ihpartschad
IHPA General Manager
I am writing this is story format cause, well it is a story.
I have been working on this deal for the last couple of years. A family friend from my home town is the local mechanic and being a very small, fairly downtrodden town there are tons of old cars and as such he takes in quite a few via lien. The little gem in this story was one of those. He has been telling me about this “Scout” he has out in the desert in Nevada that he used to use for rabbit and ground squirrel hunting for about 2 years. I kept telling him I would take it, but getting up there is no small task. Fast forward to 2 weeks ago, I get a call from him saying the “rancher” ( I will call him rancher to protect the innocent) wants it gone. So I load up the trailer and erin and youngest for the latest in a now long line of Nevada IH recoveries. Luckily my mother still lives there and I had a place to stay Friday night as it’s a 6 hour drive and I had to get this done on Saturday to be home to leave for memphis for work on Sunday. So I get in touch with rancher, (owns over 1200 acres by the way) get directions and head out into the desert on a gravel road to nowhere. A short hour drive on gravel and we are there. Mind you I have never seen this Scout and to be honest wasn’t even sure if it was a Scout or Scout II, I honestly figured it would be a parts truck.
When I pulled up I saw the little girl, I says to myself, “well at least it’s a Scout II”. I meet rancher great guy!! He has 6 IH tractors, all still working and nothing newer than a 65. Really great stuff (I’m on the list of “if I ever sell one I’ll call you”). So after a brief tour of the homestead he takes me over to the Scout. “whoa now what do we have here?” I says to myself! “this thing is actually pretty straight!!”. Walking around the front I notice square headlights. I says to myself “well hell this thing is a 1980!” I immediately looked for the turbo diesel badge, but alas it was not to be.
So rancher fires up a farmall m and we hook a chain up to the Scout and pull it out in front of his shop to air up the tires. I jump in the thing, and says to myself “oooooh cool a 4 speed”. So we get it out front and while he is dragging the compressor around I check engine, I says “hmm pretty clean, yup it’s a 345 all complete down to the vacuum lines”. Rancher returns and we start filling up the tires. I says to rancher “when was the last time ronny had this running?” rancher says to me “bout 2 years ago, but I think he just ran it out of gas and since then the battery has gone dead. If’n (yes he said if’n) I were you I would just toss some gas and a battery in it and see what happens.” so I start looking around it, and if you will recall I mentioned this was used for hunting rabbit and ground squirrel. What I didn’t mention was that it was used mostly at night and mostly while intoxicated. So in typical fashion for ronny, the windshield had been removed so he could shoot on the “fly” and the rear sear turned around backwards for optimal 360* firing. The upside is that he didn’t destroy anything even the windshield seal was intact. I would say we cleaned at least 1000 22 , 223, and 45 empty shells out of the Scout, on top of the 20 or so empty beer bottles and cans.
Rancher and I discus loading methods and come to the conclusion that in the interest of time we would just push the Scout on the trailer with the m so I could be on my way. Now, I have loaded at least 500 cars on trailers of that I would venture to guess 400 of those were internationals in various stages of disrepair. To say Jeff and I have this down to a science would be an understatement. However rancher pulled a new one on me. He meanders (yes he meanders, he did not walk) behind the shop and returns with a 2” by say 6’ chunk of iron pipe with a smaller 1 ½” chunk welded inside it with say a foot sticking out. I have to be honest I was a little baffled. He hands me the pipe and says, “stick that fucker right in that receiver”. Not to shy away from the education of an old ranch hand I dutifully do as I’m told. In the mean time he flips the m around and backs up to the Scout. Rancher then says “hold that fucker right up to the 3 point”. Light dawns on marble head!! Sure enough the pipe fits just right over the arm of the 3 point. He starts back and raising the 3 point as the Scout goes up the ramps before I can even get to the steering wheel to “drive it” obviously not needed as he just guided it right where I wanted it. Bam done and done!!
So I strap down the Scout and say a fond farewell to rancher and we are off on the gravel highway again. Honestly, the gravel highway (which is actually where 299 ends and turns into Nevada 8a) is better road than I-80 right now. We make a long yet uneventful trip home and arrive without issue by 4pm Saturday.
