LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
If you’re lucky enough, you’ve still got your project truck to keep you sane.
That being said, a lot of our projects have seen some serious downtime as of late, but there are more ways to enjoy it than just tossing money at it. In fact, some of the biggest strides you can make in your project involves throwing some good old-fashioned elbow grease into it!
Even if you’re flat broke, don’t give up. Do something to your project, no matter how trivial or insignificant it may seem. Pull that old ratty carpet or rubber mat out of the cab and vacuum up all of that rusty dust underneath. Polish your wheels. While you’re down there, make sure the tires have enough air pressure. Truck gonna be sitting for a while? Drain the cooling system to ward off corrosion during its slumber. Or maybe you can finally pull that cruddy engine out of the bay, get it on an engine stand and start going through it. Maybe pound out that dent that’s been bugging you and skim some body filler on it to brush up on your bodyworking skills.
The important part here is to keep pushing forward and making progress, even if it’s a quarter of a percent at a time.
It’ll feel good—trust me. I recently changed out the thermostat housing in one of my trucks, and wouldn’t you know it? About a week later it started leaking because of an old (never used), cheap gasket I used. As you know, changing a thermostat housing is easy, but it’s also messy and doesn’t add any horsepower, so it’s boring work. So, I let the truck sit for a few weeks because I was frustrated at myself for not using a fresh gasket. When I finally did change it out, I felt like a million bucks and started driving the truck again regularly. Of course, my neighbor rear-ended it soon after, but on the plus side I’m getting a new bumper out of it.
THIS PAST YEAR HAS HIT a lot of us in a pretty bad way, either through the loss of loved ones and/or financially. That has meant a lot of adjustment in our daily lives and routines. While it’s been tough, one positive is that we have a newfound sense of appreciation for what we do have. But then there’s the lack of shows. Yeah, that’s sucked.
Above all, don’t lose sight of why you got that truck in the first place—you needed it, and it needed you. That sort of symbiotic relationship is hard to come by, but that’s kind of what it’s all about, isn’t it?