Project Truck Update - 15 Feb 2008

Been pretty busy and I haven't done much work on the truck as of late, but I've done a few things.

Thanks to my post at Stovebolt, I found another local Chevy/GMC truck enthusiast named Jake. He stopped by one day while I was working on the truck and helped me fix the headlights. He loved the truck and he said he had some extra parts that were taking up space in his attic. Jake offered them to me for free if I picked them up. So, it was off to the Northshore for an adventure!

Driving the truck for that long gave me a good feel for the truck. It just wants to go! It's fun to drive (although, after a while, it's tiring because of the lack of modern conveniences like A/C, power steering, disk brakes, etc.). The exhaust header's seal was also blown out, so the engine sounded like a infinitely long string of black cat fireworks going off. The cabin was filled with the smell of exhaust, thanks to all the holes in the firewall. Candice's parents also noticed a small oil leak from the truck and I responded, "my truck doesn't leak, it marks it's territory."

Candice followed me to the northshore. I joked she was the Bandit to my Smokey...

We made it to the northshore


My truck's first load...

The suspension is very stiff, which makes it handle great, but wears you down. The springs in the bed are oversized because any trucks built in '62 were going to be WORK trucks... This truck was built before people drove trucks to make a statement about themselves (and the size of their genitals). My truck was built when men were men, Democrats had balls, and computers took up rooms! Anyway, this truck isn't going to become a preening show truck. It's going to stay true to it's roots as a work truck. That's what it told me it wanted to be.

So I put the truck back to work...

...moving me out of the Quarter.


And then somebody broke into the garage I keep my truck in and tried to steal it!

No worries, though. The truck has an anti-theft device: being old and rusty! The carburetor is old and the choke is busted, so starting the engine when it's cold (i.e.- not run in a while) is VERY tricky. You need to smash on the gas pedal to near-flood the engine and crank it a few times, and then it will start. I could leave the keys in the ignition and it would be take someone else 15 minutes to start.

Next project was installing new exhaust headers on the driver's side:

The old exhaust system... No catalytic converter on this truck...

Here's what the engine looks like sans exhaust:

And, after lots of pulling and cursing, here's the new exhaust headers installed on the engine:

All nice and perdy

I unfortunately bent the dipstick tube while installing the header, so that'll need to be fixed/replaced.

I've also been keeping track of my spending and I'm coming in around $2,200 (including the truck, taxes, insurance, parts etc.) thus far.