The 'Truk' is a '72 ex-USAF Dodge D100 318 auto 2wd.
It came to me 9 years ago via a grass verge in a council estate in London. My mate Wil was having a cafe break from despatching when he overheard a conversation- 'so cos she's left me i'm losin the council house and the pick-up's gotta go by the weekend'.
Never one to worry about the feelings of a distraught stranger, Wil stuck his nose in and haggled an unseen, immobile, un-MOT'd Dodge off his hands for �250.
Once reality arrived a few minutes later, he realised that he lived in a 17th floor flat and would need to come up with a plan.
I was about to adopt a Dodge.
I had to get a towbar and a pair of spring assisters fitted to my Sierra 4x4, hire a trailer, take a day off work and bomb it to wil's to go see the wreckage he'd bought.
It was too wide to fit on the trailer so we took it with 2 tyres overhanging the edge. He'd tried a battery and a can of fresh fuel with no luck but on the way back to his we passed a car spares place. The Truk actually has a Rover 3.5 lump and Wil had noticed the condenser was missing. Could it be that simple?
Yes it could- �1.50 later, the Truk burst into life- Hooray!!
The next day i lugged it back to North Wales and parked the rusting heap on my driveway.
Now what? Wil has bought a Yank pick-up which needs massive amounts of work before it will darken the public roads, it's marooned at my house in Rhyl and it's owner lives 250 miles away....
A bit more reality grew in Wil's over-spontaneous mind and he basically gave me the keys to the Truk, so long as he could have a go whenever he came back to Wales.
So began a LOT of welding, hammering and general bodging to try and get the thing vaguely legal.
Purists switch off now
The finest bodge was when it has failed it's 1st MOT on the front ball joints, Wil was visiting and grabbed his trusty lumphammer. We jacked it up, he pulled off the rubber boot and set about 'tightening' the ball joint with the hammer.
They have remained untouched since that day for 7 years and have passed every mot.
The wheels were the wrong fit for the hubs, someone had elongated the holes and the wheels were eccentric on the hubs- i had some little sleeves made to centre the wheels on the hubs rather than the studs- sorted.
The pick-up bed was very rotten so i welded an angle-iron frame inside the back & lined it with 1/2" ply. I had to thread a few lengths of angle iron between the bed and the chassis too.
The shifter was a home-made floor thing so badly made that when you went over a bump it jumped into neutral. I did away with this and rigged up a pair of cables to the original column change.
The leaf springs collapsed, i found a set of an F250 for �26
. Well for that i'm gonna MAKE 'em fit! The chassis was rotten behind the mounts so i plated it, remade the spring hangers & had some polybushes made. Some Transit shocks finished the job nicely.The gearbox mount rubbers had rotted away so i wrapped a ratchet strap around the gearbox tail and cranked it down tight- it's been fine ever since.
The drivers end of the bench seat collapsed- rotten from years of fat, sweaty bee-hinds parked on it (yuk!). I found one in a scrappy in Stoke and fetched it home on the roof of my BT Landy
Some more welding to mate it to the original mounts and lovely cushioned comfort was mine.
When Scarlett came along, i converted it to a 4-seater- i bolted in another lap-belt and installed the baby seat next to the door (where there was a shoulder belt). The belt was too short so i extended it with a length of stout chain. This all made it a tight squeeze so i removed the door handle from that side and 'adjusted' the door slightly with the ol' lumphammer.
As the years have gone by i've actually tried to remove as much filler, lead, newspaper, old tin cans, etc from the bodywork and weld it properly (albeit roughly). The theory being that once it's done it will STAY done.
The paint job is 22 quids-worth & that includes the brush
That's good quality masonry paint mind- none of yer cheap rubbish...
) You can see an earlier repair on the rotten cross-piece which has now rotted a LOT more.
