This is her, the RezMobile, grinning, warts and all.
She's got a 318 engine and 727 transmission, 1/2 ton rear end (9 3/4), power brakes (disk front), no air.
There's a long history to this puppy, but we won't go into that here. Let's just say this truck wasn't washed for fifteen years
before I got it and leave it at that. I traded an Oldsmobile Delta 88 Royale for this beast.
The guy I got it from sold the Olds to one of the local constabulary, who gave it to his daughter
to drive and kept bringing it back for me to repair as she inflicted more and more
damage on it. He finally sold it to four migrant farmworkers (who spoke little English - I had to broker the deal),
who pooled their money to buy it. Then the Olds was finally gone. I drove this beast a little, even all the way from here
(Belleville, Illinois) to Weatherly, PA for a gathering of Indians. That was a two thousand mile round-trip and the only
casualties were two dry-rotted tires. One of which blew south of somewhere called RussellVille, Ind. (I took a wrong
exit and ended up in the literal middle of nowhere at 0100...)
But that was after I corrected the intake problems (all the bolts were loose and the last guy who had it apart
evidently had no idea what sealant was).
She's got a lot of rot, as you'll soon see.
You'll note the amount of rust on the hood, there's a little primer there, but one hell
of a lot of rust. It's scaled up about 3/16ths of an inch on the passenger's side.
Looks like brown moss! The camper was an add-on, but it's the prototypical model of this genre.
The front wheel is dark 'cause it's rusty, it was once the spare that hung under the bed for
years (THAT was a trip to get down when the tire blew, I've no idea how long
it rode there, undisturbed). The floorboards are gone, the previous owner screwed some sheet stainless
down (after pulling up the rubber floor mat and padding).
The wheel arches are gone. Just a strip at the base remains. The exception
is the passenger's front fender, which has only sustained some rust inside against the fender flares, and
has rusted at the lower rear, where it meets the door. The driver's side is a mess, as you can see.
The wiper louver is removed in these pictures (and still is) waiting to be repainted, or at least primed.
As you can tell, the three coats of "Earl Schieb, I'll paint any car, twenty-nine ninety five, amino alkyd
latex, enamel, tempra, nail polish, use it on the floors, paint the tub and your car" have completely self
destructed. The spots where it hasn't exploded as so hard the only method I've found of removing it is to
scrape it off with a cabinet scraper, down to the primer. I kid you not, this stuff laughs at stripper! Even
aircraft stripper.......
The rear wheel arches didn't fare any better.... that's the inner bed you can see
through that hole. The fender liners in the rear held up pretty well, considering.
The outer strip, where it mates to the fender is gone, but the inner liner survived.
A little judicious forming and welding will restore that. I intend to weld in replacement arches, both sides,
as well as a lower rear on the passenger side. While those are cut out, I can repair the inner liners.
The bed isn't too bad, but the supports (stiffeners) are gone in several places. While we're in this locale,
let's talk about the emergency brake ... it stuck on the previous owner, so he hack-sawed the adjustment
link and left it as was. The cables were frozen in their jackets and had to be replaced.
The pivot arm was also in a solid state, so to speak. I freed that up when I replaced the cables,
but it going to have to be removed and rebushed. That is a job for later, as the gas tank has to
come out to reach the ny-lock nut on the other side of the frame. Right now, it's working (I fabricated a new link, but will
replace that with OEM when I find one).
The doors are a different story entirely (ok, it's like deja vu, all over again). Once again, the previous
owner worked his incredible magic (hey, the guy's my neighbor, but he can't be trusted with tools or strong
adhesives). There's a lot of fibreglass there popping off. It's on the doorskins as well as the rockers and
cab corners. Actually, he did a rather commendable job, to a point. What originally caused the rot here was
that the belt weatherstrip is rotted away from the windows, allowing water to flow feely into the doors. If
he'd taken the time to fix that (or perhaps even realized that was the culprit), his patches probably would
have held. Fibreglass is a nightmare in the wrong hands, but almost a religious experience with a good technician.
Now here's an interesting anomoly. The upper curve of the fender, just at the door stile, has a hole rusted through.
It looks like water got up into that complex fold, rusted it out, eventually froze, and pushed out. Probably, after removing
the fender, I'll gut that out to good metal, weld in a patch and lead that back in for a smooth contour. You also get a
good look at some of the "lighter" rust on that hood. There's plenty of good metal behind that, I stripped it down
and primed it right after this picture was taken. I also opened up the passenger rocker (the fibreglass tape came loose -
it looked like sharp metal hanging out at a 30 degree angle), and found there was about 2 inches of sediment, soil, rusty metal,
and a lot of water.
So it looks like pretty much all of the cab floor area, as well as the doors are going to be repaired. The doors will get new lower skins,
I think I can save the lower inner with a little crafty welding and soldering. The lower inner bodies are strong, but will have to be derusted
while the skins are off. But *THAT* happens after the weatherstrip gets repaired, this time. One more shot of the truck, you can see the roof
is rusting, one more area that needs quick attention! The grill isn't too bad, a few scratches, but no significant damage. The bumbers aren't too bad.
The front has some holes bored in it for "running lights" (damn! I hate those things, especially when some jerk pulls up behind me a night with them glaring!)
It has a small twist to it, so sometime in the future it'll get replaced. The rear is fine, but needs rechroming. The tail lights are rough, driver's has a hole in
it, but I have already secured replacements that are near perfect.
Ok, that's the quided tour for now. Will post pictures as we progress. This is just the first "rough draft" to
get the pictures on the web. A full blown site follows!
Email Rabid!
This page last updated Monday, September 13, 2000 @ 2205 hrs.