Bobacuda

Since I plan on retiring first of February, I would say this is a retirement project . I bought this one at (wait for it), a garage sale about 15 yrs ago. I went with my wife and spotted this in the garage (did not and does not run). I got the owner down to $2300, begged my wife for the check book and understanding, then had to line up a friend with a trailer to take it to my house. Due to kids in school (HS then college, then getting them started in life...), I did not have the funds to do anything until now. So, with the truck done, this one is next.

Got my new shop at the house (with a lift) built, air lines and electric installed, and I am almost finished building shelves and miscellaneous support stuff. With that in place, we pulled our '67 Barracuda out of its garage (more like a barn) slot to move it to the new shop. Formula S (original 273 blown up and replaced with plain Jane 318 before I bought it), automatic, PS, PB, no AC... and oh BTW, it's a convertible. Not much rust and only missing a few hard to track down parts. We pressure washed the mud daubers and loose dirt off before towing it into the new shop. Hope to start inventory and tear-down this coming weekend.

I used old mud-flap shims on the front, under the radiator mount and on the supports that bolt to the part of the fender that has the two large rivets. Made some 1/8" shims from an old conveyor belt to help fine tune the alinement. It took quite a bit more shimming than it originally had, and since there was some welding done to replace some "capture nuts" on the fender brackets, not everything lined as much as I wanted. I put the front grill on, then the hood. I centered everything as best I could, using the hood to cowl gaps and a tape measure. Next I put my wheel wells under the hood (for later) and attached the fenders to complete the doghouse. I think I unbolted, re-shimmed and re-aligned that damn doghouse for two weeks, using the door gaps and the hood to cowl gaps as my guides. After all of that, I finally remembered that my driver's side of the hood was "a bit twisted" thanks to a brother-in-law. All in all, I discovered that what really helped me was knowing curse words in three languages.

Mine looks like that, but it does not have the "brand name" on it.

I bought a new cable with housing to fit my B4B (with Fluid Drive) off ebay, and it was not that expensive. Fit great. Here's an example https://www.ebay.com/itm/53-54-55-56-DODGE-C-SERIES-TRUCK-SPEEDOMETER-CABLE/360671142008?epid=1157765729&hash=item53f9ace078:m:mOmF9z9ykqNbARiLC5nqT1Q&vxp=mtr

Roberts - $315 http://fcrcmachine.com/rare-parts-drag-link-1948-1953-dodge-trucks-25594/ $279

As I said earlier, I pulled the harnesses, mounted them on plywood, ordered the correct size and color code (and terminals) from RI Wire. Built each harness, and added directional signals. Took me about 2 weeks of working a couple of hours at night, plus a couple of full week ends. Cost was about $250 total.

I usually use a 5 gal bucket, solid side up. High enough my knees don't suffer, low enough to work on stuff. Recently bought a roll-around shop stool from Harbor Freight - works great.

I made the wire for my horn from the size and color wire shown in wiring diagram. to make the button on the end, I soldered the wire, then I put flux inside a barrel nut (with a flat end, matched the size of the horn wire's terminal) and soldered the line inside of it. I replaced my old line with that and it has worked great.

BTW, a 1953 1/2 ton Dodge truck is a B4B.

Why would you did you remove the kingpins just to put them back?

I bought the wire and connectors from RI Wire and copied my old wiring to make my B4B's harnesses. I added directional signals. The total cost of doing that roughly $250, if I remember correctly. I think it took 2-3 weeks working several evenings and weekends. It was not as hard as I thought it would be. If I had to do it all over again, I would put all wires connected to the instrument cluster and the wipers on a connector to make it easier to pull the instruments when needed. Do a search here and you will find several postings I made outlining the process.

Linus - What type of deer is that? It looks like a whitetail that ran through a mixed breed cow.

He's not going anywhere for a while...

I think they called the Flight Simulator group TRANAV-29 at the time. This is the parking lot behind the building - I would be looking at the bldg. The old buildings (torn down and replaced several years later) behind me and the Sweptline truck belonged to the SeaBees on the base. They were tearing down old buildings the entire time I was there, at a rate that would make a private contractor laugh. One of my friends was a SeaBee - we used to kid him that each one of them arrived with a "light duty chit" as soon as they got to the base.

