I know, I know- I haven't posted anything on 60Patrol for centuries... But it is not without reason.
Lots of family business has taken priority over these past 2 years (funerals mostly, sad to say ) but alas- These are the seasons we go through in life.
So, when I have had any free time, I have been choosing to spend it working on projects, as opposed to posting online about the projects I am working on... But today, I thought I'd dig up a few photos I have snapped along the way, and give everyone an update.
And what better Patrol to post an update about than the one that has become one of my most favorite vehicles of all time??? That's right Kids! The El Paso Deathtrap is getting another MAJOR rebuild.
I have posted several other threads about this truck through the years, but when Photobucket jacked up my account, all the images were lost to history (I used to upload from my phone straight to photobucket, so a ton of those photos are gone forever) ...
This time, I am attaching the photos directly to the 60Patrol posts- Hopefully they will last this time
Regardless, this poor truck has certainly had one of the "most storied" lives ever documented on 60Patrol.com. I found it in 2013 on Ebay, as a non-running project located in El Paso Texas. At the time, all I really wanted was the hard top and side doors, so I bid what those parts were worth to me, and ended up winning the whole truck.
It looked pretty good, and actually had a correct PTO and Koening Patrol winch on it (which was a bonus):
But looks are deceiving... This truck was a mess, and within days, "The El Paso Deathtrap" moniker was born....
The "lift kit" was a hodge-podge of a very poorly fabricated front spring over axle conversion, with a steering stabilizer clamped to the leaf spring (!), and the rear suspension had coil springs jammed between the frame and axle, with goofy "shackles" holding the rear shocks.. It was a disaster, but a nearly non-stop source of laughs
Yes, those nuts were welded to the spring plates...
The body had a fresh coat of metallic green paint, but closer inspection revealed that the paint was covering very much bondo, and very little steel.
But alas, one quiet Sunday I decided to see if I could make this suicide-machine's engine run, and wouldn't you know it.. within hours it was not only running, but was making 120+ PSI in every cylinder- This thing ran like a brand new lawn mower...
So, I had this nicely running Patrol, minus it's hardtop and doors (which I re-purposed as intended), that I could never re-sell, because I wasn't going to live with my conscience if I had sold this thing and that potentially deadly suspension finally came unglued. So, I tore everything out from the frame down, and re-fabbed the spring-over axle conversion. A year later, I had one pretty nice looking, nice running, and nice driving desert play toy:
The frame was still bent, and the bodywork was still more bondo than metal, but it was fun, and more importantly: Safe to drive. I probably put 3000 miles on it like this; but then one day I purchased L60-3-00617 from RiverPatrol, and decided I was going to restore that one, and I was gonna need parts for that rebuild, so the Mean Green El Paso machine slowly started melting away, one piece at a time, until all that was left was a green, bondo encrusted body, sitting atop a bent frame, with disassembled axles hanging below it, sitting out in the backyard beneath a tarp, while the engine/trans, winch, PTO, fuel tank, and misc other parts were stacked in the shed, waiting to be re-used in the restoration of 00617....