A little back story shortly, but first I have to start with a basic overview. This 1970 F250 was my uncles truck. He is pretty sick with cancer, I have owned the truck for 7 or 8 years now and I decided to fix the old bugger up a little to brighten his spirits. It was a surprise I had planned for him, he comes up to my cabin and deer hunts with us here in northern MN. He made it all 3 weekends this year even though he was too weak to go out and hunt. Out deer camp is something of another story, I won't sidetrack from the truck topic too far though. The deer camp name is a product of my youngest boy's imagination and my uncle is very fond of the camp, he has a lot of fun with the goofy camp name and is quite proud to be part of the camp group.
Ok, so with that brief info out of the way, lets have a look at the truck story.
It has been a "work in progress" for years and it remains a work in progress.
This was Dusty's truck in the 70's. He purchased it from a farmer in the Dakotas in the early 70's when it was still close to being new. (it's a 1970 model)
The farmer was afraid of the truck because it had a knock in the engine, Dusty drove it and decided he'd take a chance on the truck since it was such a good price for how new the truck was. He drove it home very carefully and decided to drop the oil pan from the engine before pulling the engine out of the truck. He found a main bearing cap bolt in the bottom of the oil pan. For whatever reason it had come loose and worked it's way out. He decided to just put the bolt back in and torque it, give it a try. That was all it took, the knock was gone and he had himself a heck of a good truck for little money. His uncle Bill needed a truck, Bill worked up in the woods logging. Dusty sold the truck to Bill and bill used the heck out of it. Some years later Dusty purchased the truck back from Bill. At this time the truck needed some work, rust had started eating the truck along with whatever mechanical things that needed repair. Dusty never liked the original tan color of the truck so he decided he'd paint it yellow with a white top.
This is a scanned photo from 1979.
That's how I remember the yellow pickup from when I was a kid.
Over the next 25 years from when this picture was taken the truck was used for all kinds of things, family vacations with a camper/topper on back, some truck pull off mischief, logging, snow plowing etc. Lot's of memories, lots of hard work and upwards of half a million miles later....
I heard of the truck coming up on auction and I knew it had a snow plow on it and that it would work well for me as Dusty was a mechanic his whole life and I knew the truck would be mechanically sound.
I asked Dusty's son Waylon if he was going to buy the old truck. He laughed and said something like "Hell no!!" I said ok then, would you bid on it for me? He got the truck and we drove down to Dusty's house to pick it up with a car trailer behind a 1 ton crew cab superduty truck.
When we got there to load the truck Dusty looks at the trailer and tow rig and says "I think you better put that diesel on the trailer, Yeller aint used to riding on no trailer."
Oh god we laughed!
For the simple fact that the diesel had more cab room for the family we decided to give yeller his first ride on a trailer.
We put the truck to use in winter months clearing snow at home, out on the frozen lake for ice fishing and out at the cabin too.
Yeller was rough, but still functioned mechanically.
The "Snow hammer" out on 5 mile reef, lake of the woods.
Time, salt and abusive work had taken it's tole.
A couple years back I picked up a parts truck with no engine. It was a 1968 I believe, the grill would be different but the body panels would be the same as the 1970.
!
