Favorite Scout stories

[pineneedle]

My friends, it would be fun to read some stories about things that we have done in our scouts. If you will permit, I will begin. During the summer of 1964, I was living with my family in san diego. I had graduated from the university of san diego two years earlier, and now I was back as a part-time summer instructor. In the August company of several of my college pals, I made frequent weekend trips into the desert. On one such expedition, we decided to see how far we could get up fish creek canyon on the anza-borrego desert. The nearest tiny town, ocatilla wells, was about ten miles from the entrance to the canyon, and it was all but abandoned in the intense summer heat. We were definitely out in the stony lonesome with no company. We drove several miles up the canyon through deep sand until daylight faded. We made our camp on a sandy bench that flashfloods has piled up against the canyon wall. At this point, the canyon was very narrow, but not particularly alarming. We had brought along six gallons of water and made four of those into iced tea, most of which we drank with our supper.

The next morning, we awoke to the oppressive desert heat, and debated returning or pressing on. One of the gallons of water disappeared with our breakfast, leaving us one more gallon for four of us. At that point this did not seem serious because, after all, we were in my '63 Scout 80, and we were very confident about our ability to face down any challenges. So, foolishly, we decided to press on and see how far we could go.

The canyon narrowed and narrowed until we were in a slot such that I could touch one wall out my window and the shotgun guy could touch the other out his window. At places, the slot was so tight above us that you could barely see the sky. We inched around tight corners, pressing on when suddenly it dawned on me, I should say startled me, that we could not back out of our present position. As you know, backing up swings the front end around widely (as in parallel parking), and we would not be physically able to make the Scout retrace its tracks. Now it was getting scary. The temp was probably somewhere around 115+, and we were already into our last gallon of water. We had not paid much attention to how many miles we had come up the canyon, but it was a good distance. To walk out would have been a many mile slog through deep sand in the intense, stifling heat to reach the road (all but untravelled), and then many miles to the empty town. Bottom line, it could not be done. I promise you that the atmosphere in the Scout was tense and quiet as we continued, there being no other real alternative. Shortly thereafter, the slot widened up a llittle and we faced a box canyon wall. This was the end of the line for the Scout.

One of us, I forget who, came up with a plan: jack up the rear-end of the Scout, and then push it sideways off the jack. Then go to the front and repeat, pushing it in the opposite direction. After several hours of this, we turned the Scout around like a locomotive on a turntable, and then off we went. Needless to say we were all thrilled to see the road and then ocatilla wells. I don't think we understood it at the time what we had done. After all we were young, stupid, and immortal. But we had really cheated death in no uncertain terms. I shall never forget. Pineneedle

 

[DocG]

Pineneddle, you scamp! I was thinking, " I have a cute little Scout story. I can't wait to read pineneddles!" you scared the crap out of me!

All joking aside, I know how scarey the desert can be. We made a wrong turn one day in iraq and ended up in syria! Sorry all of my desert wheeling stories are from over seas. You guy's where lucky! The joys of youthful exuberance! (you where young back then, weren't you?)

I own my Scout today because of a fond memory form my youth (not as far back in time as yours). When I was in boy scouts we took our summer two week trip up to wrights lake. What a great place to be a boy! Shooting, wood cutting, repelling and since we where in tents, lots of rain.

One of the other boys father had a Scout and volunteered to drive some of us up. I don't remember what year the truck was, but even in the early 80's it was rusted to pieces. It wasn't very comfortable, didn't have a radio and didn't go very fast, but it sure seemed like the right truck for a young lad to ride to summer camp in. And no, we did not run out of water and almost die! Shame on you pineneddle!

when I saw a Scout 80 for sale in my home town a few years back I remembered that trip all of those years ago and told my wife this story. She offered to buy it for me on the spot.

by the end of the week it was mine and that's how I got the fever. I most have cut myself on a piece of rusty metal on the way to summer camp...

 

[pineneedle]

Docg, it was love at first sight for me as well. I saw my first Scout in the summer of 1962. I had hiked down into the platte river canyon in Colorado to fish. There was this beautiful little truck, red with a white top, sitting beside the river. I had owned several jeeps in the late '50s, but I was without a 4x4 at the time. I had never heard of nor seen a Scout. The owner was nowhere in sight, so I crawled all over and under the beautiful little truck. When I walked back out that evening, I knew I was going to get me one, which I did the following summer. I bought another new one in '65 with a turbo, an aristocrat in '69, and a II in '75. I finally sold the '75 in '84 because it was literally falling apart. As I was driving down the freeway, the lift gate went sailing off. I knew then that its days were numbered. My son found the '67 that I am presently restoring sitting in a weedlot beside a ramshackle house in sw Colorado. It is totally rustfree, all there, and will make an awesome ride. As a bonus, it has a bullet hole in the hood. Pineneedle

