New Job, New Truck

I left a job I absolutely love to seek out a living with factory work. On the commute to this new job I kept seeing this truck sitting out with a “for sale” sign in the windshield. I work 11pm – 7am so I never stopped to look at it until one day I happened to be in the area at an appropriate time of day. This truck has no carburetor, distributer or battery and had a little bit of a rust problem with the inner fenders and the part where they mount to the firewall and the guy couldn’t tell us what motor was in it, just that it wasn’t the original and he had picked this one up out of a puddle at a salvage yard. Well, I still wanted this truck. I wanted it so bad I could taste it. So I gave this fella $100 to wait a couple weeks before selling it to someone else. It was that time of year when everyone is anxiously awaiting their income tax returns, and I was no different. I had such big plans with this truck, and they just kept growing. Fortunately, the guy had already done a lot of work: all new front suspension, stainless steel exhaust, replaced drum with disc brakes, added power steering, and lots of other things I can’t remember now. I finally got it and had it towed to my house. My dad and my cousin googled the numbers on the motor and learned that it was a 390 from a 1968 Mustang or Cougar. My dad and I got the motor out and started taking it apart to rebuild. He called around to some machine shops to see where we could take it to have the cylinders bored out and stuff. He found one who said to just bring everything and they would do it all, replace all gaskets, pistons, basically make it new again. So we took it to them. They found out I had plans to paint it and asked me what color. I think they’re gonna do that too, but I’m not positive. With that, I should say, I’m still waiting to get it back. I’ve had a lot of trouble finding a carburetor, but they said they had connections and would find me one, along with a distributer if I wanted. I have bought some inner fenders but I can’t find the piece that mounts them to the firewall, so I’m at a standstill with that. I’m hoping I can find those here. I am quickly running out of money though, so the body work and paint job will have to wait until next year. I’ve driven some cars with a standard transmission, but never have I driven a 3 on the tree. This entire adventure will be a learning experience, including the driving part, ironically, since the job I left that I loved so much was teaching people how to drive school buses. I’ve watched dad work on cars 30 or so of my 37 years, and actually gotten my hands dirty and helped a little bit in the last 7 or 8. But this time, I’m really learning and playing a much bigger role in the work that is to be done. I do not ever want to be a damsel in distress so I want to know everything about everything within, on and about this truck. Plus, when I talk about it, I want to be able to hold an actual conversation and be knowledgeable about it, rather than look like an idiot girl just talking crap. I don’t know as much as I’d like to, but I know more than most other girls, so I’m not starting from nothing and I will continue to learn.