Ugly Ducklin

Ugly is to the bone...

How do you make an ugly truck pretty?  As near as I can tell, you start by making it uglier. 

You have to have a certain optimistic outlook on future possibilities when the present looks so... well, ugly.  I've temporarily renamed Old Yeller, Old Spot.  As she sits now in the confines of the surgery suite, she looks like she could go "flat-line" at any moment.  But the surgeon proclaims a bright and shinny future for the old gal and predicts that she will emerge from this operation feeling and looking decades younger.  What can one do, but put a measure of trust in what the good doc says?  After all, he is the expert.

The most critcal issue is a couple of spots of skin cancer (rust) that if left untreated would be surely fatal, but we caught it in time.  She also stands to benefit from the generous donation of vital body parts from a younger sister (1969 truck found in a local junk yard). 

I've gone by every few days to visit the patient and although I'd never tell her, she is getting uglier by the day.  But I know that the ugly has to be cut off, sanded off and ground off before the "pretty" can go back on.  I was thrilled to show her a photo of her newly redone bench seat.

I hope she liked the seat.  It's hard to know for sure; she is unresponsive in ICU, but there's nothing like a new seat to make a girl feel pretty.  It is just that it's going to be a while before she can actually enjoy it in person. 

Next time I go by for a visit I think I'll show her the new windshield gasket.  That ought to encourage her.  In the meantime all I can do is hope for a speedy recovery.  She will be pretty again.  Stay tuned.

A new seat can always make a girl feel pretty.

 

Overview

OVERVIEW

Upon starting a quest, such as sinking irrational sums of money into a rusty old truck, it's good to reflect on the question of "Why".  Why am I doing this?  Is it to make money, is it to have a practical form of transportation, is it to impress "girls"?...  Uh... No.  It is none of those reasons.  So let's try and think rationally about this irrational expenditure of funds -

Anyone with more than a passing familiarity with bringing an old vehicle back to a semblance of newness knows that it is no money-making deal.  You can quickly spot the "newbies" who are unaware of this fact at just about any antique car show.  They are the ones running around pointing at various rusted relics and saying, "Man I could fix that thing up and flip it for a mint!"  Worse, are the shysters who see the same hunk of junk and envision the dough to be made off of one of the unsuspecting "newbies" who thinks he is getting a "fully restored, rare, blah, blah blah". 

A quick perusal of any old car price guide will show that any decades-old, Detroit-mass produced vehicle is never going to be worth the cost of fixing it up.  And yes, "fixing-it-up" is the term I much prefer... sounds cheaper than saying "restoration".  But even at that, it is no retirement nest egg.  Anything you chunk continual dollars into with zero return is not my idea of an investment.  So, we can quickly rule out the idea that I'm doing this to make money.

To the untrained observer, it might seem that fixing up an old truck has at least some practical value.  After all, it could be used to haul stuff and run errands, because it is a truck, right?  Well, sort of yes and sort of no.  I mean, yes it was originally designed and built as a truck, but now forty five years later, it has become something else.  Today we expect our trucks to be more and do more than this old gal was ever intended to do.  She's earned a retirement lifestyle.  This "fixing-up" that I'm doing is like a trip to the old truck spa - only more expensive.  Once she emerges from the confines of the paint booth, it would be a shame to throw fire wood and cinder blocks in her freshly painted bed.  No, we'll have to be careful with her.  She will probably tote lawn chairs and ice chests, but not much else.  So on the practicality score - zero.        

Thirdly, it has nothing whatever to do with turning the heads of the fairer sex.  I hit a home run-touchdown-gold medal on that front over twenty years ago and was blessed with the good sense to realize my good fortune.  Besides, if this old truck was for such a purpose - it would be a pretty lame attempt.  I mean really... a crusty old Dodge pickup?  I would hate to see the woman turned on by that!  I can just hear the banjos playing now.

If it is none of the above - then what is the reason? 

