Dennis_MN

How about joining with several others at the Mopar in the Park car show down in Farmington (Dakota Cty fairgrounds) I plan on attending on Saturday and I think Dan from Rochester will as well. I haven't spoken to Don Bunn yet but he also lives in Bloomington and if he doesn't bring his truck he will at least make a showing. Dennis Sullivan Monticello, MN

I just checked my last years spending and I made three trips to Napa while doing the brake job. My first trip was $351 and then $24 then $30 for about $400 in parts. I suppose I spent a hundred or so more than necessary but I figure that I would be doing this only once. I really love the kit and the whole notion of disk brakes. Worth every penny to not worry about stopping even if I don't get it much over 55mph. Thats a great kit and I'd recommend it to anyone. Dennis

Nope, that was Dan. Nope, when the counter guy at Napa see's me and they have good, better, and best, they know that I'm a sucker for best. If I wanted to save money, I wouldn't have bought a antique truck! However, looking back at the money spent on the truck, it was way better than just leaving the cash in the 401k. Now my 401k is worth half and the old Dodge is still worth what I paid for it. Dennis

I spent about another $500 on the parts. You will find there are upgrades in materials used on the disks, and the rotors and then there was the little stuff like breaking a line or stripping the threads in a juice junction block. As far as the drilling and tapping, it was difficult to find those sizes of drill bits and taps at the rental shops. I now recommend to take the spindels off and have them drilled and tapped. Charlie is the low cost supplied for that service. By the way, I had my brackets powder coated in black before I started. That turned out to be free as a gift from a neighbor who owned a sheet metal shop that included them in another order that he had going through the process. Dennis

I've had the same experience with a couple of computers in my house and some Video tapes that I had converted to DVD's 1. The DVD's would not play on the DVD player hooked to my TV 2. They would play on my vista compter but they showed an index and then when I clicked on the index image they played. 3. They would not work on my wife's XP machine because she only had a CD player. Options that I found to solve the problems. 1. I got a software program which would take the original DVD with the photo index and make it into a playable DVD for the tv set. I only did it once 2. My vista machine will play it 3. I went out a purchased a external DVD player recorder for my wifes computer, then her computer will play the same stuff that my laptop (vista) plays. This device cost $85.00 and it came with some software which allowed me to make a playable dvd for the tv set. However it was missing some sound or dolby license so I didn't get sound. I tried to burn the DVD onto a CD but the segments were way too large for a CD player. Progress is great, all of my stuff will be soon obsolete. Dennis

I bought mine last summer from DieCast Auto and I was satisfied with it. I painted the bumpers black and the wheels grey to match my truck. Looks pretty cool under the hood at car shows, with the hood up on the model. Dennis

I always get the red X when I go to the Pilothouse site and then click on gallery. For some unknown reason I get a red x instead of a picture. So I added a link to the gallery from my web page and the x dissapears and in it place a dodge appears. Something about the permissions in the Pilothouse web site. try this http://dodgepilothouseclub.org/gallery/v/Dennis_MN/ or try this and go to Pilothouse gallery http://sites.google.com/site/dennisjsullivan/Home Try this to get the red x http://www.dodgepilothouseclub.org/gallery/main.php

I didn't see them, I was just seeing if there was any interest, if so, I could go back up there and take some pictures and post them. Dennis

While there Don could see that I was interested in trucks so he showed me a few of his other projects. First is the Diamond T that he used for trailer towing on a trip to Alaska. He wanted to put a Volvo engine in it but it wouldn't fit in front so he put in behind the cab and added about a foot to the frame so that he had room for the driveshaft. The other two are waiting, one is a 37 Dodge and the other is a 37 Plymouth.

Imagine my surprise when I walked out of the bank on Friday and I saw this pilothouse wrecker driving down the street. I looked up the Name on He the door and found the phone number for a real towing business located up in the next town west of here. I got up to see it this afternoon and was amazed at the truck and this guys ability. He essentially mounted this '49 pilothouse cab on a 1990 Dodge Diesel truck. Here are a few pictures of his project. By the way he said that he had the gauges out of the cab if anyone was interested.

Just returned from looking at a 49 Dodge Wrecker, so this is a photo of me but its not my truck. Dennis Sullivan

So why does a dog lick his balls Because he can

http://www.midwestmopars.com/showstuff/hotels_and_camping.htm This is the Midwest Mopars site. I'm familar with the Motel 6 which is 8 miles West of the fairgrounds. There ought to be something to the East but I'm not familiar with the area. Far enough east brings one to Hampton Dennis

This will be my first time at this location so I don't have a clue, I did pre-register and found that I could bypass all of the confusion at the old site with the preregistration. The fairgrounds have more than adequate space and the site should not present a bottleneck. However if the club chooses to have one entrance and everyone shows up at 8:05 AM they can create a mess. I sent along a pilothouse club card so that perhaps they would put them together. I am driving from Monticello and I havent decided whether or not to stay for Sunday. Depends on Merle.... Dennis

I hear that they have a great swap meet with all sorts of Mopar stuff. That alone should be a priority for you. Dennis

I would have waited to show a picture of me and my pickup but alas it is stored in a Barn and waiting for spring to occur. I think this thread would be dead and gone by then or it perhaps it would be up to about 12 pages. So Here is a current Dennis Sullivan at age 69

This is for any of the pickup people close to the Twin Cities of Minnesota to see if any are thinking of showing your pickup at this event, and more importantly to have a face to face meeting. The event is held on May 30-31 at the Dakota County Fairgrounds in Farmington, MN. This is about 1/2 way between Rochester and Monticello if Dan Olson and Dennis Sullivan showed their trucks. I've contacted Don Bunn to see if he would be interested which would make it pretty fun. I brought my truck to this event and walked around the car show with Mr Bunn. I'm sure there would be interest in seeing our disk brake installation. I'm thinking of Saturday only but I could be talked into a motel if more were interested. Dennis Sullivan http://midwestmopars.com/showstuff/2009home.htm

