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While the engine was being built Josh had also been working on the body, pounding out dents, and filling many extra holes in the firewall. With a shop too small for everything happening on the truck, and with a need to get the chassis home, Josh decided to put the body into storage for the time being. While all this was happening Josh caught wind that his buddy’s neighbor Doug Nelson was a body and paint man, so he asked if he’d stop by and take a look at the body. Doug swung by to look things over and agreed to tackle the project…oh yeah, did I mention Doug is a Paraplegic.

While the body was away Josh was working on getting the chassis going and had encountered some issues with it, as many of us know dealing with dual carbs can be a pain, he could get it to idle but that was about it. Josh had talked to a few people and done a lot of research but wasn’t sure what the problem was and no one in the area was interested in looking at it. At this point Josh called me about some advice on the tuning it and I told him to bring it to me (East Side Speed Shop), and I would give it a crack. When the chassis was dropped off I went over the usual checklist of things that could be wrong. I went through the ignition system to make sure it was all wired correctly, checked the timing, and the carbs, and looked over the intake and header install. I redid some of the hardware for the intake header mounting to make sure there would be no vacuum leaks as that is one thing that plagued banger motors. Once through my list I fired it up and it ran really good, but again when you tried to rev it up it would die off and pop back through the carb. I pulled the choke on and things got better, so we then knew we needed to put some bigger jets in the 81s, so after a little experimenting we got it running pretty good, and I even gave the bodiless chassis a ride while sitting on a milk crate!

Josh came and picked up the running chassis and got busy finishing up the project. He set the body and box back on the chassis then re-upholstered the seat with a stock seat cover keeping things real basic. He also rounded up a set of 35 Ford wire wheels and mounted some 600-16 and 750-16 firestone blackwall tires on them. Josh first drove the truck in the spring of 2012, but he still hadn’t driven it a lot so he decided to trailer it to the first annual Minnesota Billetproof car show in early 2013 where the truck was a hit. Since then, he has been driving the truck more and more, stretching its legs and getting more comfortable driving it further and further from home. Josh said he had a fun time building the car, and learning all the stuff he did as well as meeting all the interesting people along the way. I'm also glad I could be apart of putting this cool little truck on the road, and hope Josh gets many years of enjoyment out of it.

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