Junkyard Find: 1970 IHC Scout
While the large numbers of Scouts on the extremely urban and snow-free Island That Time Forgot never made sense to me, it’s no surprise that the tough little International Harvester trucks still roam Colorado in large numbers. Still, with so many Scouts, some are going to end up facing The Crusher, and that’s what’s happened to this battered ’70.
It looks pretty solid at first glance, but closer examination reveals plenty of Bondo-covered rust. Still, there should have been plenty of life left in this truck. I blame cheap Subarus!
Damn if I can ID IHC V8s at a glance. If this is the factory-installed engine, it should be a 180-horsepower 304 (not to be confused with the unrelated AMC 304).
I’m tempted to buy one of the valve covers to hang on my garage wall.
Compare this instrument panel to the “information centers” that came later. Sure, most of those cheapo gauges probably failed by 1975, but they sure look cool.
We need more road vehicles made by farm equipment manufacturers!
Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Autoblog, Hagerty, The Truth About Cars and Capital One.
More by Murilee Martin
Comments
Join the conversation
Definitely not the original engine. The 304 was never available with a 4bbl and since it's deck height is shorter than the 345/392 you can't swap intakes. That intake having an EGR valve and being a square bore with the recess puts the intake at least as a ~77-8 model year which would make it a 345 if the intake goes with the engine. The definitive way to ID is to clean the gunk off the boss under the front of the pass side head where they stamped V3xx and the suffix of A meant a lt duty cost reduced version while the E suffix denotes that it was fitted with the flat top emissions pistions and corresponding heads. That intake will bring around $100 bucks and those headlight surounds parking lights and grille are in demand as well not to mention the slider windows and really really hard to find in that good condition rear seat. If I didn't do Scout II's and have my share of spare 4bbl intakes for future projects.....but those pieces will sell on E-bay for good money. I see an easy $1000 worth of parts there. All in all I know many people who have put much much rougher Scouts back on the road or are driving them in worse condition.
IH parts are mostly unobtanium. I see a Blue one in the summers, but most are long gone.