I Purchased this truck for $300 dollars after the previouse owner ran over a small import. After I bought it I towed to to my fathers house where it sat, idle, until I saved some money up to start fixin it up. One year later... I towed it to Saint George Utah and stashed it in a shop I had at the time. As I disassembled it I discoverd that the frame had been slightly tweeked from the 40 Mph head on collision, who would have thought. That's one more lesson learned the hard and expensive way...
The Work:
I got a '71 front crossmember from a junk yard for $70 and replaced all the A-arm bushings, ball joints, stearing rods and tie-rod ends. Then fitted it with 2 1/2" drop spindles, custom 6 lug 12" rotors, new calipers and stainless steal break lines and hoses from McGoughy Classics in California. Then I hit up a good friend of mine, Kurt Richens for a the neccisary fenter, grille, break booster, proportioning valve, and other various parts from his yard. Though the 292 I-6 ran beautifully I had Reynolds Motor & machine in Saint George build me a bad ass lil 350 CID to spin a Pheonix Transmissions TH 350 and some Possi 3.73 gears in the rear end.
I took a 6 hour round trip to my fathers house to sport the truck off to every one I could find and to pick up my '68 350 core to have rebuilt. On the return trip about 10:45 PM on mile post 44 1/2 on I-15 between Ceder City and Saint Geroge, I guy in a Kenworth K9000 hauling tandom 18' tankers fell asleep and didn't see me ahead of him. At the time I was letting the lil 6 run comfortably at about 45 or 50. He was traveling at aprox. 85. The impact immidiatly accelerated me to the same speed, that hurt. My stereo came out of the dash along with everything in the glove box. I didn't get stopped untill about 200 yards infront of him. I'm sure a lil half ton truck with power disc breaks is perfectly able to stop considerably faster that a 20+ ton tractor trailor. I think that I may have blacked out momentarily before I was able to hit the breaks and that would explain why I took so long to get stopped. Either way, I had to have my lil bro and my mother bring me another battery to replace the one that was jarred from its brackets and thown into the radiator fan. The 350 block had snapped the strapps that were holding it, which added two little dents in the bed rails. The bumper was completly destroyed and relocated to under the bed, the bottom edge of the tail gate was bent and the rear seal of the bed. The impact also pushed the bed forward and made the two dents in the back of the cab. There had been dents there before from the accident before I bought it, but now they were much bigger. I didn't feel like getting any pictures of the carnage, the damage was estimated between $3,000 and $3,500. Bent and bruised, that baby took it like a man!
This little event did the obvious damage to the fender, grille and bumper. But also bent the frame again! I drove the truck as it was for a few months then decided it best to suspend its driving and fix it. It's been well over a year since then and I'm still not finished. But it's gettting really close with new 4X4 frame out of a '72, rebuilt front axle, rebuilt 4spd and NP205, a 6" all spring lift and rock shackles(totals about 7 1/2" of lift from stock, before it was lowered 2 1/2") 35" goodyears (they work for now, but I'm lookin for some better ones) And yes, it now has power steering.
