Martin's mi-STRESS, 1965 Long Fleetside C10 "Rebuild in ENGLAND"

[Palf70Step]

It snows in England?

Sounds like a good day!

[Grizz1963]

Originally Posted by Palf70Step

It snows in England?

Sounds like a good day!

Problem is, the country grinds to a halt after 25mm snow.

[CRGRS 66]

Originally Posted by Grizz1963

Problem is, the country grinds to a halt after 25mm snow.

Funny how you reference millimeters, here in southern Ontario we count the snow in centimeters, if you travel an hour north of here, you start counting feet of snow. Even a little south of here in Buffalo New York, they get lake effect snow, they get feet of snow at times. Difficult to imagine, but you want to talk about grinding to a halt, in Buffalo this past December they had 5-6 feet of snow, there were people stranded on highways for 3+ days.

I shovelled my back deck tonight in order to grill dinner in -8C (17F), how Canadian is that!!!

Keep up the great work Rian!

[Palf70Step]

Sounds like down here in the southeast, especially here on the Mississippi coast. Probably good though, they would kill themselves on the road.

[Ta2Don]

Nice Score!
As to Craigerr's comment… I don't know about Canadian, because I've shoveled snow on the back deck to fire up the grill as well...

Cheers!

[CURSED GEARS]

I am enjoying your thread. Always amazes me the cost to build one of our trucks over seas. P.S, what the heck is a "bacon buttie"?

[Grizz1963]

Originally Posted by CURSED GEARS

I am enjoying your thread. Always amazes me the cost to build one of our trucks over seas. P.S, what the heck is a "bacon buttie"?

Lots of well fried bacon on a thickly buttered white bread roll (can use sliced white bread) with either red sauce (Ketchup) or Brown sauce (HP Sauce)

Keeping an eye out half the butter and sauce does not end up on your chest or new trainers.

Real English Soul Food. ;-))

[CURSED GEARS]

Kind of figured it was some kind of sandwich. Can't go wrong with bacon!

[mjh1965]

I was hoping to do a bit on the truck tonight ,but ended up with a late Finnish . I had to drive into London , so this morning I took the ferry as the Blackwell tunnel was congested
I thought I would share the pictures I took from my van today






This picture shows the Thames Barrier in the background



This was taken in the traffic (at the lights) waiting to enter the Blackwall Tunnel on my way home

[mjh1965]

Well when I got home from work this evening ,there was a parcel waiting for me . The parts I had ordered from Top Banana had arrived . But it wasn't as simple as that ,Top Banana for some reason don't deliver to the UK . So the parts have to be sent to Don (Ta2Don) in Searcy AR he then very kindly re addresses the parcel then he goes to his local post office and sends them to the UK for me . Once again trying to restore these trucks without the help of some very kind Americans would be a lot harder . So Thank you Don



So if we don't get to much snow this weekend I hope to get some more welding done at the weekend . Stay tuned for the update

[Ta2Don]

You are Very Welcome mate!!!
I relied heavily on Family and Friends when I was living on Terceira, Island which is located 900 miles off the coast of Portugal. I was there in the military and although we had all the amenities of any AF Base, there were also shortages on certain items. So packages from stateside made life on the island a bit easier.

Now, get to making sparks!!!

[Grizz1963]

MINI ROAD TRIP !!

Well, it was a trip, and it was by road.

Got contacted by our import agent this week to say our bits had landed and been unpacked. Duties and shipping to be paid on collection.

So Martin and I set off early, also to meet up with Paul Y en-route before collecting our parts from Ron.

Perfect weather.



Spent about 90 minutes with Paul talking truck, especially his plans for Woody.



As always we spent quite a long time chatting cars, imports and the state of the nation before collecting our bits and setting off.





Managed to negotiate Ron out of a cool plate for my collection, from his wall.



On the way back one of the landmarks I always miss out on photographing was this pub.




One of the items we collected was our 67-72 rear bumpers.

NOW QUESTION TIME.... ???

This is relevant to Martin and I as we both bought the same bumpers.

I never realized that there were more holes in them than the two bumper bolt holes.

On top of that, I feel a bit pisssed off as there "extra" holes let down the chrome and the show...... It looks like the extra hole was laser cut, and the chrome around this hole is rubbish, or non existent.

Any advice on my perception here happily accepted.



This is the extra hole, and also there are two notches in the bottom edge on each side of the number plate recess.




Up close.





After Martin left to go see to the dogs and Amanda, possibly in that order, I went to the garage to carry on figuring out the tow bar.

[clemdaddy]

i envy you guys for your friendship and how you share your truck lives. over here it seems to be work work work work, eat, sleep, work work work...

taking time out to share is priceless, as they say.

on that weird hole on your bumpers... my guess is that is where the platers attached to dip. since theres no chrome around the hole, they must have bolted through that hole to the arm that lowers bumpers into the vats. just guessing...

looking forward to you coming stateside Martin, we'll have a blast.

