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Adventures with Big Blue

Meanwhile, back at the farm, the garage building was continuing. While we were gone, the (now much smaller) crew had put up a lot of the wall sheathing and was starting to put up the roof joists. :waytogo:


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We hit the road, but we didn't get very far before we encountered this on the side of the highway:

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So we pulled off. A guy standing nearby asked for my fire extinguisher. I gave it to him. We ran over to the fire, but he couldn't get access to the engine compartment. On this trip back North I was hauling some welding supplies for the Green Grendel project. So I told him to wait while I retrieved an 8' piece of channel iron. In the 30 seconds it takes for me to retrieve it he wastes the extinguisher spraying the outside of the car. :doah: :doah:

Next time, I will probably think twice before handing off a tool like that. I'm not sure why I didn't keep control of it. We wound up going over there together anyway. :dunno:

Anyway, having squandered the one chance we had to stop the fire, we had nothing else to do but sit and watch it burn. I backed Big Blue away from the flames and parked across the fiery lane to keep other drivers in the less-fiery lane. And we sat there consoling the driver. A young gal, she evidently was test driving this Trailblazer to see if she wanted to buy it. We all agreed that it wasn't the car for her.


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And here come the cavalry.

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Beautiful truck. Containing baby and flammable welding supplies. Please don't hit it. And definitely don't push it toward the flames. :eek1: Yes, it's quite a ways back from the fire now, but the evil thoughts still linger. :doah:

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Side note, that gravel burnout was from when I first pulled up and rushed up to where the black truck was.


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When the firemen appeared, they set up a flagman, who stopped all traffic during the spray down. So it backed up for a minute or two before everyone crept past. It's interesting, nobody slowed down for a flaming hulk with a large smoke plume, but nobody wanted to do more than 5MPH past the parked fire truck. :screwy:

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The amazing thing here is just how little is left of the Trailblazer. That compartment used to be really cramped (Right, @Larry and @ZooMad75?) And there's just not a whole lot left, comparatively. :eek1:

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Having finished out opportunity to help, we pulled out and continued our trek.

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We stopped at the nearest town and bought a new fire extinguisher. A 5lb extinguisher this time instead of a 2.5lb one.
 
My wife and I went to Old Threshers in 2011 and had a great time. We will make it back there again some time.

How big are these wheels?



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I was told that this engine was the one on the tv show Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman.100_0251.JPG100_0227.JPG
 
This truck needs matching wheels...

Wait...I post up awesome adventures, and all you can see is the mismatch in the wheels? :doah: :screwy:

This truck used to have matching wheels, but everybody agrees they were ugly.


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I then tried selling off my CUCV wheels to members on here, and was talked out of it. Because my truck has such a dire need for pretty wheels.

You should keep these wheels and put them on that truck. Glass bead them, and paint them white. Would look much better.

Martin

Hey, that's what I want them for:pimp:

Well that's why I want them too, but his rig would look sooooo much better with them.

Martin

Don't talk him out of selling them Martin, you're killing my deal :haha:

I figured that's the primary reason why anyone would want the rims in the first place... :whistle:

I ended up keeping them. Last summer Martin gave me a set of hub caps, so I'm good to go when it comes time to buy tires. White CUCV rims with hub caps. Martin approves, I'm sure. ;)


The problem is that this truck sees so few miles in a given year that it may take me a decade to wear out what's on there now. The front tires started to wobble (imbalance), so I swapped them out for the silver van wheels. I have the other van wheels ready to install, but the rusty rims still have good tires. So...there it sits. Kinda ugly. But it doesn't make sense to throw good rubber away and buy new rubber for a truck that sits most of the time. The new rubber would dry-rot before it even had a chance to wear out. :dunno:

Interestingly enough, when I went through the pictures from this trip, I found pictures of checking the tires on the side of the road. I'm 95% confident that this fit of boredom was inspired by one of the many baby-tending stops.




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Rear rubber (on ugly rims):

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Front rubber (on silver rims). Much less up here than on the back tires:

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First off.. You KNOW I appreciate the adventures.. So I don't need to comment. But I will say this lock and damn 11 is a cool place to check out.

2nd....dude this is a truck forum...would you expect less???

3rd... a set of GMT 400 rims with center caps and trim rings are what you need on that truck... That seems " right" to me... I don't know why.
 
My wife and I went to Old Threshers in 2011 and had a great time. We will make it back there again some time.

