The first item that I needed to do was get the darn truck running right. That required a rebuild of the carb, but now it idles nicely and doesn’t have a hesitation on acceleration.
Now that the exhaust is on, it was time to start some road testing. The first of the “truck” duties was to run a long overdue errand to dump out a trashcan full of grass clippings. When I say long overdue, I think some of those clippings have been in that bin for two summers. It was NASTY!
On the way home, I took a route that ran me down the highway, and I was able to test out the highway speed. I was able to run 70mph and keep up with traffic, but it did take a little bit to get up to speed. LOL
On Thursday, Cory McMahon came up and hand lettered the panels with my Bret Chrismer’s Mustache Wax signage. I’m a fan of hand lettered stuff because it really is never exact. Both sides are slightly different, which I think is absolutely fitting for the truck.
After getting the truck lettered, and using it to run some errands the past few days, I made the crazy decision to work on it in the 90+ degree heat and high humidity to cover the body with a layer of boiled linseed oil to help preserve the paint and bare metal. It creates a bit of a sheen to the finish but should tame down as it continues to dry out, but it will provide some weather protection. Since this process will be repeated periodically, I figured I’d buy a gallon of the stuff. I think I may have used about a cup! The good news is that I can use the same stuff on the wood bed inside the truck as well as on the stake truck’s bed and rails.
I have a bunch of little things that still need to be done, but figured I’d knock out these things while I had some time to mess with it over the weekend.