Grizz's Redneck Express 1966 Chevy Short Fleetside RESTO-GO!

[Grizz1963]

So a quick update for those still reading, interested and waiting for me to get my finger out and start building a truck again.......

Following on this question from David:

[quote author="@smokeem" source="/post/2238762/thread" timestamp="1472052907"]Those poor cats. Can't you keep them all together? They would never settle at a new home. Ours still haven't six months after moving. It's so stressful for them.[/quote]

I was so emotionally torn between keeping them all, and actually letting Nicola take some responsibility for the chaos she has created.
The cats have always been in two camps, Tabitha and Dukey vs Harkey the thug.

They have all lived in about 6 homes over the last 16 years and always managed to adapt. This time the split had been decided by Nicola who did not want to take Harley along, but also knew the relationship she has with me and the garage and shed. So I agreed to Harley staying with me.
See update below on status quo.

On Friday I had a busy work day, but when I finished, I rushed home, gathered the to cats that were headed for Nicola's new place as she could not leave her new place, as there was a plumber guy fitting her new dish washer and washing machine, so I "Volunteered" to take over four more boxes of odd bits I had gathered in the house and also the two cats, fitted into travel baskets.

Both were unimpressed when I popped them in the baskets and drove them over the 8 miles to their new home.
With Dukey the ginger boy screaming all the way, he does not like driving.

When I got there, I spent about 90 minutes in her house, settling them down, Tabitha took about 10 minutes to settle and start marking her territory. While the Ginger Whinger shot upstairs and laid under a bed protesting loudly. I laid on the floor in suit and tie next to the bed and chatted with him for about 45 minutes then went downstairs where he eventually joined us.

After I went home, Nicola sent this pic, of him doing a rug roll and having it off with the table leg, so all was good there.

She will keep them indoors for up to two weeks.



Saturday morning Harley was up at 05.00 as usual, he'd butting me to get up and feed her and let her out.

Later I had a mug of tea and she showed me just how upset she was that the other cats had gone.



Clearly not a happy cat now that all the house and surrounds belongs to her.



Saturday evening I had company, a great dinner and felt very much human again.

While I was watering the garden I was also rewarded with this pic.



I am off to CraigRK later, picking up a guest along the way, so it will be BBQ and old cars I suspect.



In other news, time is coming close to my 2016 American road trip, which of course starts and ends in St Louis, Missouri at Dennis' place.

Last week Dennis asked me if I would be game for another short blast and road trip for a coffee at the Centre of the Universe.......

You may ask where and what the Centre of the Universe is.

TAKE A LOOK HERE..........

How many one person threads do you know that has gone well past 4.6 million views and 10k replies.

http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/s...ad.php?t=51567

So I sent Thomas, the thread master and owner of the shop the following message and he replied thus:

Originally Posted by BB767

Hi there Rian, I think it would be fantastic if you and Dennis took the effort to come see us and take a shop tour, no problem at all! As the date approaches, if you can give us a better idea of date and time you think you might be here, that will help ensure both Chris and I are available.

For your planning purposes, the shop address is:

999 Long Winding Rd.
Philo, IL 61864

My cell phone is £-&£@-#€$-¥•*~
Chris's cell phone is ¥-€#}-£9?-&#+$

Very cool indeed, looking forward to meeting another friend in person!

Kindest regards, Thomas

Dennis replied to me once I sent him Thomas' response..





So it looks like this year is going to be another good one.

Thank you all for looking I and the support you offer every day.

I guess we are all in it together.

And from Ta2don there was this contribution,

A Charm of Hummingbirds - Arkansas. - YouTube

Bed time now.

[Grizz1963]

My one neighbour has a bunch of vintage Triumph motorcycles and some modern stuff for his daily commute.

Anyway, I recently had offered him two pairs of vintage style black leather riding trousers and an awesome black leather riding jacket that I wanted to go to a new home as I ride only in synthetics these days..
So Mike popped around and we chatted for a while, and of course Katy's name came up and that she has never been on a bike, I needed to buy a decent helmet etc. I have got a nice jacket already for her to wear.
Anyway, he excused himself and 5 minutes later he was back with two helmets, both like new, one a cheaper flip front and the other an expensive BMW flip front helmet. Seems he replaces his helmets every year, and uses a few different ones. So these were both like new, thenBMW one even smells new.

