I'm feeling just a bit better about my "big truck".
When I offered a fire department 1/2 the asking price for a seldom used fire truck, I thought I had a bargain. It had 640 hours total on the engine, much of that sitting idling while training was in progress. These drive the pump behind the transmission, so the odometer piles up miles while the pump rotates to prevent freezing.
I figured roughly 10,000 miles + unknown hours pumping, (200?) The rest idling to circulate. Odometer recorded less than 31,000 miles.
Everything looked good, some rust on the springs. Maxi cans were not pretty.
I ran the numbers in my head, paid the fire chief, and drove away.
I flatly refuse to total the money spent. I couldn't live with myself.
Latest event was radiator rebuild. We buggered the hood when a cable let go unexpectedly. I then discovered there was a lot of hood repair before I bought it. I've searched the country, only found one claimed to be unbroken around the hinges. It is half a country away, and they want half what I paid for the rest of the truck.
The nose, (first four inches of the whole truck) has been in the cellar weeks now as I find too little time to try my hand at fiberglass repair. I'll fabricate reinforcement to carry hood weight past the headlights to larger surface above. Other styles of GM trucks had headlights farther from the hinges, they didn't get stress cracks around the hinges.
I hope to cure a shake, I believe is driveshaft issue, add AC & persuade Mrs. B to tow the camper with it. It dumps, so I could carry a runabout vehicle of her choice on the bed, (a Jeep of many varieties).
