1940 Chevy 1/2-Ton
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Mechanicsville, Maryland
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Owned by Doug Cooke Talking about this truck |
# 2747
More truck pictures of my old truck
From Doug :
After about two years of searching (and a few near misses on eBay), I finally got my dream truck. It's a 1940 Chevy 1/2-ton.
While performing my usual Sunday morning search on Craigslist, I found her! -- my “working but not too well to be expensive” find. Being located just 30 miles from my home in Portland, Oregon, I was in the car ten minutes later.
Things started out with excitement from the beginning -- she ran out of gas on my test drive. We had to push it along for about a quarter mile. It was actually perfect, running out of gas on a beautiful fall day, a gravel farm road … an “iconic moment” that actually gave me some time with the truck while the former owner went to fetch gas.
From what I can tell, the truck had spent its first 70 years in southern Washington State as a farm truck. Although it had some body work and a recent “quickie” paint job, the body is quite solid and it seems to have most all its originally intended parts. The last owner updated to 12 volts and a 235. Other than that, it’s all stock and needs some loving care.
Following the wise advice from others, the brakes will be the first order of business (and I used a Bolters tip about the garage door pulleys to get the emergency brakes back on line!).
I plan to go the “rebuild” route and use it as a daily driver around town. (Never having driven an old truck before that seems like a great thing to do but we’ll see.) At the top of the list are brakes, wipers, windshield gasket, cleaning up the wiring, tuning up the front suspension, refurbishing the dash gauges, etc. I’ll be sure to leverage all the Stovebolt help I can get.
And the “why”… I’m still trying to figure that out. It's beautiful, pre-war history and heritage, solid, simple, I can haul stuff, every where I go – people tell me stories and share their memories.
Stovebolters – thanks for the inspiration and information!
Doug Cooke
Portland, Oregon
-30-