75 Scout II followed me home!

[Dennis Bernth]

Originally Posted by J.J.

Pretty darn good work there Dennis.


JJ in TN

You now have the opportunity to withdraw that judgement after you read this story. Because of me, an innocent Gold Box has died before it ever had a chance to live.

To continue with our Iowa story, last night we motored out in a 'convoy' to Nauvoo IL to a bed and breakfast type place for our dinner. Pretty impressive, we had police stopping traffic for us, people waving at all the IH's like we were celebrities, all in all good. But the Scout was off and on having an annoying habit of dying, or at least cutting out, mainly going around corners when you'd let off of the gas. My thoughts were low idle speed (it was, I tend to idle em down too low most times, I confess) and/or the fuel level in the 2300 needing to be tweaked, maybe sloshing too much on corners. So this morning at the show I tweaked the idle speed a bit, and checked the fuel level (right on) and figured I'd solved the problem. Leaving the fairgrounds to head home, no problems, running down the road for a goodly distance, maybe once it cut off when I turned into a rest area, other than that no problems. Once we got on I-80 though it started to act weirder, which coincided with how hot it was outside. Most places that had the 'time and temperature' displays were showing 100 degrees even. The engine never ran hot, even with the AC kicking it the whole time, but it had to be smoking hot under that hood. Then problems started.....it cut out, then just as quickly picked back up and we went another 20 miles without a hiccup. Then we're cruising along, the Scout cuts out, and a few seconds later it fires back up.....was that a twelve gauge going off? Nope, that's the sound of me having to install at least one new muffler. By then I've just about figured that the gold box is dying and we need to get off the road, so we hit an exit. All is good til we go to turn into the frontage road to the IHOP, it took about six or eight starts to make it a quarter mile to IHOP. I told Tammy ' it's the gold box, you watch, when we go out it'll fire right up cause it's cooled down, but I'm smarter than that, I have a brand new spare in the console'. So we have our lunch, then I drive over to Target since the Scout fired up like I had said it would; Tammy said she'd pick up a small step ladder or step stool for me to use to reach into the Scout, since she needed one for school anyway. So in the meantime like any good surgeon I get out my tools (phillips screwdriver) and the new gold box. Once said stool arrives, it has a load limit of 225 lbs. Yeah, right, AS IF, might as well torture test it- it held up well. Swap out the gold box, BUT I make one fatal error. I am not a gold box aficionado, and I don't realize that the gold box has two separate two prong plugs and a single wire to the decel module. I grab all the wires and pull them loose, and end up with a total of three plugs. The one wire (decel module) is easy, since it's the only single wire on the gold box plug. The other two aren't so easy, since all four wires on them are black. I make a quick stab at figuring out which set is which and plug them in. Did I mention that about that time I noticed that the bulkhead connector plug (this is an 'early' Scout II so it has the infernal 'round' bulkhead connectors) looked like it wasn't all the way on? Well, I shoved it all the way on, and tried to start the Scout- no fire. Realizing I probably switched the two plugs, I swapped them back around and tried again, still no fire. I then realize that I am now stuck 150 miles from home with just the original gold box; I also realize that there is a fair chance that the bulkhead connector was the problem, but this time I can't afford to fry the gold box by using the wrong plugs, so it's time to drag out the test light. Once I confirm the wires, I reinstall the old gold box, pull out the new one I obviously killed by plugging in the power side to the output, and the truck fires right up. As a bonus, my formerly dead oil pressure gauge rises from the dead like Lazarus and works all the way home, showing excellent oil pressure I must add. We motor home with no more issues, and the 'old' gold box has no more hiccups, so obviously the bulkhead connector was the villain the whole time. That situation will be rectified shortly, and the second gold box I bought from Rock Auto will be going in the console this time for 'spares duty' which next time I will look twice (and maybe use the test light first) and plug once so as to not fry my new ignition module. I do not enjoy changing ignition modules in a Target parking lot on a 100 degree day, and I hope I never have to do it again....

On the flip side, the show was great, great people, nice trucks, and a good time all the way round. Anybody that is in driving distance should put this on the 'to do' list for sure next year, we are.

[Dennis Bernth]

Had stuff to get done today, but I did get a chance to peek under the Scout. Both mufflers look like somebody set off an IED inside them, so I guess this my chance to upgrade....

[thehud]

Originally Posted by Dennis Bernth

Had stuff to get done today, but I did get a chance to peek under the Scout. Both mufflers look like somebody set off an IED inside them, so I guess this my chance to upgrade....

Glad you all made it home ok, sorry you had troubles along the way though. But at least now you know where some of your problems were coming from. If I can remember to take a picture of it, Dad made a kind of a bracket/clamp to combat a similar problem he had with the BHC on his old Scout. And to the best on my knowledge he never had many issues with it after that. If you had any plans of ever having the dash out of it and were not worried about doing a little elective surgery on your firewall, I would put in a 78 and later wiring harness.

