The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area General Truck Talk Who uses their truck as a truck?

"The Little Blue Truck" is certainly earning it's keep.

Thanks for posting Wayne!

Nice. What are the plywood cutouts on the sides?

The cut outs are of Mr. Toad who is a friend of The Little Blue Truck and gets to drive the truck in the books.

Mr Toad

Little Blue is probably having flashbacks of being a Farm Truck...

I'm not sure this entry qualifies, but my truck was used. This picture is from my granddaughter's wedding in 2019.

Bill - Chalk that up as being "fully qualified". Thanks for sharing.

This picture has more of a truck oriented story.


The little girl, about 3 years old when we first met, across the road from us is turning into a 24 year old bride. Two days before the wedding she sends me a text asking if she and her guy can use my ’52 GMC ¾ ton flatbed for their “getaway car”. I told her I would be honored

Early the next morning I gave it a good washing and cleaned up the inside. That afternoon my wife followed me to the wedding venue, about 5 miles north of town. I met up with the bride’s father to give him the key (groom was busy) and a quick lesson in stomp starters.

Started the engine once. The second time I stomped the starter the engine started, but the was a really bad noise coming from under the hood. Turned off the key and tried again. Same result. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!!

The 74 year old “starting motor control return spring” picked today to break, so the starter stayed engaged when I took my foot off of the stomper. Engine was running and the still engaged starter motor was spinning a lot faster than it was designed for.

I went home and looked through my meager collection of springs. There were 3 that might do, but none real close. Pondered that for a minute and then the answer came to me. ‘Bolter GiantMountainClimber (Kenneth Crenwelge) has a slew of old GMC trucks sitting at his business. His place was between me and the wedding venue. Kenneth answered on the first ring and after my desperate explanation said he’d meet me there shortly. We liberated a spring from one of his trucks and I was on my way. Big thanks again Kenneth!

Meanwhile, back at the truck…. While changing the spring I could hear the radio playing. What? I had pulled the key from the ignition switch and given it to the bride’s father when the spring failed 3+ hours before. Finished installing the spring. Got into the truck and realized I had removed the key with the ignition switch on. Oh well. Stuck my spare key in and stomped the starter. Nothing! Nada! Kaput!

Truck had been converted to 12 volts when I bought it in 2013. My voltmeter (I have an aftermarket instrument panel) read less than 8 volts, the lowest mark on the scale. Tried again with the same results. My world had just become a $#!+ sandwich and I was the bottom slice of bread.

Turned off the key and drug the jumper cables from under the seat. Nudged my wife’s Camry near the truck and attached the jumpers. Cranked up the Camry and jammed a water bottle beside the gas pedal to hold the throttle at about 2300 RPM. Let it charge for 15 minutes. Hit the stomper and the engine reluctantly came to life. Pulled the jumpers off and let the truck run at high idle for 10 minutes. Turned off the truck. Turned the key back on. NO VOLTS!

The 2 year old battery had died when the ignition was left on for a couple of hours. I called my local O’Reilly’s where I bought the battery. Explained what happened. The counterman asked for my phone number and looked up the battery. He said he had one in stock and that mine was still under warrantee. “Bring it in and I’ll replace it”.

Walked into Oreilly’s 15 minutes later. My new battery was sitting on the counter. The guy gave me a receipt with a zero balance and 15 minutes later I was installing the battery.
Started right up!

Truck performed well as the "getaway car".

Bill, that's one heck of a story. Glad you got things straightened out eventually.

I may steal that sandwich comment from you. Sounds about right for some events.

Indeed one heck of a story. I was getting a tummy ache after the first few paragraphs. Goodness, how many things could go wrong? What a stress monster.
Thanks for the story. Good retelling.

Fitting for that old saying, “When it rains, it pours.” Man, I’ve been there too many times! Just when you really need something to go right, Murphy’s Law comes into full effect and tests every ounce of your patience.

I know how stressful moments like that can be in the thick of it, but I am so glad it all worked out in the end. Looking back, the hiccup will just be part of the story—and at the end of the day, the new couple still has a memory that will last a lifetime!

Take a deep breath and pat yourself on the back.

What a sequence of problems arising from a simple spring.

About the only thing that could make the stress level any higher would be if it was your daughters/sons wedding event!

Glad to hear it all worked out in the end.

Bill, you came through like a Trooper! No doubt the Bride and Groom will have a stories to tell from their Wedding Day... and so will you...

Mission Accomplished...