[Johnny_Lamebridge]

Originally Posted by Grizz1963

I feel a bit pisssed off as there "extra" holes let down the chrome and the show...... It looks like the extra hole was laser cut, and the chrome around this hole is rubbish, or non existent.

Any advice on my perception here happily accepted.

Hello Martin & Rian,
I've been following along on your C10 adventures. I too have purchased a 67-72 rear bumper for my 63. After reading about the quality issues you mention above, I checked the bumper that I purchased last week. Surprise, surprise... I have the same issue. My bumper was an "OER" brand, that I picked up at Summit Racing on my drive home from my vacation in Florida. Returning the bumper isn't really an option for me due to shipping cost from Canada, or I could drive it back, 5 hours each way.

I like Ta2Don's idea of adding a bumper bolt to fill each hole. An easy fix.

[mjh1965]

Originally Posted by Johnny_Lamebridge

Hello Martin & Rian,
I've been following along on your C10 adventures. I too have purchased a 67-72 rear bumper for my 63. After reading about the quality issues you mention above, I checked the bumper that I purchased last week. Surprise, surprise... I have the same issue. My bumper was an "OER" brand, that I picked up at Summit Racing on my drive home from my vacation in Florida. Returning the bumper isn't really an option for me due to shipping cost from Canada, or I could drive it back, 5 hours each way.

I like Ta2Don's idea of adding a bumper bolt to fill each hole. An easy fix.

Johnny we are in the same vote with the cost of shipping it back to brothers . The worst thing is I contacted them a week ago,with pictures and asked there take on it, and still have no answer . The most disappointing thing is if you have followed my thread you would have seen how much we have spent with them .

VERY POOR CUSTOMER SERVICE COMES TO MIND

[Grizz1963]

Originally Posted by mjh1965

Johnny we are in the same vote with the cost of shipping it back to brothers . The worst thing is I contacted them a week ago,with pictures and asked there take on it, and still have no answer . The most disappointing thing is if you have followed my thread you would have seen how much we have spent with them .

VERY POOR CUSTOMER SERVICE COMES TO MIND

Thanks for the above reply Johnny, I think companies like this rely on many customers just putting up with bad service.

The best way to deal with them would be solidarity in voting with your feet and wallet, but usually we do not do that.

Still, after the rain there is sunshine.......

Quality is ****e, and we will be painting the rears of the bumpers with Hammerite as well, as most seem to rust from behind first, so prevention etc....

However, this quality issue has allowed us to investigate and seek other solutions to the holes.

One of them Martin found ( I think he is part Bloodhound ) is very small LED Spotlights that fit the holes with a neat ally nut/neck and even if you need to enlarge the holes by a few mm's it would be fine as it already is "damaged" there.

Both of us have to reverse down the side of our homes to park up in our garages, as the properties here are often narrow, and in my case, it would take a 27 point turn to get the truck turned around at the garage, so having reversing lights makes a load of sense.

In the UK we need to have separate turn signals, so my reverse lights have become turn signals, leaving the truck without adequate reversing lights for when I come home late from car shows etc.
The bumper holes are too low to put turn signals into as well for safety as they would be out of sight.

So the search goes on to find a perfect replacement or filler for the holes.

[Ta2Don]

My vote… Clean up the extra hole area and touch up with some silver rattle can paint, then fill hole with Bumper bolt...

[Grizz1963]

Have you had a reply from Brothers about the quality issue on the bumpers yet Martin?

[mjh1965]

No mate there customer service is very poor. I guess I will have to make a long distance call

[mjh1965]

Rian came over to do some naughty things with me today, involving a camera and some hard equipment.

He made a film.............

Take a look at the video below

Playstation Hand Controls. - YouTube

I am really pleased with the outcome of this job. It took a lot longer than ever expected, but it now works so bloody perfectly, it really is the dogs bollox.

[Ta2Don]

[Paul Y]

Well done Martin, your truck is going to be fantastic if that what you an come up with for a Playstation.

P.

[Grizz1963]

Originally Posted by Ta2Don

Originally Posted by Paul Y

Well done Martin, your truck is going to be fantastic if that what you an come up with for a Playstation.

P.

I agree on the hats off.

Thing is, Martin and I both ride bikes (often like hooligans) and could as easily be in the same situation after one off.......

Russell was 6'4" standing and used to work as a bouncer/doorman after hours to make up for the basic shortfall in fire service salaries, so a big guy, still muscular, but because his injury was quite high, he does not have all the upper body strength needed to do stuff like use power tools etc.

So the least we can do is help him out as he could have dragged our arses out of a fire, or from under a car wreck in the past.

This is a guy who served us in the past.

[Ta2Don]

Any word from Brothers?

[Ta2Don]

Awesome Day!!! Thanks for the preview and shots from Paris...

Armadillos??? Aradillos here are normally belly up...