So during this trying-on-a-new-lifestyle era, we were living in the leaky 1937 trailer which we had been pulling with the 1978 VW bus. Maybe that contributed to the bus’ smoky premature death. No wonder I was looking for something better to pull the trailer with. And yes, it did pull the trailer much better. There was just that minor part about stopping it again.
I found it in the classifieds for three hundred dollars. When we arrived to look at it, it was on a farm stuffed behind the barn. It was a white long bed step side with a 230 straight six and manual transmission. The man selling it told us that he had driven it last year and that it should start, but would need a radiator. He wasn’t exaggerating!
We got it running and drove it back to our current parking lot of residence. Or I should say, we tried to. It was about a five mile trip. We had taken several gallons of water on the former owner’s recommendation. It was not nearly enough. By about two miles down the road we had used up the entire supply. So I asked someone if I could use their hose and they were kind enough to oblige.
I should mention that we were not dumb enough to actually let it overheat. You could tell the water was low because the temp gauge would go cold, due to the the water not making it into the cylinder head and the the temp gauge becoming exposed to air. After the hose fill up we had to stop more and more frequently. Eventually we gave up and pulled over in a local auto parts store parking lot. While there we got new hoses and called around to junkyards to find a radiator. We did find one and by the end of the day it was fixed and hooked up to the trailer.
Even though it had the small six, it of course pulled much better than the old bus. But it was no beauty queen. It was rusted through in a good many spots. But it had one other redeeming quality, a genuine period spotlight on the driver’s side A pillar. And we put it to good use.
My friend’s dad was a private investigator for a law firm. So often times Derrick and I would get kicked down some menial work that he didn’t really want to do. This was usually something like serving court papers or staking out a house, or tailing someone all day, waiting for them to do something they told the insurance company they couldn’t do.
Derricks ride was an 80’s Jeep Wrangler with a soft top and doors. So during the rainy season (most of three here in Oregon) we took my Chevy pick up. That old spotlight came in pretty handy trying to track down addresses in the dark when we were serving subpoenas and whatnot.
Eventually Michelle and I got moved into an apartment and the truck and camper trailer sat in a deserted culdesac until the city tagged it with a towing warning. So I figured I should move it. It was pouring rain of course and I had to get the battery charged up just to start it. But it eventually fired up and ran just fine.
However, quickly discovered one important fact; the brakes were completely non-operational. I tried pumping them up, but to no avail, the pedal simply hit the floor. Well, I had already pulled into traffic, but I was in first gear, and the trailer was light, so it was not a huge problem. I tried the hand brake, it worked pretty good. So I figured I could probably make it OK. Yeah, I know, don’t say it…
I proceeded very slowly in low gear, one hand on the hand brake down the wet road. All was well (as it could be) though I was sweating bullets and the windshield wipers stopped working. Until I realized that I had taken my usual route and not the one I had planned. I was to go around downtown in order to avoid the lights and traffic. But out of force of habit I had missed the bypass and was now heading irreversibly into downtown. Heck I could not even stop let alone reverse! Luckily Salem has a very small downtown. I managed to make it through only locking the back tires and starting to fishtail once.
When I got to the apartments, and I do mean right when I got there, the brakes suddenly pumped up and started working just like they had never stopped. Yes kids, it’s another one you should not attempt at home, as an “amateur driver, on an open course”. Since I had stopped using the truck to pull the trailer, I sold them both. The man who bought the truck paid me almost three times what I had paid for it and was extremely happy to have it.
The one thing that really impressed me about that truck was the little Thriftmaster six engine. It had just the right amount of torque and got good gas mileage for a light duty pickup. You can’t buy a truck like that now; they are all behemoths with either huge thirsty power plants or over-revving over-worked little V-sixes that struggle to get the mileage and use I got in that old ’65. But the new ones do have much better brakes, and there’s something to be said for that. Unless you’re an adrenaline junkie.
Even 45 years later, this particular model is still common as dirt around here. They may not all be running, but if you wanted a “classic” pickup, a 60-66 Chevrolet can be had for next to nothing.
