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1940 Chevy Dump Truck

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"Grandma"

Owned by Allen Bricker
"brickman"
Bolter # 27675
Bluffton, Indiana

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in the DITY Gallery


 

17 December 2011
# 2928

More pictures of my old truck

From Allen :

My truck story starts at the place where I work. I am employed by the electric utility in my town. Back in the early 1900's, every town had their own electric company to provide its own electricity for the town. Our town (Bluffton) had a coal burning power plant, and rail cars were used to deliver the coal.

That system worked out well until the late 1930's when the "Interurban" went out of business. In order to insure coal delivery, the town had to buy their own dump trucks to transport the coal down to the shop from the local coal yard that was on the other end of town.

Bluffton purchased this truck on August 9, 1940. That's when “Grandma” started her long life working for the city. Grandma is the name everyone at the shop called her so I decided to keep calling her that.

For the next seven years, Grandma delivered coal to the power plant every day. But those days were numbered. Bluffton was growing and more power was needed for the city. So they started construction of a diesel power plant.

The old coal plant was phased out and Grandma became a trash hauler. For the next 40 years, she would take a weekly trip out to the city dump.

In the 1990's the city dump was closed and Grandma was taken out of service and stored down in our shop. So there she sat, after many years of service, being both abused and damaged. She had been cast aside and transformed into a cardboard box collector.

When I started working for the City in 2003, I was shocked to see a truck from the 1940's sitting in the bay. I fell in love with her the very second that I saw her. I immediately looked her up and down, and in and out. Right away, I wanted to drive her but the guys told me that she had not been running since forever and the brakes needed work.

For a few years she continued to just sit and collect boxes. In 2006 our warehouse man started to complain to the boss about it just being in the way and not doing anything. Of course, I would tell the boss let's get it running again and drive it.

One day the boss had enough and told me and the guy I work with to get it running and to fix the brakes. So we got a new battery and dumped some gas into her. To my amazement, she fired right up! It was like bringing something back from the dead I was so excited to hear it run.

The brakes were a little bit harder to fix and took us a few days to get the cups in place and stop the leak. But our hard work paid off and I got to take her out on the open road for the first time in probably 15 years or better! The boss then made it my job to take her out once a week and keep her running. This went on for a few years.

In 2009 the City was selling some cop cars and our old digger truck and someone thought selling Grandma was a good idea. So the City was going to sell her also and I was like "That’s my truck and no one else  is going to get her!" The city ended up having a closed auction and you had to bid every week and up your bid every week in order to stay in the auction. I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to out bid the other bidders. I was aware of a few people in town that wanted to get her and turn her into a street rod. I really did not want to see that happen.

To my surprise, after a few weeks of bidding, I won the auction and she was all mine! The next day I paid for her and was awarded the original title which was really cool to get.

A friend from work and I got her started and I drove her home. All the guys thought I was crazy for buying her and said she wouldn’t fit in my one car garage. But I knew she would, and I made sure she did.

Since getting her home I have started on restoring her back to original condition. Hopefully one day I will get her done. So far it’s been kind of a slow start. I'm confident that with money and time, I will one day get her done.

Thanks,

Allen


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