Ok, so that was fun wasn't it?
I will be the first to admit, I have modified my truck in a few ways to make
it fit better into my life. And, yes, I am putting a non rover engine into
the rig that I think will also help it fit better for what I want the truck
to do. I also quite admire what people like TeriAnn have done with their
trucks, and belive that solid, well thought out hybrids and conversions can
be very nice trucks. What is that converted truck worth? Whatever anyone is
willing to pay. Is it a land rover? Well, we have had that discussion
already, haven't we? ;-)
OTOH, I was driving last year through Vancouver and was approched and passed
by what was once an 80". It now was wearing 35" boggers, lifted to the sky
with lift blocks and super arced springs, from the looks of it, it was buit
on a scout or perhaps jeep chassis. It had ultra cheesy fender flares and
basically was a driving (barely) testament to land rover butchery. Worse,
in my mind, was, it was a prime example of how not to "build" a 4x4 in the
first place. Just looking in my mirror and at its behind, I could see that
it had violated several fundamental rules about conversions, things like
using overarced springs, extravagant axle spacer blocks, body lift (not in
itself a bad thing) and twisted diffs. Who knows what more lied beneath.
The fenders would give about 2mm of articulation, heck, driving over a speed
bump on one side would probably cross axle this rig!
This, to me, is a "bad" conversion.
So, back to me... I find that I am very very reluctant to cut, chop, weld
or otherwise mangle my truck. Bolting and unbolting things is a different
matter. This is one of the beauties of engine conversions like the iron
duke. One can convert the truck over to the engine without modifying the
fundamental fabric of the vehicle one whit. If the truck is sold 10 years
down the road and someone wants to restore it to previous condition, it is a
simple bolt out-bolt in job.
I think it is admirable that some people keep their trucks in stock
condition, both "original used" and "concourse" shape. I happen to have a
garage full of bits that I hope one day will be transformed into a more or
less stock 80". It will probably never be 100% original, as it has led an
extremely hard life and I am going to have to bitsa quite a few pieces
together. But, I know a farmer in the Similkameen who has two 80" trucks
that he has run constantly for the past 30 years or so as his about the farm
trucks. These have been used, maintained, rebuilt and slightly modified
(farm things, like installing a rack to carry irrigation pipe). I have my
eye on one of these trucks, and I think if I manage to get one of them, I
would like to keep it in more or less "original used" shape. In this case,
I think it would be a shame to restore it to concourse condition as it would
loose some of its historical character.
Clinton
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