On a whim I decide that I would like to drive the Scout off the trailer. So I grab some gas, a battery and toss them both in the Scout as rancher instructed. Sure enough after a minute or so of cranking the thing fires up and idles like a champ. I check all the functions and yep, everything seems to work. So throwing caution to the wind I throw it in reverse and down the ramps I go. Great success!!
I have since spent the last couple of weeks getting it more road worthy. One thing I have found is that it like most scouts it’s infected with the po disease. Someone decided to do a homemade add a leaf, and literally cut down a couple of leaf springs and put them in. The down side was that they were lazy and only cut one side, which left a slight problem when it came time to use a centering pin. A quick trip to Jeff’s and an hour or so unbolting and redoing the springs and it was fixed up. It also needs a wiring harness the po was fond of wire nuts and black tape. I am not even going to try to save the harness. Other than those items it is really unmolested and seems to have been cared for.
That brings us to today, its first day on the road. I drove it to work this morning and the only issue I found was at the gas station. I filled it up to the brim in order to come up with a reasonable fuel mileage estimate and of course it pukes out the top due to a dried gasket or leaking line or both. Also need weather stripping and some items like that but over all it was really great to get back into a little stock Scout to putt around in.
The plans for this Scout were that I was going to basically get it functional then put it on the auction block. However after getting it home and getting it running it has been claimed by the little lady, which honestly is great with me. She really fell in love with it, and as it was a gift I was having a hard time making money off of it anyway. Plus I could look long and hard and not find a better starting point to get her into a Scout. So the plans are now to slowly turn it into a daily driver for erin. All stock with the exception of some creature comforts like a modern ac system and a reverse shackle for drivability, but no lift or anything of the like. She has already picked out her color, and I should mention that I found the absolute perfect 3rd row seat for scouts, it would actually work amazing in a traveller. It even allows for stock location of the spare tire. I will get some photos of it soon.
I hope you enjoyed the story as much as I did living it. For now how annie May sits as she was dubbed by the new owner.
I have been working on this deal for the last couple of years. A family friend from my home town is the local mechanic and being a very small, fairly downtrodden town there are tons of old cars and as such he takes in quite a few via lien. The little gem in this story was one of those. He has been telling me about this “Scout” he has out in the desert in Nevada that he used to use for rabbit and ground squirrel hunting for about 2 years. I kept telling him I would take it, but getting up there is no small task. Fast forward to 2 weeks ago, I get a call from him saying the “rancher” ( I will call him rancher to protect the innocent) wants it gone. So I load up the trailer and erin and youngest for the latest in a now long line of Nevada IH recoveries. Luckily my mother still lives there and I had a place to stay Friday night as it’s a 6 hour drive and I had to get this done on Saturday to be home to leave for memphis for work on Sunday. So I get in touch with rancher, (owns over 1200 acres by the way) get directions and head out into the desert on a gravel road to nowhere. A short hour drive on gravel and we are there. Mind you I have never seen this Scout and to be honest wasn’t even sure if it was a Scout or Scout II, I honestly figured it would be a parts truck.
When I pulled up I saw the little girl, I says to myself, “well at least it’s a Scout II”. I meet rancher great guy!! He has 6 IH tractors, all still working and nothing newer than a 65. Really great stuff (I’m on the list of “if I ever sell one I’ll call you”). So after a brief tour of the homestead he takes me over to the Scout. “whoa now what do we have here?” I says to myself! “this thing is actually pretty straight!!”. Walking around the front I notice square headlights. I says to myself “well hell this thing is a 1980!” I immediately looked for the turbo diesel badge, but alas it was not to be.
