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So... the encounter states:

The characters approach a huge crater from a nuclear strike, once aimed at a large mechanized force gathered here. The crater is 6D6 (I rolled for 18 = 180m) hexes wide and twice that many meters deep. There is a small lake of greenish water in the bottom of it. The entire visible crater, as well as an area twice as wide around it, is still radioactive. Moving through this area inflicts 1 rad every stretch. In all of this area, there are dozens of rusting wrecks of armored vehicles. These are destroyed beyond repair, but D6 of them can be scavenged for parts. Note that the PCs will likely be severely affected by radiation if they stay to scavenge the vehicles. The road is destroyed here. To pass around the crater, a vehicle needs to go off-road and lose one hex of movement this shift (modified by terrain) before movement can continue.

Scavenging a single vehicle takes a Shift, which would mean the players would get a ridiculous amount of radiation, something in excess of 30 rads (6 per hour and a shift is 5-10 hours). How am I supposed to run this encounter without turning my players into walking mutated glowsticks? Will that radiation kill them outright or just give them max rads?

Moderator Action: Added a spoiler tag to the headline since we don't have a GM (hm, referee) section yet.

There are protective gears that can be used. If the players don't have that, then they can mark this spot on their map and for now move around it. Who knows, perhaps they may come back to this spot later.

That's what I figured, and I did mark it on their travel map. Still, it seems like without that gear, they would just... die from the excessive radiation?

Most likely.

Tanks KOed by depleted Uranium rounds are potential hazard to the scrounger as well, although the health effects are more longer-term in nature.

I would say you can scavenge lots of vehicles here without worrying too much about radiation.

First, the danger area is a radius of either 360 m or 540 m, depending how we interpret "twice as wide." So if we presume the danger area is 1 km wide, are we likely to find dead vehicles outside it?

Well, let's proceed to https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/ and play with nukes! A 150 kt airburst at an altitude chosen to optimise the 20 psi overpressure area (i.e. lots of blast damage on the ground with minimal fallout) gives you a 210 m crater radius (to the outer lip of the crater). So that's about right.

When that nuke went off, the 20 psi overpressure area -- the area within which strong concrete buildings are reduced to rubble and nothing is left intact save bunkers built to withstand nukes -- has a radius of 1.49 km. The maximum wind speed within this area following the blast was 502 miles per hour. Every house within 3.35 km is flattened.

There will potentially be lots of dead vehicles outside the danger zone, especially given that crews like to ride with their hatches open unless they're under fire.

Also, I would likely just fudge those rads. Game rads are a big fudge anyway -- the radiation rules are trying to create short-term effects to satisfy player expectations, when in fact the effects of dallying around that crater would be long term effects. The big question to ask is, how close to that hole are you willing to go? I think players are likely to steer well clear, especially if they get a graphic picture of the scale of the damage.

Tanks are surprisingly able to survive a nuclear strike even if their crews can't.

The Nuclear Test

Besides powering through the high mountains and subzero temperatures in North Korea and fighting through the dense, sweltering jungles of Vietnam, the biggest testament to the Centurion’s toughness came in Australia in 1953. An Australian Army Centurion Mark 3 was left at ground zero of a 9.1 kiloton nuclear detonation — engine running and loaded down with ammo, supplies, and a mannequin crew.

When test crews inspected the tank after the blast, they found the vehicle intact, if heavily sandblasted. The only reason the engine stopped was because the tank ran out of fuel. While the blast wave would have killed a real tank crew at that distance from the epicenter, the researchers realized they could have driven the tank off the test site.

The actual tank that withstood the nuclear blast, naturally nicknamed The Atomic Tank, was used by the Australians in the Vietnam War. It took an RPG and stayed in the fight during an engagement with the North Vietnamese.

twice that many meters deep.

sounds a bit weird. Half as deep as the diameter sounds more reasonable.

twice that many meters deep.

sounds a bit weird. Half as deep as the diameter sounds more reasonable.

It book say:

the crater is 6d6 hexes wide and twice that many meters deep

So if it is 21 hexes wide (210 meters) it will be 42 meters deep.

edit: That could have been phrased differently, I admit.

Ah, got it. Mixing units of measurement never ends well