Well, a few of you have experienced the misery of a burned out truck due to
a fire and I can now completely sympathize. A friend of mine had her 55 1st
series in a storage building along with a few fully restored corvettes,
corvairs and vintage 20's and 30's vehicles and it caught fire and destroyed
everything. That is sooooo sad. My friend said if I wanted it I could have
it, all I had to do was go get it. I looked it over and was just awed by
what fire does to sheet metal. You could put your fist thru any part of the
truck with no effort at all. The bed sheet metal was pretty good but the
rest of it was really bad. To make a long story short, I am now salvaging
the bed, axle and rear part of the frame for an AD style pickup bed trailer.
It even has the indention on the fender and the spare tire carrier so once
its totally restored, it will be a really nice trailer. Will look great
behind my 50.
The 235 engine seemed in pretty good shape too considering. The carburetor
melted all over the manifold and anything rubber is gone, but the engine
looks rebuildable. Has anyone had any experience or guesses as to what that
hot of a fire would do to an engine? There are no visible cracks and it
looks fine. Not a drop of oil in it. I already know I will have to tear it
completely down and rebuild it. I have already been warned that I will NOT
have a junkyard! So, everything goes to the recycler as I get it apart and
deem it unrestorable. I feel for you guys who have lost trucks in a fire.
There isnt a worse nightmare.
Deve Krehbiel
Hesston, Kansas
1950 3100 * 1949 3600 * 1948 4400
www.speedprint.com/Deves50/index.html
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