Blog

November 4 2020

Bambi Got Me
I have been lucky for years, but on this Halloween Bambi got me good. Right front fender, hood, radiator support & radiator and associated bits, all gone. So now I am looking at $2000 (at least) to fix an $800 truck. The sensible thing would be to part it out but when have I ever been sensible? For years I have thought that any mini pickup would make a perfect base for a modern roadster: body on frame, modern brakes, suspension etc, loads of parts available, stout enough frame to take just about any kind of engine. And now I have one with good everything except the body which is trashed.
So I am going to make a run at making a roadster out of this.
The first step will be to move the battery back into the bed. I have wanted to do this for a long time as the stock battery is in the worst possible location: as far front as possible and as high as possible. I bought a marine battery box last night and over the coming week I hope to screw it down to the bed and then run cables from the new location to the existing battery terminals on the wiring harness. Then, if I can figure out a way to mount a new radiator, the truck should be drivable if not legal.
We will keep you posted on our progress.

November 9 2020

Good News
The battery part may be simpler than expected. I have 2 jumper cables that look long enough to do the trick. I will just need to fabricate clamps on one end to mate to the existing harness. Mounting the battery still presents a problem because while I can fasten the battery box down securely, The battery just sits loose inside the box. If I try to clamp the battery down to the bed, I have to poke holes in the box and I don't want to do that. I'm thinking that I can shim the battery with some wood scrap but we will see if I can come up with something better.