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ex98thdrill

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Everything posted by ex98thdrill

  1. Again for the money I spent for that new trailer, I'm not going to debate this nor am I going to do anything to void the warranty. If someone wants to shell out what I did and ignore things being said, that is entirely up to them. It's their trailer, it's their money and the risk is entirely up to them. Oddly enough, most people who would thumb their nose at any of this, wouldn't shell out that kind of money for that trailer. If by chance they do, it's their trailer and their decision.
  2. Willys military Jeep. I couldn't fit the entire picture in my scanner, but if you look at the two pictures, you'll see the evolution of the military Jeep in chronological order. This does not include the M151. If you look to the far right, you'll see the M38A1 does not have the flat fenders. The shape of the fenders pretty much resembles that later CJ5's and CJ7's
  3. I haven't had chrome done in about four years, but I use a company out of Canada called Cambridge Custom Chrome and we've used them on all of our cars for the last 20 years. Cambridge processes chrome with chemicals that have been banned in the US. They really do good work and they usually set up in the Red Field at Hershey. My dad and I had dealt with three or four different platers, found Cambridge and stuck with them. Ironically anytime I was at a meet and saw a car on the showfield from Canada I'd ask them who they used and most of them told me Cambridge as well.
  4. I learned on a '67 Mack that had two shifters with a 16 speed transmission. It's been so long since I've been in one I'm not sure if I could do it, but the people who know me and can drive them tell me it comes back pretty easy. I have two Fords, but they are only a 4-speed which isn't much. The truck I drive is a Freightliner that has an Eaton Fuller 10 speed that I have no problems. A lot of guys I work with don't like the truck because of the shift pattern, when in all honesty, it shifts just like our two Fords, it's just an issue of having more gears. We have a '34 Diamond 'T' at the firehouse that actually shifts better than the two Fords. I will be the first to tell you that I couldn't start a Model 'T' if my life depended on it.
  5. I'll be the first to tell you that I don't know squat about Franklins. Your best bet is to see if there is a Franklin Club and reach out to them. Two answers: 1. AACA Libraray & Research Center - right under the same roof at AACA Headquarters and one of the best automotive libraries in the world. If you can travel to Hershey the only thing it will cost you is for the copies that you'll need. If not, then you can discuss that with them. If nothing else, you can get copies of critical information an many vehicles at a reasonable price that will assist you in restoration that you can also show for documentation when the vehicle is being judged. 2. Any time you're restoring a car, in most cases you'll get your best information from the marque clubs. In most cases if you restore the vehicle to marque club standards and can get through their judging system, you'll be able to walk right through the AACA Judging System. Case in point..... If you restore a car like a Corvette, NCRS is way more tougher than AACA in terms of judging. Early Ford V8 is tougher on the flathead Fords than AACA is. If there is a Franklin club, I'm sure that Franklin may very well be the same way. At an AACA event you might see three Franklins. If you go to a Franklin event, you very well may see 20 of them. Best of luck.
  6. Back in 1989 my dad and I started out with a homemade stock car car trailer and pulled it with a Ford Ranger. Over the period of the last 30 years the two of us pooled our money and bought bigger trucks, bought used trailers and slowly as we could afford it, worked our way up to better equipment. My dad would skin me alive if he knew what I paid for the new trailer, but he'd love it. Many cars, many shows, many years and many miles later and I finally have really good towing equipment. We have two Chevy pickups, but the 3/4 ton is starting to show its' age so in a couple more years I want to replace it with a new truck. In the meantime, the 1/2 ton will do the job. In either case, I still have three pulling rigs. The only thing that I can't haul are the two ladder trucks.
  7. In my area it's getting harder to find a two wheel drive truck on a dealer's lot. For all of the years that I worked nights and had to get to work when the roads weren't plowed I haven't had anything less than a 4-wheel drive for the last 30 years. I know they're more money, but I'd rather have it and not need it than to need it and not have it.