 

[IHRunner]

docg, it was love at first sight for me as well. I saw my first Scout in the summer of 1962. I had hiked down into the platte river canyon in Colorado to fish. There was this beautiful little truck, red with a white top, sitting beside the river. I had owned several jeeps in the late '50s, but I was without a 4x4 at the time. I had never heard of nor seen a Scout. The owner was nowhere in sight, so I crawled all over and under the beautiful little truck. When I walked back out that evening, I knew I was going to get me one, which I did the following summer. I bought another new one in '65 with a turbo, an aristocrat in '69, and a II in '75. I finally sold the '75 in '84 because it was literally falling apart. As I was driving down the freeway, the lift gate went sailing off. I knew then that its days were numbered. My son found the '67 that I am presently restoring sitting in a weedlot beside a ramshackle house in sw Colorado. It is totally rustfree, all there, and will make an awesome ride. As a bonus, it has a bullet hole in the hood. Pineneedle

Woah woah woah. Sw co. Im se co. Finally. Someone from Colorado. Woot woot

 

[pineneedle]

Colorado, indeed. I spent many a happy day back in the '50s hunting geese with my Dad in the winter wheat fields north of las animas. Those were the days.

So, how about a story from you? Pineneedle

 

[IHRunner]

Not much of a story guy. I got my Scout when I was 15. My terra that is. From day one ive beat it up. Fixed it. Beat on it. Fixed it. Broke it. Fixed it. You get the picture.

I guess its best story is the time it almost got us arrested.

I went to pueblo with a friend to work on a fellow comrades Scout. Had the brown traveler top on the terra. Also had an arsenal of Scout parts in the bed. Got to pueblo. Fixed what we could.
Was heading back home and noticed my headlights are gettin dimmer by the second. Turns out my alternator had crapped out on us on the way up. With the headlights off she could still run 55mph without missin. Turn the lights on and it'd take all ma spark away.

Pitch black out. Highway 50. If no one is coming you turn your headlights off and gun it. When you saw someone coming you flicked your headlights on and coasted.

Well we got to hasty. Little hell hole turn off to john martin resivoir.

Im picking up speed and see a car comin so I turn the lights back on. Cant stall the engine or id never get her goin. Right as the car is passing me she detonates. All the unburned fuel decided to ignite at once. Shot a flame out the passenger side of the Scout behind the door, and one up on the driver side by the tire.

So we pull over. Turn the lights off. And start cruising. Pretty soon the guy who passed us flips around and pulls in front of us and turns his hazards off but doesnt stop. Figured he was guiding us to the campgrounds where we were headed anyways to charge the battery for a bit.

We follow him to the turn off and he stays in front of us. Hazards still on.

Well the bugger doesnt go to the camp grounds which was fine, so we head that way anyway. Get out of the Scout to charge it and in 30 seconds we're surrounded by 4 bent county sheriffs cruisers.

We're asked to get up agaisnt the wall, feet apart all that good stuff. Takes our pocket knives.

Turns out the guy thought we shot at him or threw something at him and he was "afraid for his families life"

well if you're so scared idiot the dont turn around and get in front of us you moron.

Luckily I was able to repeat the feat that the Scout pulled on me and we were let go. Not only did we get let go, we got an escort to prowers county. Then and escort to city limits, then an escort from the city cops who all reconized my ugly turd of a Scout.

Needless to say I wrote a letter to the bent county sheriffs department thanking them for being thorough but not stupid about us.

We made it home. And I quickly put a 1 wire alternator in my Scout.

Not much of a story but it gets told alot around here.

 

[DocG]

I guess I am going to edit my post. I don't have a near death experience or cops or nothin in mine. Maybe I will add a story about a hitch hiker that we pick up on the way to Scout camp who turns out to be an escaped convict or something.

Now don't get me wrong fellas, I'm no boy Scout, (oh, wait...) I have plenty of stories about high speed chases, gun play, hickeys and what not, but none of them happened in a Scout.

Good story though. Sounds like you made it home on a wing and a prayer. All for helping out a friend. Like they say, no good deed goes unpunished. Its hard to always be the good guy when stuff like that happens all the time.

I did get pulled over in the Scout once while driving a friend home who had had too much to drink. Got stopped for showing white light to the rear because my tail light lens was faded...

 

[IHRunner]

I guess I am going to edit my post. I don't have a near death experience or cops or nothin in mine. Maybe I will add a story about a hitch hiker that we pick up on the way to Scout camp who turns out to be an escaped convict or something.

Now don't get me wrong fellas, I'm no boy Scout, (oh, wait...) I have plenty of stories about high speed chases, gun play, hickeys and what not, but none of them happened in a Scout.

