WC-52... to buy it or not?


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Posted by Chris Davis on Monday, March 31, 2003 at 1:38PM :

I guess this is an appeal to the collective wisdom of the list.

Since selling my WC53 last year, I've been looking for a WC51 or 52 to replace it with. I'm looking for a fairly complete, but unrestored truck... something with a bad, or even no engine. Over the weekend I went and looked at a WC52. It was parked in the back of a garage, with many years of storage still stacked on it despite the owners efforts to clear off enough to get a look at it.

He said the winch worked, although the cable wasn't spooled, just wrapped around the bumper. He said it ran well, but had a rod knock. The proper, split front bumper was on it, but both sides were cracked and tweaked in difficult to straighten out ways. The fenders and cowl where in decent shape... some dents, but no serious rust. Inner and outer windshield frames were in good shape, no glass. All the instruments were broken, but the dash didn't have too many extra holes in it, and the data plates where intact. The running boards had been replaced with homemade diamond plate equivalent. Driver's seat was there, passenger's was out of a car. No spare tire tower.

So far, so good.

Problem was the bed. I had been told on the phone it was complete and rust free... which was true... but I guess I needed to be more specific. It was a well made fire truck bed. In profile it looked a lot like a WC59 Telephone maintenance bed, but wasn't quite as high, and was definitely purpose built as a fire truck, not a conversion of a K50. It had a large, square tank in the center, and hose bins on either side, all running the length of the bed. It had a wide step on the back that you could ride on. Very cool conversion all in all, but not what I was looking for.

I want the standard troop carrying bed. I couldn't get under the truck to get a good look at how the bed was attached, but it's all made of heavy gage metal and struck me as a heavy lift. Plus, where to find an original bed to put on it, and what to do with the old bed once removed?

He was firm on a $1500 price... which isn't bad... but was enough to make me decide to sleep on it. Now that I've slept on it, I find myself still undecided... thus the long winded post to list asking for advice.

What do you folks think? Buy and convert back, or pass and keep looking?

Thanks,

Chris Davis
Lake Elsinore, CA
'53 M37 (for sale)



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