Wow - Has It Really Been Almost A Year?

Man - where does the time go? It's hard to believe our last entry was 11 months ago. I sat back & thought about this for a few minutes thinking, "what the heck have I been doing?". Well, in short, (or not), here's the skinny...
 - Less than a month after acquiring the truck, my wife's van needed some work done to it... and then more work... then even more work! By July, and almost $1000 later, we determined this money pit was no longer worth having around. So, we sold the van. Of course she wanted something nicer, so I had to pony up even more cash to buy her a nice clean Buick.
 - In August, my youngest daughter announces that she's getting married - and they want the ceremony to be in June of 2008 (which is now less than 2 months away as I write this). Well, there's another $5000 at least. Yikes!
 - In order to help finance this latest chapter in her life, we decided to sell our 1970 Chevy Nova that has 52,000 original miles. The car needed some new tires anyways, so we put those on, did an LOF & tuned her up, and out the door she went in October.
 - It was November before we really had any time to work on the truck, but since it was going into storage by Thanksgiving, we decided to hold off on any serious work until spring. Unfortunately, I do not have a big enough garage to work in over the winter, so everything would be on hold until at least April. So, it she went for a long winter's nap. zzzzzzzzz

Finally, it's April. The snow has been gone for about a month, the days are getting warmer and longer & the C10 is out of storage. I had to pop in a new battery (needed one anyway) but the 350 fired right up with no smoke of any kind. The fuel stabilizer we put in worked wonders. We put in a few gallons of fresh premium fuel, took the truck out for a short drive & everything still seemed to be in order.

Time to get serious! The first thing we wanted to tackle was safety. A good friend of mine says there are three things that make up a daily driver - brakes, the horn, & a standard transmission. As long as you have 2 out of the 3, you're all good! Well, my wife doesn't agree with that senario, so we made sure the brakes, steering & suspension were all up to snuff. When we bought the truck, all 4 tires were practically brand new, so that problem was solved, but we also noticed that the truck needed ball joints bad! We were going to get these done back in early November, until we realized the C10 was still wearing the original ball joints from the factory! This really wasn't surprising, because the truck has less than 31,000 original miles. We didn't have the tools to get the job done since the originals have rivits or pins holding them on - not bolts.

We took the truck to a buddy's garage that had a lift (and to borrow some of his vast array of tools) & replaced all 4 in about 3 hours. We also gave the truck an LOF, fixed the horn, adjusted the brakes, changed the plugs and ordered a new switch so the backup lights would finally work. We thought we were almost home free when we took a good look at the bearing in the 2 piece driveshaft. Ouch! This thing was pretty worn out! So, we ordered one of those & will finish the work by weeks end. Then we can drive the truck with cofidence knowing we can stop, turn & stay on the road 100%.

What's next? We will weld in the new floor pans, replace the trashed horn button, deep six those stupid mirrors that block the vent windows from opening with some nice chrome ones, replace the LH window modulator (so the window rolls up & down like it should) and then comes a transmission swap to a TH350 automatic. Stay tuned!