So our local friend K. is selling off his stash of parts and moving northward, sadly diminishing our local ranks. Two Bs drove north from Columbia to my doorstep with the intention of forming a posse to pick over the goods; while we waited for a return call, we (well, mostly they) tore the water pipe down off of my rig and cleaned it up in preparation for a new thermostat. The gaskets were pretty toasted, so we cleaned them off with a razor blade and ran out to get some RTV. At the parts counter we got a call from K, who told us to stop on over.
He’s got quite a stash in his basement to pick over, but I showed good judgement and only walked away with two parts I need and one I couldn’t pass up. The first are a set of bucket seat bases in much better shape than the ones salvaged from Chewbacca. My plan is to sand, clean, and paint them up, refurbish the tracks, and remount the original green seats (I’ve got those too) to replace the hillbilly buckets that are mounted right now.
The third item is worth celebrating: when I got the truck, it sported a hideous aftermarket dashpad abomination that came out two weeks after we got it running. Because the metal of the dash is painted purple, the green stock replacement I put in looks, shall we say, odd, especially when paired with the red windshield frame and yellow hood. K. sold me a pristine black dashpad for a song, and it will be installed as soon as the weather warms up.
Back in the garage, the new thermostat went in quickly and without a fuss; we even got the upper hose reinstalled with two shiny new hose clamps. Next up is the fan shroud issue; we didn’t have time to tackle it this weekend.