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Long Road to Resurrection

M543A2

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Warsaw, Indiana
We have spent several weeks at getting this dump truck assembled from parts and running. The pictures show the dump truck and a donor truck beside it with my home-made tow bar on it. The dump truck was bought about seven years ago, missing the engine, transmission, and front grille, radiator, and other removed small parts. The fork lift gorillas had shoved a fork through the drivers side headlight mount. They also hit the drivers side front axle shackle bolt nuts with such force that it literally sheared off two of the nuts and axle u-bolt ends! I'll let you imagine the force it took. I hope the dummy did a blowfish on the forklift cage. They also dented in the front axle steering boot guards to the point they destroyed the boots. The donor truck was a dump truck that had the bed cut off, part of the rear frame, and the dump cylinder rods torched at the ends also! Some guys just have no respect for a vehicle. It had a very good motor in it and the transmission and other miscellaneous parts we needed to get the other dump together. I lucked out on it at $114 in an auction at game reserve in Cleveland. The truck is no parade queen, but with more time, we will get paint on it when we can figure out how to remove the CARC that is so thick it literally peels loose in sheets that are about .020 inch thick. It is bad because water gets under it, causing the rust you see. I do not know how they could have sprayed the stuff on as "dry" as it had to be. I told my son if we had a video of all of the times up on, down off, under, out from under, running for parts and tools, small parts etc. the job took, we would watch it then apply for a long vacation!! Oh well, that is part of the dedication it takes from all of us to keep these trucks rolling.
Regards Marti
 

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