I've been kind of avoiding this thread, because there's so much, but I'll try to summarize:
* Original owner; I ordered this truck and followed it down the assembly line as it was built. Drove it off the end of the line to the shipping building; left the plant at 1 am and by 5 pm that same day it was sitting at the dealership.
* I owned this truck for four years and then sold it to my father in law. When he passed in 2008 the family asked if I wanted it back so I got it and freshened it back up a bit. So I'm the first and third owner -
* MY6 4 speed manual; floor shift. It's a MOPAR A833 trans, with 3rd gear as 1:1 and 4th gear as overdrive.
Factory Hurst shifter....
Funny story about that:
This was about the time when Mr Gasket was buying out Hurst and, because GM was not sure they could get the shifters, they placed this transmission combination on "Stop Order". I received word that my truck would not be built and so I started fretting about what I might be able to do for "Plan B" (...order the three on the tree Saginaw trans and then replace it with my own Saginaw four speed with a floor shift, etc).
During this time I was walking through the plant, past the motor line, and I noticed a bunch of these transmissions on pallets: stacked up, dozens and dozens of them. I called the Material Control supervisor over and asked him "...how many of those transmissions do you think you have?".
"Probably a hunnert" he said.
"Don't you think we oughta' build 'em, rather than leaving them sit there?" I suggested
He thought that was a pretty good idea, so when I got back to the office I mentioned it to my boss.
We ended up building one hundred of those trucks under a temporary deviation (one of which, naturally, was mine).
* I lowered it when it had about 1500 miles on it; hidden hitch with a bed mounted spare -
That's all I have time for right now; full story is linked in my signature if anyone wants to read more.
K
