A different sort of "restoration".

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mpgmike

mpgmike

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June of 2000 I bought a new tow dolly to move from Utah to Virginia. It towed my '71 Demon. I paid somewhere between $600 and $700 for it. While in VA I used it quite a bit locally. I then moved from VA to PA, and used it quite a bit there. I then moved to NJ and again, used it quite a bit. Recently I moved to OK and use it regularly here. Overall, I probably drug it well over 30k miles. I replaced the lights and fenders, welded up cracks, and tried to keep it greased. Well, on the last trip to NJ bringing stuff down, it pretty much fell apart. We literally lost a fender on I-80 in eastern PA.

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Whereas previous repairs were mostly patch jobs, I decided to completely tear it apart, weld up all the cracks (again), reinforce obvious stress areas with additional steel, sand blast and paint it. Some of the cracks were on the bottom. I never had the table off before, so it explained why I kept getting cracks on the top.
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With the table removed, I proceeded to disassemble everything, sand blast, prime, and paint.
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Here is the bottom of the table all welded up.
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It got new lights and wiring, new tires, new fenders, and a complete sand blasting, prime, and paint job.

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I sprayed some truck bed liner where the tires normally wear the paint away.
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The strap ratchet mechanisms are completely rebuilt, has new safety chains, safety pin, and everything is greased. It's now road ready!
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Wow! That's some really nice work! Can I hire you to work on mine? :lol:

Recently I picked-up a tandem axle hauler with a completely "shot" suspension (broken springs, worn bushings, etc). I dragged it into the shed/shop and tore it all apart, and I was in the middle of working on it when I had to stop to have surgery on my left hand (unrelated), and I'm "down" until the stitches come out next Wednesday. In the meantime I have a 24' trailer plugging up the entrance to my shed...

Anyway, I doubt mine is going to look as nice as yours when it's done, so well done, sir!
 
Thanks for the compliment! You're in Minnesota and I'm in Oklahoma. Probably not feasible.

Oh, I didn't mention I'm getting my sand from a local river bank. I have to double-filter it, but it's free!
 
that was your fender ...i knew i should have picked it up ....
hope you didn't get stuck in the sink-hole in nj
 
nutz said:
that was your fender ...i knew i should have picked it up ....
hope you didn't get stuck in the sink-hole in nj
Click to expand...
We were about 3 miles from the NJ border when one of those road craters bounced the empty tow dolly so hard the fender flew off, taking the light with it. There were concrete barriers on both sides of the road, no berm, no place to pull over. All I could do was keep driving and hope nobody got hurt. I have pictures somewhere with no fender on it at all.

I probably spent about as much refurbishing this as I paid for it new. New tires were about $130. I mounted them myself. The fenders, welding rod, and reinforcement steel was over $200. I know I have about $130 into paint. The wiring kit was another $50. New bolts, washers, etc add up to at least a few bucks. I burned through about 100 welding rods. I probably shot a half ton of sand. I got free sand from a local river, but if I paid Lowe's prices, that would probably top $300 just in sand. Then there's the electricity running the arc welder (and Mig, but not as much), and hours and hours of the compressor running.

I still feel like it was worth it. It should last longer than original with all the welded reinforcements.
 
Yea my fav part of nj
Delaware water gap...
Really cool hiking and a park
 
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