Phase I: Collect Vehicle

  Mike bought his 1972 C-10 Chevy pickup from my Uncle, who used it as a storage housing for compost.  That may make it sound really bad, but it really was a great buy.  It has four-wheel drive that works and is an automatic.  It runs pretty well and will someday be a nice looking machine, but until then it will be just another old pickup.

    Here is what the project pickup looks like.  It kind of looks like someone shot at it, but it isn't too bad.  The front fender flair and the running boards are the first things that will be taken off, because they look pretty silly. 

    Check out that cool hood ornament.  Mike says it is a bird, I think it looks more like an air plane.  This picture was taken after mike took the hillbilly cattle guard off of it.

  Here is the inside of the truck.  It has a few added features that some 1972 trucks didn't have.  It has hillbilly cruise control, floor ventilation, an after market air conditioner, and a spot light.  The seats and stuff need to be reupholstered but it really isn't all too bad.  All the gauges and lights work inside, even the cab light works.  

Phase II: ??????

    This is the part that I really know nothing about.  It is kind of come as it is and get what can be afforded.  Right now Mike is working on sanding the surface rust off the of wheels and repainting them.  This is mainly where all the work happens.  I will try to get pictures of works in progress.

August 2003:

     Some progress has been made in this stage.  Mike has finally received his different truck bed and has began work on the body. The bed is in much better condition than the original truck bed.  It has a metal floor to it rather than the wood floor that the original had. 

     One of the first steps of putting on the new box was taking the old one off, I would've really liked to have some action pictures of this, but they did it while I was at work.  I really think the truck looked rather weird when it was missing it's box. 

    After the box was off we had to install the new box, this was done with a couple chains, bolts and a tractor.  It kind of sounds like the hillbilly way, but what the heck, that is what I kind of am, and what Mike wants to be.  Anyway, I really got some hands on into this also, so I again didn't get any action pictures of this, but it was really quick and really easy.  I think it looks kind of funny now with the red box, kind of festive, but not for any holiday right now.  Surprisingly all the tail lights, blinkers, and other lights work on the box, so no wiring tricks will be needed.  Mike is starting to work some of the dents out in the past few days, but college is coming up and he and I will be gone until next summer where more work can be done.

October 2003:

     The Pickup had its madden cow chasing voyage.  During this trip Mike got to run it all over the country only after a lesser Ford pickup pooped out.  Even though mike didn't have insurance or a valid license (oops!) he managed to make the about 10 mile trip.  Unfortunately during the trip, something cracked and broke, I am unsure what part this was, but he said he can get headers for it now (whatever they are).  Even though there was a crack and breaking of some strange part, it made it all the way through even though it was much louder at the end of the trip. 

December 2003:

     On our lovely trip home, Mike really got to do some hard work on his beautiful machine!  He had plenty of time to spend messing around with the truck and making it better and better.  This was Mike's trucks first winter in its new life.  In the picture to the right, one of the new features is a 10-foot antenna that mike used to have on his old car.  It is really a pretty antenna, and looks stunning on his pickup.  It would be silly for him to have an antenna without a kick-butt CB radio, so he also installed one of those (see the picture to the left).  He also used to have that in his old car that he had when he and I met.  It is really neat, even though I am not sure what the specks are on them.  Mike didn't do just cosmetic work while we were home, he also put in new headers, since he broke his head gasket or something like that on the cattle chasing voyage.  There is a picture of the box that they came in to the right, I really do not know what the specks are on those either, but check out the box, if you know anything about cars, you might understand the wording on it.  He said they were a lot cheaper than buying two new head gaskets, but I really do not know, he also said he installed a new starter, which I really didn't know where that was, so I didn't get a picture of it.  This things he replaced I circled in the pictures, incase you didn't know where they were.  Hopefully I will get some action shots of mike working on his pickup this summer, so you can all see actual work being done.  Mike is really enjoying working on his project, and I hope anyone who reads this enjoys hearing about it.  The next plan is to grind all the rust off, cut out the floor to replace it, and paint it a primer grey, whatever that means.  I just update the site, he does the work.

March 2004:

     After a long winter and some fun times at school (yeah right), Mike has finally gotten a chance to work on his pickup again.  He put on some things called Purple Hornies (or something like that, they are pictured to the left and if you look closely you can see one of my kitties).  They are glass packs, which I think is something to do with the exhaust and they make it really loud or something.  You think you wouldn't want to put glass back there in the exhaust part but hey he knows what he wants.  He also changed up where the exhaust came out, he worked on all of this while I was off having fun in Reno, Nevada for my brother's wedding.  It looks and sounds really awesome now and it is gradually progressing to be quite the machine. The change in the exhaust was making it come out between the door and the back tire, it looks pretty neat being there.  A local establishment that specializes in exhaust bent the pipe for him for free, which was way nice of them to do. In the picture on the right you can see one of the bendy pipes, kind of like the bendy pipes they use for installing dryer vents. If you check on the picture on the right you can see bend in the exhaust pipe.  Mike was a pretty busy man when I was off in Reno, he was put new 90 degree spark plug boots on his cool blue spark plug wires.  He says they are some pretty good wires that were on his pickup, and he didn't know that they were so nice until he cleaned them up the one day.  So he bought himself some new boots and put them in.  I think they look really neat because they are all blue, but I am partial to things that are blue.  He also added clue little spark plug wire holder things that are blue, we still haven't gotten a picture of that yet, but we will sometime soon.  The picture that is shown doesn't have the cool new boots on the wires yet, but it shows the cool blue wires.

