Kubota Swappers. A company that makes conversion kits for Cars and Trucks.

[Henry W]

Just found this site. Might be an interest to some.

https://kubotaswappers.myshopify.com/

[LowGear]

The Jeep and Toyota make sense to me - kinda.  There's just something about a F250 3 cylinder pickup that just doesn't quite add up to me.

What's the HP and RPM range of one of these work horses?

[Henry W]

The larger 03 series engines are four cylinder.

Here is a link of one of the Kubota engines that should work. https://global.engine.kubota.co.jp/en/products/product_pdf/59_pdf_1.pdf

This particular engine should work well in Ford Ranger, Chevy/GM S10, and Toyota mini pickups.

Had a few diesel powered mini pickups (two diesel Ranger's and two diesel Mazda's with Mazda built Perkins licensed Diesel engines) and 55hp was plenty.

A full size F150 or F250? A Cummins 4BT would be a nice conversion.

Henry

[Tom Reed]

That would go in a Scout 80 real nice.

[Henry W]

Yes! In 1986 I had a 1967 Scout 800 when I was in Gunnison, Colorado. It had half a V8 . It was underpowered on the highway but I lived above 8000 ft. Was great on the trails.

The only time I got it stuck was on a seasonal road that was closed for cars and trucks in the winter near Crested Butte. I thought why is the road closed? It's only snow. Disobeyed the signs and drove about a half mile in. While going around a turn I felt a tremmer so I stopped. I got out of the truck and walked around. Finally realized what I've done. I got back in the truck and proceeded to back out and the crusty packed snow broke and the poor truck sunk in the snow. I had to leave the truck there for the night and the park ranger said there will be a snow cat coming down from Roaring Judy and the driver will pull it out. He mentioned that normally it's not a pleasant ending. He said most vehicles get torn in pieces. I spent the night at a lodge thinking. While playing with a deck of cards I stopped and said, That's it!!! Sheets of plywood. So, early morning a friend dropped off 8 sheets of 3/4" plywood at the closed road. I had to sled the plywood to the truck. I jacked the truck up, filled the holes with more snow and placed the plywood under the truck. Well that was half the battle. That morning the temperature dropped under -35 degrees F. The truck had the largest battery that would fit in the tray. And I had one can of ether. So I gave it a shot of ether and tried starting it. Well, it slowly turned over and sputtered some. I continued and the battery was dying. I gave it another shot and the engine fired up but was running on two or three cylinders and seemed like it was ready to quit running, than all of a sudden the other cylinders came to life!!! I Warmed the engine up for about ten minutes and than proceeded to back the truck on the plywood and sliding the free pieces of plywood to the back. As soon as I was out of the turn I forgot about the plywood and kept the truck moving. Once I got back on the cleared road I was yelling and jumping for joy and wanted to kiss the road. But that would of been another dilemma to deal with. I was embarrassed enough. As soon as I finished picking up the plywood and my other mess a huge snow cat came down the mountain and stopped to have a talk. He was surprised I got it out. He did not have to say anything else. He knew I was tired and beat up. I went to the lodge to warm up some and than proceeded to drive the truck back home. My friend allowed me to put the truck in the heated shop. It took almost the rest of the day for the snow and ice to melt that was frozen in the wheel wells and under carriage.

I think about that Scout many times. I sure miss it. The early Scouts were a simple, reliable truck. The Scout I had belonged to the forestry service when new. I was the third owner. I don't know if the forestry service or the owner before me reworked the truck because it had the Warn heavy duty front locking hubs and the Warn over drive on the transfer case. Was nice having 16 forward gears and 4 reverse. The axles did not look original. They both had power-lock differentials.

https://silodrome.com/buying-guide-international-harvester-scout/

[mobile_bob]

my snow story

it was somewhere in february '79 while living with my younger brother in wichita kansas, i woke up one saturday morning to
what looked like a  near blizzard outside, the wind was howling, it was damned cold, blowing snow and icepacked streets.

i thought, not big deal, i will jump in the 55 chevy and drive the 60 miles to my home town for the weekend, thinking it would be more fun than being stranded in an apartment for the weekend.

bearing in mind the 55 not only did not have a heater, (it being a hotrod i built at age 18) and not only did it not have a heater, but no defroster, and there was the matter of the 3" hole in the firewall where the heater motor pokes through... heck it let some engine heat and exhaust fumes in so no biggy.

i put on my long handle underwear, my insulated overalls, took one of my dad's old wool army blankets out of the back, and wrapped up in it like a cocoon, and then wriggled behind the wheel, sans gloves (for some reason i couldn't find them).

