62' GMC Work Horse.

[daxloves]

I am slowly fixing up my 62 GMC work truck. Was an old truck I bought from my neighbor, he was first owner. The truck was bought to be my firewood getting rig and that it did. I was cutting firewood for a living and selling over 200 cord a year so the truck had its work cut out for it :-)

One day my uncle was helping me cut wood. I dropped him off at a stand of dead trees to fall them while I ran the truck up to a turnaround on the narrow dirt road. Got back and 3 trees on the ground ready to go so we started getting the other saw out to start bucking them up and all the sudden I hear a snapping, look up and tree #4 is on its way down! Landed strait across the cab of the truck from passenger side to drivers. Caved it in down to the top of the doors. The windshield cracked but staid in one piece and the rear didn't get a scratch. Bed was damaged a bit by branches and one branch made a nice little sunroof for me.

Turns out my uncle cut tree #4 off but it snagged in another tree so he just left it and neglected to tell me about it >:-( Needless to day I was not very happy.

Took out the handyman jack and a block of wood and jacked the top back up enough to get home, after cutting up the tree parked on my truck. Took a while but managed to bang the cab out enough that it just looked like crap but with some new doors it was usable, drafty tho :-)

3 or 4 years later I had a kid renting one of my apartments and he needed some wheels to get to town so he could catch the bus to collage. I let him drive my truck, figured he couldn't hurt it! I was wrong. On his way to town he saw a snowplow coming and freaked. Got too close to the shoulder and got sucked in the ditch by the snow bank. The truck kinda went sideways and hit a mailbox directly in the center of the drivers door. Normally that wouldn't be too big of a deal, but in this case the mail box post was a rail road tie buried 5 feet in the ground. The drivers door was smushed into the seat about 3 inches.

After that I kinda retired the battered girl. Only took her out when there was work that no other truck could handle. It was still drivable, frame didn't get bent or anything.

About 2 years ago I decided I wanted my 62' back on the road and in full working condition. I happened to have a good body of a 69' sitting on a gutted out frame so I welded up new body mounts and swapped her out. It will always be a 62' to me tho it may look like a 69'. Unfortunately I didn't have a digital camera at the time so don't have any pics. Looking for some old polaroids to scan but so far no luck.

This is what she looks like now.









Some areas need a bit more work than others







Soon I'll be doing a 73-86 front end swap, patching up the holes and giving her a new coat of paint. This truck ain't for show but I still want it to look decent :-)

Got the brakes working yesterday, all the old rubber flex lines were swollen shut and the master cylinders were stuck.

More to come as I get the time to work on it. Will look for those before pics and scan them if I find em.