For openers, I'm 36, been in the Navy for over 18 of those workin on the enviromental & safety systems on C130, C9, Huey, A6, F/A18, and currently P3 airframes from the searing heat of the Mojave desert to the numbing killing cold of Antarctica. I've always been good with machines & have been workin on anything with a motor I could get my mitts on since my early teens. Ran my own small engine business at 14, started doin odd mechanical work around the same, then moved into electronic mods at 15. I have run my own motorcycle & VW shop out of my garage when I lived in CA, still do odd bits here & there & flip the occasional car or bike here & there. Cant count how many cars, trucks, & motorcycles I've owned in the past few years, nevermind the work on other folks rigs,... All I can say is I love to work on anything, I get a kick out of taking something thats broke down & wore out, makin it work again, and starting all over with something new. I'm not real experienced with freehand metal working, & that is my current focus so that I can take on projects w/o making em FUBAR. Yeah, I love to cut, hammer, & weld on old steel like it was goin out of style. Too bad a really suck at it,... That's what practice is for, and before some of y'all get all bunched that I may be molesting perfectly good Americal metal, my 1st project & current experimentation platform is a '70 VW beetle roadster I call the Black Bomber. All kinds of neat stuff, all custom made or adapted by myself. What better way to learn w/o havin to drop a ton of bones? Not that it has been cheap, but not too bad overall. It sits about 3" off the deck in front with open fenders and smoothed wheel wells, hiked in the hind end with fenders, rear meats stick out about 1.5 inches, overall rake gives it a mean stance & I get lots of comments about how it looks like the Prowlers bastard cousin. I think it looks better myself, but then I'm a nut! I have a 4" drop 4-bar Ford A style front axle, 70's GM discs pushed by a Porsche 944 Master Cyl, '69 Mustang steering box run thru a Nissan 280Z steering column, and a removable steering wheel from Speedway Motors (love those guys, and judging by my bank account, they love me too,...), Mazda 626 seats I recovered myself, all digital blackout guages from Nordskog, a completely redesigned elctrical system I built from scratch using aircraft grade wiring covered in nickel platted copper sheathing (for ground & radio noise suppression) & junction blocks, and a few other odds & ends here & there. By the way, for those local NorthWest folks that want a tight electrical system custom made, hit me up. Now that most folks are disgusted by the Kraut driver in your midst(By the way, Hitler didn't design anything, he just had an open contract bidding to build a car that anyone can afford and got XX milage & could hold 4 adults. 3 companies vied for it, Porsche designed the winner, and the English built it to revive Germany AFTER Hitler was long dead & gone), I DO have a hunk of American iron. I just purchased a 1956 GMC 2.5-ton dump truck. L6, 2bbl, 4-speed with a 2-speed rear, single axle & a short box. All original steel with the expected rust in the usual places, but overall not bad. Only dent I found was one of the bullets in the grill got bumped, didn't dent it, but did bend the lower sheet metal a touch. She aint purty, but she's a tough old girl! Currently halfway home as I tried to drive her home but the brakes were too questionable for my liking. It's at a shop to get looked at & get some new rubber all around. Bringin her home this weekend to scare the neighborhood half to death! Lord but I love messin with these people. I'm here on the HAMB to dig around, find bits of info, and see if I cant uncover a few sources for the occasional part here & there. Immediate plans for the GMC: *BRAKES! Dont care if she wont go, but if she wont stop, we could have a real serious issue,... I wanna live to enjoy my rides, thanks very much! *Dig up a 1956 Washington license plate & register her as a collector vehicle. *Wiring is gonna be gutted from stem to stern and she'll get the same aviation grade stuff I have in the Bomber, with a fabric loom if I can find it. Wanna keep her as close to stock "looking" as possible, might keep her a lil rough on the edges, but want her true to date as much as possible. *Clean up the tin, beat out the dents, start doing transplants for the cancerous spots, clean up the paint. *Take the dump box off the frame & fabricate, with the help of a talented welder freind, a tilting wood deck flat bed with ramps so I can haul the Bomber around, or whatever other cars/parts/Coke machines (another of my vices, love those old Coka-Cola machines) I need taken from here to there & vice versa. But time will tell. I may just get her sea worthy again and turn her over to some poor bum that needs a toy of his own. I'm not a profit seeker, I do this stuff for the pure joy & fun of it, will sell her for 10% over what I paid for the lot and move on to my next project. What that will be, oh man, dont get me started,... If I could get ahould of a couple grand, a 3-car transporter, and a couple winches, I know where there are a few sweet peices of steel up in them mountains. Anyway, wasted too much time already, need to look up parts for the brake system! Will post some photos later on when I get a few of the truck.
