02-20-05
- Hmmm...so how the heck do I begin THIS little tale?
Well, for those of you who have been following the progress of
this buildup, you've probably noticed that I haven't had an
update page for a couple months. I haven't been TOTALLY
stagnant...I've been purchasing a lot of parts on E-bay, and
getting a lot of work done to the website overall. Since the
rolling chassis is basically done, aside from painting the
exterior of the fuel tank, it was time to get started on cutting
and welding patch panels on the cab. I started off on this last
month by welding up the gas tank filler hole in the cab....well,
I should say I TRIED to weld it up. I found I wasn't as good at
welding as I'd thought. I kept burning through the sheetmetal
with the MIG, so I ended up spending several afternoons getting
some welding practice in on some spare sheetmetal, to try to get
all the MIG's settings configured. I've been getting closer at
perfecting the weld process and was about to get ready getting
started on the cab.
However, a couple days ago I was browsing through another Ford
messageboard I'd discovered a few weeks earlier, when I ran
across a post from a guy who lives near here. Gary had a '67
F250 Camper Special project truck that he needed to sell,
due to an upcoming transfer. He also stated he had a bunch of
Ford pickup parts, so I gave him a call and made arrangements
for me to go look at what he had. I wasn't really thinking I was
going to pick up another pickup....but thought maybe he had some
good parts I could get my hands on.
When
I arrived at Gary's house today, I found that his daily driver
was a beater '67 F-100....ugly and loud, but he loved it. He had
me follow him to his workplace a couple miles away. He works for
a local company that has towing contracts for the
city....basically, it's an impound yard. He said anything that
isn't claimed within 30 days is theirs. This truck was towed
into their yard a while back, and after contacting the owner and
paying the towing fees, Gary got his hands on it and started
restoring it. He'd sandblasted and primered the front half of
the frame, rebuilt the front end with new kingpins and bushings
and rebuilt the manual steering box. Then he got the news that
he's being transferred, and had to sell off a lot of what he
owns.
Folks, this truck is VERY nice! There is NO rust in either the
cab OR the box...and no dents that I could find. I've never seen
the bottom side of a box or a cab this nice before. Both rear
cab corners are perfect, as are the front cab mounts. About the
only defects in the cab that I could find were some drilled
holes on the driver's side cowl panel (probably for CB antenna
mounts) and a couple holes drilled in the passenger-side
floorboard, where an aftermarket A/C unit was installed. The
truck is 99% complete...all the removed parts are in back and in
great shape. The radiator support is primo and one of the inner
fenderwells is almost NOS, although the other is rusted out. I
asked him what his bottom-dollar amount for the truck would be,
and after thinking about it, he said he had to get $600 for
everything. I told him that I was sure it was worth it, but I
just couldn't justify spending that much money on parts that I
already had, even if mine did need a little more work. He asked
me what I'd be willing to give, and after thinking for a moment,
I told him I couldn't go over $350. He pondered that for a
moment, and told me he'd let it go for that! I wrote him out a
check and made arrangements to go pick this up next weekend.
When
we went back to his house so he could dig out the title and sign
it over, we were admiring his daily-driver beater '67 and
talking trucks, and I noticed he had a receiver hitch in the
back (Fig. 7). He mentioned that he was planning on mounting
this to the F250, but since he didn't need it anymore, he ended
up selling this to me for another $20. This just needs to be
blasted and painted. |
Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7 |
So
here's where I stand at the moment...I've been giving this some
thought today. It's looking like I've now got a great cab from this F250
so it will be transplanted onto my
'67 F100. Granted, I've got about $250 invested into my present
cab (including the original purchase price, and one pair each of
repro cab mounts and cab corners) and about a month's worth of
time invested into sandblasting it....but when you consider all
the additional time I'd have to invest into my present cab to
REPLACE those rusted parts, PLUS the rust along the front drip
rail, I felt the $350 I spent on an almost NOS cab and box (even
though it's a LWB box so I can't use it for my project) as
money well spent. Other than welding up a couple drilled holes,
this cab needs nothing but a minor sanding to make it ready for
paint. The radio hole in the dash has had the ears cut off to
mount a stereo, but considering that I was planning on mounting
an in-dash CD player anyway, this is a non-issue.
So
anyway....I'll be headed back down probably on Friday to trailer
this F250 home, so there will at least be another update page
next weekend with more close-up shots of my project's new cab and
box.
Ain't life interesting? I just found out early this week that
Mary and I are expecting another baby, due sometime in
October....and I mentioned on the forums when I made the
announcement that I was going to have to really kick this
project into gear to get as much done as possible by then, since
my spare time was going to become a precious commodity, with
three kids in the Dickson household...and then I stumble upon
this! This was like an answer to a prayer that I hadn't even
considered praying yet!
As a
side note, Gary was a super guy! He's the type of person who I
think would become a good friend of mine if he was in the area.
However, he's getting transferred to Washington state, so I told
him that I'd hook him up with many of the forum members in the
Washington area once he gets there, since he's going to be
looking for another truck to restore.
Stay
tuned! This project just went from idle to full-throttle! |