Harvey the Harvester

Corny name, right?

For my 19th birthday I bought a 1974 International Harvester Scout II and have been working on it a little bit every now and then for the past two months. It’s my winter driver to keep my Gremlin out of the snow and Illinois street salt.

I took the door panels off to clean up the window tracks and lubricate them along with the door handle mechanisms. When was the last time you saw a door panel that simple to remove? It’s one piece with a bunch of screws. I really enjoy the simplicity of the Scout II.

Harvey is powered by an “IH-258 GAS 6CYL”, which is actually an AMC 258 (4.2L) inline-six, the same engine that’s currently in my Gremlin. The same engine can be found in many Jeeps from 1972-1990. It is equipped with a 1bbl Holley carburetor.

It could really use a good cleaning, but it’s too cold out for that right now. You can see the power brake booster in this photograph. It is equipped with gigantic 11.75 x 1.18 disc brakes up front and very large drums in the back.

2wd, but it still has a scrape shield on the oil pan.

Oh joy, the vacuum hose diagram. One by one I shall weed out what isn’t necessary, so far the charcoal canister is gone.

The tire iron and jack handle have their own places under the hood.

Aerody-what? It’s a brick on wheels.

I really like the reverse opening hood. It’s a good safety feature for when your hood decides to pop open while driving. The water bottles are full of windshield washer fluid.

Obligatory slow moving vehicle sign, jumper cables, and straw hats.

3 speed T15D Borg-Warner.

Glove box full of misc. tools and documentation. Duct tape to stick it, WD-40 to unstick it.

Made in Canadia, eh?

Push button AM radio and a speedometer that goes up to 120mph. I wonder if it could do 90 on a downhill. The odometer reads 75k original miles.

This is my first manual vehicle so I figured I’d take a picture of the pedals. To the left of the steering column is a manual choke. The build sheet or “line ticket” says it came with an automatic choke, but I’m glad whoever added it added it. The engine starts in the cold no problem. The park brake doesn’t work, that’s on my to-do list.

The cab top is removable. This being my winter truck, it might never come off, but the option is there.

While driving in the cold the rear-view mirror came unglued from the windshield and fell off. I picked up a package of rear-view mirror glue, scraped the old glue off, spent at least ten minutes holding the mirror up to the windshield while the glue dried, and now it’s good as new!

I have the button for the tailgate, but it’s missing the pin that holds it in place so I’m trying to track one down or find one that will work.

The cardboard in the bed is just there because I was hauling computers around and didn’t want them sliding around or getting scratched up.

One of the few patches that are welded on in place of the common rust areas.

Woodstock! This antenna topper is actually just the head off of a PEZ dispenser. I have Speedy Gonzales on my Gremlin’s antenna.

Dealer sticker? I bought the truck out of Indiana.

1980 approved.

The milk crate is my step, I stand on it to reach over the fenders while working under the hood.

The washer fluid pump was dead so I replaced it with a new universal one. It was the same fit and same connections.

The blower motor made whining noises when set to high speed and it also didn’t seem to move much air.

I wonder if you can stand in the engine bay of a V8 Scout II to work on it like this.

A tired looking motor with a clean looking fan.

The fan is held to the blower motor’s shaft by a small allen headed screw

An inside look at the heater core and box. The first time I put the blower motor back in the fan was too far out on its shaft and rubbed against the second hole in the heater box and made a grinding noise so I had to take it out again and move the fan closer to the base of the blower motor’s shaft.

Thew new blower motor in really bad lighting.

The new blower motor’s plug ends weren’t quite the same as the originals so I cut the wires and soldered them to the original blower motor’s plug.

I replaced the old horn relay with a shiny new one, but still no honking…hmm…

Could it be that one of the horns is missing?

Here is a picture of the fuse panel and a new turn signal relay, both located under the driver’s side of the dash.

The little plastic wedge light sockets in the instrument panel all broke when I pulled them out so I had to replace them while going through the light bulbs.

The light sockets are 5/8″ size.

This is my bag of spare bulbs, unfortunately all of the sockets in this bag are smaller than the ones in the dash.

It’s going to take a good washing to find out where this is coming from.

- Tinny

<– Edit –>

Just got new tires for it. 235x75x15 Firestone Destination A/T’s.