Well, it was time to take the truck to the fab shop again.. this time to get the drive line loops, u-joint shields and brake shields made.



Here are a few pictures of the finished truck..

 

awesome build and photos

 

Look at the ash tray and you can see where he got all the money... he's slinging herb, just kidding he had just got the truck from a VW dealership what do you expect.

 

lulz good catch

 

LOL... the ashtray...I took a close up picture of the artwork before I sanded it off and painted over it.
You should have seen the etchings on the windows!! XXX Rated stuff!! I had to throw the glass away.

 

naughty naughty

 

wow, thats a fantastic build thread and an awesome truck. im green with envy that you have your own monster truck, but i gotta say you did some excellent documentation over the years.

 

That's a nice compliment, thanks!

But there is more coming!!

 

Well, the day finally came when I would do my first show...

While my truck was in the fab shop, I met a promoter, Mike West, who said he
would be interested in having my truck in some shows.

I didn't have a haul rig or trailer, so he came and got me..

The show was in Longview, Washington, along I-5 between Seattle and Portland.

 

Well, the next thing I did was a custom truck show...held at the Western
Washington Fairgrounds in Puyallup, Washington. I still didn't have a haul
rig or trailer, so I had my truck towed there, and hauled the tires in a
U-Haul truck.
I received the People's Choice Award for best Monster Truck!!
The only other monsters there were Jeff Bainter's Jeeps, Hot Stuff and
High Voltage. It was the first time Jeff had seen my truck since he drove
it for Vista Volkswagen.

 

Well, now that I had my first show out of the way, and my first display show, I thought
it would be fun to test out the truck and see how it would do crushing cars.
There was a field next to the storage complex where I kept my truck.



Atomic Auto Wrecking of Kent, WA supplied me with two cars. Remember them?
They are mentioned in the newspaper article posted earlier.
They brought out two nice cars and set them up.

Then it was crushin' time!!







This picture became the 8x10 photo I sell at shows. I also had a large picture
of this framed under glass and given to the owner of the wrecking yard...







OH NOES!! SOMETHING BROKE!!!



The axles had enough pounding, and the kingpins on the "champagne" broke off. The bottom pin pulled out of the housing, and the top pin snapped off!!
The center pin on the spring sheared off, and there was body damage too!!



I called Pete's Towing to come down and help fix the problem. I had a display to do the following weekend and I needed my truck back together fast!!!

First, the broken champagne was cut off...



...and a new champagne was prepared and welded on...







The next thing we did was figure out a way to prevent the axle housing from
breaking again.. there wasn't much room inside the champagne housing, but
there was plenty of room between the outside of the housing and the steering knuckle.
So, we welded round rod onto the outside of the champagne housing and ground it smooth. We strengthened the areas shown in red below..



The next thing to do was get the body damage repaired. I had recently been contacted by MAACO Auto Body of Puyallup, WA to be a sponsor...
well, I needed their services now!!



MAACO provided a new fender and fixed the door, and the truck was put back together and, after a quick tow to the spring shop, all was well again!!

MEANWHILE all this was happening, I was looking for a way to haul my truck to the next event...

 

At the same time all that was going on with my truck, repairing it and all, I was
looking for a haul rig and trailer. I bought the trailer Mike West used to haul my
truck to my first show. It needed some work. Part of my deal with Mike was
to put a new deck on the trailer, which he did. Then we put all new lights,
D-rings, and ratchets on it.



All it needed was some paint...which I did to it later. But now, I had to find
a truck to tow it! I looked at a few Chevy's and Dodges before I found this
ad in the truck trader magazine...



It was just right! But it needed a canopy and a paint job. MAACO provided
the paint, and I put graphics on it, and now I had my own way to get the
Monster Truck around! Perfect!

 

Well, it was time for my display at a truck show!!

It was the Olympic Off Road Truck Show....held at Olympic Off Road,
Saturday, August 10th, 1991.

I hauled my truck there with my new dually and trailer!!



There was another nice truck there, the "Grizzly"...



I had to take a couple of pictures of my truck with this truck....

 

Is that wood grain down the side of the griz? I never liked it on grannys station waggon but it kinda looks good on there.

 

Where's the woodgrain? I don't see any.

Josh