1953 GMC 3/4-Ton Truck

Owned by Terry Emlet "calhere" Bolter # 19513 Sacramento, California Talking about this truck

Images in my Photobucket

From Terry :

I'm from Sacramento, California. I have never restored a truck. I do restore classic boats. I wanted a nice old truck to go with my nice old boat. So I joined Stovebolt.com not to only help me figure out what truck I wanted but how to proceed from there. I was sure it can't be much different from restoring boats.

I was outside putting the new floor in my boat and the wife comes out says, "It is looking nice. Now all you need is an old truck to pull it to the shows."

I asked her, "Are you serious?!" (I have already dumped over $7000 into my fiberglass). She said yea.

A few weeks latter I was browsing Craigslist and found a truck I liked. I went back to her and casually brought up that prior conversation. She said again, "Yea I was serious."

I showed her the truck. She said that was a little too much in price and said I could spend up to $2000.

So I went back to my search. I found this truck two hours from where I live. It was listed for $1800.

I drove up one Friday to give it a look. The truck started right up so I drove it around the owner's farm. All "seemed" well.

The next day, I grabbed a bag of tools, hit the parts store, bought a battery, brake fluid, and oil. Then I drove the rest of the way to Oroville, California where I got gas in a few cans. I drove on up to his place. I filled the old truck up with gas, oil, coolant, and brake fluid and off we went.

Less then a mile down the road, what I soon found out to be one of the worse down hill grades in the area, I lost the brakes. We put the truck in a ditch to stop it. (No damage was done to the body, amazing huh!)

We got the brake fluid filled back up. We found the leak and temporarily patched it.

After we winched it out of the ditch, we headed out again. About 20 minutes down the hill, it starts running really really rough. It was out of oil. A four hour trip is all of a sudden turning into an all day affair.

We got the oil topped off, and off we go in Marysville, California. The radiator busted and we pulled over again. I decided to just have it towed the last 45 minutes to my house.

After I got it home, I found out that the radiator was full of mud. I also noticed that there were alot of jerry rigging of things just to make it appear that it was running well -- such as things tied together with bailing wire and the use of bailing wire to replace nuts.

All in all, I really have my work cut out for me. The PO painted over the rusted cab. The muffler is completely rusted though. The engine is all rusted over. It's a lot more then I had planned for.

I am great with body work but I'm going to have to learn my way around an engine compartment now.

So bare with me as I may not be as familiar with this stuff -- but I'll catch on fast.

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