monster truck
Senior Member
For the last couple years I have been keeping an eye out for an old cabover to fix up. Although there are plenty sitting in my grandparent's yard, I have been looking for my own to drag home and add to the collection. I have seen quite a few over the last couple years but nothing that seemed quite right, cracked frames, dented up cabs, stripped and gutted trucks or rediculous prices seemes to be the name of the game. But a couple weeks ago I was doing some internet browsing and happened upon a '76 Pete that seemed to be in pretty decent shape, a few emails and phone calls later and I was out in the middle of the socal desert digging through the cobwebs and scraping off the dust to check the old truck out.
I was pleasently suprised with what I found, the stock wheelbase aluminium frame was free of cracks and didnt have a hole in it that wasnt from the factory. The cab was straight, dent free and the paint was even in great condition. The interior was in unbelievable shape for it's age and should clean up nicely. We finally found enough old batteries and jumper cables to get the old cummins to turn over and once it did, it fired right up and ran smooth. After a quick trip down the road to test it out and being happy with how it went, I decided to make an offer. It took a little bit of haggling back and forth but an aggrement was finally made that we were both happy with.
The plans are to fix a few little issues it has, throw some new rubber on it, give it a good polish job and then put it to work! It has a few things that need to be fixed before it can be put on the road but the biggest problem I found was that it is too plain and boring looking, it needs some sort of color on it. I opened up the paint program on my computer (I'm not fancy enough for photoshop) and got to work, I tried quite a few designs and colors before I came up with the one in the bottom picture but I think it's the best mix of simple, classic and easy to do, now I just have to do it for real!
If everything goes to plan, it should be on the road earning it's keep by the first of August. It is going to be my daily working truck and after good bit of buffing and polish, I may even have to take it to a truck show or two!
I was pleasently suprised with what I found, the stock wheelbase aluminium frame was free of cracks and didnt have a hole in it that wasnt from the factory. The cab was straight, dent free and the paint was even in great condition. The interior was in unbelievable shape for it's age and should clean up nicely. We finally found enough old batteries and jumper cables to get the old cummins to turn over and once it did, it fired right up and ran smooth. After a quick trip down the road to test it out and being happy with how it went, I decided to make an offer. It took a little bit of haggling back and forth but an aggrement was finally made that we were both happy with.
The plans are to fix a few little issues it has, throw some new rubber on it, give it a good polish job and then put it to work! It has a few things that need to be fixed before it can be put on the road but the biggest problem I found was that it is too plain and boring looking, it needs some sort of color on it. I opened up the paint program on my computer (I'm not fancy enough for photoshop) and got to work, I tried quite a few designs and colors before I came up with the one in the bottom picture but I think it's the best mix of simple, classic and easy to do, now I just have to do it for real!
If everything goes to plan, it should be on the road earning it's keep by the first of August. It is going to be my daily working truck and after good bit of buffing and polish, I may even have to take it to a truck show or two!
just my 2c