Hi, new join here. I bought and drove a 56 ford back in 2000. I drove her cross country and back in 2002 and had a ball. My back not so much, original suspension and brakes and a 450hp 460 meant lots of fun accelerating but braking not so much that's when I decided to do a frame up restoration on her. I purchased a TCI rolling chassis and took the truck to Bob at Bobcos for some attention. I was an active duty Marine and with the deployments and transfers I had to pull her from Bob and she sat in storage for the next 11 years in CA.
I retired and live in Florida now and I'm ready to get back to work on her. So I drove to CA on Friday the 9th picked up the truck, made a pit stop at Bobco and spent a few hours with Bob chewing the fat and deciding how to proceed. Got back to Tampa on the 14th and now my chore is all about getting things cleaned up and ready to take back to Bob. In 2017 for completion.
I will start a build thread but for now I just wanted to say hello. Since I only plan on visiting this part of the site I thought my hello should be here. Here a picture of my truck I look forward to becoming a contributing member.

 

Mine on left








On the Tank ramp 29 Palms Ca

 

Welcome to FTE Iron man, nice truck. Looking forward to seeing the progress on the build. Thanks for your service.

 

Thanks F16 guy it was my honor thanks for your service as well. Working my way thru all the great info here.

 

Ironman, the amount of info on this forum is unbelievable!! If you need any help just ask.

 

Welcome Ironman! Glad to have you and to know you came through your service whole.

 

Welcome to the forum, and thanks for your service!

Did you drive it all the way back to FL? That must have been quite a trip!

 

Thanks for the warm welcome guys. I retired after a little over 30 years as a Marine and obviously I enjoyed myself. I had the honor of working alongside some incredible Americans.

I drove from 29 Palms Ca to Aberdeen Maryland back in 2002, in 2003 I tore her down then the war kicked off and everything was put on hold. When I retired in 2012 the truck was safely still in a friends barn in pieces. I will start a build thread in a few minutes it's been an interesting journey that's for sure and some of the friends I've already met I still talk to almost daily.

 

Welcome, welcome, welcome indeed, and thank you for your service. This is a great site so just settle in, share some pics of what your doing on your truck, and by the time you get to the point of taking it back to Bob you may just decide to do it yourself. You can if you want, the help is here, even if you don't know how to do something the folks here will help where you need it. But that's totally up to you of course. From the pic's it looks like you have a pretty solid looking truck as she sits. Anyway it's nice to have you as part of the FTE family.

 

Thanks underthebridgejim, honestly nothing about this is what I consider over my head. My last frame up resto was on my 68 F100 I did everything and it came out well but after spending sometime with Bob I want one of his trucks. I told my wife I will not get the new CTSV if we can get this puppy done lol. Reading thru some of the threads its looks like I'm at the right place, I'm going to dig it here

 

Thank you for serving our country, Ironman! I'm glad you're going to share your progress with us. Best of luck!

 

welcome aboard Iron man, I like the M1 Tank Crossing sign in your garage,
i have a generic one Stencelled on the same type backing. i started off in
the M48A5 tanks and then went into the M60A3's

 

it would of been a cool pic if you could of hooked your 56 to the M88 in the track park.

 

Thanks for the welcome As a Marine we had the M60A1 and never upgraded. Funny how things repeat themselves now we have the M1A1 and the Army has the M1A2 something we will not be receiving. Army gets all the cool tanks
I am a Tank Mech at the time of this picture I was the Company Maintenance Chief I was pushing it by bringing my truck on the ramp. Hooking up would have been pretty cool

 

Iron man I remember when i was stationed at Ft. Knox the Marines were there training on the M60A1 tanks while i went to learn the A3 model, the difference between the two is like night and day mainly to do with the gunnery systems, the A1 pretty much had the same gunnery system as the old M48A5's