New Toy

I've got a 1963 1 ton flat bed here at the shop right now.

The cab is pretty shot. We are starting with front and rear cab supports and the floor section that includes the inner rocker panel. This thing has already had extensive work done to it previously. I can tell because they only riveted the panels in place. Gave the customer a *censored* load of parts for him to order. It is amazing what parts are still available for it. Places to check if needed are raybuck, tuckers, sherman and ecklers.

I will be starting this project with the sandblaster to the underside so I get some clean steel to weld to. I used to do the cab supports in my sleep..................

I just don't know how far this customer want to go with this but we'll see.


These bring back a lot of good memories for me. My first truck was the shop truck.... a '65 that had the heavy steel push bumper on the front of it. When I was done, it was the fastest truck light to light in town. Althought the tranny could't handle it too well. But I had it down to a science. I could pull it into the garage and have the busted tranny out and headed to the repair shop in 45 minutes. The guy there always kept one partially rebuilt under his workbench just for me !!!!

We had painted it Mustang Green with a gold stripe betweent the chrome moldings. Gold & white bench seat, floor shifter, shag carpeting, 23 channel CB radio, FM radio converter under the dash and to top it off.............an 8 track player with speakers in the doors and behind the seat............

Ah the good old days...... Changing plugs meant putting a foot on either frame rail in the engine compartment to lean over it. Set points by dwell and timing by light but fine tuning it by ear after trying it out on the back roads. Kept the old bent wrench under the seat........



Rick

cArNaGe wrote:Got a new Toy.

Very nice! My brother has a '59. I asked him what he was going to do with it, and he said, "Spend a lot of money". First thing he did was take the gas tank out from behind the seats. I guess guys were tougher 50 years ago and didn't mind having lots of gasoline inside the cab with them.

Oh man that is one piece of great looking ols school GM steel.

283, my favorite small block. Altough even the stock 3 on the tree woulda been nicer than a slush box...oh well, not a huge deal either way with the looks of it. Cab corners are most rust collectors of them all anyhow so I'm sure you weren't surpised by the the mud the PO squeezed in.

Congrats man, sooo jealous.

I keep eyeballing this truck from the30's or 40's down the road from me. Can't see what it is ... but I love it. Original paint, all rusted and flaking everywhere. I love driving vehicles like that in MA - scares everyone. People gawk like you just hatched from an egg. This state is strange ... and so are the people! Everyone's so spoiled rotten up here ...

Tempted to stop and ask what they want for it ... but I'm fairly certain it's out of my range. Maybe a trade for the Silverado?

SMITTY wrote:Tempted to stop and ask what they want for it ... but I'm fairly certain it's out of my range. Maybe a trade for the Silverado?

Offer them a Blazer in trade. Speaking of which, I saw a beauty of a Blazer in the super market parking lot last weekend. Nice shiny green, 4-doors, no rust. If I hadn't learned better from you, I'd have thought it was a fine vehicle!

Love that truck, cArNaGe! Dad had one close to it, 1965, IIRC. Small 6, 3 on the column in "county orange". Hauled all sorts of stuff in that old truck. Dad bought it in a package deal with my first car - '66 Mustang: sleeper 289 auto. Used it to make many runs to Carlisle and bring back parts we scored. King pins were fun to change. Taught my future wife to drive stick in that truck. She couldn't deal with me being along side of her so I'd hop in the back and hang on We never did get stopped

VigIIPeaBurner wrote:Taught my future wife to drive stick in that truck. She couldn't deal with me being along side of her

Taught my wife to drive stick in a 1970 Beetle. I couldn't deal with the grinding gears, had to get her an automatic.

I taught a few girls to drive stick .... but it was usually in the BACK seat ....

SMITTY wrote:I taught a few girls to drive stick .... but it was usually in the BACK seat ....

Now why did I expect this....?? Too funny!

Taught the wife to drive a 5 gear in a '83 (make believe) Dodge Charger/AKA Mitushshy Thingy. But once she got it down, she just loved showing off in my '68 Malibu Rag-top with a 350cu /w a Muncie M-21 4spd and managing to pull a 3rd gear squeal with it as well.

SMITTY wrote:I taught a few girls to drive stick .... but it was usually in the BACK seat ....

That was one of the reasons I converted my 65 to a floor shift....... I even bent the shift shaft a little to get it to drop lower on the seat !!!!!

And man was that front bench seat fun........................................................
My dad taught me the trick of using the end of a hacksaw blade to make a door interior light switch disabling device. Says it worked for him and I know it worked for me...





Rick

Hey...cArNaGe, didn't i just see you ride in Turrell corners today, below FS Lopkes?

Yup