Oops ~ It's Driving Season so I've been out tearing up those back roads and my regular rally car died @ 04:30 so I hopped into my trusty truck ,tanked it up , checked the oil & washed the glass and off I went for three days on Central Cali. back road touring . I was well pleased to discover going up Ca. Rt. 245 that the 15" Falken Radial LT tires and Bilstein HD shocks work very well ~ this old Ranch Truck has no sway bar (yet !) but it held the tight roads amazingly well ~ going up Rt. 33 to Ojai I passed some BMW convertibles out on a Club Rally (?!?) then , once we were up in Visalia and began to hit the Farm To Market Roads in earnest , no one else could keep up atall ~ not even the nice Forest Ranger in his spiffy new Jeep thing after someone called me in . He finally caught up when I stopped to P , got out looking confused at an old crippled man leaning on his cane , watering a bush , asked me " are you O.K. Sir ? " ' Why yes , I am Officer ' ~ he looked at my truck and said " nice rig " then puttered of slowly . After two days of this fun , I noticed the right rear of the truck pitching a bit and had a look ~ it turns out I'd forgotten to replace the wrong size , Metric bolts the DPO used when he installed the world's cheapest shock absorbers , I'd replaced the left side ones but not the right so the lower shock mounts ' eye ' wallowed out then finally broke . I went to my favorite local Pick-A-Part Junkyard and got both lower rear shock mounts off a near cherry 1960 C/20 long bed Custom . I grabbed the hardware and shock bolts , used it all on my truck and once again , it handles far better than any old Ranch Truck should . Still kinda slow on the Open Road due to the low gearing . I looked inside the rear end of the junker '68 and Lo ! it was a 3.72 ratio (High Speed) ring & pinion but , no one had ever bothered to check nor change the gear oil so there was only a few ounces of coffee thin crap in there and the gear teeth were brinneled , I don't want to pay $200 for a rear axle that hums or howls . The first time I saw this truck , it still had the optional 2 - 1/2" heavy duty brakes on it and I shoulda bought it then as increased braking capacity is always nice . The R & P was date stamped April 1967 . Photos to follow ~ # 1 should be the broken mount , Photo # 2 should be the new (used) good mount being held up next to the broken one and Photo # 3 should be the job all finished .
Thank You Sir ! I do too ! . Just yesterday as I was wheezing it home , a young Man with Wife & Child in his late model egg car , pulled up and asked to buy it....