  8. Disagree all you want. I had problems, listened to the dealer and my problems went away. After shelling out the money I shelled out, I'm not going to take that chance nor am I going to do anything that could void my warranty. If the guy was crooked he'd have given me what I asked for when I ordered the trailer. He might be wrong, you might be right, I'm just telling you what was happening. We had rewired our old trailer at least three times. I appreciate your kind words on my trailer. We got 18 years out of a used trailer, so if I can keep the new trailer out of the elements and off of the salt covered roads, I'm hoping to get 25 years out of this new trailer. If I can get 25 years out of that trailer, I'll be 80 years old, so I'm hoping this will be the last enclosed trailer that I'm ever going to need. I do want to buy an aluminum tilt bed open trailer for short trips, and of course I still have the fire truck hauler too. Unless I'm going for a Repeat Senior AGNM with the fire trucks, everything that I have that won't fit in the enclosed trailer is going for either an HPOF or a Repeat Preservation, so I don't have to have everything letter perfect because the big stuff has already won its' awards.
  9. There are guys buying them up and welding them back together. You don't see as many of them because most of the people that want a Jeep want the Willys. In terms of restoration the parts for the Willys are a lot more plentiful and easier to get. I have a '52. The '52's were the last year of the flat fenders.
  10. With the paint being so bad it threw me off too. It was the wide tub that caught my attention.
  11. I haven't tracked them, but with "square bodied" Chevy trucks being in demand, it wouldn't surprise me.
  12. You can put your wife's measurements on the roof. Who cares?? I went with my name in big black reflective letters on the roof. Cops can see if from a bridge, you could see it with a drone, etc. In either case no matter what you use, chances are the thief isn't going to think to check the roof of your trailer before they steal it. As hard as it is to peel scothlight off of things, and then get the glue off, there is a pretty slim chance that even if they know my name is on the roof, it isn't going to be a five minute job getting my name and the glue that holds that lettering off of the roof of my trailer. If they paint over my name, you're still going to have a raised lip from the vinyl if it's still there. With it being reflective, if you hit the roof of the trailer at night with a light, my name is going to show up. The man who installed my vinyl on my trailer gave me the strangest look when I asked for it, but it cost me $400 to put my name on a $40,000 trailer. When I explained to him that I looked at it as "cheap insurance" he put my name on the roof. I paid a little more money to get a gray trailer instead of a white one, but gray won't fade like your darker colors, it hides the dirt better than white, and it's not as common as the other trailers. With the odd color, Scotlight I have on the back, sides, front and roof of the trailer I think even the dumbest of thieves will take the easier way out and steal somebody else's trailer instead of mine. If I'm pulling into the trailer lot at a national meet and it's dark, it's a whole lot easier to spot my trailer too.
  13. I don't have an Apple I-phone but my sister does. My sister lives in West Virginia and she can tell you exactly where that trailer is.
  14. Be careful how you do that. My dad had our old trailer set up where the breakaway was hooked to a 12 volt car battery where it was strong enough to stop the trailer, run the winch and jump the battery on the car in the trailer if we needed to. When I went to order my new trailer I wanted to get the same set up in my new trailer and the dealer REFUSED to do that. He told me that he wouldn't do that, and there is not a reputable dealer that would do that. We always thought a 12 volt battery was a 12 volt battery, but when it comes to trailers they are not. A 12 volt car battery provides too many amps and those amps will burn the wiring out of your trailer. The dealer told me that the small batteries that come with the trailer provide enough volts to do the job, but not too many amps to where it'll burn the wires out of the trailer. Ironically in hindsight, I was having electrical problems with the trailer and that's why I decided to get a new one. After the dealer told me that, I took the car battery out of my old trailer and replaced it with a small battery and our problems went away......... Imagine that!! If I had bought another used trailer, we would've made the same exact mistake a second time. I think some kind of identification on the roof and an apple air tag is the best way to go.
  15. Thank you. I put a lot of thought into it. I got the biggest trailer that I could buy that I could pull with my half ton pickup. If I can pull that trailer with my half ton, then there's nothing else that I own that won't be able to pull it. Of course my father would skin me alive if he knew what I paid for it, but he never lived long enough to see it. Where him and I differed in opinion was that we spend a lot of money when it comes time to restore a car and after spending that money, I'm not about to cut corners on trailers, straps and towing equipment to get that car to and from the meets that we go to.
