sam dupont
Well-Known Member
A friend of mine used cheap 4x4s of any brand to work his trap lines. He broke one but had to work the traps the next day so I went with him to look at a 1960 Ford in the dead of night. Never buy a 4 x 4 in the dead of night. The front half of the frame was mercury with a 390 and the axles were International. The gearing made it pretty much unusable, so he sold it to these guys from Newell... at night. It worked for them because they fed sheep out of it. Once again, he was without a truck, so we went and looked at a 77 Chevy 4 x 4, that night. It ran great got 17 miles to the gallon, (no front driveshaft) but in daylight, you could tell it had been rolled and all the dents pounded out. It was worth too much for trapping so it was sold... at night. Couldn't tell it had been wrecked at night. That was replaced by a 67 international with a broken rear axle. He drove it for a couple years as FWD, and then traded off for an early Trail Duster. (finally a Mopar in this boring story) He really liked that Plymouth and had it a long time, but one day the forest service had a road blocked off and he didn't want to back track. He drove over their berm and tore out the lines. He knew what he did, but drove it anyway before he called me with ruined tranny. Probably drinking and wanting to avoid the law dogs. I rode in it in some pretty tough weather and I was impressed.
The IH 392 had a 4.125 bore and 3.66 stroke.
