Scout tailgate. Once that's done I hope to freshen up the interior late winter and reassemble it for summertime fun.
I need to find some OG pics of it but it was all the way legit.
I mean check out this interior - swivel bucket seats, green shag carpet floor to ceiling plaid...does it get much better?
Stock it had a Nissan SD33T diesel that my dad had all sorts of trouble with getting it to run right reliably.
I remember he had a head put on it, then had it completely rebuilt. Then the crank broke and he decided he was done with the diesel.
My grandpa worked his whole life at a trucking garage that at the time of his retirement ran a fleet of International straight trucks. So, he got the inside line on a freshly remanufactured 345 IH V8.
He and dad spent a winter putting that in it and boom, it was a reliable good workhorse.
Dad drove it quite a bit through the late 1980's, had the body fixed up 1988 style(filler) and painted before relegating it to a wood hauler/hunting rig and parking it down at the farm in the shed the rest of the year.
Once I reached driving age my old man passed it on to me and I drove it through high school.
And drive it I did. Anybody who says these trucks are built tough is telling you the truth.
MANY a good time were had with it, with the power-lock in the rear end and some all terrains it'd go nearly anywhere I needed to go.
Plus did you know the back seats folded down on these? It's the extended wheelbase model so an air mattress and a nice cooler would fit in the back just about perfect.
By my senior year the body was starting to fall apart again so I spent the summer before grinding out the plastic and patching the floors then had it painted that winter.
I drove it the rest of the year but decided to park it when it was time to go off to school. It has 3.73's and the 345 doesn't like RPM so the 100 mile + drive each way to Iowa would have taken a quick toll on it. Plus it was easy to break in to and I didn't want it to get stolen or trashed in dorm parking lots.
So, it has sat for ~20 years in the shed at the farm.
Since I am about done with the C10 and grandpa's pickup I decided it was time to get this thing back on the road again again.
While sitting hasn't been the best for it, it has fared better than most and it looks like this will be a fairly easy project going forward.
So, enough with the backstory.
A month or so ago we threw it on the trailer to get it out of the shed to get the some concrete leveling work done.
I brought it home and dumped the old oil out of it, ran some fresh in with a couple bottles of zinc additive and primed the oil system.
It built pressure good so I cranked it over but did not try to start it as I want to get the gas tank boiled out before I do that.
Last weekend we took it back down to the farm and put it up on the lift to really get serious about working on it.
Yesterday we went back down and pulled the rest of the interior out to really get the lay of the land.
The rear and cargo floors are nearly perfect with only some minor surface blistering with the exception of the rear body support/crossmember.
The front floors on the other hand seem to have suffered a rougher fate due to a leaking windshield gasket - it looks like it will need floorpans, supports, body mounts and wedges on both sides.
The drivers side I replaced most of the pan on in high school and the patch seems to have held up ok but the area around it has gotten quite a bit weaker so I'll be cutting it out and replacing it all.
The passenger side is a fair amount rougher, similar rot over the body mount but also bleeding into the kick panel and up into the firewall.
Nothing fatal by any means but it's gonna take some more loving to get it to where it should be.
I'm going to run up to a Scout shop about 30 miles north of town Weds or Thurs after work and grab the panels, hopefully next weekend we can get to trimming and fitting the components into place.
Current plan is to do my best to wrap up structural repairs the week of Thanksgiving, spend the period between then and X-mas focused on getting it running, install hush mat and knock out some minor stuff, and if time allows I'd like to install the 4L80E I have sitting here for it but I don't know if I'll get that far.
Then over the holidays run it down to a guy in TN that specializes in them and have him to a lot of suspension work - spring over, reverse shackle, do some axle upgrades, and if funds permit have him replace the fiberglass liftgate with a steel Scout tailgate. Once that's done I hope to freshen up the interior late winter and reassemble it for summertime fun.