so i head out on I-135 NB out of wichita the 30 miles north to Newton, and found it odd that i was the only one on the interstate, lucky as i could not see the white lines that divided the lanes, so i just chugged along at about 10 mph between the shoulders.  any faster than 10mph and the car would start sliding all over the place.

it took me about an hour and a half to get to the highway 50 east bound from Newton to Florence, and i found the highway clear of ice, so i was getting cold and impatient and kicked the old 55 up to 55mph (the speed limit in those days, had enough tickets, so i learned to drive legal limits). 

now back in those days the highway department would simply cut through hills to put in the highway, so everywhere they cut through the wind blowing like hell from the north would make for "white" outs while going through the cuts.  because these cuts were short i didn't think much about slowing down.

about 10 miles and a half dozen cuts with attendant whiteouts, i was cruising along and all of a sudden it went all "white" and there was a huge shake, which threw me up out of the seat, me in my burrito.

the following probably took no more than a second, but when this sort of thing happens it seems like an eternity.

following the initial impact the engine was dead, it was absolutely silent, and i had no sense of motion.  it was still all white
and i thought, "wow, i hit something" and reached for the door handle to get out,

that is when the second collision happened and again i was tossed in my burrito all over the place.

i couldn't figure out what happened, it was all dark, no white anymore.  i was sure that i wasn't dead, or at least i though not.  i tried the door again and found it would not budge, so i thought "great, the car is bent so badly the door is jambed"

so i rolled down the drivers window to have a look, only to find a wall of snow! 

after a bit of digging by hand i managed to emerge from the snow like some sort of groundhog, and looked ahead to find a triump tr-something nested in the snow ahead of me about 20 ft or so, and two sets of sort of tracks away from the triump.

the wind was blowing it was near white out in the cut when two guys popped up out of the snow, where they had dived in face first to get away from me!

they told me the 55 looked like a seen out of a movie or dukes of hazzard which had just started airing a month or so before. they told me they heard my initial impact, where i lifted off and looked back to see a silent blue and white 55 flying through the air straight for them! they thought i would land on the triump!

apparently they had taken the same flight some 10 minutes earlier and were working to figure out how to dig out of the snow.

anyway i looked back and could see the 55 had lifted off some 100 ft behind where it landed.

the son of a man i formerly worked with came driving up behind in an international scout, '77 model and he had a tow chain, he and i pulled the 55 back out of its landing spot, i restarted the engine and drove it back about 3 miles to the last little town i went through and left it at a filling station, opting to take the rest of the trip in the scout with a heater!

that last 20 miles took us 6 hours!

we continually would drive up on snow only to fall through, and be suspended with the wheels up off the pavement!  so out we would go to dig out from under the damn thing and go a bit further only to wash/rinse/repeat as the old saying goes.

we took railroad right of ways, we drove on frozen fields, everywhere we could that looked like the scout would stay in contact with something other than snow.

it was late that day, after dark when we rolled into florence, and i was exhausted!

the next day dad and i took his service truck to go get the 55, as the highways had been cleared and it was bright and sunny day.

we got there and i couldn't get in the driver door, the lock had frozen.
took a propane torch to thaw it out and get in

the key turns but no click, no nothing, turned on headlights and all ok? hmmm

when to tilt the hood, (a full steel tilt hood i built in order to save having to buy a new hood everytime someone wanted to take a look under it and not get it latched down properly) it had those coke machine locks down low on the fenders, they were frozen solid. more work for the torch

got the hood up and found the underside was a perfect snow and ice form of the underside of the tilt hood, with a huge funnel shape down toward the carburetor, didn't run an air cleaner as the engine was due to be replaced and i didn't have one that fit.  apparently the engine inhaled about 15-20 gallons of powder snow upon startup the day before.

i looked down at the starter and it was encased on ice! i mean just like it was cast in clear ice!

more work for the propane torch!  glad dad had an extra cylinder!  that must have taken the better part of 45 minutes to thaw out and watch the water run out of the starter, the day before while hot the snow melted down to water filling the starter and refreezing it, then encasing it!

now i could start the engine, but...

i couldn't shift either!  crap!  the linkage was another block of ice, that took over an hour to thaw out!

i think dad wanted to just call a junkyard and have them come and get it! 

finally got it going, running and shifting and took it back to florence,, where i left it running for a couple hours to finish thawing out,

from that day forward, i don't go anywhere in blizzard conditions! 

had i watched the news that morning i would have learned why it was i was the only one on the interstate,, it had been closed!

all these years later, i still have my 55 chevy, he and i have been through 3 wives, 4 kids, one blizzard and at least one dukes of hazzard flight!

how can you sell a car that has been through all that with a guy?

[Tom Reed]

Great story and I've had a 74 Scout since 84. Great trucks!