"Fair trade?" He asked me...... Of course I had never intended a trade, I just like paying it forward in my life and passing the kit to him came naturally.

Katy has tried on the BMW helmet and looked just like a silly grinning chipmunk in it. Perfect.

[Grizz1963]

Photo dump alert.

I had a long post written and then it auto deleted, as only an iPad can do, just as you are about to post up.

If you don't like it, I guess reading a book with more words is an option.

Friday I picked up these...... Tossed them in the back seat.

Any ideas what they were planned for?



Katy and I have now been chatting and known each other for 5 weeks. Nice.

So the plan was for her to come over late Saturday afternoon, around 5pm for dinner. So I had some yard work to do and jobs that I do every week, like cut the grass, so Friday after work, admin first as we work from home, and a mug of tea, followed by yard works......





Being an insomniac sucks big time most of the time, but Saturday morning I was up early as I needed to get some stuff done and was greeted by this view, that kept changing for the next 30+ minutes.





So by 07.30 I went down to the scrap yard as I needed to scavenge for some parts I wanted for a water feature I wanted to make for Katy for her garden as she commented that she loved the one I have here and would love to have one.

Funny the stuff we do when we have a willing audience.

So the first thing I found when I got there, having not been in there for a few months, was two young yard cats, they are super friendly and just lovely, the one would not leave me alone, so we ended up scavenging together........ A first for me.



Happy as a pig in poop, treasure hunt to start.



Sadly not..........

My enemy.



Sadly, everything that enters the yard, now gets torn up and shredded by this fragmenter.



Managed to scavenge some stuff for a fiver, the pedal kart is for CraigRK's daughter and cost a whole £2.00 so the rest of my stuff was £3.00



Then off home to start making stuff and prepping bits of scrap.


I feel a MoJo Boost coming on strongly

[Grizz1963]

So, back to the drawers, some plywood and jigsaw, aided by a nail gun.

Made quick work of this lot.





Followed by paint.

Got the purpose yet?



Yes, vertical planters to hang from your fence panels or posts with trailing flowers growing out the side.
The plan was to make some little labels for them as well, to be done later.

While I was at the yard earlier I had seen this cast iron spiral staircase that had been smashed, and picked this little piece up. This is what I love about the yard, alway something interesting.



Brought it home, along with my other scraps......

Cut smaller with the grinder and trimmed the broken pieces off it. Photo was a selfie...... Figure out how to do it ??



Tidied all the sharp edges up on the linnisher in the shed.

Really loved the worn patina look and decided not to pop it into the blasting cabinet.





Raced down to Chatham, parked in the multi storey car park and walked down to the Turkish shop Imlike to buy my fresh produce from, a hole lot nicer, cheaper and personal service than the supermarket chains.
Sadly you need to run the gauntlet of this lot to get to them.



Then back home to wait for Miss Katy to get here, she has a very full schedule, so I managed to squeeze 18 great hours out of her and it was great time.

She got here by 5pm and by 5.15 we were walking up to the farm as she needed to just unwind after the killer week that she had.

Pretty happy for a Not Romantically Involved pair of juvenile adults.

[Grizz1963]

So this morning after a late start, I was in the garage for the rest of the day till 7pm which is great.

I can feel the truck start to warm my blood again, which of course is a great thing for all of us.

In the mean time I will continue to do things that my heart and mind are happy to do.

In the attempt to gather some bits for a small water feature for Katy's garden, I ended up with this pile, and a very old gate post I had out behind the garage in my storage pile. The wood was earmarked for the Lathe and to turn some decent bits from. But this project seems more important.



Brought it around front, solid bit of timber.



Brought the pressure cleaner out and cleaned out all the components.
Then used some,International battle ship grey paint I still had left over from the 1963 Ford Taunus Transit I had before, to paint out all the vessels and to ensure th y lasted a bit longer.



Next up I cut some bits of fencing to size, followed by paint on all sides.



Another selfie......

Stencilling the little signs that will hang from the wall,mounted planters I made out of the drawers.



Followed by detail and some string to hang them from.