Wow that's a helluva intro! Welcome. I'm a former Squid- except I was a Snipe. Nice use of the term "FUBAR". I haven't heard that since I got out. I served 6 years- early enough that they didn't get a chance to use the mind control device on me... Haahaa. Good luck with your projects- throw up some pics! Anchors Aweigh! Scott
Thanks CaddyRat, always nice to be noticed Yep, I'm a lil bit long winded at times. Ok, ALL the time, but thats only online. Like to be detailed as I can be so folks that are curious can usualy find out what they wanna know about me or my projects in my infrequent posts. Sometimes I'll go 2-3 months w/o even checking for responses. ANYway,... Got a couple photos of the old girl. Nothin killer, just a couple snaps on my cell phone when I went by to get the new rubber on order. Ugly as original sin, but there's a lot of potential under all that mud & rust. As for the Black Bomber, here's a couple shots of that particular money pit. If anyone is interested, the full details on the buildup, from the first cut can be seen here: http://www.shoptalkforums.com/viewtopic.php?t=65327 LOTS of photos, and it's several pages covering every bit & piece that I have done over the past few years. May not be much to some folks on here, but I am proud of her, and moreover of the fact that it's all been done by hand, wont find another one like it at any shows anytime soon, and it's paid for! Side shot at a local landmark service station. Pretty much how she looks these days, gettin the materials together to start makin the rear deck cover. The delima at the moment is if I wanna move the firewall fwd a couple feet & put in a turbo/EFI system, or keep it where it is & fabricate a rumble seat. the rumble seat sounds like the neatest option tho (harder to make, but never been done!).
love the truck... and even a thumbsup on the old buggerrooo. But I wouldn't bring it up here Welcome!
Thanks, the truck is a beuty, in that too ugly for words kinda way. As for the car, well I know it wont be popular much with this gang, but thats why I have the other website. It's just a good indication of where my head is on this hobby and aside from it being a few years too new, I think it keeps to the point of the hobby, doing all you can with what you got, even if it aint much!
Glad there wasn't any issues with getting the title transferred,... NOT real happy about what is cost tho, ouch! Since a truck you cant haul anything in is just an oversized car, I opted for regular registration. That cost a bundle! Something about the weight making it a comercial vehicle, & the surcharge for the gross tonnage. BOHICA! Anyway, yeah, sucked a tad. Not gettin her home today, dunno if they even got the tires in today after all this snow! You'd think people in this state would be used to it, but I forget we live on the wet side where it doesn't dump snow more than once every few years,... Still lookin at finding parts tho. So here's the big Q of the day. Anyone have some good sources for old truck parts? At least folks that would carry parts for these big honkers? It's a model 370 if that helps. Thanks!
Yep, we got the '56 home today. what a trek that was! Got the same guy that towed it before and hauled her home to the tune of 200 bones. Kinda ouch, yeah, but MUCH less than it would have cost me to rent a truck & trailer that had that high of a tow rating. The guys at the tire store were sad to see "Mater" go. Well, except for a couple of the newer techs that got to assist & get trained on changing tires on "widow maker" rims, old split ring rims that can fly apart with enough force to chop a man in half. After some work & a couple laps arounf the parking lot I managed to get it out of low range, amazing how reading the directions on the sticker can help! Altho, I was trying to get it to get out of low and it did, half way anyhow,... Seems it was stuck inbetween gears and I was afraid I'd just screwed myself when I got it in Hi. Would have made towing it a snap, no worries about the drivetrain then, still not good tho. The trip home was uneventful. Could hear the gears in the rear end whining all the way home, and one of the rear brakes was still slightly engaged so it was smoking when we got here. No actual damage or issues at all. Anyway, she's home now, and she has new shoes. The new rubber doesn't look too out of place, but then med/heavy truck tires haven't changed appearances as much as auto tires in the last 20 years. Now, just have to pull the brake system apart & get that fixed, at least rebuilt well enough for the short term so I can get it onto the base & to the auto hobby shop for a couple months of serious rework. Once there I can gut the whole brake system & instal all new parts and lines & do it the right way, can NOT afford to have it take a hairy dump on you! Once it's there, strip the front from the firewall up, repair the sheet metal as needed, pull the engine out & change all seals, gaskets, & other items that are overdue. Also gut the cab & clean everything up, fix the electrical issues & start making a new wiring system. I'll pop up the occasional update with pics as I can. What was funny, I was standing in the parking lot at the tire store, and this guy walks up & starts talkin to me about the truck. He's tellin me on the sod farm he runs they have a 1957 flat bed out there that they just retired coz they bought another rig with more load capacity. Still runs & drives perfect, has a 12' bed, all the stuff I was wanting except it doesn't tilt. Said they're prolly gonna offload it as a whole truck or part it out for a couple hundred sometime, might even let me have just the bed for a reasonable price,... NOW??? What lovely timing! ugh! But yeah, this truck has more of what I need even if she is in a bit sorrier shape. Plus the fact that you just cant buy the character she has.
OK, been a good long while since I was on here. Thought yout peoples might like to see what I've been up to. Been workin on this old truck pretty much every chance I could get. If I wasn't workin and the shop was open I was there wrenchin. So, after 8 months the beast is home! So! New photos! Rear quarter view Generation Gap bed up from rear Engine right side Engine Left side Inside the cab
The Jalopy Journal
