Well it has been a while hasn't it? I suppose as life moves on with other projects and responsibilities one loses site of other projects. I got heavily involved in repainting my house as well as normal maintenance. I also started replacing all of the wood frames around my windows with PVC trim. All of this stacked on top of quitting smoking, replacing the garage door, several appliances that just got old and a handful of other life happenings. It was just hard to find time energy and money for he truck. I have been able to go out on occasion and do a little sanding or body work here and there but mostly so little it would have just been embarrassing to even post it on the Blog. Motivation had dwindles to say the least.
Well I was going through some old postings on my traditional hot rod site and noticed the truck had received an impressive amount of views despite the fact that I had all but cancelled the "For Trade" listing due to a severe lack of quality offerings. Don't get me wrong, some were worth the truck but just not what I was looking for. A lot of it goes back to that age old saying .... "If I own it, it's gold, if you own it it's crap" and who knows maybe I do expect too much out of the truck. I do however think I can do better than a 6K four door! Well enough of that I am startng to drift off on a rant and I really do not want to go there here.
Long story short I had posted on the ad about my surprise at the amount of views, which in turn brought the year old ad back to the top for all to see. Once again the offers started pouring in. I had not expected that and it caught me a bit off guard and with my pants down so to speak. I mean the poor truck was left with a bit of it's metal exposed and in the middle of some body work and it had not been started in about a year!
It was enough to motivate me! I spent today out in the garage removing the hood finishing up some body work and spraying a little primer. I only had about a pint of primer on hand and mainly wanted to see if my crappy spray gun still worked. It did, and yes still crappy but sufficient for primer.
I am thinking I need to get a list together and go pick up some supplies and see if I cant get this thing back into a good coat of primer. Then I can re evaluate where I want to go from here. We have been contemplating a move and I am not sure I want to haul the truck along. It may get sold or swapped for a boat or something. Who knows ... I love to trade but it seems I cant get an offering of anything I want. Oh well I am cursed to own it a bit longer (sarcasm).
The good news is it wont take long to make her presentable once again .. Here are a few pictures I took after what little I did get done.....
Just getting some primer on the door made a huge improvement!
Well it has been far too long since my last post! For those of you sticking it out, I thank you for your patients! I had to leave the truck for a while and get some much needed house stuff done. I guess you could say I have been restoring my house rather than the truck. The house is worth a lot more, so ..... Priorities!
In the months since my last post, the garage door decided to go into self destruct mode! Needless to say I had to have it replaced. The installer wanted the truck out of the garage .... when I went to move it something went in the trans shift linkage and I was unable to shift into first or reverse.
There was work to be done!
Had to jack it up so I would fit under!
BTW ... Here is the new door .... it allows a lot more light for working on the truck! I was going to replace it myself but I didn't want to deal with disposing of the old door!
The old door did not have windows .. I'm gonna like this!
Some much needed light!
She's looking rough :(
Once the door was on I got the truck back into the garage and took a look under it to see if I could see what happened. If you have been following along ... you are familiar with the shift mechanism drawings I did earlier
.. if not here is the link LINK it will open in a new window.
The spacer you see in the drawings had come off. I had tacked this on when I changed out the broken part for a new one. Since it is cast I obviously didn't do it right LOL ... I was not concerned at the time because the metal I used was too soft and I knew it would not be long before I would have to replace it anyways. I decided that rather than try to weld to the cast, I would just extent the steel on the shift lever instead.
I welded on a piece of heavier steel and bolted the lever back on the truck.
yeah .. I still can't weld!
But it should hold :o)
So far it works great ... I don't know how much gas is in the tank ... so I didn't leave the garage.
Here is a short video of it in action HA! Enjoy!
Unfortunately, I still have the second floor of my house to do yet and some standard yard stuff, so I wont get much done any time soon :( I am going to try and devote the weekends to getting the body in primer at last.
Ok so I have been sanding away on the truck as the holidays permit. Not much to show as far as pictures go. I did pick up a air file sander and that thing has been awesome for fixing some of my larger sections. You know I had to go back over some areas! HA
I quit smoking at the begging of December so I have been avoiding the garage the last few weeks. All that dust would not help the healing process of my lungs. (smoked about 35 years) I would say I can go at it again at a decent pace towards the end of January.
Anyways ... I have some pics on my phone but i am being lazy so maybe I will transfer them over this week so I can have something for you to look at!
Thanks to everyone who followed in 2012 .. I look forward to 2013 ... maybe I can finish up the dang body!