[J.J.]

Originally Posted by Dennis Bernth

You now have the opportunity to withdraw that judgement after you read this story. Because of me, an innocent Gold Box has died before it ever had a chance to live.

Dennis, quite a story! It could happen to any one of us, it is easy to do. Good thing it didn't fight back

JJ in TN

[Dennis Bernth]

Originally Posted by thehud

Glad you all made it home ok, sorry you had troubles along the way though. But at least now you know where some of your problems were coming from. If I can remember to take a picture of it, Dad made a kind of a bracket/clamp to combat a similar problem he had with the BHC on his old Scout. And to the best on my knowledge he never had many issues with it after that. If you had any plans of ever having the dash out of it and were not worried about doing a little elective surgery on your firewall, I would put in a 78 and later wiring harness.

That thought crossed my mind, but I don't plan on yanking the dash anytime soon. I may upgrade the fuse block, done that on another earlier Scout II I had and it's not a horrible job (just time consuming) but swapping the whole wiring over probably won't get done anytime soon. Actually there is a pretty easy fix, there is room above the actual connector where you can run a self drilling screw with a washer on it to hold the engine side connector to the one in the firewall. I did that on one other Scout I had that had way loose connectors and never had another issue. I do plan on pulling the glove box, drilling out the 'big' 10 gauge wires from the connector and hard wiring them with a new piece of wire in between. There has been a lot of heat at those big wires in that connector, which is pretty common, so I"m going to remove that weak link. I also need to run a 'shunt' cable (I use a 6 or 8 gauge lawn and garden battery cable between the alternator hot stud and the big post on the starter) to take some load off now that I have a bigger alternator in the truck. It'll get a voltmeter mounted under the AC unit since the ammeter will only show discharge from accessories drawing off of it with the shunt line in place.

JJ, I'm not in the least upset with the Scout, you/re right, could have happened to any of us but I should know better to check the bulkhead connectors first when they're that old type. You D series guys got the good ones from the factory all along as far as I know, I know my 71 Travelodge had the 'good' connectors that they used on the later model Scouts. I'm just kind of fired up to know what it needs now, about 700 miles was a nice shakedown cruise that showed where I need to do work. On the exhaust, I have a complete single exhaust I picked up from Jon (IH64Scout) at Nationals last year; I think it's 2.25 inch Y pipe into a three inch pipe the rest of the way back with a flowmaster. Since I have it, and I think it might sound pretty cool, it may be going on the Scout. The whole exhaust was only about six months old when he had to lose it due to changing out some stuff under his Scout that made it not fit, so it should be a long term fix.

[ihscoutlover]

Dennis, I have a complete from exhaust manifold to tailpipe dual exhaust setup if you are interested?? I'd have to measure diameter, but its at minimum factory size.

Jeff

[Dennis Bernth]

Originally Posted by ihscoutlover

Dennis, I have a complete from exhaust manifold to tailpipe dual exhaust setup if you are interested?? I'd have to measure diameter, but its at minimum factory size.

Jeff

Thanks Jeff, I have a complete NOS OEM dual exhaust setup (some pieces still have the IH stock tags on them) but I don't want to use it on this truck. I could get by easily enough with what I have with just two new turbo mufflers, and I may end up doing that, but I think that big single exhaust with the flowmaster would sound pretty tough also. But in the interests of time and wanting to be able to drive the Scout, it's likely to get the two turbo mufflers now and the big single exhaust down the road (or the next time I blow both mufflers). Thanks for the offer however, I appreciate it!

[J.J.]

Dennis, it never ceases to amaze me with what you have got in your parts stash. At least the things that you are talking about


JJ in TN

[Dennis Bernth]

Originally Posted by J.J.

Dennis, it never ceases to amaze me with what you have got in your parts stash. At least the things that you are talking about


JJ in TN

I need to move some of the stuff from my parts stash to somebody else's parts stash so I have more room to put more stuff in my parts stash! The NOS exhaust I just hate to use without a good reason; something like that really belongs on a full on resto to original. It may find itself making the trip to Nationals this year to see if there is any interest, it seems like exhausts are getting harder to find and I doubt IH is making this one any more.

[J.J.]

Originally Posted by Dennis Bernth

I need to move some of the stuff from my parts stash to somebody else's parts stash so I have more room to put more stuff in my parts stash! The NOS exhaust I just hate to use without a good reason; something like that really belongs on a full on resto to original. It may find itself making the trip to Nationals this year to see if there is any interest, it seems like exhausts are getting harder to find and I doubt IH is making this one any more.

If you find any D stuff in the stuff you wanna get rid of, let me know. I'm in.


JJ in TN