Almost done with my stake truck. Almost.
I've been almost done for a few months now. Getting the details the way I want them takes way more time than I would ever have estimated. When my Dad and I overhauled this truck back in 1981 I don't remember agonizing over the details like I am now. That's probably because he did all that stuff without me even realizing.
"What have you actually been working on?", I hear you ask. Well...
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| Custom mirror brackets circa 1981 - gotta clean these |
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| Wiring, lots of wiring |
I even went a little crazy and had the metal parts of the stake sections sand blasted.
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| Beautiful, bare metal - how many hours with a wire wheel would this have been? |
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| ...and in primer |
This really saved a lot of time. It took less than a week to get everything painted and back together. The bed itself I rebuilt a couple of years ago (last things first!), but it needed 3 new boards.
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| 3 new boards in the bed - thanks Clark! |
For the wooden slats I have been saving some lumber since 1985. Anybody remember hurricane Gloria? Well it was a big deal in my hometown and it knocked down about half of the big pines behind my house. Enterprising people that we were, we had them cut up into some really nice lumber. My memories of this are all coming back for 2 reasons:
1 - I'm using some of that exact same lumber now.
2 - I just found an old, undeveloped roll of film and sent it in to be developed. The pictures show a lot of the aftermath of the storm and how we cleaned it up. They also took on this great, old-timey look.
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| Gloria cleanup 1985 - yep, same truck, same girl. A couple of months earlier there used to be a lot of trees behind us. |
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| lumber from that same storm - cool |
Putting it all together was quick and easy.
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| a few final cuts |
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| feels like 1985 again |
I also tackled the nerve wracking task of installing the glass. I used the old windows in the other truck, so all new glass (except for the 2 corner windows) and all new rubber is going in.
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| Do I still need these parking stickers? |
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| No, definitely not. |
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| What's in your driveway? |
Like I said, still plenty to do, but almost there.
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| So much to see, you really need helpers. |
