Engine Pics

[JohnnyC]

Hey I have two scouts one is a 77 and one is a 76. Both po's stated that they are both 345s. Each one has a different distributor. Different carb as well. Does anyone have some pics of a 304 and a 345.

 

[Scoutboy74]

You're not going to able to tell much difference between the two from a picture. The best way to positively id your engines is to look for the displacement stamp. This can be found on the passenger side of the block towards the front underneath the exhaust manifold. It will undoubtedly by covered by a heavy layer of guapo and mung. You'll want to hit the area with some degreaser and a wire brush. Then you May need a mirror to actually read the numerals. The 345 is slightly taller and slightly wider between the cylinder heads. If you measure both blocks there and one is wider than the other, then that will tell you one is a 345 and the other is a 304.

 

[JohnnyC]

Awesome thanks for the quick reply and advice..

 

[Michael Mayben]

hey I have two scouts one is a 77 and one is a 76. Both po's stated that they are both 345s. Each one has a different distributor. Different carb as well. Does anyone have some pics of a 304 and a 345.

Johnny...

IH did not assemble vehicles in the same manner that the big 3 did. Each was built based upon a specific order from a specific dealer or fleet, this is the way the truck industry operates as opposed to how the "car industry" operates.

And the specific vehicle order could be coded in thousands of variations.

Yes...there were "standard packages" which made up the base version...and many of those line items could be deleted or changed for other specs.

You are also dealing with vehicles which were produced during a timeframe in the "car bizz" which was in the throes of angst in dealing with both federal and local emissions criteria...the absolute low point in the American auto/truck industry in terms of dealing with massive regulation/interference from the feds, the city of chicago, and the state of kalifornikate.

So there were many major and minor "differences" in these vehicles depending upon what market it was destined for (selling/delivering dealer), who the end-user/customer/fleet was, what the end-user "vocational" application might have been, etc. In the case of the Scout II, that was a platform that IH introduced in order to break into the more mainstream "consumer" market, a market that was evolving rapidly during that timeframe with the Bronco, the Jeep wagoneer, blazer/jimmy, ramcharger, etc.

And overall, the IH dealer network was not equipped to compete regarding "stockorder vehicles" and sellable inventory as was the big 3 dealer base. Some IH dealers did a great job of tapping into this evolving vehicle class (like bisio motors in portland, or), but others treated the sii as a poor stepchild and put little effort into ordering in vehicles for inventory that reflected what their customer base actually wanted to buy.

And these dealer issue certainly were a contributing factor to the decline in profitablility on both the production, wholesale, and retail levels of ihc in the "motor vehicle business", along with many other poor business decisions which led to the financial problems and ultimate demise of ihc at that point in time.

Now flash-forward 30+ years...these rigs have been passed through multiple hands, numerous times, and in each transfer suffered po virus in most cases. A "virgin" sii (or any ihc-produced vehicle) is a really rare find these days and is a special treat to be able to work with. Those are virtual time capsules that give us a glimpse in how these rigs came off the line, and because of the "IH way", they can each be kinda "different" while being identical in most respects.

There is really no way you can compare the current motor vehicle production and manufacturing process, with the way that ihc (or any other hd truck company) produced vehicles. The only thing they have in common is the concept of "mass production".

So don't get married to the ideas that "all" were a certain way, that "none" were a certain way, and that these were cookie-cutter trucks. Same as the fact that the ihc-produced I-4 and sv engines were truck/industrial/vocational engines...not passenger car engines as produced in similar design chryfordrolets!

Thanks for posting your observations! It's only when folks describe what they have or work with, that others can learn how diverse these vehicles can be today!

And an example of how "different" any particular rig produced by ihc could be, I've attached a copy (front and back) of a sales engineering brochure for one particular model light duty truck. This item details the "options" which could have been spec'd (and had to be!) by an ordering dealer. But then...virtually any part of the completed vehicle;le could be deleted during production also if spec'd that way by the dealer. Up here in the nw, it was fairly common for a dealer to order maybe ten units all the same, with a "drive axle delete" notation...in other words kinda like a "glider" inna pickup! That was because many of the timber contractors installed their own vocational axles and recycled those items from vehicle-to-vehicle over a period of many years.

Notice that for this particular vehicle model, there were seven variations in wheelbase alone available!!! Not hardly your typical "go to town pickup" commonly stocked at the local big 3 dealerships back in the day!