I Shipped A Broken Truck Across The Country!

Call me crazy, but I just shipped a broken truck across the country!

That's right, my 1953 Chevrolet 3100 farm truck is finally safely with me in Nashville, and Caleb and I wasted absolutely no time continuing the antique farm truck restoration so we could get it back on the road. To start firing and running regularly, we needed to remove, rebuild, and replace the original 1953 Chevy 3100 starter. Because I'd converted the truck over to a 12V starting system a few months ago, we knew replacing the starter would be something we had to do eventually anyway, but of course, knowing my luck, the truck decided to stop firing entirely just in time for the shippers to load it in Seattle to bring to me in Nashville, so that made the loading process of my broken truck quite an adventure indeed!

Once it arrived safely, I had opportunity to put my new golf cart through it's paces towing the truck back and forth to Caleb's until we got it running again. Replacing the starter was another adventure, because we couldn't just buy a new one, we had to rebuild the one we had so it would fit back into the original truck mount. The starter got a new solenoid, a new armature plate, new brushes and a new shaft. We got it mounted back in the truck and got her back on the road.

BUT THEN, and unfortunately we didn't get any footage of this, the WHEEL OF THE TRUCK FELL OFF at 30mph. That was quite terrifying, and thankfully everyone, including the truck body, chassis and wheel posts are totally fine, it just woke us up a bit and when we realized everything was ok, gave us a good story to laugh about and tell later.

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Anne Briggs2 Comments