Found my old truck

[SecondCamperSpecial]

A friend of mine located my old 1969 Camper Special. It has been sitting for years, Sitting has not been good to it. Another mutual friend talked to the currant owner and looks like I will be able to get it back. Not sure it will be more than a parts truck but hope to go look at next week. It is less than thirty miles away. It has some options I would like to get back. I will post some pictures next week.

[toddspeed]

cool - when/why did you get rid of it? how much work had you done on it? This has the makings for a cool story!

[SecondCamperSpecial]

I bought a some what beat down California truck about 28 years ago. It was dark green with a smashed right fender but no rust. It ha a 360 engine with dual tanks and factory a/c. I pulled a 390 from a 65 Thunderbird and bored it .030 and rebuilt it stock. I had duals installed and it was my daily driver. I had a local shop do a custom cloth and vinyl interior . I made a sliding bumper mount because I used to carry my 1980 Trek 12 foot slide in camper. I bought the camper at a farm sale. It had only been used one time for 3 weeks. I would pull my 1976 Mark Train boat to the lake and on vacation with it. At the time I had two young kids. My wife and kids would ride in the back and the dog and I were in the cab. I took a corrugated air cleaner intake hose and rigged it to fit the factory air conditioner and ran it in through the back window to the camper so it would not be so hot. After about 3 years I ran out of lead substitute while on a trip through the hills of Pennsylvania and sunk all the valves into the heads. I shimmed all the rocker stands with washers and limped it home which was 500 miles. I got 3 miles per gallon on that trip home. This is when I learned about hardened valve seats. I redid the heads with new valve and hardened seats. Truck ran but I damaged one cylinder, it used one quart of oil every 100 miles. About that time I had had enough and I picked up a 1977 F250 Super cab. I started to redo it and the wife said no so that truck and the camper were sold to buy a Motorhome. I had 4000 in the Camper Special and drove it for 4 years. I sold it for 2500 with the bad engine. Took me about two years to miss it. It never got great mileage but it could pull anything. I used to drive it across I 80 through Indiana to My favorite came ground and with the 12 foot slide in my shoulders were so sore it took a couple of hours just to relax. I bought a sway bar off the rear of a 78 F250 4x4 and it bolted on and I was able to drive it then with one hand. Yea I can say I missed that truck.

[toddspeed]

Wow that's a trip down memory lane!

Ahhh I-80 thru Indiana/Ohio - many a trip across there myself. Beats going through Gary, IN any day!

[Ranchero50]

Great stories, so far I haven't sold any of my toys. I do regret scrapping a couple fairlanes over the years but you can't save them all.