So rancher fires up a farmall m and we hook a chain up to the Scout and pull it out in front of his shop to air up the tires. I jump in the thing, and says to myself “oooooh cool a 4 speed”. So we get it out front and while he is dragging the compressor around I check engine, I says “hmm pretty clean, yup it’s a 345 all complete down to the vacuum lines”. Rancher returns and we start filling up the tires. I says to rancher “when was the last time ronny had this running?” rancher says to me “bout 2 years ago, but I think he just ran it out of gas and since then the battery has gone dead. If’n (yes he said if’n) I were you I would just toss some gas and a battery in it and see what happens.” so I start looking around it, and if you will recall I mentioned this was used for hunting rabbit and ground squirrel. What I didn’t mention was that it was used mostly at night and mostly while intoxicated. So in typical fashion for ronny, the windshield had been removed so he could shoot on the “fly” and the rear sear turned around backwards for optimal 360* firing. The upside is that he didn’t destroy anything even the windshield seal was intact. I would say we cleaned at least 1000 22 , 223, and 45 empty shells out of the Scout, on top of the 20 or so empty beer bottles and cans.
Rancher and I discus loading methods and come to the conclusion that in the interest of time we would just push the Scout on the trailer with the m so I could be on my way. Now, I have loaded at least 500 cars on trailers of that I would venture to guess 400 of those were internationals in various stages of disrepair. To say Jeff and I have this down to a science would be an understatement. However rancher pulled a new one on me. He meanders (yes he meanders, he did not walk) behind the shop and returns with a 2” by say 6’ chunk of iron pipe with a smaller 1 ½” chunk welded inside it with say a foot sticking out. I have to be honest I was a little baffled. He hands me the pipe and says, “stick that fucker right in that receiver”. Not to shy away from the education of an old ranch hand I dutifully do as I’m told. In the mean time he flips the m around and backs up to the Scout. Rancher then says “hold that fucker right up to the 3 point”. Light dawns on marble head!! Sure enough the pipe fits just right over the arm of the 3 point. He starts back and raising the 3 point as the Scout goes up the ramps before I can even get to the steering wheel to “drive it” obviously not needed as he just guided it right where I wanted it. Bam done and done!!
So I strap down the Scout and say a fond farewell to rancher and we are off on the gravel highway again. Honestly, the gravel highway (which is actually where 299 ends and turns into Nevada 8a) is better road than I-80 right now. We make a long yet uneventful trip home and arrive without issue by 4pm Saturday.
On a whim I decide that I would like to drive the Scout off the trailer. So I grab some gas, a battery and toss them both in the Scout as rancher instructed. Sure enough after a minute or so of cranking the thing fires up and idles like a champ. I check all the functions and yep, everything seems to work. So throwing caution to the wind I throw it in reverse and down the ramps I go. Great success!!
I have since spent the last couple of weeks getting it more road worthy. One thing I have found is that it like most scouts it’s infected with the po disease. Someone decided to do a homemade add a leaf, and literally cut down a couple of leaf springs and put them in. The down side was that they were lazy and only cut one side, which left a slight problem when it came time to use a centering pin. A quick trip to Jeff’s and an hour or so unbolting and redoing the springs and it was fixed up. It also needs a wiring harness the po was fond of wire nuts and black tape. I am not even going to try to save the harness. Other than those items it is really unmolested and seems to have been cared for.
That brings us to today, its first day on the road. I drove it to work this morning and the only issue I found was at the gas station. I filled it up to the brim in order to come up with a reasonable fuel mileage estimate and of course it pukes out the top due to a dried gasket or leaking line or both. Also need weather stripping and some items like that but over all it was really great to get back into a little stock Scout to putt around in.
The plans for this Scout were that I was going to basically get it functional then put it on the auction block. However after getting it home and getting it running it has been claimed by the little lady, which honestly is great with me. She really fell in love with it, and as it was a gift I was having a hard time making money off of it anyway. Plus I could look long and hard and not find a better starting point to get her into a Scout. So the plans are now to slowly turn it into a daily driver for erin. All stock with the exception of some creature comforts like a modern ac system and a reverse shackle for drivability, but no lift or anything of the like. She has already picked out her color, and I should mention that I found the absolute perfect 3rd row seat for scouts, it would actually work amazing in a traveller. It even allows for stock location of the spare tire. I will get some photos of it soon.
I hope you enjoyed the story as much as I did living it. For now how annie May sits as she was dubbed by the new owner.
