IH 1969 Scout 800A Dilapidated Ranchmobile (2 Viewers)

[BrickRunner]

Lots of cobwebs this side of Mud...

Hello!
My uncle bought this Scout circa 2008 to tool around on his ranch from another fellow who used it to tool around on his ranch. No idea the history before that, but, it has had an interesting life regardless. Its a 1969 Scout 800A 4X4 with the 304 V8 and 4 speed and a hardtop. Apart from some questionable farmboy fixes and a few paint jobs, it's mostly original. When the Scout was running my cousin and I would blast around my uncles ranch with it and my 4Runner. Good times.

As with many a ranch vehicle, time and lack thereof took it's toll and it sat idle for many years...

...until last March when I bought it from my uncle! Where it promptly sat for another 9 months in my garage...
Running when parked lol!

I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it, I already have 2 other 4x4's...

 

[BrickRunner]

Going to pick the Scout up was an adventure in itself. It had just rained and the fine dirt of the road into the ranch had turned into a thin layer of slime which my buddy's 2WD 12 Valve Dodge with trailer could not handle. So I put the 4Runner in 4Lo and towed 'em both. By the time we finished unsticking the Scout and getting it up onto the trailer, the mud had dried out and the Dodge was able to make it out unassisted. We rolled the Scout into the garage (which is surprisingly difficult with a completely dead tire) and there it sat until this week.

 

[BrickRunner]

I did rebuild the carburetor in July, but didn't really touch the Scout otherwise until this past week. It's a Motorcraft 2100 with an electronic choke. This is the first time I've messed with a carburetor. So many bits and bobs!

 

[BrickRunner]

After much simple green and elbow grease, I found some red paint underneath all of the goo! Huzzah!

My uncle mentioned he thought the reason it wasn't running was that the fuel pump was bad. There were a few more obvious things: rats had chewed a number of wires, including the spark plug wires...

...So, new fuel pump, cap, rotor, plugs, plug wires...
The new fuel pump didn't quite work...

There was also a helper electric pump wired in with speaker wire. There were several instances of rubber hose clamped to the threaded side of npt fittings...

I put the question to my hotrod friends and they recommended to just block of the mechanical pump and put a 'knocker' electric pump in, which one of them happen to have and not need.
Alrighty! New fuel pump (not with speaker wire this time), filter(s), hose and hardline.

I had fuel, spark and air, but was only able to get one or two sputters before I drained my new battery after many attempts... arg! It was late so I put the battery on the charger and decided to sleep on it...

 

[BrickRunner]

Slow crank... hmm... battery cables? They've seen better days...

Soldered some fresh ones up proper:

Fired right up with the new battery cables and a recharged battery!

Also, new tires (the previous day)

Boy howdy was this thing billowing some smoke! I rolled it out and let it idle. Thankfully the neighbors didn't call the fire department on me.

 

[BrickRunner]

Unfortunately, when I was removing the heater hoses and fittings, I bumped one of the coolant tubes going from the water pump into one of the cylinder heads and it instantly started leaking coolant. These are apparently notorious for rotting out. !~@#$!@

I thought about several solutions, including buying a stainless steel one for $260! The holes in the block and water pump are smooth and would require a large expensive drill and tap, assuming I could even get the tools in there... The holes are sized for a 1 3/8" freeze plug so I also thought about drilling and welding barbed fittings into some freeze plugs and hammering them in and using some flexible coolant hose. In the end I decided on repairing the tube. I soaked the tube in my big bucket of Evaporust overnight and then got to work.

 

[BrickRunner]

I made a die out of a trailer hitch ball I had lying around to create the flared end, using 1 1/8" .060 wall steel tubing. I welded the flared tube ends to the tube on the inside as to not interfere with the o-ring groove.

Good as new! I may have put some of The Right Stuff in there along with the o-rings. Maybe...

Tomorrow I'll fill 'er up with coolant, bleed the brakes, and maybe, just maybe, get'er driving again!

 

[BrickRunner]

While I was pondering the coolant tube repair, I cut off some towing overload springs on the rear axle that someone thought this thing needed. Towing, right... I doubt this was a factory or dealer option...
Unfortunately they welded their stops to the factory stops and I couldn't separate the two cleanly...

 

[Big Ed]

Nice Bronco!

 

[aztoyman]

That could be a baddass little wheeler. Here's some good support. www.ihpartsamerica.com

Nice work on that tube repair.

Don't toss that fuel pump. It's probably rebuildable. There's a few guys out there that will do it if you don't want to.

