Having been able to try something new that I’d had no experience with whatsoever in an area where I had no contacts was a daunting experience at first; but the realization that one could do quite well simply by doing the right thing and treating people decorously was another real-time reinforcement of a closely held belief system.

The company in which I had developed many good relationships here has since changed hands and no longer exists, but fortunately some of those relationships continue to grow.

The actual layout may or may not be a bit off depending on your program and/or version, but here’s a sample of a couple of those newsletters:

Volume 03 Issue 01

Volume 03 Issue 03

Anyways I found a set of wheels from an ’82 Corvette.  These are my all time favorite wheels.  I had measured one before and found that they wouldn’t fit the ’51 because they were too wide.  The outside of the rim extends about an inch outside of the front fender.  I don’t know about the back fenders ‘cause I’m nowhere near putting the rear fenders on.

So here I am discussing this little problem with the guy that is selling the wheels.  He is also selling new chrome smoothies that I know will fit.  He points out that the Corvette wheels have zero offset, that is the mounting flange is in the center of the wheel.  This does not have anything to do with how they fit on my truck, but I am becoming befuddled looking at the shiny wheels.  I have just enough cash to buy the Corvette wheels and my negotiation skills are no match for chrome intoxication.  My wife took the checkbook, smart lady!  I didn’t even have enough cash left over to buy wheel polish.  I did scrounge up enough out of my lunch money to hire a kid to haul the wheels out to the curb.

After I get home the situation is thus:  shiny new (to me) wheels that stick out of the fenders.

I know of a web site where a guy built a truck like mine.

www.purplesagetradingpost.com/sumner/sumnerindex.html

In the postings he mentions widening the front fenders.  I fire off an email to ask him how he did it.  His response is something like “get the right wheels, stupid”.  Now I am in full reality denial.

He also mentioned that he really didn’t widen the fenders, he widened the hood and moved the fenders out.   Hummmmmm, Did you know that the advanced design GM truck cabs are tapered front to rear?  That is, the front of the cab is something like six inches narrower than the rear.  I didn’t discover this trivia until I put a non-tapered frame under one. But that is another story.

Now I have a plan.  Widen the hood, yes?  And widen the front of the cab so it matches the width of the back of the cab.  Now I have lots of wheel room!  And that  ’63 Mercury dash isn’t way too wide anymore.  Not to mention more room in the engine compartment.  I am sure that there is a fly in the ointment somewhere but I haven’t discovered it yet.

Since I haven’t finish welded the cowl to the frame it happens that I am in a position to proceede on this lunacy.

I’ll keep y’all appraised on how this works out.

Norm

My intent was to get the garage insulated, sheetrocked, painted and heated this Winter, but due to my transportation issues, I’ve been unable to finish it.  While I’m not opposed to laying some paint on a firewall in mid-20 degree temps, I’m not about to take any chances with the blades of a rotating wind-driven PMG not curing properly.

I’m still as excited to see it completed as when I started it and after getting the blades on, all that will need to be done is wiring up the rectifier & such and then mounting the machine on a tower.

I appreciate the questions & all the interest and I look forward to posting more progress with it when the appropriate time comes.

Stay tooned.

I actually got a little time to work on the ‘51 this weekend.

After setting the upper cowl section on the lower sections I found that there was a misalignment between them.  Although I expected some misalignment the difference was a lot more than I had planned on.

So I cut out a piece of the newly refurbished cowl and moved it around until it properly fit.  Getting this part straight is important since the front edge of the door must line up with it.  I used a straight piece of angle iron to line up the pieces for welding.

The front of the cab has been welded to the frame since I first did the frame swap.

It was only welded on the inner edge and this resulted in the cowl being pretty “wobbly” from side to side.  I made a filler piece to put in the gap and reinforce the lower cowl to frame joint on the outer edge.  I put holes in the filler piece so that it could be rosette welded to the lower cowl.  I figured that would increase the joint strength.

I tack welded the filler in and then remembered to check to see if the cowl was square.

And a good thing, too.  The cowl was “racked” out of square from corner to corner by about 2 inches.  I’m glad that I only had to cut out a few tack welds to fix the problem.  Measure twice and weld once.  I used my handy dandy Harbor Freight Tools pickup bed cargo divider bars to push the cowl square.

After I got the piece in the cowl is much stiffer from side to side.  Since this is going to be a unibody type set up the body needs to be as rigid as possible.  Now on to the other side!

The big tri state swap meet is in Denver next weekend so I don’t expect to get too much done on the ‘51, except buy parts.  It’s interesting that I have a good idea of where I want to go with the build in general I can only see a couple of steps ahead on the details.  I suppose that is because I don’t have all the details.

I’ll keep you updated on the progress or the lack thereof,

Norm

We no sooner get to the second table where a man walks up and asks us what we’ll be volunteering for. I open-mindedly and ready to pitch-in ask him, “Whaddaya Got?” and he starts listing them, “Coach, Asst Coach, Team Mom, etc” and in the course of the conversation informs us that “I’m not asking you to volunteer. I’m telling you. There’s none of that asking stuff.” 

Well… if you don’t know anything about people handling, there’s this premise of “Push : Push Back” and what it means is, generally speaking, if I try to force something down your throat, you’re naturally going to resist – or Push Back. It’s human nature and why any good sales person, manager, etc is going to FAB  you first (let you know about Features, Advantages, Benefits of buying, joining, giving, whatever) to attempt to get the best response out of you. If you give most people a reason to throw up their defenses, they will and then you might as well be talking to their hand:

Now anyone who knows us personally, already knows that this family is not on this earth to get as fat as we can or accumulate as many material possessions as possible before we die. That’s a shallow, empty, lifeless existence – not a deliberate, intentional life – and we have our list of charitable donations of time, effort, finances, and possessions that I don’t feel a need to list.

I write that last statement with careful forethought, since it needs to not come across as self-praise, but with humble thanks from having been able to experience both sides – that of being “in need and relying on faith alone, not knowing where our next meal was coming from” and that of having more than we could possibly use ourselves; and I think I might not be too far off-base thinking that the other gentleman’s perspective is one of “too many parents not getting involved” but his “Push” resulted in the immediate “Nope. C-ya.” from someone who was otherwise ready to jump on-board…  as we moved on to the next table.

It could be the same way at your volunteer organization, or at your work. Your boss doesn’t have to “ask” you to do something. You’re there to do a job. But a manager – a real “manger” not just someone with the title – learns how to speak to you to help you do your best. They know that from a percentage point of view, if they give an employee that ol’ “Do it because I said so“, they probably won’t receive best effort.

I never would’ve thought to expect the owner of every home, business or vehicle we responded to to become a volunteer firefighter. We don’t expect every struggling person to serve at Springs Rescue Mission or Care and Share.  We do what we do because we can.

If you’re good at teaching the finer nuances of a particular sport, then maybe you should consider volunteering in that venue, but not everyone who doesn’t do what you do necessarily takes you for granted. It is in the giving that we receive¹ and it takes many different people doing many different things to make a community.

It seems that in the beginning, the focus of organized sports had been on sportsmanship, team-work, and doing the right thing, and – like life itself – that it’s getting more and more political as we go up in levels. I’m sure the boys will be learning some valuable lessons this season… some of them may even involve baseball.

Give where you can if you feel inclined to do so. Be of service to others – whether you’re being paid monetarily at the time or not; but be careful, you might enjoy it.

min·is·try

n.   pl. min·is·tries The act of serving; ministration. One that serves as a means; an instrumentality.