mattb73lt

Don't worry, you'll see it. Next scheduled event is probably the Brooklyn show. I think Macungie is out for me this year. Work looks like it will be in the way as we have several people away and numerous trips on the books.

Made it to the Bethlehem show yesterday. It started off slow, but really picked up in the afternoon. Tough date for a show, right between York and Macungie. I had a lot of questions about the truck. Surprisingly, numerous people asked if it was custom built, is if I had blended an L cab onto a B model. This has come up numerous times before. I guess they are sort of rare.

Those look very restorable, certainly better than what you had. See the others, too, in case you need sections of them or someone else could use them when you’re done.

That’s great. Good find!! Those should keep the progress going!!

A lot of people are upset. when my boss called the night it happened, you could tell in his voice he was having a hard time keeping it together. His offers were from his heart. A friend of mine is a sergeant at Troop H and he knows the Trooper and family well. They both had K9's together. When he was promoted a few years ago, this Trooper was assigned to his platoon. He's been assigned escort duty for the family. He's been driving them anywhere they need to go. I called him directly to make sure the offers of assistance made it to them. Yesterday, the family was at a Hartford Yard Goats baseball game and given a donated corporate box. The older son threw out the first pitch. These poor kids, 6 & 3, have no idea what's going on and what's happened. My boss picked up the tab for the food and drink for the entire family, no questions asked.

Hopefully the surgery will alleviate your pain and give you back some mobility and the recovery gives you no complications. It truly was senseless. The POS that struck him was caught about 5 miles up I84, after his truck broke down. My employer is a huge supporter of law enforcement and has several charities involved and made all the services of his company available to the family and the department, to include our helicopter and airplane. Services are this Wednesday and I'll probably be involved with the helicopter for the flyby of the funeral. The truck rode great loaded up. The pickup was a little farther back than I would load it for long distance, but the weight was still pretty even. This truck is about four feet longer in length than the B42 and it makes a big difference in the ride and turning radius.

Used my military pickup to set my winch cable and to test out my new chains, binders and tie downs. Loading it is easy because of all it's built in tie down points. Then used it as a load weight to run the truck around to see how it ran loaded up. It's probably a little heavier than the Cadillac I had on it over the winter. It rode great loaded up and needed a bunch of extra shifted as expected. It was also a little role reversal for these two as I used the pickup to haul a lot of the truck around and as a parts getter while doing the restoration.

I've been having trouble posting pictures, too. If I add them when I post they fail. After I post I go back and edit and add them there. Then they appear. No idea why that started to happen on both my phone and computer.

Excellent!!

Like I was saying, doesn't have to be pretty, just needs to keep things lined up so you can repair it and get some structural integrity back into it. Nice work!

I intend to. This is the fun part, using it and setting it up to use as I had envisioned. This season should be getting it out there to shows, finishing the details and building my confidence in it to go far from home with it. Future intentions are to load up one of my cars to take it to car tours. I attended several years ago, before life got crazy after 9/11, in the B42. All over New England, down to Virginia and I even went all the way to the Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado in 2005. Drove my '27 Model T Fordor over the Continental Divide at over 12,300' on that tour.

That's all looking really nice. I had a lot of slow downs, breaks and distractions trying to get mine done. When it gets slow, do some little stuff or order up some parts to be ready when time permits getting more accomplished. Nice work!

I would suggest contacting local chapters of the ATCA and ATHS in the areas of your company. Members may have direct knowledge or know some former drivers. Local Historical societies may also be of help with archive information of the company, photographs, locations anf names of people that worked for them. Ask around, you never know what you might uncover.

This is what i used on my B73. PPG Concept is no longer available I was told. The paint codes should cross to other brands of paint, though. I threw the engine paint code in there, too.

I would pick one of those areas and concentrate on it until it's got some structural integrity. Brace all those soft areas first to keep the hood's shape. Bracing doesn't have to be pretty, what you did there is fine. Be careful with some of those fiberglass chemicals, they can be very hazardous to you. It is pretty rough, but don't look at the whole thing, just where you're working. You'll get it done, one repair at a time.

That looks fantastic!! Great job and so fast, too. Now, head out and enjoy it!! Have fun.

I never thought it would be this long, have that many posts or have almost 210,000 views, DAMN!!!!!

No shortage of storage on the truck now!!!

If you look at those B21's closely, they have both the extended radiator of the B71 and the fender to cowl extensions of the B73/75's. Probably the longest nose B's ever built. Those Hall-Scott's are just huge.

Hey, it's famous!! That guy didn't talk to me though.

Yes, quite a bit of noise reduction and no drumming of the panels. The issue of noise is solely from the exhaust. When I’m coasting around or with not much of my foot in it, it’s very quiet. I’m probably going to fit a under frame muffler or resonator to it eventually.

It's 65 MPH in most areas on that run. I was careful when I did it and it was only for a short period. I always try not to be the front runner going anywhere. As long as there's people going by you, let them get out ahead of you and run the traps. There's plenty of four wheelers screaming by you to draw attention from you anyway. Most of the way I was 65-70. Some grades I thought I was falling off on speed, they weren't any crazy grades. After dropping a gear the slowest I saw was 60. I'd probably be a little slower if I had something on the back. When I had that Cadillac on the back heading to storage last fall, I was still going pretty good up the grades on that run and still never saw much below 60 MPH.

Nothing a little soap, water and elbow grease can't fix. I will say that cab is very dry, warm and tight in crappy weather. My home built electric wiper system was a complete home run! The intermittent feature was great in the mist and drizzle and I never needed to go to fast mode. They kept the visibility excellent the whole time I needed them.

Well, it made it's first outing to the Western Mass ATCA show at Yankee Candle in Deerfield. It was a mostly dry ride up and I stayed until about 12:30 when it was a more steady rain. Ran into several people I know but haven't seen in a long time. Some others I only know from social media I met for the first time. That's always odd to me that some one who looks like a total stranger knows a lot about you and your truck. I guess that's how we'll meet some people in the current times. Anyway, a really good time talking about the truck and how I found it and what I did to it to bring it back. It ran great, up and back. Found it's sweet spot on the highway is about 1700 and 70 MPH. I did run a little faster, here and there, to try it out and although it'll certainly go much faster, 1950 is as I fast as turned it and saw 78 as the fastest speed. Granted, I was empty and just wanted to test it out and get a better feel for it. I did run up a on a few trucks headed to the show that got on just ahead of me. I figured I would run with them as we were getting close to the exit for the show. Then I found the opposite end of my cruise spectrum. They were running about 60ish when they got up to speed and I found that I'd need to drop a gear to stay with them. After trying that out for a bit I headed on and chugged by them. We got to the show about 5 minutes apart. So a few more things learned about the new toy. Overall, a good day with a lot of great conversations! If it was 24 hours earlier, it would of been perfect with yesterday's weather.

Sharp looking truck!!