Good story though. Sounds like you made it home on a wing and a prayer. All for helping out a friend. Like they say, no good deed goes unpunished. Its hard to always be the good guy when stuff like that happens all the time.

I did get pulled over in the Scout once while driving a friend home who had had too much to drink. Got stopped for showing white light to the rear because my tail light lens was faded...

Get pulled over weekly for that. I tell em to buy me new ones and to

well yeah.

It wasnt a fun story. But theres a writeup online by the popo about it. And it made news here in the local paper about the assembly line of vehicles

 

[DocG]

Not sure if you are serious about the white light to the rear thing or not, but I see that the company that was making the Scout 80/800 re-po tail lights has stopped making them. If you need them order soon. You can also have your originals repaired by painting the back.

Sorry pineneddle. I degrees. I didn't mean to jack your thread!
(and yet, I hit enter)

 

[pineneedle]

Don't be so modest about your stories. I enjoyed them very much. As with all good stories they remind me of similar ones. One pretty amazing story, esp. For Colorado guys. Back in '70, I took my wife, four kids, and a big camp all the way to fancy lake, above holy cross city. You can't go there now; in fact, no motorized vehicles have been allowed beyond holy cross city since they designated it all a wilderness back in the '80s. Anyway, that trip was incredible. Now, in retrospect, I wonder what the hell I was thinking of. If anyone wants to get a sense of the area, google up holy cross city co. There are some pretty good pics of the road on the net. Now, the road only goes to the city. In the old days, you could (if you were stupid like me) go all the way to cleveland lake on the right and fancy lake on the left. The road continued up the mountain past fancy lake to within a few hundred yards of fancy pass, 12,600 ft. Above sea level. I basically dragged my aristocrat, winching continually out of bogs, over rock piles, and so on. Incredible. One the way out after camping several days in this beautiful place, we passed a guy just starting up the trail in a brand new Travelall. I said that he should not try it. He did, and when he came out he had busted several shocks, one of his springs, trashed the sheet metal down both sides, pulled off his rear bumper, and various other things. Oddly, he was pleased as punch that his Travelall had made it all the way to fancy lake. His truck was completely ruined. I guess that goes under the heading, "I won't take no for an answer."

 

[IHRunner]

Got family littered all over Colorado. Cant seem to get rid of them. Rmihr up moquito pass is wherr I always see a heep rolled on its side. Back up in the old mines at salida its the same story. No shortages of 4x4's laying on their side...or worse.

The Travelall. Boy if you can say anything about it, its that the drivetrain held up haha

 

[pineneedle]

I-hrunner, yeah, that trail over mosquito pass is one of my favorites. If you come up from the fairplay side, after the climb past the north london mine, you see a huge basin down and to the left. From the road you can see the two little oliver twist lakes. The road down into that basin is now closed.

In the old days there was another way up to the pass that came from the south up through this basin and then to the summit. There is an old mine in the basin, too. We used to love that place. There were several buildings standing, and stuff strewn all over the place. In one building that must have been the bunk house, there was china, cookware, molasses jugs, all manner of cool stuff lying around. I don't know how much, if anything, is left at that mine site. The last time I was up there was the summer of '57. Pineneedle

 

[Scoutboy74]

I've probably told this story somewhere here in the past, but I won't let that stop me from dropping a needle on my super-glued vinyl copy of iron butterfly's greatest hits.
In the late 70's, my Dad became the second owner of an immaculate 1972 sii. The po had kept meticulous maintenance records, almost to an anal retentive degree. It was just your average sii 4x4 with 345 and automatic. Nothing out of the ordinary...oh wait...there was this one little thing...an auxiliary fuel tank nestled between the wheel wells just behind the rear seat. It May have been a dealer-installed item, as it was painted to match the body color and it was controlled by a s80/800-type fuel transfer switch on the floorboard. The fuel gauge never worked for either tank the entire time of Dad's ownership. The engine coughing and sputtering served as the impetus to switch between tanks.
Around this same time, Dad was also the coach of the little league baseball team that I played on. The Scout was naturally called upon to haul the team equipment and routinely multiple ballplayers. On a few occasions, there were more players needing a ride than there were seats, but that didn't matter. The equipment bags in the cargo area made for comfortable enough seating for several of my teammates who for whatever reason, had no other means of getting to and from the game. Seatbelts? We didn't need no stinking seatbelts, not even for the kids who had access to one. This was well before the mandatory seatbelt law. Fumes inside the cabin? Just crack a window. Liability issues? Whatchu talkin' 'bout, willis? Fortunately there were no mishaps. Looking back on it now, there should have been more pause for thought even back then, but these types of things happened. It was a different time.

 

[DocG]

Scoutboy I would like to hear the story about driving salma hayek in your Scout. I have always been curios about that.

 

[Greg R]

Pineneedle, you shore got a way with words. That experience should get an award in reader's digest "life in the united states" I was in that box canyon with you and on the edge of my seat reading it.

