My bolt comes home tomorrow, well rather, to my shop where she will reside until I get her back to road worthy.
About a year ago I started a search for a flat fendered jeep as a Sunday cruiser, rust and all. As in all great searches, I let everyone I know or did business with to keep their eyes open. As I'm talking to a fellow jeeper and someone contracted to build out a new facility for my business, he pipes up that he has a '49 Chevy 3100 he has lost interest in. Long and short, the orig owner was his neighbor and made his own 'shine (yes shine in socal) and ran it up to Montana and Alaska during his earlier years. He had a love afair with the truck and purchased any spare part he could (I have five sets of NOS gages, axles, hubcaps, axle shafts, three transmissions etc) because he was going to drive this until his final day.
He did.
While his daughter bought him another "new" truck, he wouldn't drive it and left it on the street; instead taking the old girl every chance he could.
His neighbor approached the family after his death inquiring about the truck and they told him "George" would have wanted you to have it. So he did. With the intention of building the car for his son's first driver, he rebuilt the front end (all with parts already in the camper of NOS bearings etc) and did brakes, but a divorce turned his son on him for a period.
He lost heart in the project.
As he is telling me the story I can't help but think "George' would want this truck back on the road. So tomorrow begins the day that I work towards that end. A driver. It is the case of, "it ran when I parked her".
George's hat and coat still hang in the back of the cab... George is along for the ride, I guess.
Photos and stupid questions to come by the dozens.