Personally, I prefer the post-war Series I and Series II or the later ’67-’72. My brother had a ’72 and it must have had the lowest gear you could get with an automatic transmission. You could stand on the gas pedal all day and the thing wouldn’t do more than 50mph.
My buddy Terry has one of these. Every couple of years he gets the bug to paint it but never finishes. Now it’s stuck between “Rat Rod” and “20 footer”. It keeps running though. I can’t count how many trips from Il to La he’s taken in it.
+1
Like Chris, I still see a good deal of these things putting around through L.A. neighborhoods and occasionally at cruise nights. Some are immaculately restored show-stoppers, some are hot rods, and some are battered hulks still earning their keep daily. I used to want one but my height ( 6’4″ ) and the cab’s tight quarters and awkward steering wheel angle didn’t mesh.
The GMC versions of these deserve special mention. The GMCs came with monster sixes from a 292 inline, a 305 and 351 V6 ( not inline ), all the way up to a monster 478 cubic inch six-holer used in their medium-duty trucks at the time. These engines were slow-revving, had limited top-end power, and got terrible gas mileage. But they were practically indestructible and could pull a house up the side of a mountain if you needed to.
Don’t forget the “Twin Six” and “Toro Flow” diesel variants. The 305 v6 ranks right up there with the 3-53 Detroit as “must have” future projects.
Yes indeed, I would love to get a hold of either of those
Sorry for the hijack. Brilliant story and I do look forward to more.
No brakes is fun and can be tricky My old Hillman has improved to two pumps and brakes work so its drivable but I aint gunna try towin with it not yet anyhow
Proletariat Power!!!
Not much I can add to here, but this: That is what I consider a real truck! I believe the higher-end models got you a larger back window.
No brakes? I know that one. I rode in the back of a farm truck when I was 15, tearing up and down gravel roads, standing up, enjoying myself tremendously. No brakes there, either – not even a hand brake! The kid driving it just down-shifted and wove back-and-forth, up and down on embankments until the truck stopped, more-or-less. A fun afternoon!
We survived.
I agree – when I think “truck,” a real truck, what I think of is these mid-60s Chevys. My first job was with a quasi-private summer town; the government wasn’t public but was a non-profit organization. Long story; I’d give the location up if I told it all. But I was working on various arms…the sewage plant; the golf course; and their equivalent to the DPW.
They ran a veritable fleet of Chevrolets from that era; they had a few older and a couple newer, but we had a 1963 stepside; a 1965 Fleetside and stepside; a 1966 Fleetside and a 1966 C-60 stake-body with a hoist to tip the bed. So I got real familiar with those trucks.
They were reliable as the sunrise; most of them had hand chokes (which made me, for years later, convert my automatic chokes to hand chokes when they started sticking) and mostly three-on-the-tree. Oh, and they mostly weren’t registered – since they hardly left the property, except the C-60 which would go to the brush dump regularly. So, as you can imagine, some maintenance was skipped…like tires, lights…toward the end, one of the Fleetsides was shorn of its rusted doors.
I’d love to have a cancer-free specimen. In fact, if I could get a panel or Suburban of that era…wonderful!
I had a 1960 long wide box pickup with a 6 and 3-speed. It was shoving oil when I bought it, and my father had a 283 engine in a 1957 one-ton he was parting out. So the 283 took up residence in my truck, and although it was a great-running, powerful rig, it always used oil. Didn’t drip on the driveway, didn’t smoke, but still down a quart every 500 miles. It wasn’t reliable in the matter of showing me an oil light when it was down either, like the 6 had been…down two quarts, the light came on. I ended up trading it on a clapped-out 1964 230SL.
Another one I wish I still had. A ’66 C-10. Remember that one, Mike? We replaced the lifters in my garage. That 292 was so quiet at idle you could not hear it over a normal conversation. I used to think it stalled at stop signs and tried to restart it all the time. It came with a spare 3 speed tranny from a Nova that we replaced when reverse went out. The ’67 Chevy cargo van with a 283 and 3 speed was also a sweet ride I let go too cheap. I should start looking for another 292. Loved that thing. And the brakes? 1 shot master cylinder. You lose that piston, you lose everything.
I remember both of those, both great rigs!