My '72 scout II

[matthew thomas]

Hey folks,
I just drove my Scout for the first time with the 392/t19 d300 set-up and I wanted to thank ihon and michael mayben for their help and support. I also thought that I'd share a little about my journey up to this point. This thread is really only about my '72, but I thought I'd start at the beginning, so here goes.


This was my first Scout outside of el paso about 1997.

A '79 304, 4 spd manual. I bought this truck in chicago, from the front yard of a house at the end of o'hare runway. I was looking for an old Bronco (I had never heard of a Scout) when she caught my eye, and I've been hooked on IH ever since.
This was a great truck. I regretfully sold her for a down payment on my ex-wife's car. Doh!

Then I went through quite a few life changes, a divorce(unrelated to the Scout), several moves and career changes and I found myself driving an isuzu vehicross which I justified to myself that it was the closest thing to a modern Scout that I could find. It was a fun little truck, just too much plastic for me.

I met the woman I'm supposed to be with, we moved from phoenix to portland and she bought me another '79 Scout and I happily sold my vehicross.

We moved from portland to the middle of nowhere(beautiful) coastal oregon where we purchased some river front property and began to make our home when after being there about a month, we had a pretty bad accident.

A little later, when I was up and around again we bought my '72. This is what it looked like when we brought it home.

This is the day after we brought it home, I wanted to get some photos of it and send to my wife's family who all live in phoenix.

In our driveway...

On the way to the mailbox...

 

[matthew thomas]

Looking downriver going to the mailbox.

I needed this Scout from the moment we got it. Our only source of heat was a wood burning stove, and it was a great little wood hauler. I laid down moving blankets to protect my great interior as much as possible.

The lift-gate broke off at the hinges shortly after I got it home. It was weird because the top was immaculate everywhere else. No rust except there. Luckily, our wrecked '79 did not have the top on it during the accident, so I scavenged it's lift-gate.

That's our old Ford tractor behind the woodshed there, I sure do miss it.

No power steering and no power brakes. For a guy that had owned 2 '79 scouts, this was hard to get used to, especially the brakes. So I made plans to switch out the Dana 44's from my '79 pretty early on to get back to discs and power brakes.

This Scout seemed pretty unmolested to me..

After one of our great winter storms, I went out to find a big maple limb laying on the Scout...

 

[matthew thomas]

I put the top from the '79 on, but I never got a photo till later on. My wife, newborn baby and I moved left oregon shortly after this and the Scout stayed there under a tarp for almost a year.

This is where I talk about friendship. I have a great friend named michael who lives in hillsboro oregon. He went out to our place and brought my Scout to his garage to begin work on the poor wet neglected rig. It reminded me of luke skywalker lifting his x-wing fighter out of yoda's swamp. (that didn't sound half as geeky in my head before I typed it... Oh well, it is what it reminded me of)

A de-humidifyer drying things out

My wife and I decided to sell our place in oregon and I planned to come up and pack up our remaining possessions, scavenge all the parts that I could get off the '79, scrap the rest, buy a trailer and haul it from oregon to our new place outside of asheville north carolina.

The switching of the axles and upgraded brake system begins

My very good friend crawling around in the mud and muck, unbolting the front and rear ends from the '79

 

[matthew thomas]

I went with new 4" lifted springs all the way around to accommodate my new 33" tires as I had some serious time constraints putting this all together.

I couldn't have done any of this if it weren't for the help of my amazing friends michael and his wife amy. Thank you guys so much!

We were both very excited to see the new shoes. It looked so good, we had to paint the ugly top for our cross country jaunt.

 

[matthew thomas]

Gotta new receiver hitch, had to lose the factory bumper. I want to get a swing away anyway, so I was okay with it

Gave her a good bath, and got ready for the rattle can paint

I'm happy with the way it came out, my hard top is a winter-time affair anyway.

My last drive through the local trees... I'm gonna miss oregon.

Lookout mountain tennessee/ georgia

New cage, and new dual exhaust..

Soft top, and fender flares... I'm torn about putting the flares on. I like the look without them, but I don't like the rocks being thrown up and around by the tires outside the wheel wells.

 

[matthew thomas]

After I prepped it and removed everything possible, a local shop here in ellijay did the heavy lifting and actually lifted out the old drive-train and dropped in the new one for me. I then had it towed home where I've been stumbling along since trying to get it done right.

My new to me 392 in her new home.

I took it for a drive tonight around the neighborhood. I'm not sure about the timing or the carb yet. Still waiting to burn off the remaining oil residue from my pre-oil procedure where oil ran down the exhaust manifolds from the lifters. All in all, it sounds great! A lot more torque than the 345. There is a whistle that I'm not familiar with, nor fond of, but I do know that I've got some loose ends vacuum-wise still. But man, am I excited. Thanks again, ihon for all your help. And this thing isn't over yet!