  16. Yup, I ordered mine in July, 2021 and didn't get it until Thanksgiving, 2022. If was supposed to be delivered in 11 months and it ended up being 16 months. I hated it, but once I got the trailer, it was all forgotten. As much of a pain in the butt as it was, it was well worth the wait. From the time I ordered that trailer until now, the list price keeps getting higher and higher, so I'm glad that I didn't put it off.
  17. The AACA logo is a registered trademark. If I were to have that made locally there is a possibility that someone might not like it. AACA doesn't make what I want, so I might've found someone to make what I wanted my way.
  18. I never cared for the Diesel engines, but when I joined the Army back in 1985, those trucks were brand new. I always thought they looked bad@$$
  19. Yeah with me being retired, I'm going. The plan next year is to leave Saturday, take a quick tour of Hershey and then drive down to my sister's house in West Virginia. Leave Monday and take a tour of the Wood Brother's Museum in Stuart, Virginia and spend the night wherever I decide to stop. Tuesday I want to visit King Richard's museum in Level Cross, stop and see the Childress Museum and roll into the convention hotel Tuesday night. Spend Wednesday going to the NASCAR Hall of Fame, Thursday going to the local race shops, and start the convention on Thursday. I already have the bulk of two seminars ready so if I present a seminar or two I can, if not, I'll listen to someone else's. I will go there for an Annual Meeting, but I'll never take a car there for a meet. As much as I enjoyed Philly, the last time we had an annual meeting there, it was the last time my dad ever went to an AACA event before I lost him. So in a warped since of way, my dad has never missed the annual meeting in Philly. His last time we took the stage to accept our national award and that was his farewell. At the time I lost him, we were the reigning recipients of the Peterson Fire Apparatus Award. Gettysburg was nice, but as much as I like it, I think it's too small, and too far away from a major airport for people who want to fly in. As for Chantilly, it's close to a major airport, you don't have the crazy traffic like you do in Philly, the facility is nice, room rates are good, you don't have to pay for parking, and there are plenty of things to see and do around Washington DC and plenty of restaurants. From a seminar and convention area it seems to be big enough, and it's closer to the folks coming from the south. As for me coming from western, New York, I think the difference in time on the road between Philly versus Chantilly is within a half hour one way or the other. Very minimal. I was able to take my car down there with one tank of gas going down and one tank of gas coming back and still wasn't running on fumes when I got home. In Chantilly we'll never have to worry about coming up with a plan of attack no matter who wins the Super Bowl. About the only thing that I don't remember seeing was a hospitality room, but I'm not a drinker, so that isn't a big deal to me. Great event, great job, and I'm already looking forward to next year. Here are some pictures from 2018 when the Eagles won the Super Bowl
  20. That's a nice looking car. Every time I see something like that I think that if it was a Chevelle or Camaro SS that age and condition, the car would be a gold mine that none of us could afford. Someone took very good care of that car for a long, long time. I have a friend who has a '72 two door that he bought brand new that is in very nice shape too. Those cars were a good running, dependable car. I think GM screwed up when they quit making them.
  21. That isn't the shop, the shop is in another building. This is the show barn where all of the show cars are stored. That picture was taken before it was completely finished. Today It's packed full of vehicles, but I have radiant in floor heating so as cold as it is tonight, those cars are kept at about 56 degrees. I had to remortgage my house to pay for that building, and then when I got a settlement from my motorcycle accident, that paid for the geothermal heat.
  22. Based on the width of the tub, it looks like an M-151. Ironically the very first one that was ever built was given to Eisenhower, and is still on display at Eishenhower's farm. That model was very prone to rolling over (I almost rolled one over myself) and were supposed to be cut in half and/or destroyed when the Army was done with them, but a lot of people bought them and welded them back together. In the Army's effort to get rid of the 151's, they replaced them with the Chevy Blazers until the Humvee could be developed.
  23. Mine didn't arrive so I had to ask for a renewal. My check got cashed last week, and my PA sales tax has already been filed and paid
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