47-59 How did you find your truck? Or did it find you?

[mick53]

I bought my truck in 1980. I lived in southern California at the time and had just gotten out of the Navy. I worked construction before enlisting and needed a work truck. There was a used car dealership about 2 miles from my house. When I was truck shopping at the dealership way in the back corner behind the building was my 53 3100. They said they didn't want to sell it because it was in too bad of shape mechanically. After some talking and lying about not driving it in it's current condition I bought it for $500. It was 2 miles home and broke down 3 times on the way with very little brakes. I spent a couple of days on it and it was road worthy kinda. I drove that truck a couple of hours a day on average for the next nine years. I road tripped it from LA to Indiana and back 5 times. It used almost as much oil as gas. It has never had a working gas gauge or speedometer. I figured out if I put my tape measure down the filler neck I got about 10 miles to the inch on my tape measure dip stick. I used a tach for speed. I moved to Indiana in 1989 and parked it. In 2017 I decided to see if it would run with the intention of driving it again. At that point I fell had off the slippery slope and now and doing a frame off to the extreme. I have so many memory's in that truck I could never sell it. I have now been working on the drive train and axles for 3 years and hope to start on the chassis soon. I was going to retire 3 years ago but am still working (sometimes) to finance my build.