December 8, 2011

I left this morning around 11 feeling as though I was heading off on some epic adventure. I had loaded up my truck with wrenches and pliers and all manner of things. The mission: Assess the parts truck; grab any easy-to-remove useful parts; and decide whether or not it was worth pulling out of there for more serious salvage operations like cutting out body panel sections to weld into the other truck or extraction extra parts to sell to other enthusiasts.

Here's what I found.

It didn't take long to decide that it was almost a complete loss. The body panels weren't in any sort of usable condition, the gas tank had been left uncapped and was almost certainly full of rust and water, and any parts worth pulling to try to sell as extras would need more than a little reconditioning to be of any use.  In short, there's no way it would be worth pulling out to store somewhere. There were a few pieces that looked like things that I could use, so I set to work.

The two parts I had hoped for the most from this truck were still there- the linkage arms that connect the shift knuckles on the steering column to the transmission. Mine had been lost previously after a real bodge job of a three-on-the-floor conversion we did back around summer '98 after the shift lever broke off the steering column. After a bit of study two or three years ago I decided I could go back to the original three-on-the-tree by reinstalling the linkage rods and getting a new shift lever. At the time we had assumed the parts truck was long gone, and there were no shifter-transmission linkages to be found in any parts catalog. Despite the fact that the engine had been removed from the parts truck and now lay in a rusting heap in the bed, the transmission was still under the floorboard, but conveniently detached from its mounts. It was a relatively simple matter to detach the linkage arms from the transmission, disconnect the speedometer cable from the transmission, and pull the whole lot of it out. Now I've got a spare transmission whose gears are hopefully in better shape than the ones I've got. No doubt they're both worn down, though.
I've also got the linkage rods, a spare speedometer cable, an extra window crank, a starter of unknown condition (but was just sitting there so I grabbed it), the rearview mirror which is shot except for the mirror glass looks better than anything else I've got, an extra linkage rod, and the taillight mounting brackets which I think can be used for reverse light brackets (if I haven't damaged them too badly pulling them off).

For the record, this was, in fact my first vehicle. I only ever drove it about three feet, but I can still remember how excited I was when I came home from school and there it was, or when we got the engine tuned up a bit and it ran smooth. It's a bit of a shame that it should have to come to this, but I know the parts I've taken from it, both then and now, are part of the bigger picture. The guys that own the place where it's stored are going to sell it off for scrap. Oh well, it did what we needed it to do. So long, old friend.