How did the body stay so straight after all it's been through?

 

[BrickRunner]

That could be a baddass little wheeler. Here's some good support. www.ihpartsamerica.com

Nice work on that tube repair.

Don't toss that fuel pump. It's probably rebuildable. There's a few guys out there that will do it if you don't want to.

How did the body stay so straight after all it's been through?

Thanks, there does seem to be a fair amount of parts support for these old tanks still.

I generally keep all my cores. I think I have at least 3 3vze water pumps at this point...

Straight? Ha! It has it's fair share of bumps and bruises.

 

[aztoyman]

Pics can be deceiving I guess. It's not a raisin so to me that's pretty straight.

 

[BrickRunner]

My buddy stopped by to help me with the brakes and carburetor. We got all four wheel cylinders bled after unplugging a couple of lines. There is actual pedal feeling now and I was able to drive the Scout back into the garage and stop it with the brakes!

Although I had done an OK job rebuilding the carb, the kit did not include new bushings for the throttle rod. This caused two issues: air leaking through where the housing supports the rod, and also the throttle butterflies would never return to the same place twice because of the slop, also causing air leaks and a runnaway idle. We tinkered with it a bit and were able to get it to idle better and cut down the smoke quite a bit, but I think it's time for a new carburetor. It's had quite a life and done it's duty.

After my buddy took off, I decided to blast off the mud on the underside, of which there was several cubic feet. The space between the fenders and the gas tanks holds quite alot...
I now have mud from my uncles ranch at my house, huzzah!

 

[BrickRunner]

How to change an oil filter:
1: Puncture with screwdriver and attempt to turn, tearing it up.
2: Sawzall can portion off.
3: Drill out ports to fit pulley spanner.
4: Use large pulley spanner to remove remains of filter housing.
5: Install new filter with no lube on the seal and with a filter wrench to prank the next guy. (Please don't actually do this!)

There might have been an '08 date scribbled on the old filter, oof...

 

[aztoyman]

Looks like you put a good filter on. Better tack weld it on. You don't want it to come off as easy as the last one.

 

[BrickRunner]

The new carb required a bit of 'fitting' but it's installed now. Fires up and idles without revving up wildly on its own now since there's no more vacuum leaks. I still need to tune it, address the throttle linkage, and fix the choke wiring. The wire for the electric choke has intermittent continuity and never long enough to display a voltage on my meter. Short term I might just run it off of a toggle switch until I install the new wiring harness. I also reinstalled the goofy angle iron doomsday bumper! I vaguely recall this bumper sticking out further when my uncle bought the Scout, but my cousin and I shortening it for more approach angle.

 

[BrickRunner]

I wired up the choke and installed a fresh air filter. A quick adjustment of idle and I was off for a jaunt around the neighborhood! And what did I see? Another Scout!

I've seen the other Scout cruising around a few times. I think it is a Scout 80, as opposed to an 800 because of the tailgate having the IH symbol versus International and Scout spelled out?

The brakes on my Scout leave a bit to be desired...

 

[Scout232]

Nice work! Always a thrill to take that first drive after completing stuff.

 

[BrickRunner]

It sat for a few weeks after I drove it the first time, and consequently lost fuel prime, and therefore sat longer... the sad fate of many a Scout.

The original wiring harness had seen better days. Between the rats, random wire nuts, corrosion and duct-tape, I decided to start fresh. I was surprised I didn't find any chewing gum.

I bought a new wiring harness, but it ended up being a generic 'GM style' harness with some Scout pigtails to solder in. After struggling to match it up to the the factory wiring, I finally figured out that I couldn't. I would have lost the ammeter functionality for a voltmeter instead. No thanks. So much for drop in. I ended up recreating the factory harness with a schematic I found online (with the addition of an actual fuse box). This was a job, ugh...

After many weekends of work, I hooked everything up today and trouble shot a few issues. A couple of bad grounds, a bad horn relay, and something wrong with the turn signal switch assembly, but overall a success!

I put in some gas, got it to prime again, and fired it up! (after killing the battery and jumping it with the 4Runner...). It (and I) survived the drive over to my mom's. While there I mounted up the CB ball mount and attached the coax cable that I put in the wiring harness.

The new carburetor shifted the link point rearwards and the link didn't have anywhere close to the adjustment needed, so I had bent the link. It worked, but was a tad hokey, so I shortened it. It had been lengthened sometime before in it's life.

We also survived the trip back to my house!

 

[aztoyman]

It's a cool F'n truck. I'm glad you fixed it. Good call on the rewire.