Owned by Charlie Hardin "Cletis" Bolter # 1113 Parker County, Texas

1953 Chevy 6100

"Yard Dog"

More pictures of my old truck

From Cletis :

I think my Yard Dog has earned a place in the Gallery. I know she's not as pretty as most of the others but she makes up for it with all the work she does.

The story starts about 100 miles south of here. My wife June and I were on a motorcycle ride one day and stopped at a junk ... er, I mean antique shop. We bought something we couldn't haul on the bike so we had to go back with the truck. We took a back country route on the way home and I spotted the Yard Dog. I told June I could use a truck like that. She said to go back and see if it was for sale.

There were several old cars and trucks around the place but this one was sitting up front. I told her he probably uses it. She said, "You'll never know 'til you ask." So we went back.

Sure enough it was for sale. In fact he tried to sell me everything there including his barn and a welder. It was the classic "It ran when I parked it ... the only problem is it was stuck in two gears ...so, it was "running a 'couple of months ago'... it'll fire right up .. etc." deal. I bargained with him a while, talked him down $500 and got him to throw in a spare transmission plus a 1948 2-ton for $800.

She's a 1953 model 6100 with older doors. She has a 235 and of course a 4-speed w/PTO for the winch. I popped the cover off the tranny and unlocked the gears with a lug wrench to get her on the trailer. I got her home, put the tranny back together, looked her over really good, put in fresh gasoline and fired her up. She's been working ever since.

The wiring was shot so I disconnected all except a hot wire to a toggle switch for ignition. When the battery goes down, I put the charger on it. The hydraulic brakes don't work -- I use the hand brake. I've used her for everything from pulling engines to pulling old fence posts to pulling down dead trees. When I need a part off one of my parts trucks, I use the Yard Dog to pull the parts truck within reach of my air tools.

That's my story. If anyone has questions, send a Private Message to me via the forum (click on my Bolter number to get there).

Cletis

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