Just thought I drop a bit about myself, my ol bolt, and a general Howdy!
For openers, I'm 36, been in the Navy for over 18 of those workin on the environmental & safety systems on C130, C9, Huey, A6, F/A18, and currently P3 airframes from the searing heat of the Mojave desert to the numbing killing cold of Antarctica. I've always been good with machines & have been workin on anything with a motor I could get my mitts on since my early teens.
All I can say is I love to work on anything, I get a kick out of taking something that’s broke down & wore out, makin it work again, and starting all over with something new. I'm not real experienced with freehand metal working, & that is my current focus so that I can take on projects w/o making em FUBAR. I get a lot of that experience workin on my lil hot rod VW, but more on that later,...
However, the reason I'm here is this ol beast.
Beastie photo 1 Beastie photo 2 Beastie photo 3 Beastie photo 4 She's a '56 GMC 370 series 2-ton dump. All stock through & through, an inline 6 with a 2bbl, 4-speed box with a 2-speed single axle, & a short dump box.
All original steel with the expected rust in the usual places, but overall not bad. Only dent I found was one of the bullets in the grill got bumped, didn't dent it much, but did bend the lower radiator sheet metal a touch. She aint purty, but she's a tough old girl!
Getting her home was an adventure in patience & nerve. The exhaust leaks were bad enough, bein stuck in low range with a top speed of 35 was makin for a long drive, and the brakes were marginal. I gave up that fight & had her towed to a tire shop to get new rubber. After scaring the newbies with the widow-maker rims, they named her “Mater”, kinda fits too. Finaly got it to the house & there she sits, ugly as sin.
Brakes are the 1st priority, I don’t care if it goes, if it cant stop we have some serious issues! Managed to find an NOS hydrovac unit on Ebay, so once that gets here I’m going through & getting the brake system straightened out.
Until then, I’ve been workin on lil bits & pieces here & there. Replaced all the light bulbs & been working on restoring the rest of the light housings if I cant get identical items. The wiring is in sad shape and I'm thinkin I'll go through & rewire the whole thing stem to stern with aircraft grade wiring like I did in my hot rod and the original style fabric/asphalt wire loom.
But time will tell. I may just get her sea worthy again and turn her over to some poor bum that needs a toy of his own. I'm not a profit seeker, I do this stuff for the pure joy & fun of it, will sell her for 10% over what I paid for the lot and move on to my next project. What that will be, oh man, dont get me started,... If I could get ahold of a couple grand, a 3-car transporter, and a couple winches, I know where there are a few sweet peices of steel up in them mountains.
Now, as for my other obsession and the reason I have been looking for a transporter. My first project is a little different, but some of ya may find it interesting just for the novelty value. It’s a '70 VW beetle roadster I call the Black Bomber. And as you can see, this is NOT your typical pregnant roller skate!
Bomber photo 1 Bomber photo 2 All kinds of neat stuff, all custom made or adapted by myself. What better way to learn hot rod building w/o havin to drop a ton of bones? Not that it has been cheap, but not too bad overall compared to building a typical custom on this level.
It sits about 3" off the deck in front with no fenders and smoothed wheel wells, hiked in the hind end with stock fenders and rear tires stick out about 1.5 inches, overall rake gives it a mean stance & I get lots of comments about how it looks like the Prowlers bastard cousin. I think it looks better myself, but then I'm a nut!
Whats in it?: I have a 4" drop 4-bar Ford A style front axle, with early Ford spindles with 70's GM 11” discs, pushed by a Porsche 944 Master Cyl; '69 Mustang steering box run thru a Nissan 280Z steering column, and a removable steering wheel from Speedway Motors (love those guys, and judging by my bank account, they love me too,...); Mazda 626 seats I recovered and adapted to the stock seat rails myself; All digital blackout gages from Nordskog; Early Chevy tail lights frenched into the fenders, Dietz style headlamps with H4 bulb conversion & euro-style running lamps; A rare dual head spot light/flasher unit, fully functional; A completely redesigned electrical system I built from scratch using aircraft grade wiring, all covered in nickel platted copper sheathing for ground & radio noise suppression, & junction blocks (for local folks wanting some custom wires, I work cheap!); and a load of other odds & ends I have scrounged or built.
Anyone interested or at least intrigued enough to wanna peek, the complete build details, with stage by stage photos, can be seen here.
So yeah, between the GMC, the Bomber, my old Coca Cola machine, and a few other toys,… I’m usually broke, and damned lucky to have a very, VERY understanding wife.
