July 1, 2012 - Well, hello again! Yes, it's been a while since I've done any work to my '67...four years, in fact...but I'm back. This particular update page is just to get everyone back up to speed with what I've been up to over the past four years.

2007: The Trucks Go Into Storage
My hiatus certainly wasn't by choice. The shop I'd been renting for five years (2003-2007, since the beginning of my project) was sold, and I was forced to vacate. Since I didn't have any other place to transfer my car projects to continue working on them, I was forced to rent some spaces at a commercial storage facility to keep everything safe and dry. This was SUPPOSED to be a temporary thing, just until I could find another shop to work in or my wife and I were able to find a small acreage with a shop and room to spread out and raise our family.

When I had to move out of the shop in 2007, I had some hard choices to make...as to what to keep and what to liquidate. In addition to my '67, I was also tinkering with a '68 choptop SWB truck project, and I also had a SWB 4x4 chassis to figure out what to do with. AND I was restoring a '67 Oldsmobile 442.

The choptop project was going to have to be taken out to a friend's farm and stored there under a tarp, and since I didn't want to get rid of the SWB 4x4 chassis just yet, the decision was made to transfer the choptop cab onto the 4x4 chassis, and store the two together out on the farm. The 2WD chassis that was under the choptop got scrapped.

Fig. 01 - The choptop cab is now mounted on the 4x4 chassis for storage.

Fig. 02 - Since this truck was going to be stored outdoors, I coated the entire truck with POR15 and then rattlecan flat black.

Fig. 03 - The choptop was hauled out to a friends farm and open cab was covered with a tarp.

Then all my Ford truck and Olds parts and a lot of my tools went into one commercial storage unit, my '67 F100 project went into another and my '67 Olds into a third. Yes, I was very apprehensive about putting the truck away while it was down to bare metal, worrying about the metal rusting, I didn't have a lot of choices. The body wasn't quite ready for paint yet, but I didn't want to put something 'temporary' on it that I'd have to remove again later....so I just decided that I'd leave it bare and keep an eye on it, and if rust started to become a problem, than I'd do a rattlecan primer job on it to semi-protect it until it was time to get back to work on it.

Fig. 04 - This is a shot of the storage unit after most of my car/truck parts and many of my tools were hauled up.

Fig. 05 - In this shot I have the '67 in the shop loaded on the trailer, getting ready to head to it's new home at the storage unit.

Fig. 06 - The '67 in it's storage space. This is where it's been for the past four years.

For storage purposes, the '67 Olds 442 body shell was temporarily put onto a '72 Olds LeMans chassis, and it's original chassis was put into our single-car garage at home.

Then two years ago (June 2010) I was going stir-crazy with no active car projects, and since I had to 442 chassis in our garage, I decided to get back to work on it. The frame/chassis was rebuilt and painted, then I brought the body shell home and stripped/painted the underside and mounted it back onto its' original chassis, and then got to work on the interior. Meanwhile, the engine block was shipped off to get machine work done.

2011: A New Truck - The '75 F250 Ranger XLT SuperCab Camper Special
As stated above, when I first purchased my '67 F100, it was intended to be a tow vehicle for the 442. When I realized that it wasn't going to be able to handle the task, I decided to keep it anyway...just caused I liked it so much. However, I still needed to find a vintage truck capable of hauling the car and trailer. I decided I wanted a dentside-era truck ('73-'79), so the search began. I'd been keeping my eyes open for quite a while for a truck that wasn't rusted out and was equipped exactly the way I wanted it, and finally in June 2011 I ran across the ideal truck on E-bay. This truck was owned by the owner of a Ford dealership in Wisconsin. The truck came from Alabama years earlier and was put into storage for a future 4x4 conversion. However, he never got around to it and finally decided to sell it. After winning the auction, my family and I drove to Wisconsin over the July 4th weekend to pick it up, and I'm happy to report it made the 500-mile return trip without a single hiccup.

Fig. 07 - Here's a cell-phone shot taken by my son at the dealership, just before we hopped in for the drive home. The auxiliary tank's filler tube is MIA and was one of the first things I replaced, to fill up the hole in the bedside.

Fig. 08 - On the drive back, we discovered the rest stops were all closed due to a state government shutdown, so we had a picnic in the back of the truck at a gas station.

Fig. 09 - Shortly after bringing it home, I installed an original Ford Four-Seasons topper. This Standard version has since been replaced with a Deluxe version which includes stainless window trim, sliding side windows with screens and an interior light.

When I bought this truck, it had only 81,000 original miles and has absolutely NO body rust....and is outfitted exactly like I'd have ordered it. It's got a 460/C6 and a limited-slip Dana 60 with 3.54 gears. It's equipped with power steering, power disc brakes, A/C, cruise control (this is the first year Ford put cruise in a truck), dual exhaust, dual fuel tanks (the auxiliary tank's filler tube was MIA), bedside toolbox, swing-away spare tire, sliding rear window and factory air horns. At first I really wasn't too crazy about the colors...I was really hoping for blue....but they're starting to grow on me.

I've been driving the heck out of this truck and absolutely love it. It's all original, so there are definitely lots of little things that need attention, but overall I'm very pleased.

2012: Wesley Chase Dickson
On June 1, 2012, we added another member to our ever-expanding family. Wesley Chase Dickson makes number FIVE for my wife Mary and I.

Fig. 10 - Here's one of the first shots of Baby Wes at the hospital.

Fig. 11 - And here's the first picture of my newest son and I.

Fig. 12 - A group shot of the Dickson family at the hospital the next day.

Fig. 12 above shows my family on June 2, the day after Wes was born. It includes (back row) Trevor - 10 years old; my wife Mary holding Wes; Jake - 8 years old. (Front row) Brianna - 7 years old; and Zach - 5 years old.

So, as you can see, we're now almost bursting at the seams in our 3-bedroom house, and it's not looking like we're going to be buying a new place anytime soon, so several months ago I decided it was simply time to make do with what I have, and get back to work on the truck in the driveway at home.

The engine for the 442 is still at the machine shop, where it's almost done but has been on a back burner there, while the owner has been working hard on machine-work for pivot irrigation system engines during this summer, which is going down in the records as the hottest and driest summer in American history....well, since record-keeping began back in 1896 anyway. So while I'm waiting for the Olds engine, I decided it was time to get the '67 F100 into the driveway at home and see what I could get done with it...

Read on...