Not quite a workplace prank, but still a good one that backfired on me. There I am, wasting my youth, making the world safe from communism. In the photo I am an E-4 (Third Class Petty Officer). I am 19, about to turn 20 in the photo. I had 6 or 7 guys working for me at the time. Anyhow, this is what we called the Good Humor Man (an ice cream truck man) uniform (minus my white hat). That is my first Cuda (383, auto. Had to sell it to afford graduate school). One hot and muggy Saturday in August we were having a base-wide personnel inspection. When they finally got to my Division, I was told by the alcoholic XO of Chase NAS (a Navy Captain) that the backside of my white belt was too dirty to wear (sweat and oil from using my hands to adjust the belt. He also informed me "that it did not match my white hat." OK, try not to sweat in Beeville, TX on a 100 degree plus and about 80% humidity day, when you have been standing in a heavily starched uniform, at “Parade Rest” or “Attention” from 10:00 to 1:00 on a concrete runway. So, with quicker wit than brains, I made a smart-ass remark that my belt did indeed match my hat, and I removed my hat and showed him the sweatband on the inside…he was not as amused as my fellow enlisted men. For that bit of shared wit, I got to have all of my stuff inspected and pulled apart every two days (junk-on-the-bunk inspection), plus work extra duty shifts (real crap work) for the next 4 weeks (including weekends). Oh, and they made me throw the hat away on the runway, which is why I don’t have one on in the photo. Looking back, it was worth it. I got to keep my dignity and my friends laughed their butts off. BTW, during the Viet Nam War era, some dumbass convinced the upper military officers that enlisted men really liked to have personnel inspections – that made them good for morale. A real Einstein came up with that morale booster – especially during the Viet Nam War. Hell, all of us in the Navy were there to avoid being drafted into the Army or Marines. My Division Commander and his two kiss-ass Chiefs put us through an inspection every morning for work uniforms and every month for dress uniforms.

That is really neat - nothing like that in my part of the world. Since all of the "Snow Birds" started moving to Texas, all I find in barns is boxes of unpacked cold weather gear, snow-shovels, etc. Just kidding, sort of. The Snow Birds, large city folks, hot-rodders and the dreaded metal crusher have pretty much eliminated barn finds in my part of the world. Very seldom do I see something, and I am out and about all over back roads and other folks ranches almost every weekend (part of my second job). Now when I find some old hulk under a tree, in barn, whatever..., the owner's think they have a Barrett-Jackson top seller. I go into shock when they make me a price and they go in to shock when I tell them about what it would cost me to fix it up, and what I would offer for it. On the other hand, I have two friends in the "restore old Fords" business. They are constantly having people call them with barn find Fords.

The guy that painted my truck took the glove box door to the paint shop. They then color matched to the inside (the side not exposed to constant sunlight) of the glove box door. The paint shop had some sort of device to determine the color and what it would take to match it.

Hellcat.pdf I think the culprit has been identified as a member of a travelling rockabilly band!

Was a cat involved?

That tool is a "dammit." We used a variety of them in the Navy. Whenever we needed a tool or instrument that we couldn't name, we would simply say "give me that 'dammit' over there." Very effective tool with lots of shapes, sizes and uses.

Sometimes, the joke backfires. On the farm, we had one heckuva little farm dog. He herded sheep, goats, and cattle as well as us kids. He was always ready to go hunting (my folks actually made as much money on raccoon and ringtail hides at times as they did on cattle). The only downside was, in the spring he would scare wild turkeys off their nests and proudly show you where the eggs were (the turkeys would not come back). So. we would collect the "abandoned" eggs and put them under setting hens. The turkeys would hatch out with the chicks (30+) and generally move on right after hunting season. During hunting season, we would pen them because they were still pretty dumb after living with the chickens. And that is where the next prank on a different cousin comes in. Cousin Jimmy was an only child, momma's boy that never hit a lick in his life. And true to form, he came up every deer season at Thanksgiving to visit the old folks and go hunting. However, his idea of an early morning hunt was to get up about 9:30, sweet talk Grandma into making breakfast just for him, then he would wander out about 10:30 and wonder why he couldn't get a good shot at anything - and like my other cousin, he couldn't hit the side of the barn...so we thought. My stepfather and his brother had this great idea the last day of his "hunt." They opened the big chicken pen and let the turkeys out, then they fed them near the barn. They told Jimmy, "Hey, aren't those turkeys by the barn?" They could barely contain themselves as he took the shotgun, slipped out of the yard and was hiding behind every tree, bush and large rock as he worked his way up to the barn. He was Daniel Boone and the turkeys couldn't have cared less. When he got where he was comfortable, he cut loose on them. 5 shots later, as turkeys scattered everywhere, Jimmy had peppered the side of the barn, the large barn door, the combine, the water trough, and a small shed that held saddles and bridles - but not a single turkey. My stepfather and my uncle got to look at the pockmarks on the barn and the small dents in the combine every day and they got to replace a couple of windows in the saddle shed. To top it all off, Jimmy thought it was funny as hell that he hit everything but a turkey and would tell the story on himself. It got funnier over time for all involved.

Good thing you bought a running truck. I can't imagine what all you would have done to one that did not run

Db4ya - Not a possum, not a ringtail, not a rat...what kind of critter is in that toilet paper dispenser?

My stepfather's family had a farm that he and my uncle worked (which means our entire families worked it). Their brothers, sisters, nephews and nieces only showed up during deer season to visit the old folks (once a year) and spend the weekend hunting. One of my cousins had the reputation of not being able to hit the broad side of a barn with a rifle, but he would be there to spend a week hunting. So, we got an old, mounted deer head with a large rack, made an oversized sawhorse to hold it, wrapped some tow sacks around the wood frame to give it color and depth, then inserted the "buck decoy" in a clump of brush, where it appeared the deer was just looking out. My cousin spotted it shortly after the sun came up and started shooting - a box of shells before he gave up and walked back to the farm house. When he was asked how his hunt was, he replied, "Not only are the deer out here hard to shoot, they're hard of hearing, too!"