Trip Notes As I said before ,I don't have time to take pictures nor do I have the <magic> cable necessary to download them My big brother keeps his camera in his duffle in the bed in spite of me repeatedly asking him to take pictures so to - day there's a change : I put my camera in the glovbox and wil be asking him to take pix as we go along . Bummer as yesterday I passed a restored vintage Gilmore Gas Station with the pretty yellow brick building , a tiny thing with signs & gas pumps etc. ~ I wanted to stop but we rolled on by . Yesterday as we crusied through West By God TEXAS in the 95 ~ 100* F heat , sweating like dogs in a Chinese restaraunt , I just thought ' it's hot ' but last night I discovered when they'd broken the heater they'd left the heat & defoster on full....... This morning I crawled up under the dashboard and shut off the defroster & opened the fesh air plenum but the heat diverter flap seems to be stuck on full heat so we'll just have to suffer until I get home & take the plenums all apart and clean out the accumulated leaves and who knows what all else . The temperature gauge barely reaches the warm part of the gauge , a good thing thought I until we were way up on the mountain and the defroster air cooled down to 65* or so , this makes me wonder if they stupidly left the thermostat out . When I bought it , the seller said he didn't know if the door locks worked or not but the ignition key fit them ~ of course what he meant was : we're too lazy or something to even try to properly lubricate the lock cylinders much less the door latches , I stopped & bought aerosol penetrant and chain lube , the prenetrant loosened up the lock cylinders and hood hinges etc. , then I began soaking the latches with chain lube every time we stopped , this morning the key locks worked smooth & easy like GM intended . when I get home I'll lube the lock cylinders with <magic> graphite stuff , that'll keep 'em loose and prevent wear too . There are more humerous anecdotes I wanted to add here but my alleged mind goes blank when I sit in front of my 'puter . For those who have never been there , TEXAS is a wonderful place , full of freindly people and wide open spaces , treat your self to at least one visit before you die , you'll be glad you did . Sadly TEXAS is suffering a long term drought , as we rolled Westward we began seeing clouds far away in New Mexico , once we'd crossed the border it began to rain , I'd tested the wipers and looked at the blades , they were not worn out but still didn't work well , I guess they rubber is hard as a rock as they simply slide over the water droplets making a smeary mess . Did I mention they sent me out into the barren Desert with a flat spare and NO JACK ? . My fault I know , I shoulda looked .
fun road trip Nate - i just checked out the pics from that ebay buy and that is a nice truck! I like that style with the short bed, stepside and sidemount spare - even if it is flat! Those tires look brand new and i am sure you can find a good home for those rims. That color green isn't too bad - as i have to say i have seen worse color green on trucks before. Nice find and best of luck with it.
Re:City Folks I remember when I was a kid my dad and I helping the farmer up the road castrate and ring ( nose ring) pigs. Some of those little suckers were pretty heavy at the end of a long day. The farmer used to eat the "mountain oysters". None for me TY!
Some thoughts on your new truck! Nate, been thinking about your new (old) truck! I drove a '67 chevy p/u down here from '80 through '92 as a daily driver! I loved that truck, but after 13 years of 10 mph, no ac, ps or pb, I finally whussed out and got rid of it. Still miss it to this day. Here's a pic of it. https://talk.classicparts.com/photos/showphoto.php?photo=213&ppuser=5385&sl=k I don't know if yours has a gauge pack or dummy lights, but the Chevy and GMC dash inserts are interchangeable from 67 thru 72. I bought a wrecked 72 GMC Sierra Grande at the same time as I bought ol' blue and took the woodgrained dash insert with all the gauges out of the GMC and it was a direct bolt on swap. Also took the door panel inserts off of the GMC and put them on because they looked fancier. I ran the '69 thru '72 full wheel covers on it until I finally found a full set of '67-68 wheel covers. I think I still have the later model wheel covers if you think you'd be interested in them. They would be 15" full wheelcovers. I plan to visit my mother sometime in Nov., and will look for them if you think you might like them.
Thanx ! I like it too ; It has the gauge package , two empty holes I plan to fill as soon as I can , I'll prolly retain the Bowtie dash panel ,just because , you know.... . To - day I tried my spare '49 16" wheel & Dayton LT215/85R16 tire on the sidemount ~ it clears easily so now the hunt is on for a set of five 6 lug 16" wheels................ Ken , I'd like to see pix of those hubbies but I'll prolly run dog dish caps , it's a ranch / work / shop truck don'cha know . My 31 Y.O. son wants me to drive it Friday when we go over the mountains to the Desert & look for a house for him to buy & rent out . This means he approves of it 100 % . BTW : the Dayton LT235/85R16 is a FULL 2 - 1/2" larger outer diameter than the road tires on it now so slapping on a right proper set of tall & narrow Light Truck tires oughta make it run just like I think it should . Things are crazy @ work , not much was done during my two weeks off and the Blue Suits (L.A.P.D. wears Black in fact) need the stuff so I'm running flat out trying to re stock right now , when I get a few minnows, i'll look at the few pix I have & post 'em up ~ don't forget to keep after me about this .
