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!