Last night I got the rear brakes done. They have been sitting there for nearly 2 years literally on my step out the garage so I swung them in. Took way longer due to visitors at the house.

At lunch today I went to find the iron only to learn it had been thrown out. I wasn’t going to buy an iron just for the kick panels so I just glued the fabric on. Perfect? Nope…. But good enough. They are likely temporary anyway. The left one isn’t even the right shape. I really screwed that up but it will bug me more than anyone. I need to put the Velcro in place but they help the look.

Now I’m starting to see the minor rust on the door bottoms…. It’s like a snowball.


The shadow line here is from not ironing it so there’s some lines in the fabric.

Installed

Closer up. Looks better than I thought next to the door panels. At a glance they look close enough.

Left one

installed. You can see some white behind it. I have some black duct tape I’ll put on behind.

Closeup.

 

Hit the upullit yard this morning for the heck of it. Snagged a couple van 3/4 ton hub caps for the trailer. Not what I wanted but for 5 bucks each it looks better then the hubs showing. Then in a 94 f150 I found a pretty good set of weather stripping. I had read you can use it in these trucks for $11 I grabbed them.

Grabbed another red center for the rims and then finally my holy grail cup holder for the mid 90’s single cabs. I’ve never found the big cup holder in a yard. It’s getting washed and put straight on eBay. They sell for around $100. It will pay for my trip to the yard today.

 

My Grandpa ran the Wyoming version of these on his 71 for years. I think they still may be on there. I always liked them.

 

Spent yesterday afternoon washing and waxing the truck. Wiped out the inside and washed all the windows good for the first time since owning it and cleaning the bumper and rims. It’s probably the best the truck ever looked.

Car show was today. I didn’t mess with cleaning under the hood so hood stayed closed. 1971f1004wd (Jim) came out with his Mustang.

It sprinkled and spit on and off all morning. It was kind of fun to watch all the guys wiping the cars off every time it rained. I don’t have a garage for the truck so I just left it be. My 8 year old told me I had to have the hood open but once I did she told me it was too dirty and to close the hood! I gave her my voting card basically too so she chose all the cars for my vote. Of course Jim got the vote for his class and I got the vote for truck. She picked a Road runner for one because it had a roadrunner, another class because it had flames, a scout because it was pink and a 4 door galaxie because it was the same color as our 96.

I was happy to see when we pulled up a 67-72 c10 that was in similar condition to the f100, we weren’t the only truck there de-classing the event.

All in all a good day. I’ve never had a car in a car show and I rarely attend car shows in general so it was a good time and I could walk home if needed. We did win a plaque but I have no idea what for. Maybe participation? We weren’t the first truck called so we weren’t last, not that it mattered. I wasn’t there to win anything, just make my donation to the museum.


Pic from when I pulled up

There was a nice Gentlemen Jim Next to me.

Competition.


I put together just a small blurb of photos with dates and major work done with the Marti. I would stop and read every Marti report I saw. I’m kind of a geek about that stuff.

 

Congrats man, you have really brought that truck back to daily use!

 

I had no intentions of working on the truck this weekend but I had some time today so I installed the junkyard weather stripping out of a 94. Passenger door first. I screwed up and cut it too short without thinking. I was able to patch it all in. But for the $11 I paid it’s good proof of concept. On that door I started in the front of the door.

On the driver door I started at the rear of the door. I’m much happier with how that turned out. Again I cut it too short but only about a 1/4. It’s ridiculously quieter in the cab now.

The whole process took maybe an hour. It took longer because some friends stopped by and chatted. I had to adjust the driver door. You couldn't open the door from the inside and the outside was 2 thumbs.

I took it to town to put fuel in it. I attempted earlier in the week but when I did the box I ended up pinching the vent line. I had fixed that earlier this week and got the fuel grommet in place.

Family photos this evening with the truck so I figured I’d hit an auto wash. Was a terrible idea. When I got home some of the orange looked zebra striped like it ate the wax off. The white is now dull too. I had to buff a couple places to get it ready for pics.

Pictures were a calamity. The wind had died down until the middle of the session then all hell broke loose. It was like 35-40mph. We finally just kept changing the position of the truck to get the shots.

Drivers side

Passenger. You can see my screwup in the photo. I’ve since patched a piece in.

My oldest and his girlfriend getting their picture taken


Played with some settings on my phone to lighten it up.

 

Not much time tonight and I’m waiting on parts for other projects. I had some time so I found the electric choke for the 2100 and finished up the carb rebuild. We’ll see one of these days how it runs but at least it’s built. It was a good thing I took some pictures and had a second carb.

This other carb is pretty nice but it needs bushings installed. I have the stuff to do it I just figured I’d use the lower mile one off the camper.


Rebuilt. Even has the carb tag still.

Good new old stock gasket sets off of rock auto from the cleaned section.


The other carb had been back to Holley at one point. Came with the air cleaner I bought a few years back.

We have a temporary shop cat. She was sitting out front crying and blind a week ago. She finally started eating mid week last week and now she’s spunky and running all over. We need to find her a home. I’m not having 3 cats.

