1961H67

Thank you ! And thank the Crew on the Chinook, they have worked it hard , I hear there’s some type of political glitch ( Title 10 ?.) I’m not sure. Keeping the military helicopters from helping more, they’re a Lot of private helicopters, believe me, I’ve been all over these mountains and when the roads get cut ,.. You have one choice for saving a life.. Helicopter!

Started digging the LJ out today . The community across the hill where the mountain slide was ( 16 people perished) was only accessible by 4 wheelers, So we took our old Army dump and filled it with water , food, just basic stuff and followed a forest service dozer about 4 miles down to a church. ( to the right of the dozer was a friends house, and the creek once was 200 feet to the left ) Very Sad !

Thank Y’all for all the Prayers and comments. Yes the news media and our government is hiding the worst, The Chinook is working hard along with what looks like at least 4 other medical helicopters. At least 60 dead within a 10 mile radius. We are doing ok , probably a week before power gets on ,, and there looking at a year for I40 to Knoxville . Thanks for the parts offer, I’ll get it dug out and see what’s missing. Built a” Ford “ across the creek today and got the skid steer over there.

Thank y’all so much. It’s wide spread, Only one major interstate to get supplies to the Asheville area. I 26 is Washed out in Erwin TN . I 40 has A landslide on each side of Asheville, I26 to Spartanburg SC is the only way out, last night was the first time since Friday morning I had any cell service, and I looked at some photos of the area and it’s unbelievable, There are some YouTube videos out now. I think the National Guard is here, I’ve talked to people from a lot of states now , it will probably be 2 weeks for my power to be on, I’m just trying to get my good stuff out of the shop and bring up to my smaller shed.

Thank y’all so much. It’s wide spread, Only one major interstate to get supplies to the Asheville area. I 26 is Washed out in Erwin TN . I 40 has A landslide on each side of Asheville, I26 to Spartanburg SC is the only way out, last night was the first time since Friday morning I had any cell service, and I looked at some photos of the area and it’s unbelievable, There are some YouTube videos out now. I think the National Guard is here, I’ve talked to people from a lot of states now , it will probably be 2 weeks for my power to be on, I’m just trying to get my good stuff out of the shop and bring up to my smaller shed. There home was behind the fender picture. One fender stayed on the table, the other fell on the welder , not dented but scratched, , I may just leave it that way,,,,Dawson can tell a story about the scar 50 years from now.

Just giving y’all an update,, Our County and worst our community was one of the hardest hit from the Hurricane,, My family is safe, ! My son lost his home and 2 pickup trucks , Our shop is pretty much destroyed, But at least 15 neighbors of mine have lost their lives , It’s the worst thing I’ve ever experienced watching the helicopters flying over with bodies in the basket . We got a lot away but it came so fast we could couldn’t get the stuff out of the shop and his carport. The are living in my camper,,and we’re fortunate to have a way for water and a few lights, cell service was gone until yesterday. My service truck, the Charger got flooded, Not important at this time but this is the LJ thread.. it doesn’t seem to bad, a million sticks under the frame, it didn’t get over the transmission. The water blew out the back of the shop and took the newly painted headlights, inside door panels,, lots of small parts,, all gone ,, but could have been worse. I’ll keep everyone updated.

Sorry I missed my spelling,I had the yellow 55 , thank you . I’ll try to get my chrome on the side of the hood this week , and do some more tweaking on the hood alignment. It’s much easier with the fenders off,,and I’m sure I’ll have to mess with them to get them to line up, part of having something taken apart for 30 years, and using some parts from donor trucks.

No u hade the yellow 55 LTH down at Spencer, hopefully I can get this on down next year.

Thank yall, they were pretty rough, better than my original ones but still a lot of work, , I thought about black but this is the way they painted it in the 50s so I wanted to keep it like it was . The sun was very bright so it does make it look like a bright color

Beautiful Saturday , I painted the last of the Yellow early this morning, Old paint chip says Coke Yellow) , The DuPont mix came out Atlas Orange . Any way I pushed them out in the sun this afternoon . Hopefully I’ll get them installed next week.

One more step,,,,

I got the fenders ready to paint today, I may get a chance to spray them Saturday morning, I have to do some Trucking tomorrow ( to buy more outrageously priced paint! ) after the fenders all that is left to paint is the inner door panels. My hope is to get the fenders and hood on in the next few weeks, I have to have back surgery in November,so I’m hoping to be able to do some light work on it after Christmas, wiring, door windows etc, we’ll see how it goes. I’ve made pretty good progress on it this summer so far.

A little more progress, it’s been raining here for a couple days, that gives me some more time on the LJ .

There is no good way that I know to repair the hinge, I’m sure someone has. I’ll try to patch the best I can.

Vlad , you are correct about the center hood hinge , just like my other trucks they are worn on each end, I was thinking about putting a small piece of aluminum underneath the hold down and let it come back a inch or so to catch some good hinge, also the chrome was bad so I did it like I did the radiator chrome, I sanded it off and polished the brass, we'll see how that works out.

LAST coat of primer! I’m going to block sand this out and PAINT.

So True! And plus now days the paint is too dang expensive to make mistakes, so you have to learn to get it right.

Thank You, I’m not a body man either, i really would not want to do it for a living if I had a choice. And I’m sure it would cost a fortune to have this truck restored. It will turn out just fine for me.

I test fitted the fenders ( mainly because they were off 2 other separate LJs ) I had to adjust the Fender “ Horns “ on both, they had to much of a gap between the radiator shroud, I had to cut a small notch and bend them in about a 1/2 inch. And reweld . But now is the time to adjust. Those Horns are an afterthought addition to cover the notches in the shroud for the frame, they moved the radiator out about 8 inches for the Cummins. You can see the notch straight under the hood lace on the shroud, evidently instead of making a solid shroud, they came up with the Horns to hide the notch. One more hurdle behind me!

It is a pain, I tapped up the surface on the radiator shroud and the panels at the rear where the fenders are almost touching the cab ( but they are not bolted to the cab) the fender mounts off the frame are adjustable, so hopefully I can adjust them while in Primer, and be easy installing them with the finished paint, I have done the whole process this way, it looks detailed with all new bolts showing, but it is a pain, I usually get a couple young guys to help hold stuff In place while I start the bolts.

lol, it’s killing me ! 2 coats of primer, probably put one more heavy coat on and sand that down and hopefully ready to paint next week, I finally got all the pits out . I’m going to hang them on the truck before I paint them and check the adjustment of the mounting .

I finished the lacing on the shroud, I didn’t mention before but I purchased 16 ft , I had less than a foot left, it would probably take more for a B73 or LT as the radiator is wider (18 ft just to be safe) . Got all the glaze sanded off, just a bit more filler and I’ll start with the filler primer. The glaze filled a lot of pits ,, but kinda a pain sanding it all off ,, ( or I’m just getting inpatient,, ready to get this behind me! )

Found some thin glaze, I think it will save a few coats of the hi build primer, since I primed the parts with black bare metal primer it shows every pit . I’ll see if it was a good idea when I get it all sanded down.

Shop and Show activities!! Hopefully he will

Here’s a picture of a piece of my old lacing with new, exactly the same. I also used Permatex “ Yellow “ Weather Strip Glue to hold it between the rivets .