How big are these wheels?



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I was told that this engine was the one on the tv show Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman.View attachment 195516View attachment 195517


Neat! We were also there in 2011 (and many other years :rolleyes:). Here are a couple pictures from that year:



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Model T with a Pullford conversion. Regeared for tractor duty.

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This year the parade went the opposite direction. I'm not sure why they switch it up from year to year.

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I really like the Sorghum syrup that these guys produce. Really neat stuff. And, no, I can't find it for sale in Wisconsin. :doah:

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The other thing for you to check out (if you haven't) is Bud's homemade root beer. Freshly made, lots of flavor, and uncarbonated. It's a little different, but very awesome.

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This electrical generator sits across from the big black Marshalltown engine:

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Good times. I may have unwittingly seen you in the crowd.

On a side note, it does seem like you've been to every cool place I write about. Why don't you do some trip reports? :popcorn:
 
I don't take enough pictures to make any trip reports.

We were there for two days. The electric trolley derailed, so we watched them try to get it back on the track.

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Oh, the Rock River Thresheree (Edgerton, WI) has a Sorghum Mill, and might sell the syrup.
 
Oh, the Rock River Thresheree (Edgerton, WI) has a Sorghum Mill, and might sell the syrup.

Cool. I may hafta check them out if I don't get down to Iowa soon enough. I don't use the syrup a whole super lot, but I've been out for a while, and I forgot to buy some this year. Until they were closing down the shop. :doah:
 
I don't take enough pictures to make any trip reports.

We were there for two days. The electric trolley derailed, so we watched them try to get it back on the track.


Well, you don't need a lot of pictures for a trip report. The large number of pictures is one of the reasons that I post so few of our adventures. It's just not worth the time to sort through thousands of pictures to find the best 40 or 50.

If you just took 10 or 20, the sorting is much easier! ;)
 
First off.. You KNOW I appreciate the adventures.. So I don't need to comment. But I will say this lock and damn 11 is a cool place to check out.

2nd....dude this is a truck forum...would you expect less???

3rd... a set of GMT 400 rims with center caps and trim rings are what you need on that truck... That seems " right" to me... I don't know why.

1) Ok. You might be surprised how quickly I forget that folks like these updates.

2) Yes, it's a truck forum, and no, I'm not surprised. I just don't wanna deal with it. :pimp: Although you have replanted the bug in my head. We'll see where it goes this time. :thinking: I actually woke up this morning thinking about those stupid rims. :rolleyes: :haha: :doah:

I have some newish spare tires lying around...I *could* make the wheels pretty without putting a whole lot of effort into it. :thinking: Argh. What have you started?

3rd...the silver rims are GMT400 van rims. Trim rings are on, and I have center caps available. Don't have a picture of them on Big Blue, but here is a picture of the Grendel:

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6-lug van rims in front, 8-lug truck rims in back (until I finish the conversion). They match well enough that the average non-truck person probably doesn't notice the mismatching hubs. :dunno:

2 Summers ago I was running the 6-lug rims with center caps on the suburban. They looked fine.

But I'd rather run the dog dish caps.
 
Those wagon wheels repainted white with gmt 400 caps would be alright.
Or may just some rallyes.
 
Those wagon wheels repainted white with gmt 400 caps would be alright.
Or may just some rallyes.

The truck had rally rims on it originally, but they were gone by the time that I got it. I do have a set of those center caps, though. Was thinking of running them with these wheels.


Went out and grabbed one of the GMT400 caps this morning:



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This lugnut took me a while to track down. 7/16" nut with outer threads like the newer metric nuts. But having a Dorman part # (611-179.1) should make finding more of them easier.

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Here's what it looks like on the old wagon wheel:

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But if I painted them white, it would look more like this:

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Here's what's on the front (beauty ring installed)

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Here's what the wheel would look like with its matching center cap.

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Though I would hafta cut out the center to use it with my lockout hubs.

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Really? I was leaning toward the opposite (newer wheels with the old caps)

Bolting the caps on would be trivial. Painting the wheels would take a little more effort. The other 2 tires in that set have flat spots. Has made for some unfun vibes going down the road. Not really eager to reinstall them. :dunno:
 
I have always been a fan of the smaller caps. Sounds like you need to just take the plunge and get some new tires. Then painting the rims would be easy.

Why do you not drive this truck that much??
 
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