 

Oh man, you are stuck with that cat now. The wife brought home a cat for just a few days, that was over 5 years ago now! We are back to three cats in the house as my Brother in-law brought one with him when he came to stay with us.

I did do the first oil change on my 2025 Bronco Sport. Its pretty involved on these new trucks. The underbody skip plate is STEEL! It is held on with ten bolts and I had to use a jack to get it back in place. As for the 1970, still not much progress as I am still doing house maintenance. But I did do some more garage work so that's progress.

 

Cool build!

 

I’m happy to report the garage cat is gone and has a new home. Thank goodness.

Cars and Coffee at Speedway this weekend. Headed in with the wife on a drizzly day. Thankful the heat works well as do the wipers.

Just as we got there a guy walked up and checked out the truck and said his first car was a 71 f100 and promptly showed me a picture pulled up on his phone. I had no intention of popping the hood but he asked about the motor so I just left it up for the day. I saw quite a few other folks checking it out which is pretty cool to me since even a year ago it was still pretty ugly and dented up.

After we walked around my oldest who had met up with us wanted to check out the “American Speed Museum” that’s on the Speedway campus. I’m not into racing so I’ve never been in the building. If you are ever anywhere near Lincoln Nebraska or even a days drive away you need to stop. For one it’s HUGE! I got lost multiple times and probably saw 1/10th of what it has. You could spend a day or 2 checking things out.

The weather is turning so I’m guessing drive time is getting limited for the year. I have a couple other projects I want to wrap up, the free bobcat and a rebuild of a John Deere riding mower engine, but sometime this winter I want to get in and do the disk conversion and start of the rust repair of the floor and kick panels so I can get carpet in.


Towed the golf cart this weekend out to a friends campground for a trick or treating event. The golf cart was another resurrection project where I traded my late daughter’s free go cart for the golf cart. I ended up having to rebuild the engine in it. She was hell on wheels in this thing. Good thing I upgraded trailers this summer, I never towed the cart as it was delivered but it wouldn’t have fit on the 8 foot trailer.


First thing I saw at cars and coffee was this reflection in the car next to me.



This is in the museum. This is a very original car hauler. This place is full of very unique original items.

Every room is packed like this.


That back wall is all just flat head heads. And I think not a single one is the same.

Engines everywhere including a v16



We were the last one to leave in our row.

Pictures from our photo shoot. The wind messed up most of the PICs. These are my 3 kids.

Oldest, youngest and the kids girl friend.

Wife and I. Today is our 12th anniversary

The whole family.

 

Congratulations on your anniversary!

Im sorry to hear about your daughter.

You have a beautiful family. Those are wonderful pictures! You guys make that truck look
good!

 

Good looking group for sure.

 

It was a really nice day today in the 70’s here in Nebraska so I walked back and fired up the truck. A few extra seconds of cranking to get fuel and she fired right up. I was letting it warm up and admiring how quiet it was under the hood when I saw large puddles of coolant in the intake runners on the passenger side. I’ve been fighting this issue since it was rebuilt and to some extent before. But this time I could see which heater hose was loose. It sat there all winter and leaked coolant out of that hose.

So I pulled it into the driveway and cleaned that up and tightened all the hoses again. This heater hose I bought needs a couple of rounds to stop the leaking. It’s kind of maddening.

I then remembered I had a blinker problem when hitting the brakes so I crawled underneath to look at the wiring…. It’s not good on the truck side. I forgot how bad it was but it’s there. Box side was there and decent ish so I pulled the housings out. I found the reverse wiring broken on both sides but nothing else crazy.

Decided to ground the frame to the box. I’m assuming there once was a ground for that but after the box swap it’s gone and if the bolts are supposed to do it yea good luck with the box rust. I have these grounding pig tails that come with Cisco switches at work that we throw out. I installed one of those from frame to box. I put a pigtail into the reverse lights and fed it down. Under the truck I found a red wire that tied the left blinker to the right blinker…. I’m not sure how I never saw that but I had the trailer lights working on that box at one time…. And they worked on this too! Deleted that wire. Put in new marker bulbs as well and put everything back together. Now my blinkers work when the brake is pressed. Mission accomplished. Reverse lights are still not functional through, but I don’t really care that much. It’s a different day problem.

This was the first time since probably November that it ran. I spent the winter getting caught up at work and working on a Ford 8n I picked up in December that I wasn’t planning to get.

Plenty of work to do on the 71. I did also pickup a windshield so I need to get that scheduled.

Working on the truck today. The quad sitting there had sat for 20 years outside. I had to resurrect it as part of the trade for the skid steer

1947 8n after getting it running. Came from the same place as the quad. Paid $150 for it. Rear blade was $12 on an auction. Runs pretty good for sitting 20 years.


For Christmas a family in town has me dress up as Santa. Last year I was 4 wheeler Santa. This year I was tractor Santa.

Brought this home right after thanksgiving. First time using my trailer I got super cheap back in June.

 

Looks like you had an eventful winter.

I love the Santa on the tractor. My wife’s grandfather had a similar one. It’s a family treasure.

Glad to hear Skeeter is back up and running. It seems like there is always something with these trucks.

 

Love the update, is that a yamaha blaster? Those are so much fun