I think it all began before I was born.  In about 1959-60.  I say about, because I'm not sure of the year.  I have the Bill of Sale, but there is no date written on it.  My Dad bought a 1951 Ford sedan for the princely sum of $55.  It was no antique car to him of course.  It was just a kid's first car bought with a kid's hard earned dough.  But out of that long ago transaction - I trace my love of old cars.  Growing up, we always went to the old car show on Petit Jean Mountain every summer.  Daddy knew every car.  Eventually we bought our own old car together - a 1954 Ford.  (We went in "halvesies"; $50 each.)  We even started working on it together.  I was going to drive it to high school in my senior year.  It was going to be sweet.  Then, to my continual sadness, my Daddy got called away to a better home on high.  I've had a succession of old vehicles since then and I think in some way all of them has been a way for me to stay connected with that project my Daddy and I started, but never finished.  

Stay tuned...     

In the beginning... there was dirt and crud.

Diamond in the Rough

This is Old Yeller as found - in the owner's front yard.  No "For Sale" sign anywhere around - just this truck parked curiously near the highway...  "Was it for sale?", I wondered...  Drive by once.  Drive by twice.  Then the fateful moment - I saw the man who owned this old MoPar working in the yard.  "Couldn't hurt to just stop and ask..." 

Is that old Dodge of yours for sale, I asked casually.  Well, I'm not real sure, came the reply.  "You see, I've had that old truck for a long time - belonged to my father-in-law - but, my wife says I should get it fixed up or else get rid of the thing."  Now it's been my studied observation that the female of the species sees little value in a vehicle that is crusty, rusty and old.  They just don't see the potential - or the use for that matter.  Just get rid of the old thing is the prevailing attitude.  "Use it or lose it."  The male of the species on the other hand tends to gain a certain hard to explain attachment to mechanical things, especially vehicles, and especially vehicles we have known for a long time - as in four plus decades.

I think for the man, by pushing the truck out near the road, he was saying (under his breath), "Be free my child, run like the wind." But, by not putting any signage on the vehicle indicating if it might be for sale, he was in essence only giving it a half-hearted try (as if saying to the truck, "Don't blame me.  I didn't want to sell you.")  This way he had cover both ways.  The truck couldn't blame him totally for abandoning her nor could the wife say he hadn't tried.  "I put it out by the road, Dear, but no one showed any interest."  All the while, the hope was that no one would show any interest, but alas came I.

Now maybe I'm a sucker.  Maybe you think I got took.  Maybe I bought not only a truck, but had to purchase a load of emotional attachment to go along beside.  Maybe so.

At any rate; buy it I did.  Not immediately mind you, oh no, you don't just sell of a member of the family that way.  He and I dickered back and forth for a week or more.  

So finally, the deal was done and the journey began...

Stay tuned. 

Restoration of 1967 Dodge D100 pickup 121412

1967 Dodge D100

Welcome to my blog.  I've started this "web-log" to document the refurbishment of my truck, a '67 Dodge D100 short bed that I bought from the family (read - son-in-law) of the original owner.  The truck hails from Waldron, Arkansas where it was purchased new from Denton Motor Company of Waldron on October 16, 1967.  The truck remained with the original owner who passed it down to his son-in-law. 

 

Waldron is a rural town of about 3,600 in western Arkansas in the Ouachita Mountains and is situated in some of the prettiest wooded, rolling hill country this side of anywhere. Back when the truck was new, Waldron had a population of about 2,000, but lacked the wide smooth highways that today give ready access to the Fort Smith area to the north.  Back in those days, (pre-Walmart) folks did their "trading" locally.  This philosophy extended to the merchants as well as the consumers.  It was no doubt this spirit that led to this purchase on that autumn day in 1967.

 

Byron Denton had the Dodge dealership in Waldron in the '60s while Ivan Plummer owned and operated the Plummer Grocery Store in town.  When Mr. Plummer decided he needed a pickup to assist in making grocery deliveries (yes, stores did that back then), he naturally turned to a local fellow businessman to make his purchase. 

 

Enter - one Dodge Truck White over Mojave Yellow D100 pickup to tote the groceries.  The son-in-law (whom I bought the truck from in September, 2011) actually took delivery of the truck for Mr. Plummer and logged the first few miles on its odometer.  In the ensuing 44 years, the truck accumulated a total of 55, 800 miles - fewer than 1,300 a year on average.  The truck never went very far from home.  When I bought it and drove it home (about 50 miles) it was probably the longest trip the truck had made in maybe forever. 

 

Stay tuned to this blog for frequent updates on the truck that I've begun to call, "Old Yeller".