My Grandfather has an old green 1955 Chevy 6400 peanut truck in the back pasture of his 100 acre retired watermelon and peanut farm for almost 20 years. He has several more cars and trucks that have not ran in years. None of the family cars from other generations in the '20's, '30's, etc. Only my dads and Granddads generation cars and trucks('50's-'80's). My Grandad has owned this truck since the '70's. Recently, I ,13 years old,needed a tool box for my Chevy pickup bed trailer that I bought at a flea market a few months earlier. The truck I pointed to was my Granddads early '80's white chevy half ton with a tool box on it that was bolted to the bed rail, unknown to me. We opened the toolbox and saw the bolts going into the bedrail and my grandfather said, "Why don't you take the whole truck with you?". At first, I thought he was joking. I said " What?". He said "Just take the whole truck with you. You can have it. I remember finding the parts for it a few years ago and in todays market it would cost about 3 or 400 dollars to get it running. I said "Papa, I appreciate the offer, but I don't need a truck right now.", even though I wanted the 1955 Chevy 6400 about 60 feet away, but I figured I better talk to my dad about it first. My Granddad said "No, don't worry about it. You can have it, or any other car out here". I grinned and said "Papa, thank you for the offer, but I just don't need it right now". He said "Well, if you need a truck, just come ask me". I said "Okay, thank you for the offer, but I just don't need one right now". I came home and talked to my dad and he said thank you for not taking that truck. I said "What do you mean?". He said " Tye, that white truck was one of the worst running trucks my dad owned out of the many he had.". Now, almost a year later, I want to take the 6400 and put in a 12 valve cummins diesel and use it for my now more successful lawn care buisness. My dad in the '80's' took off the original believed to be 16-20 foot flatbed and put it about 200 feet from the trucks current location and cut off about 5-10 feet off the back of the frame and left about ten feet of frame from the back of the cab to the rear axle when he was about 13, leaving about a foot of frame behind the rear axle. Now in 2011, I want to put back on the original flatbed and replace the wood in it and use it as my lawn care hauling rig and mobile billboard at the same time. I have not found the original 6-10 feet of frame that was cut off, but luckily, my granddad never throws away or hauls off ANYTHING. I need some help on putting in the A/C, connecting the instrument cluster to the cummins, redoing the interior, finding lower rear cab corners, replacement glass, fabricating the frame to fit the cummins engine and tranny, where to get shipped body parts on the internet or where to get parts for this truck in Texas, and anything else. Anything is helpful.
Thanks Stovebolt members! Happy trucking!
