My White Whale

[soule64]

Ok, it’s not really going to be white, but if you know the story about Moby Dick, then you’ll understand the name I chose. This project has turned into a ridiculous obsession. I’ve spent nearly every moment of free time working on this darn thing. I have been lurking for a while now, asking a few questions now and then, but mostly learning from the information being posted here. My dad always said that if I had nothing constructive to say, then keep my mouth shut and listen. Good advice. I’ve had this project truck, a ’68 SWB Fleet side, for about a year now. Here is a little history – I retired from the Army a few years ago, and since the kids were off to college and the “empty nester” syndrome hit, I figured I needed something to occupy my free time. This model of truck caught my eye back in the early 90’s when I was stationed in Virginia – my neighbor had a ’71 and I drove by it every day and I couldn’t stop staring at it – I really admired it and vowed to get one someday. It wasn’t practical to buy something then due to the military moving me around so much, not to mention money was a little tight. So when I finally settled down, I started looking for one. I found the ’68 in Tennessee and bought it without doing my homework. In fact, I found this site after bringing it home. I had been told that it had been recently restored so I figured ‘well, I’ll just paint it – drop in a new crate motor and have a daily driver’. Well, it turns out that it was in much worse shape than I had been lead to believe. This was totally my fault though for not doing my homework. So, a year later, it’s still in pieces with another year or so left to go. Forewarned – I have never tackled anything like this before – I am a helicopter mechanic by trade with just enough automotive experience to be dangerous. My intent was, and still is, to bring it back to pretty much stock, repair all rust, maybe add a few customized details and have something that I can tool around in without being embarrassed. It’s definitely not going to be a show truck, but (hopefully) something that will last another 40 years. So far, I have done the work myself (my son helped often while home for the summer) and, aside from scouring this board for info, I will try to keep it that way. The only component I am sending out is the seat for some leather as the time for the interior gets closer. Another note, I took pictures of everything with a digital camera that had a broken view screen (overhead bin incident) and waited too long to download. 75 of the 100 or so pictures were nothing but black – so much for leaving the camera out in the garage. Well, enough of the talk, time to get caught up!