Nate - found them under the "thinking about welding" post. posting them here for you cause i know you are busy with the boys in black.
I found them there also. I'm sure Robert was wondering how that post had anything to do with welding... Anyway~ SEEE? You CAN post pictures! Nice looking truck! Thanks for the pictures, Nate.
Nate, nice looking truck. But you might want to blurr out your tag in pics you post. To much info can be gotten from that by those who don't need to know... Good luck with the new addition!
Thanx ! I had more pix but they're all washed out by sun glare . Those tags are not in my name , besides , I don't know how to blur them . FWIW , it now has a spiffy pair of correct black & yellow Ca. Commercial tags on it , current tabs and everything . I've only had it a few weeks and run up 2,600 + miles , I've been hauling Motos in it and Sunday last Jr. & I took a buncha old parts to the PO-mona Auto Swap Meet & made some $ , maybe enough to buy some stock 16" wheels.... Last night I took the time to tune it up a bit ~ WOW everything that could be mis adjusted , was , points fried & way far out of dwell , I took 'em off and hand dressed 'em smooth again , they're cheapo things that cannot be taken apart for proper burnishing but they're O.K. now , the timing was set too far advanced , off the scale so that's what , 20 + ° basic timing ? . The spark plus were incredibly fouled , prolly because they were incorrectly gapped to .020" , good thing I have the patience to hand clean each one & re gap , I'll begin looking for discounts on proper NGK Copper Cored ones soon . I don't believe it has the correct carby , it looks like a mid 1970's one , I wish I knew where the engine has been changed out as I'd go rummage their trash bin for the correct parts they musta left behind on the scrap engine . No carby heat spacer either that's not good , I have lists of things to find but it runs better & better..... I fiddled with the idle mixture & RPM's , got it smooth & down to 700 RPM , it shakes a bit @ hot idle in gear but new spark plugs and finer tuning as I go along should help that , it used to have a big , intermittant miss @ hot idle , that's gone now . I hope to get time to hot change the oil & filter to - night , maybe grease it and top up the rear end too . Stay tuned ! .
Bored Yet ? I think maybe you alls get bored reading about my constant tinkering..... Last night I hot changed the oil & filter the *instant* I got home, scalded my fingers pretty good on the filter when taking it off too . I checked the rear end oil , it's full so I installed a magnetic plug (1/2" NPT) and moved on , looking underneath it , I am amazed at how original this rig is ~ I do believe it has the original U-Joints in it so that'll come soon . The underhood mess continues apace ~ the wrong air cleaner they installed , touched the power lead on the electric anti - diesel idle speed solenoid & shorted it out , they crudely spliced in some 20 Ga. wire , thankfully they made this error as when it shorted again , the short wire melted instead of the unfused ignition circuit it's connected to.... I added a fuse just in case then adjusted the idle up a bit to 800 RPM's , I still didn't like how it sounded and sprayed some starting fluid on the manifold to cylinder head joints ~ Ah,HA ! the back joint's bolts were loose and leaking vacuum , I tightened them all up a bit with the engine idling (DON'T do this @ home kids !) and listened to the weak cylinders pick up and fall into line , so I then leaned out the idle mixture a *tiny* bit and Lo ! it now idles smooth as silk , just like God & Generous Motors Corporation intended ~ rock steady smooth idle in gear at a red light , I love it ! it also takes off from a dead stop like a scalded cat ~ I squeaked the RR tire by mistake , not even 3/4 throttle . The column shifter linkage was mis adjusted (it seems they looked for things to mal adjust) so I took the adjuster bolt thingie (technical term there) apart & cleaned it , added one shim washer so it'd not be floppy & re assembled , now it doesn't start in gear and the column's detents match the ones in the tranny.... it's still stiff to put into Park but it doesn't appear ready to pop out of park & into Reverse anymore , I didn't like that Some under dash fiddles before my back said ENOUGH ! , I hope to get more dash lights working and the radio to play soon .
Once you get the radio running it'll probably only play Three Dog Night, Sly, Tom Jones, the Stones, CCR and other 1969 music.
Radio Dayze I certainly hope so ! . I do wish I'da had someone to snap pix as I was fooling with the spark plugs , they were textbook examples of seriously oil fouled plugs , most folks would have thought the engine was trash by their look , it now no longer shoots out blue clouds of smoke so I'm well pleased . Not done yet either .
Oh Nate that is fantastic. I wish I had just 1/100th of the knowledge that you have. Thanks for sharing your knowledge with us!!! Glad this truck found a nice home
I'm Glad Too ! As I hope this is the last truck I'll ever need to buy . I left out a LOT of detail works because I know folks get bored..... this is all routine stuff for daily Mechanics back in the day , I hope I never get bored with doing it , doesn't look so yet . I'm supposed to call a guy this afternoon when I get off work , he has a '68 Fleetside he says I can look at for wheels , I hope it's got 16 "ers on it ! .