Mine is a bit humorous. My wife and I planned a short vacation in canada. We decided to take the Scout 800 because the outback looked within driving distance from where we were staying.

We come to the border and the canadian border guard of course checks our papers and asks about our purpose to cross. After all is said and done, she asks what kind vehicle was I driving. I replied it was an International Scout 800 while pointing to the emblem. She says: "International eh?, who makes that?"

it was a nice chat and she learned IH had plants in canada too. Canadians are cool.

 

[pineneedle]

Scoutboy, I laughed at the image of a bunch of kids sitting on top of a gas tank. You are right; those were different days. When my four kids were little, we took annual trips from our home in st. Louis to my boyhood haunts in Colorado. The trips involved tons of off-roading, camping, fishing, etc. The set-up for the scouts was as follows. I took out the back seat and built a two-level platform. The first third of the shelf rested on the box-like wheel-wells. The back two-thirds rested on the little ledges formed by the junction of the body and the travel-top. The two shelves were joined by an upright. I padded the whole thing, the lower bench and higher flat area behind it. So, the kids sat on the bench (day) and played or slept on the flat area (night driving). When I opened the rear up, I had a huge storage area under the platform where I fitted all our camping stuff, coolers, etc. It was a really cool setup. Of course it never occurred to me that in the case of an accident, the kids would all go flying through the front windshield or wherever. My youngest is now 40, but when we all get together from time to time the kids tell one another, and their kids, stories about cruizing across kansas at night, watching the little towns slip by from their bed in the back of the Scout. Those were the days.
Pineneedle

 

[Scoutboy74]

scoutboy I would like to hear the story about driving salma hayek in your Scout. I have always been curios about that.

Doc, there are some stories that a refined gentleman of my caliber dare not repeat in a public forum. I will say this...that woman goes bat-shit crazy any time a Scout is in her midst.

 

[Tahoedonner]

I've got 2 that I love to tell.

This one's my favorite:

I decided that the Scout was so awesome that it could blast through a mud puddle about mid-door deep. (4"lift with 33's) in middle of said mud puddle the transfer case decided that it would pop out of gear and the truck stopped at once. I looked at my buddy out the passenger window with a horrified look. He was watching from outside of the "pit". I then realized that the truck didn't "break" and put the transfer case back in gear. "grannied" right out of said pit and never looked back. Needless to say my friends and I had a new found respect for the Scout after that. Until the next day on the way to school when the clutch went out in rush hour school traffic. Dammit!!!!

 

[DocG]

I've got 2 that I love to tell.

This one's my favorite:

I decided that the Scout was so awesome that it could blast through a mud puddle about mid-door deep. (4"lift with 33's) in middle of said mud puddle the transfer case decided that it would pop out of gear and the truck stopped at once. I looked at my buddy out the passenger window with a horrified look. He was watching from outside of the "pit". I then realized that the truck didn't "break" and put the transfer case back in gear. "grannied" right out of said pit and never looked back. Needless to say my friends and I had a new found respect for the Scout after that. Until the next day on the way to school when the clutch went out in rush hour school traffic. Dammit!!!!

As pineneedle said above, one good story reminds one of another and your story about your clutch going out reminded me of one.

I threw a big ol' pig pickin for my birthday a few years back and invited the whole fam-damnly down and a buddy from michigan. Well the day before the party I insisted that the guy's (brother, brother in law and buddy eric) and I pile into the Scout to go get the keg even though it was a bit chilly and threatening rain.

Well all four of us pile in and head down to the beach to the beer store. While sitting at the biggest 5 lane intersection, she runs out of gas. No problem, but by time I got the tank switched over and re started the light had changed. 5 lanes, long light. When the light finally turned green I started to pull forward and that tank ran out! Now, I always keep one tank full, and suspect that the kids in my hood had helped them selves to the little green petrol station, but I can't prove that and it makes little difference when you sitting in traffic in a four decade old speed bump!

Well I tried to get it restarted, and missed the light again. When the light turned the third time we where ready and got out and pushed it across the intersection to horns, cheers and waves. Good thing she is cute! We pushed it into a gas station across the road a bit and as I was filing up and getting ribbed pretty good by the boys when a lady in a mini van pulled up and thanked us for making her day! She said it was the funniest thing she had ever seen. All three of us pushing and the guy with the beard (eric) ridding on the rear bumper!

 

[IHRunner]

doc, there are some stories that a refined gentleman of my caliber dare not repeat in a public forum. I will say this...that woman goes bat-shit crazy any time a Scout is in her midst.

Ill trade you a Todd helton and a william h macey for a 30min drive with selma. As nice as Todd is I think the beard ruins it for me

not saying they arent nice. And Scout fanatics...but...you know...selma..