1963 International Scout 80

Yeppers, I'm still here reading this.

I'm planning on using the stock gauge cluster, but I think there are some replacement guts that work on 12 V instead of 5.

The fuel tank I'm planning on using is the Trooper II tank. those seem to fit the available space perfectly.

 

Axles showed up last weekend. They are out of a 95 HZJ75 pickup. Disk brake front, drum rear with integrated parking brakes. 4.10/4.11 gears, and a limited slip in the rear.

Widths appear to be 56" front and 55" rear. About perfect to increase the track width slightly without needing to hog out the fenders.

Now to hit the junkyard for some 57" chevy leaf springs and some Land cruiser 80 series front control arms.

 

Got the front axle positioned under the truck, and a set of 33's for scale (Probably going to run 33x10.50 or some 32" tall tires for 16" rims).

80 Series Radius arms with 10" travel coilovers. Be about 4" of uptravel and 6" droop. At this height there is just a bit of angularity to the draglink, and the control arms are basically flat. Should handle nicely on the street.

 

btw, the stock motor had the oil sump in the front of the block. There is no way I could have mounted the cruiser axle under it at this height with that oil pan. The pumpkin is resting against the oil pan right now, with 4" of lift.

 

View from the front.

 

Bastage that had the axles took his sweet time getting them here

TONS of room for links. The radius arms will come straight out from the bottom of the frame. Drag link looks to be about 33" long and almost flat at ride height. It should be simple to replicate the length and angle for the panhard bar.

My only real concern right now is fitting a coilover in-between the frame and a tire. It's probably going to be close. I need to hit up Ruff Stuff for a care package.

The above pic also shows the back asswards engine oil pan. The sump is in the front instead of the rear. no freaking way I could keep this motor and swap axles...

 

So, I was playing with numbers and "stuff" last night and considering the 80 series radius arms..
80 series axles had their front arms at about 31” apart with a 63” wms. The 75 series axle is about 56” wms, considerably narrower than the 80 series axle. The Scout frame is about 34.75” outside to outside and 3” thick. So center to center on the frame is about 31.75” and inside to inside is about 28.75”. The stock Cruiser frame was about 28.5” wide outside to outside (which is the leaf spring spacing as well). If I mount the arms under (or frenched into) the frame, I’ll be rubbing the tar out of the arms with the tires turned.

However, if I run the arms on the Inside of the frame (sleeve the frame and then run a double shear mount on the inside) I suddenly have tons more room. And I doubt that the motor will get in the way. The frame is In my opinion, way wider than necessary in the front. So I should have plenty of room.


If I mount the arms on top of the axle and inside of the frame rails, that should be about as elegant and invisible as I can get The cool thing is that I still can keep the arms perfectly flat at ride height. 4”up travel, 6” droop. With tunable coilovers, I think this should have some very streetable handling.


I love armchair designing..

 

Of course there is a napkin sketch. My handwriting is bad, my cartoons are even worse...

Other than possibly changing the orientation of the caster bushings in the arms (flipping them so that the thick part of the bushing is at the other end). I can't see how it would make a huge difference. The front axle rotates down during acceleration, but that's not much of an issue for a part time 4wd truck. The rotation up due to braking is significant tho. It looks like the "thick" part of the bushing will buffer upwards rotation (if that is why it was designed that way). But who knows. AS far as suspension geometry goes. With a radius arm, the center line of the axle is the "axle" end no matter where you put the arm, above or below.

The next question will be how far will the arms enter the engine compartment if I put them on top of the axle. It'd probably be bad if my arms smacked the motor mounts

 

LOL, why didn't my napkin tell me that....

 

I can't wait to get the yard art in hand and start buildin!!! Thanks Tommy!!

 

got my rear springs in hand. 52" chevy rears. wayyyyy longer than stock..