Mounted on the the Oak gate post after I pressure cleaned it.



Lastly, buoyed by the success of the first bit, I decided to make Katy another randomn sign for her garden. She has been a single parent the last 16 years and I am just amazed at what she has managed to do for her daughter.



Wate feature components to be worked on, another day.

Thank you,for checking in and those who post replies on here.

[flashed]

Great update ,you will be back to normal soon .

[Grizz1963]

Originally Posted by flashed

Great update ,you will be back to normal soon .

Thank you matey.

Looking forward to that.



So where to start?

Firstly, this is not a romance.....got it?

Anyway, a few weeks ago, maybe 6, I followed Nicola's advice and registered on a dating website (we met on one) as she had been on there for some time and met some weirdos and a couple of nice guys.
Anyway, I met two nice but no prospect, girls for coffee from there.
Then one night, bored I was looking through there and noticed one girl had looked at my profile and saved me to her "favourites"
I looked at her profile, and liked what I saw....... Someone normal.
Anyway, wrote a long email and then checked where she lived again, seems that there was one vowel difference......... The "I" and "O" but it made the difference between 15 miles and 50 miles.
Still, being tight, and thinking she was nice based on profile, I sent the message, she replied, I replied...... That was the 4th August.
So despite the distance we carried on chatting and she liked what she saw, we switched to Whatsapp, then voice call and eventually FaceTime.
So far so goo, she seemed just lovely, made me laugh out loudly, and made me look for stuff to amuse her with.
We decided to meet up for a picnic 10 days later, this turned out to be a 7 hr picnic. Just lovely. After 3 years of being lonely in a one sided relationship and marriage, it was just so nice and refreshing.
This weekend was a long weekend in England, so I saw her on Saturday afternoon/evening for dinner and then Sunday afternoon I picked her up at her home and we went over to Leatherhead to CraigRK for a BBQ and I had her home and dropped off safely by 9.30pm and left her place for my home by 10.00pm and home by 11.00pm and sleeping by 11.15pm

The great thing about this friendship with Katy is that she also works in healthcare, like me. Has had a hard life for a long time and has turned out two extremely nice, successful daughters who are almost off on their own on new jobs and uni. So a person I can respect.

So meet Katy, a normal and super nice human being.



We went for a walk to the Medway river and Rochester Marina, rewarded with a great sunset.



And just to prove it was not just some random photo of Google Images..... And not photoshopped.

Together.



Anyway, Sunday I took some bits n bobs to Craig and was rewarded with this upright compressor that managed to lose all its oil in my cars boot.

Need to find out more about it.





Today I responded to a Freebie ad for some innertia reel seat belts on VZI and went to fetch them.

When I got there it turned out Dave is an Australian....... And when you put them and South Africans together, the result can only be a quick 4 hr chat over a beer.

Anyway, I met him, his wife, two super nice cats and a pair of bunnies.

I suspect this is the start of another great friendship after one visit.

The seat belts are for the truck, to replace the seat belts that are fitted currently.

While I was there, Dave also gave me some solar powered cats eyes for the driveway at home, for when I reverse down there.



Lastly, the reason I went there........

Seat belts for the truck.



And so came to an end my weekend.

It was certainly great, filled with friends, and new friends.

[Palf70Step]

Looks like good times Rian. Glad things are working out.

[flashed]

And your new lady friend is quite attractive too .

[Johnny_Lamebridge]

Nice to see things are looking up for you.

[clemdaddy]

looks like you had a great weekend... hope it's the beginning of many more.

[Grizz1963]

Thank you for all the replies guys.


Maybe my most random load of pics to date.

My brother with one of the vehicles he trains junior recruits on. I rarely hear from him, and this pic was a massive surprise.



Last week was a rough week and I spent all of Friday at the Royal College of Gnaecologists and Obstericians..... What a day.

But tripping over this at 04.45 in the dark, as I rarely turn on the lights in the dark, because I know my home intimately..... Meant there was a killer on the loose.



Saturday was a long one, I Was out weeding the driveway by 06.00 and cut grass by 09.00 plus a load of other jobs including the ironing of my weeks clothing and of course my fresh bedding for a guest, yup, gotta be crazy. But I know what Miss Katy likes.



