A Boy and his Scout in Korea (Republic of)

[harrywt]

Hi all,

many of you know that I am in korea now with my Scout of course. I have been very lucky to have found a really good mechanic that truly loves to work on it. This is a huge step for me, in 40 years of owning cars I have rarely let any mechanic near any of my cars especially not one of my scouts. Since I don't have a shop set up here yet this guy is a gift from the heavens.

I finally got off road a bit this past weekend. My wife has most of the pictures and they'll be here soon. Here's a couple I took for now. We were criss crossing narrow, paved, mountain roads looking for places to live. The map showed our road ending but the path didn't we came upon a road construction site so this won't be here much longer. A real shame as it is a very pretty location.

I am seriously liking my kumho mudders (33x12.50's) very nice on the highway and now have been "blooded" a bit. We were pretty conservative, no jack, no shovel and open diffs but it was still fun.

 

[mikeindustries]

I am very excited for you. I love adventures, finding the the never known. Please keep posting pictures of your Scout, and even more of your exploration.

Subscribed!

 

[harrywt]

 

[Scooter]

Thanks for sharing. In '89, I spent a week in puson, korea, not sure if it's spelled correctly. Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance or have the time to explore the back woods

 

[harrywt]

They spell it busan in our letters but they pronounce it poo san. Their letter for "b" is more of a p sound then they have a double consonant that sounds more like b

부삭 poo san, this is the correct korean spelling

뿌삭 boo san, if I wanted it to sound like it looks to us, busan

thanks for sharing. In '89, I spent a week in puson, korea, not sure if it's spelled correctly. Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance or have the time to explore the back woods

 

[Scooter]

Thanks harry. I had a feeling that I was spelling is wrong. Was only there for a week when I was in the navy and wasn't able to spend much time to learn the language. Then spent two weeks in japan right after that.

 

[harrywt]

A boy and his work "area" in korea

I live in an apartment building at the moment. Not too many houses but we are looking, what we were doing when we took previous pics. Rents are good but deposits are huge.

Anyway, I have been storing my tools in the garage under the building as our apartment is tiny. By the way, this is a low crome place. My mechanic has two bays without roll up doors (they work in the cold!) when he closes up he strings a rope across the doors!! How long would that last in many places in the states?

My first time leaving my Scout with him overnight he parked on the street next to his shop and it had all my tools in it still! Still got the tools. We are in a medium sized city here, 1.4 million people so it's not the country.

Anyway, my corner of the garage is evolving. I have been looking around the campus (oh yea, my secret identity is dr harry, physicist don't forget) for a place to set up a table to rebuild a tranny. Today decided to prep the tranny a bit, remove the bell housing, shifter etc to make it easier to move.

You'll see from the pics that I am beginning to consider working in the parking garage.

 

[harrywt]

Finding more mud, still impressed with kumho tires


Gave our friend, mr hoh a look at korea from a Scout. He's the owner of a local pub we frequent


Parked outside said pub, mr hoh so impressed that he bought all of our beers, one of the many good reasons to own a Scout

 

[punjig]

I love this thread. The Scout is cool and they have to love it in korea. What's really cool is the fact you get to live there and trade life with other cultures. They’re going to think that all americans drive 4x4’s, but only the cool one's drive scouts! Keep up the posts!

 

[harrywt]

Apparently, mine is the first Scout ever in korea. We do get a lot of attention that's for sure. They are amazed at the 5000cc (304) engine! We'll have to take some pics of people reacting to it. Get lots of thumbs up, they do love it.

 

[harrywt]

We stumbled onto a place to live! As you May know I have been living in a 50m^2 apartment. I rebuilt my transmission in the parking garage but the condo nazis got to be too much and I had to retreat from the garage.

My wife had visited this clay village near to the university and started paying a monthly fee to allow her to work in the studio that you see in the picture.

She happened to mention that we hated our apartment and that we were looking in the farming villages for a house. Lo and behold she says, aha! My tenants are moving out in 3 days.

Short story is that we rent two little houses, only one has a kitchen, for $500 a month with a $2400 deposit. Normally the rent is $300 with a, get this, $20 000 deposit!! It was a way for people to get capitol when there wasn't a strong banking system here.

I get to use the large open roofed area to wrench my Scout and she threw in a shed, with heat, that I can turn into a workshop. It's about 10'x10'

we really stepped in it, hard to believe we are only 12miles from work and live in a rural setting. You see the night glow from the city behind the mountains but you can't have everything.



The green part is the studio and workshop



That's an outdoor kiln next to the little kia, one of our houses on the left



Landlady's dog. We get to bring our lab over from my sister in alabama!



The two shacks. There's a third one, guy rents it to take breaks every other weekend



This is just outside our bedroom second floor of white house. The last two are the view from the deck

 

[harrywt]

My first repair work. Wipers quit. Retaining clip holding rod to motor disappeared. Jeff has sent me a new one

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[harrywt]

Tried some fording...

 

[harrywt]

Tried out my kumho mud tires
. I am from long island where we off road on sand. In mud I gather one is supposed to keep the wheel spinning fast to throw mud out of the treads. This would be bad on sand where you want to float on top. I kept the tires spinning very slowly and me and the dog drifted through. The hams (pumpkins to non long islanders) were scraping.

The dog approves...

 

[jeff campbell]

Good to see you got her going !

 

[FDChappie]

What Jeff said. How is that clutch working? And most important, is it a korean chick magnet like here in the us? ;-)