My 'ol Junker Clunker Trucks


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Posted by Chris Lube Lublin on Wednesday, January 22, 2003 at 3:31AM :

In Reply to: Old truck ramblings posted by Todd Wilson on Tuesday, January 21, 2003 at 11:53PM :

Oh man..do I have alot of stories to tell about alot of my 'ol Junker Clunker trucks... Most of my truck have been or are beaters. Here in Michigan we have rust that works aganst us as well. mOST OF our old trucks are so rusty it aint funny. It is very common to find a 20+ year old truck just rusted to pieces, but that still runs like a dream! I live in Yuppie-Ville Michigan about an hour north of Detroit and the Urban sprowl is sure creeping up here fast! All them Yuppies sure do cringe when they see a shaggy ol' Redneck like me grinnin' from ear to ear while I am driving an old beater truck. I have a newer nice truck, a '92 Ford F-250 4X4, and it will haul a good load and tows very well, but it is only 1/2 the truck a 1972 is. I feel more at home in an old beater than I do a newer nicer truck! You have to admit, those old trucks are very tuff... True Dodge has always made the best, but ALL the old ones were tuff. I had a '68 Chevy K-20 a few years ago that was rusted and beat to death when I got it, but I hauled scrap metal, farm stuff and wood with it for months and it held up very very well and is still going strong today (It has been restored). I had a '74 IH 3/4 ton 4X4 that got 7 MPG empty or loaded, and was a real slug driving, but when stacked with 100+ bales of hay, it rode like a Caddilac and still pulled up a hill like it was empty. Now that was a Truck! I regret ever selling it... When I was working for the block mason about 4 years ago, his company truck was a '97 Chevy K-1500 6600 GVW. My driver at the time was a '84 Ford F-150 with the Same GVW. We went to the brick yard one morning to pickup supplies. He put whole cube of block on, and a 1/2 cube of brick on his Chevy and it was squatting! Badly! It also had some Mason sand and 2 bags of Mortar in it. I had the same load in my Ford Except I did not have Mason sand, I had 6 12X12 Fluetile for Chimneys on mine. MY trucks springs squatted about 4 inches. I had 6 ply mud tires on back. We got to the Job site and he said he noticed his truck didnt handle right. We looked under it and noticed the frame was bent! My truck had about 200 more LBS on it, as once we unloaded it, it looked as tho it never had a load in it at all! My driver for most of my high school senior year was a '78 Dodge D-100 that I had stake racks about 2 feet above the cab high! It was a very rusty old beater that somebody gave me to get it out of their yard! The 318 ran like a charm, and after replacing a rear main leaf, Off I went! I would pile the bed and racks just full of scrap metal and firewood and it squatted a bit, but with 8 ply snows on the back it handles the loads very well. I worked it untill The trans decided to blow out one day. I have found the Sweptline era Dodge trucks to be the tuffest trucks built by far. I love old trucks. I will always have an old one or two on hand. I dont restore them, I just buy em, keep em running and work them. I would like to restore a few (or few dozen) some day, but it is not practicle yet. When I am driving an older truck, I am grinning from ear to ear! The older and more beat up, the better! I really like the old 3 on the tree, straight six trucks.



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