In the mean time, mate Kevin and his wife are on a two week Spanish holiday, and he is clearly not having fun yet.



Craig brought me an overall, but I guess it was washed in hot water.



A great afternoon and evening with Katy, Craig and Lorraine with their kids.

Food was pretty spectacular too.

Harley was playing DJ for the day. Interestingly, she seemed totally at home with the group,of people here.



Sunday we had a lazy morning, then drove down to Whitstable for a walk about, followed by lunch and desert on Katy's tab.
We both had Scampi and Chips on the harbour with Dr Pepper for me and Miss Katy had A&W Root beer.

The. We went for a further walk and she bought desert as well.
Real dairy Honeycomb ice cream in cups.



We were home by 15.00 and Katy led just after 16.00

After I had impressed her a bit more.



Today, being Labor Day in the US, Denns is messing with his truck.
The front fenders are already painted.
This '66 Chevy C10 NASCAR replica I'd going to be a radical ride.



Lastly, I am at a three day business meeting and the Gala evening this year is titled "What I wanted to be when I grew up"

So I guess this is about as close as it comes, and he answer is not "Member of the Village People"



Answers on a postcard.

[Palf70Step]

Sounds like you had a good time. Keep er kick'n Rian.

[clemdaddy]

Good to see you having fun Rian. Your sense of humor will get you through, no doubt about that.

Have a great workweek

[Grizz1963]

Originally Posted by clemdaddy

Good to see you having fun Rian. Your sense of humor will get you through, no doubt about that.

Have a great workweek

Thank you,Clem, your observations are always sharp.


Well, it seems life gets better all the time over here on Mud Island.

Tonight I met my new colleague, Kenneth...... Guess what? He is a fellow South African.

Pretty good that is.



Then of course the other thing is being at a sales conference, tonight was a fancy dress gala dinner.

I came as a welder on and oil rig.......

Also managed to win a prize for sales achievement



It's always nice when ones efforts get rewarded.

Thankfully Katy said she would drink it if I forced her to do so......



Headed home tomorrow afternoon, then Friday, followed by the weekend.

[Grizz1963]

Originally Posted by Palf70Step

Sounds like you had a good time. Keep er kick'n Rian.

Thank you for posting up Bill.

Yes, she will be around as long as things carry on like this.

[flashed]

Congrats on winning the prize and I love the hardhat ,it suits you.

[Grizz1963]

Originally Posted by flashed

Congrats on winning the prize and I love the hardhat ,it suits you.

Thank you mate.

Amazing how much fun you can have for 50p or 75 cents.

[realvc]

Winner, winner and a little bubbly with dinner!

Way to go and congrats. on the sales award.

[Grizz1963]

Originally Posted by realvc

Winner, winner and a little bubbly with dinner!

Way to go and congrats. on the sales award.

Thanks Vince.

It felt good being called up on stage.

[Palf70Step]

Very nice work Rian!

[flashed]

Rian , You are quite talented ,love watching your projects .Cant wait to see the water feature .

[White knuckle Garage]

Rian been a while since we have talked but glad to see you doing good and hope to see you next month

[Grizz1963]

Originally Posted by Palf70Step

Very nice work Rian!

Thanks Bill, I must say, often my stuff impresses others and I feel noting, in this case I am really pleased with the outcomes.

Originally Posted by flashed

Rian , You are quite talented ,love watching your projects .Cant wait to see the water feature .

John, as mentioned before, I tend to just make it up as I go,along.

Thankfully these came out OK.

The water feature has to wait a bit as there will be a raised garden bed as well now.

Originally Posted by White knuckle Garage

Rian been a while since we have talked but glad to see you doing good and hope to see you next month

Brandon, great to see you here buddy.

You most certainly will see the drunk version of me.......

[Grizz1963]

Following on from all the other things I recently posted up and got done......

I like trucks.

I love Minions.

Need it made more clear?



Had a ****e day work wise, despite doing a rocking lecture to 24 very clever people.

So when I came home I needed to break my rhythm and went to the garage.

Made these, one for Katy's 18 year old who is headed for University.
The other for her gardens side gate.



Pleased with the result.

Head cleared too.