May 2004:

     The painting has begun.  Mike is hard at work on sanding and painting up the parts of his pickup truck. Since it is summer and there is no stress of school there is plenty of time to work on his truck.  So far he has completed work on his back bumper and his door.  It has been quite and exciting transformation.  When we got back from school mike started work on his door, and he has 4 full days off and had a ton of time to sand and body fill his door.  In the matter of a couple of days and I came home from work to see him with his door completed.  I got to help him out a couple of times with sanding it.  I know he worked really hard on it and it really looks awesome!   The bumper work went by a lot faster, he said because he could grind on it more with his angle grinder since it was made of real thick metal instead of the thin stuff that the door was made out of.  He put some body filler stuff on it like the door and made it all grey.  Then he spray painted it a glossy white.  He also put on a ball hitch thing and two circularly things for towing a trailer and once we had the bumper on he had to show me that it worked by pulling a trailer around.  His next project is working on the front bumper.  It was been pretty interesting getting it from my house to his house in our cars but we have made it work.

     The front bumper really took no time at all, well Mike did work on it every night and I think he really did an awesome job on it.  We unfortunately didn't get a very good picture of it before he started working on it, but I got one in progress.  I am really liking how it is all turning out.  I think he is pretty proud of it also.  I am unsure what he is going to be working on next, it is hard to fit the parts in either of our cars, and he is really running out of parts that he can repair rather than replace.  Mike is pretty good with being Mr. Safety, but in the pictures that I have taken of him he isn't wearing the proper safety gear, and I wouldn't recommend that someone do the work he is doing without proper safety gear.  But hey he just threw stuff together for a photo (in some of the pictures). In the picture to the left, he isn't wearing a mask when painting, which isn't a good idea, but he only painted it for a short while.  He is only putting on the primer in the picture, he really didn't want to have a grey front bumper.  The picture to the right is of Mike's finished bumper, well finished with just primer bumper.  Then the picture of the left is the finished with white paint bumper.  He just spray-painted it white (or as Mike likes to call it rattle-canned it).  When he got it on it really started to improve the look of the truck, I will have to take the camera to the farm and get a picture of it on.

June 2004:

    We had to do a little dumpster diving this month to find some parts for Mike's truck.  We really didn't dive into a dumpster, but we went to a local car junkyard and fished through miles of old vehicles to find parts.  We were looking for both front fenders, and a driver's side door, we didn't have much luck finding everything we wanted, but we did find a passenger's side front fender that only had been rusted out on the one corner.  We were pretty lucky and didn't have to cut it out of the truck and we found it on the ground sitting there lost and lonely for a home.  The fender now has a home after paying $20 for it, which I thought was quite a lot, but Mike said he wouldn't have paid that if he would have had to cut it out himself.  He also said a fender that nice anywhere else would've been mighty expensive.  He and I had to laugh though since he has only done work on the passenger side of his vehicle, but hey that is just the way it goes. 

     I thought all was lost the other day when Mike was working on his door, he cut out the rusted part, and tried to weld another piece in the hole, and he could not.  Mike almost gave up, but after talking to his wise father and a hefty bet (that I doubt will ever get paid out) Mike learned that he could weld the thin pieces of metal together.  He said he has to make little piles of welding stuff (since he doesn't have a wire welder, which I thought was only for welding wire but what do I know) instead of making a bead of melted welding stuff like he was trying to do before which lead to the melting of a large hole in the metal.  I was sure glad that he could get it to work because I didn't think he wanted to spend $20 on nothing. 

     Well, I got to play a little part in vehicle construction or restoration of the fender.  I, with help from Mike, made the pattern for the corner of the front fender (on the right). I think the little pattern kind of looks like one of those torpedo things from Super Mario Brothers, if you use your imagination.  I made the pattern out of tag board and tape and scissors and markers.  Mike said I did a pretty good job.  I failed to denote which side was up, which lead to mike bending it backwards, but it ended up looking alright.  He did a "where were you on that one" to me and I hadn't gotten off of work yet so I wasn't there (he was just joking and stuff so don't think he is mean).  Mike carefully hand crafted and bent the flat metal into a cool little patch for his hole.  He ground it and cut it and welded it and loved it and named it George.  Just kidding about the George part.  I had to laugh thinking about what Mike does during the day compared to what he is creating.  He goes from a computer jockey to a fabricating master.  Boy what a range of skills my future husband has.  Mike really works fast on his projects, even though he says his welding isn't perfect he said he is going to cover it with body filler stuff anyway so it doesn't have to be the best.  I thought it looked rather good, but really what do I know, I only do the photography. 

Phase III : Profit