mattb73lt

Welcome to the forum first off!! There's a lot of knowledgable people here to help and point you in the right direction. All of the above comments are from people that have considerable knowledge and who are well versed with trucks and I would seriously consider the advice that's been offered. It takes a lot to restore a truck. Money, space, skill, resources and above all, motivation!! If you're looking for a shop to carry out the whole restoration, due diligence in researching the shop is a requirement. It costs a lot to restore a truck and the wrong shop can cost you dearly in money and time. History, reputation, honesty, location, recommendations from previous customers all can play into finding the right shop. Be prepared to pay if a shop handles the restoration. Shop costs, man hours, parts can add up very quickly. I've known Matt Pfahl personally for over 30 years. His shop in Connecticut has grown from a single bay in his parent's backyard to a massive six bay shop with about nine people working for him. Professional, nut and bolt restorations take two to three years and can cost well over six figures. Do it yourself restorations are a whole other affair. Shop space, personal skill, tools, specialized equipment, resources all factor into completing a restoration. Many restorations start off with a lot of motivation, but peter out and stall as money, parts and expenses, problems mount up. Pictures of the truck you're considering restoring would help. Evaluating what you have is important. It may need minor work and cosmetics to make roadworthy of be a money pit that's to far gone to consider restoring. But, could offer parts to restore a truck to it's likeness with some original parts.

I almost forgot about this project. Nice detail work and congratulations on setting engine in the frame!!

I'll have to reach out to you. I'm putting a timeline together now and trying to compress what I did to fit the magazine. So, any input would be appreciated.

Well, she's long gone and I have a much better one now. After that conversation at Macungie, I figured I'd put together an outline and build on it from there. Shouldn't take too long, at least not as long as the restoration did.

There was actually an article on the original find in Double Clutch magazine around 2002. My ex-wife wrote it and submitted it. When I was checking in when I arrived at Macungie, one of the editors grabbed me and asked if I could do a follow on article about the whole restoration to submit. It's been 23 years since that original article, so I must've set some kind of record for actually completing the restoration. A real "I'm going to restore that truck one day" story that did get done and not rot into the ground.

Had some early morning fun yesterday. Moved an '82 DARE Corvette to a garage for some transmission and restoration work.

Nice work and great progress!!

Looks like a good candidate for restoration. That aluminum from looks like a big concern. Would it be possible to new steel rails into it? I know that would mean a major disassembly of the whole truck, unless there's only a few bad areas that need to be repaired.

That's in the plan. I have probably 1,000's of photos I took during the restoration, but they're all digital. I don't have a printer, so I'll need to figure a way to print them out.

On it's first long distance run I was keeping track of the fuel to see how it does over the road. I think it might be a little better than this, because we ran pretty slow heading down there and I ran solo back. We were about 10 MPH slower than I usually run, 50-60. Where I set the truck up to run right around 65, which is 1600 RPM. I think it runs a little better at 1700 RPM which as right about 70 MPH. Anyway, the truck holds 125 gallons of which I burned 52 gallons for the round trip of about 450 miles. That's 8.6 MPG. Not too bad!! That average gives the truck about a 1,075 mile range. Damn!!

I'm bummed I missed you and a bunch of people!! Between talking and looking around the show, then the weather on Saturday, time went quickly. We showed up Thursday in the early afternoon. I thought that was early. Things actually start opening up and people arrive on Wednesday, now. Seems to get earlier every year. I think most people can only get Saturday to go as Sunday is Father's Day. If I go again next year I'll stay later through Saturday and maybe come back Sunday morning. The other thing I may do is put my name and phone number on the window of the truck so people can call me to meet up if I'm not there or meet at their truck which I did a few times Friday. Saturday just sucked with the rain and really put a damper on the festivities.

I remember those conversations and thinking I really had no idea when or if I'd ever make it. Honestly, it was an epic trip for me and the truck. At times I never thought it would be there or I'd have something that would make it that far and be worthy of being seen there. Pulling into the park felt like I was high fiving myself. Pulling back into my driveway at the end of the trip was the validation of having completed a thorough restoration of a junkyard find, dead truck. Sharing the restoration here on this blog was so beneficial and to keeping everything on track. Having progress to report was really motivating, even though at times there were breaks and gaps due to other things going on. A cool side benefit was meeting and conversing with people like yourself and everyone else who added comments or pictures. It's been almost ten years since my first post and it has been one remarkable journey, all just to restore an old truck, and the journey continues on with new adventures. I can't thank everyone enough for their contributions and help along the way!!

I believe it was. It was the choice of the two I was traveling with, so I was just following along. No trucks were allowed, we parked along the street. There was another truck stop we went to just up the street where they fueled up before we continued. They made this run many times and knew where to stop.

I've seen him posting on a few Facebook pages about his trucks or when some are posted for sale by others. Most of the trucks were sold long ago, eBay and other places and reappear from time to time.

Lots of F models represented there, which I find surprising. Where have all these been hiding, where did they find the parts?? This one sits on a Sterling chassis and the gloss on the floor boards is way beyond what came frome the factory. Just beautiful!!