I've been retired since 2002 and don't know how I found time to work. First few years I considered myself and full time motorcycle rider, and a ridercoach during the summer months. Put on 138,000 on a Honda ST1100 from 1997 - 2005. Then I bought the '49 Dodge Pickup with four wheels on the ground, and I picked up a few wood working tools, found the game of golf and then I fool around with computers. In the winter, I volunteer and do taxes for low income people and I fix the computers for other volunteers in my county. AARP Tax-Aide Program I also do genealogy in fits and spurts and am setting a goal to write up my family history by this time next year. Working on Sullivans is like doing the genealogy of jack rabbits. They all had a bunch of kids and they named them from a collection of about 10 names. My work so far carved into stone.... http://sullivan.us.com/Extra/Gene/photo001.html Dennis Sullivan

Wow, learned something new again. Never noticed that "new posts" thingie up there so I usually click on Pilothouse and look at all the Highlighted posts then I hit my end key and then page up to get the last one. then I click on next and I go from bottom to top. Then if I have time I go over to "the car side" The "truck side" is more of a look what I'm doing now, while the car side has a lot more of the social networking stuff. It is good, because its just guys exchanging information like the job, the weather, the health. The truck guys are busy working if they post, and the car guys are socalizing and on occasion, they are fixing on a car. Just my opinion... I love em both. As for E-Pay, I'm not interested but curious to see what the link is all about. If no link, I don't bother. Dennis

Oh my gosh another Sullivan....... are they all called Sully? I just heard on the news that the pilot Sulenberg is also called "Sully" Dennis Sullivan Monticello, MN

Ole is a farmer in Minnesota. He is in need of a new milk cow and hears about a nice one for sale over in Nordakota (that would be North Dakota for you non-Scandahoovians out there). He drives to Nordakota, finds the farm and looks at the cow. He reaches under to see if the cow gives milk. When he grabs a teat and pulls...the cow farts. Surprised, Ole looks at the farmer who's selling the cow, then reaches under to try again. He grabs another teat, pulls, and the cow farts again. Milk does come out however, so after some discussion with the cow's current owner, Ole decides to buy the cow.. When he gets back to Minnesota, he calls over his neighbor, Sven, and says, 'Hey, Sven, come and look at dis ere new cow I yust bought. Pull her teat, and see vat happens.' Sven reaches under, pulls the teat...the cow farts. Sven looks at Ole and says, You bought dis here cow over in Nordakota, didn't yah?' Ole is very surprised since he hadn't told Sven about his trip. Ole replies, 'Yah, dats right. But how did yah know?' Sven says, 'My wife is from Nordakota.'

I worked for Sperry Univac when Burroughs aquired us to become Unisys. It was like being nibbled to death by a duck for the next ten years with the almost annual layoffs and down sizing. I think the combined company had 42 manufacturing plants and figured that they could use 12. In reality I think by 2000 they were down to three. So much for mainframe manufacturing. I was part of the Plant closing in 1997 but was one of the last to leave because I got to help with the equipment auction. I used my re-education grant to learn Microsoft NT and to become a "system engineer" Never passed any of those dang tests but I didn't need to. Fortunatly for me this Y2K stuff was coming and there was an instant market for software skills. I wasn't a software guy, I was a Manufacturing Engineer but I had skills as a User and apparently my creative use of this product enabled me to walk out the door at 8:30 AM on a friday and start as a contract employee for a software service company at 10:00AM During the next five years I was a programmer to help fix the date problem. And yes there really was a problem with this particular product called "Mapper" in how the IF logic was used. Folks had to save space by using only two digits of the date. Funny how 00 isn't bigger than 99 but it would have fixed it self in a couple of years. Then 9-11 happened and I was on a project for the State of Minnesota that got stopped in its tracks. I said screw it, at took early Social Security. Now I do volunteer Tax work for AARP and help folks out. And I take care of the computers for the rest of the county for all of the rest of the volunteers. I could go to work for a tax service now, but I don't need to work, and we can get by. People always expect that I was an accountent but no, I was a manufacturing engineer. I learned to do this. By the way, there is a little known deal with Social Security that if you take it for the reduced rate when you are 62, you can pay back every thing when you reach the right age, like 66 3/4 in my case, opt out of the system for one day, then reapply and get the highest rate. Its an interest free loan. I didn't have enough cash to take advantage of it buy my friend did. He did it for his wife because she never worked and gets 1/2 of his now and then all of it when he kicks the bucket and she was way younger than him. Rambling Dennis from Minnesota

I found that book 20 years ago in the local library and enjoyed reading it. I was much like Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintanence. I can still remember reading about the wire harness that he spent his good money on. I think it has been revised and re-issued and is now more general. I thought the original had a picture of a pilothouse on the cover and not a old chevie. I just looked at Amazon and the cover truck on that version is a 50's International Dennis

Thanks for all of the ideas especially the help list. As for Georgetown, its the new Del Webb deal where my wifes friends live. Looking forward to a long drive. I'm even going to get my California buddy to explore the area around Old Women Springs and up the Mountain from Mentone. Dennis

My wife insists that we are driving to Georgetown Texas right after Tax Season comes to and end. Then I figure that if we go that far, I want to show her West Texas and Big Bend NP. Then we are almost in New Mexico so I might just as well go on to California to see my Sister in Huntington Beach. Lots of opportunities to say hello to the Car people and also to see a car show or two. The first one will be in Austin "the LoneStar Roundup" on the weekend of the 18-19 of April. Perhaps even some of us Midwest people will get into the same car show if we make an effort. Dennis