That would be nice, Merc, but I'm not programming it for you https://dodgeforum.com/forum/images/icons/icon12.gif

 

I don't own those lol, I just drive them a lot and do the work on them.

The 96 Dodge is the 'round the farm off-road truck. It is far superior off-road to the other two, and don't have to worry about the body so much. It is used as a backup towing truck too.

The Furd is the big rig, used primarily for my daily driver, going to town for parts or going to church or other events, and for towing very heavy loads (over 14,000lbs gross trailer weight). Also used for heavy loads in the bed such as dirt etc. and for hauling stuff that needs a smooth ride in the bed. It has been retired from heavy trailer loads.When all else fails, it steps in.

The 09 Cummins is what we do most of our towing with, assuming the trailer gross weight is 14,000lbs or less. It is also used for just normal driving as it is clean, nice and shiny, and gets good fuel economy.

I've suggested it several times, but like ******* and ******** it's sort of a thing that I don't feel will be happening anytime soon.

 

Great, the site wont let me edit my post and now I got the same drivel twice

 

The fellow that taught me how to dobody work started out building Studebaker and later built Ramblers.He really didn't like using 'that plastic crap' in his body work butusing lead was already pretty well verboten.




His last mane was Hemphill which Iguess is a Germanic in origin. He retired from Rambler just beforethe closed down but got tired of being retired and opened his ownshop. I lived right next door and kept hanging around so he put me towork.




I don't own a Dodge truck and haven'tfor over 40 years. I ended up with a '53 ¼ ton that had been mydads. It had a flat head straight 6 and fluid drive 3 on the tree. Ireally liked the truck but since I had a truck and most of my friendsdid not they would borrow it from me all the time. I was fool enoughto let them.




I lent it out one time to many I guessbecause the fellow managed to hit a deer then later the same nighttook it out partway across a swamp which totaled it.




Hitting the deer took out the radiatorbut he was so drunk he decided to try to make it home with it. Whenthe engine seized up he got another drunk buddy to push it towardhome and lost control thus the trip through the swamp.




I'm not completely sure how the enginemanaged to get physically broken but there was a good size chunk outof the head and the block had a rod out the side.




Like I originally said I came to thissite looking for information on my LHS.




It has been well over 30 years since Isold out my body shop. I really miss it, but unfortunately I have nohead for business. I started the shop in an effort to keep myself outof the taverns during the layoff season from my roofing job.




The roofing job paid quite well backthen and I was able to go to a lot of auctions and buy all kinds ofbody shop equipment for pennies on the dollar from other guys whoevidently didn't have a head for running a business either.




I was also able to acquire severalmachine tools cheap too. Like a nice Dunlap lathe and a Bridgeportknee mill. Then I made the mistake of getting married to a golddigger. She ran up tons of bills and I had to sell everything just tobreak even.




I was pretty disillusioned at the timeso it was pretty easy to give up.

 

There are several add-ons for this forum software that give Post Like/Dislike functionality.
Admin just needs to download and install... all of 15mins work (make it an hour is you count doing an extra backup before install).

 

I actually hope that they will just upgrade to a newer version. Many of those add-ons come standard. I know several other forums that have the newer vBulletin software and it's awesome. But it probably costs $$$$ so can't blame them. Upgrading a large forum is no small feat either..

 

We (mods and admins) have discussed these features (like/dislike, e-rep, etc) and felt it is best left alone.

 

^^^Thanks for the info Sir

 

I would say I have about five years into body work, but not in your average shop. It was a so to say a private shop, the owner picked what we worked on/built. It was more of a resto/metal shop specializing in Shovels, roo's, Nova's, C10's, F1's and the big one building drag cars. I was the metal fab/worker/sander/motor/rest of it guy and he was the smuk to end of paint. This was just a three man opt small shop 5 projects at max. I would love to post pix of this work and shop/**** we built but cameras and taking pix were not top on my list back then soo far from it. It was build cars/trucks and party hard. Btw this was back in 1983. The tech and products have come a long way since then, I will be the first to admit that, heck base clear was just entering the scene back then. The owner was annal wet sand between coats, weeks sanding door jambs/trunks all of it, but the end result was amazing. Nothing stuck around for more than 6 months as we would get bored working on them.

When I did the cab mounts in my truck they had to retain the stock look and strength as the org ones. I took a crazy amount of time to retain the org spot weld dimples in the replacement mount. Those spot welds are not functioning at all but they look right. Seam sealer was used and just applied with a rubber gloved finger just like it was done at the factory. Where I stepped out of my comfort zone was using the structural adhesive and not welding them in. It took lots of convincing to get me to use this adhesive over good old welding. There are pix of this work somewhere here on DF in a couple of threads.


Am I glad I did this work heck yeah, would I work in a reg body shop not a chance. I only do it for myself now and thats more than enough for me.

 

x2.


I've just been lurking as of lately.