Elton makes a good point -- Over the years, we've tried to capture those lessons learned in our Tech Tips (see the menu bar at the top of the page). I'm a little behind in getting the recent submissions added (but I will ...), but we'll gladly take more. But as to Elton's case, we knew the post war trucks didn't match, big trucks to little trucks, front clips. Now we know the pre war trucks don't either
Thanks for sharing that.
Perhaps one of the big take aways here is .... check out the rest of Stovebolt.com LOTS of lessons learned in the site (in addition to the discussion forum
Just sayin' ...)
As to working pretty trucks, I'm with Ron. I work (not abuse) my '49 1-ton from time to time. In fact, you can see the picture of it working in the upper left corner here
No "patina" on it -- The black is original paint, the red was applied over top of that. And the bed is (nearly)pristine/unrestored with its original bed wood still almost like new (one board is slightly gouged a bit). I wouldn't throw firewood at it or dump in a yard of gravel, but lumber, hay, appliances, tools, kayaks, canoes, bicycles, produce auction hauling, feed bags and photo/movie shoots are ways "Charlie" has earned his keep around here