Ol' Roy had to go to the auto parts store today on behalf of his stable mate, Little Red.

Yeah, guess why? The new Chinese fuel pump packed it in. Par for the course these days.

Finally get to add a photo of my "Working Truck". I drove south a little bit to a friend's small farm in Payson, Utah. She gave me a great deal on some sweet corn, so I shared it with the neighbors on my culdesac. Good tasting corn! Watermelon and cantaloupe will be ready after Labor Day.

That's awesome. I wish I lived near you so I could get some fresh corn!

Yes, need to be closer neighbors! Perfect pictures for this thread! Thanks for posting them John!

Had to haul a lawn mower to the repair place where I promptly ran out of gas.

Fortunately lawn mower man gave me some and got that taken care of. I really need to fix or replace that sending unit. And then as it turned out I didn't need to buy a new recoil spring assembly for the mower.s I remembered that I have a spare parts mower with the same oddball part.

At least the lawn mower place was close to the farmers market. I needed to go and get some non-diarrhea-inducing lettuce and some other stuff.

A productive morning, indeed!

Otto ,
That starboard side running board sure looks good. Usually pretty banged up.

Yeah, both running boards are perfectly straight with little or no damage. In fact the only real damage is the passenger rear fender which is recent.

Somebody in a welding truck or similar vehicle with a high metal flat bed gouged and creased it fender and opened it up like the Titanic.

Even though this truck worked on a farm in Tennessee into the late '80s and early 90s, it at least got to stay inside a barn or garage of some type so there isn't even any rust in the cab corners.

Both front fenders have been replaced at some point however as the driver side one appears to have originally been that light green color, mint. And the passenger side fender appears to have originally been light blue.

The truck itself was originally Mariner blue

What are you planning to do about the fender that hit the iceberg?

Funny you mention that. Just last weekend a friend of mine was over and I was showing it to him and he said take it off and he would fix it and try and weld up that slit. So that'll be the game plan. Although I hate to bother him with it because he's got his own multi car projects going on the same as me.

Yeah while I was underneath it a week or so ago cleaning off the oil and grime underneath, I noticed that one of the struts for the fender broke off where it bolts to the frame.

I think the end with the i in it for the bolt can be welded back into place so I'll try to do that as well and then of course the the bracket or strut that's up at the top of the fender right where the gash is is also banged up under there so once I get it off I'll know more.

Getting the gash welded sounds good. Then you have decide whether to fair it out or leave it as a battle scar …?

We'll do the best we can to get it smoothed out and back into original contour. It will only be primed, though . Doing all the bodywork on this truck to do a proper paint job would cost more than you could even sell the truck for when it was finished.

Overall it's straight with no rust but every panel has dents/ The bed rails and bed front are rusted. The hood was used as a ladder to access a pull down attic stair so its current beat up appearance is more or less permanent.

I use my 53 3100 as a truck. Sometimes it makes me slightly sad or nervous when I put something in the bed that I know will at least blemish it slightly, or maybe worse. But that feeling is offset by people telling me how cool it is that I'm still using it. All in all it's just fun. Mine is definately not a show truck. I never set out to create a show truck. I only wanted a reliable driver that was "respectable". So far it seems like that's what ive got. I did every bit of the work myself, so I figure that I saved a good bit of money along the way. I doubt that I'll ever sell it anyway. Maybe I'll just use it for a casket.LOL

Heck ya! It's a truck, drive it! What are you going to do, park it in the garage and save it until you're dead so somebody else can enjoy it? The heck with that. There's no such thing as a car that's too nice to drive every day.

There's a guy in metro Atlanta (Peachtree City area) that owns a J model Duesenberg. He drives it to work most of the time.

Mike, I could not have said it better for my ‘57 3200. I’ve had it for 11 years and enjoy every minute I take it out. Usually hauling something for family or home from a big box store. Finally finishing the paint job I started 2 years ago! Hopefully anyway. It will be totally dark brown with everything else gloss black. Possibly a stripe down the hood in flat black to reduce any clear coat glare everywhere else.
CHATGPT (AI) generated the attached picture as an example starting from pic of my truck.

I don’t do any real hauling with my ‘54 , only toys.
That said, I’m in my 4th summer with it and the odometer just clicked 5800. That’s got to count for something.

What really counts is an odometer that works!

My odometer does indeed work.
Easy to figure out how many mikes I’ve driven since the build because I started from zero.

My odometer is the same, started at "0" after my build because I changed the cluster and chose to start at "0" rather than input the previous miles.

I did the same thing also.