Almost a long day.
I drove up to Springtown this morning to pick up this junker.
I got there with 9 minutes to spare (7:51AM)
Total for the day was 755 miles
Total fuel 73.2gal
I got the chance to spend almost 2 hrs visiting with a guy I went to collage with almost 50 years ago, lives near Hillsboro, I had not seen him for about 10 years.
Made one fuel stop, did not need to but found one station selling diesel for 3.93 a gal instead of the 4.15+ that everyone else was.
I did make several "comfort" stops and to cinch up the chains
Spent allot of time dodging road Gattors, and dealing with a ton of idiots that have no idea how to drive but somehow are allowed to, but still got home in time for dinner (5:30)
This is an odd duck, the frame and suspension from the center of the truck forward has moderate amount of corrosion for a TX truck, but from the center back it is HEAVILY corroded, looks like they backed it into salt water and left it a while.
No matter it has what I need, the ONLY thing missing is the hood, everything else is intact so I have all the electrics and wiring harnesses for the M1097A1 that Harris County butchered, (but for the hood but I have one of those) a running GEP NA engine and a nice spare tire mount that looked like it could have possibly be bent in the pictures but is not., and of course a rear air lift bumper that is so common today but in the past I paid dearly for a couple of them.
And all the hardware to outfit the A1 as a two door after I pull the helmet top for the DuraVee, the top actually looks to be in decent shape, at least it did not fly apart on the 85MPH section of the toll road I was on.
In the pictures it actually actually looks like the rear of the frame has holes corroded through it, but I have not crawled under it to see but I really don't care, as far as I am concerned the suspension, frame and body are scrap.
It looked by the pictures that the accident had broken the rear tie rod or its mount but they look intact so I am not sure what "GAVE" to allow that extreme rear toe out, I was hoping to get it straight enough to test drive it before knocking it in the head but that seems to be in doubt at this time
It actually looks like something ran into it rather than it having an accident...