A little cleanup

Today I spent my time doing an archaeological dig in the bed of the truck.  I found the hood, two bell housings, two fuel pumps, twelve pistons..... ok, I see a pattern here.  It's like that game on Sesame Street where you try and figure out which one doesn't belong.  Dad had commented that he had a couple of engines and my guess is that all the bits had landed in the back of the truck for safe keeping.  Time had taken it's toll on the parts and the bed.  Not much left of either of them.  I removed a full wheelbarrow's worth of mulch from the bed and engine compartment.  It will be interesting if I end up finding some bolts in the garden next summer.  This was not how I figured I would start this project (the gardening), but it did make for a fun afternoon!  With things a bit cleaned up, I will now be able to safely navigate through the rear window so I can start working on getting the doors open from the inside out.

The real bummer is the hood. Because of how it was positioned it filled and rusted really badly.  I decided I wanted to set the hood on the nose to give it a bit of dignity... did it work?

I had enough foresight to bring my GoPro when I went to get the truck.  I was able to set just set out the camera and capture the process of loading and unloading.  Compressed it down to a couple of minutes.  The trailer really was cool to watch at work.

Bringing Rusty home

I got a call from my Uncle last night.  He was asking if I had time the next morning to go get the truck.  Of course I was available! :)  It was like a second Christmas this week!  I have been excited to get the truck home where I could really see what I was up against.    I told him yes and called my Dad to see if he could bring out the tractor so we could get it out without getting stuck.  Why is it I always seem to work on cars outside in the winter?  
     Ron has a trailer that effortlessly made short work of this task.  Once we got down to it and aired up the tire again it only took a few minutes to pull it onto the trailer and we were headed back up to the road.  We chained it down and were on our way.  
     Now you have to understand that this thing is a basket case.  Until we started to unload I had not realized all the things I take for granted, even in a car that I am hauling around.  Things like tires that hold air, doors that open, windows that roll down and last but not least…brakes that work.  Fortunately after climbing in through the back window, I tested the emergency brake and it worked.  Laying a truck down from a tilt bed trailer, four feet from the front of my garage made me a bit nervous, but the cable system that Ron has in place worked perfect and we dropped it right where I wanted it. 
      Tomorrow I will see if I can get the doors open, then the cleaning begins.  Thanks Uncle Ron and Dad for your help today!

 

Did you catch the name in the title?  As I was saying goodbye to my wife this morning she jokingly ”suggested” I name the truck Rusty.  I think the name's gonna stick.

The beginning of the story

This started after I watched the the movie "The Expendables".  The 1955 Ford that they celebrated struck a chord in me.  I currently drive a Ford Explorer which might as well be a minivan.  I started thinking about the truck I learned to drive in, a 1969 Ford Ranger.  Not really a hot rod to me.  When I started looking around, I decided that I liked the pre 1970 Chevys and had seen several around town that I liked.   Growing up Dad had an early 60s Chevy truck but it was long gone, or so I thought.  While sharing with Dad my plans, I asked what had happened to the Chevy.  To my surprise, he had just moved it from his brother's place.  It was available if I wanted it.  After a drive up to inspect it I was disappointed.  The years outside had not been kind.  I processed for a couple of weeks, doing some research and thinking about how much work it would be to get it back in shape.  I don't have that much experience with these kind of repairs.  I don’t know….. then I decided.  I have enough memories of the truck that I might as well give it a try.  My son is eight and I decided that it would be an opportunity to teach, share, and learn with him.  So the 1960 Chevy Apache 10 that I  grew up with will be the same truck that my son grows up with.  Let the games begin!