When I was a kid, one of the things I most fondly remember me doing with my dad was restoring (sort of) a 1973 MG Midget Mk III. The thing was a rust bucket. It had a goat living in it when we got it, the fenders had holes you could sail a battleship through, the paint was beat up, the interior (and top) had been eaten by the goat, and the engine barely ran. We fiberglassed the fenders, Put on a paint job, redid the interior and top, rebuilt the engine, and in the end, had a spory little car that would break 100mph pretty easily, but required pretty regular work. Before we let it go, I had changed out the rear end, repaired most of the suspension parts, replaced the carbs with a Weber, and so on.
Later, I got a 1965 Pontiac Catalina, nicknamed "spot". I rebuilt the engine, the suspension, replaced body parts, did electric work, Had it painted, did substantial changes to the interior, and so on. I loved that old car - Ikinda wish I still had it.
Over the years, I have helped a few other people rebuild engines in various vehicles.
See where this is leading? Yeah, I kinda like mucking around in the guts of older autos. Before we got married, I told my wife that I wanted to do a full frame-off restoration of some vehicle, someday. Well, I always figured it'd be an older Mustang or Camaro. Then, one day, I saw a 1930(?) Ford Model A Pickup (hard top), and I fell in love. They are beautiful, just absolutley elegant in their simplicity.
So, you can see where this is leading, right? I wanted to get a fairly simple vehicle to restore with the kids. Mostly, it's self-serving, as I want to have some fond memories of me, being the mean old man that I am. That, and I'd like them to learn how cars work, if for no other reason than to keep them from getting rooked at a dealership repair shop.
So, of course, all this led to the "gimme's," and my loving missus broke down and let me look for one. I found this guy up in New York state, and had it shipped down. We petitioned our HOA to let us build a two car garage on the front of our place, but they nixed it. So, I paved my shed floor, and now I have a workshop. The Truck barely fits in our little cookie-cutter garage
The kids and I are slowly working to tear the guy down and rebuild it. I do not intend this to be a "faithful" restoration, so please don't give me crap about that. This thing has had a restore started on it (just barely), and it's not the original paint job (best I can tell), so it's not all bad. It was also garage-kept most of it's life, so the body looks to be pretty sound. I'm thinking that I'll weld up a fram with some belted seats to drop in the bed, so I can take my kids out for a drive to go fishing, or something. I've already taken them around the block in it once, and it made them just about ecstatic.
That's enough for the intro... Keep checking back to see how things are progressing!
