1929 International Truck

Rat Rods Rule

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So I thought I'd do a little update on how the International did this summer. In short, she was awesome! I'm going to post a few pictures of the events I got her out to this year.

The first thing I did was take it over to my grandma's place and let her check it out. She actually remembers riding in the back of this thing when she was young (she's 90 now). She told me, "Oh your great grandpa was a hot rodder, he'd come flying into the garage and we'd think he was going to crash with us riding in the back". :D


As I had showed in my last post, the rat rod is a huge hit at festivals and such, so that's mostly what I did with it all summer while I was campaigning. Here's my set up at an air show that we had at our airport.


Next up was the Rocky Mountain Street Rod Nationals. My dad and I got to be in the parade, and the truck did great! it was kinda funny seeing a few of the super high dollar rods pulling over because of overheating or other mechanical issues, and my rat just cruising along. Here's my dad squeezing in just before the parade-

And here's myself, mom, dad, and brother set up at the show-


Took her in our local 4th of July parade. This is a "wet parade", meaning it's a huge waterfight since it's of course July and really hot. Here's before the parade started-

Here's during the parade-


That parade is insane, people literally dumping 5 gallon buckets of water into the cab and on the engine, people hooked up to fire hydrants, etc. It's crazy chaotic, but the rat rod cruised right through it.
 
Here was a local car show at a small museum we have in town-


The Colorado State Fair in held in my hometown here, so we did a covered wagon theme to make it a little more "rustic Colorado"-



There's also a "Fiesta Day" during the state fair, and its geared toward Mexican heritage and such. So here was her get up for the Fiesta Day Parade-



Another festival, this one was Boats Band & BBQ on the Riverwalk-


Also put her in the Veterans Day Parade. This parade is about 16 miles outside of town in our "county" area, so it was a decent trek then parade for the rod. In case anyone wonders, Blake Harris was a friend from high school, and Bernard Shaydak was my grandpa-


Random shot my girlfriend snagged while I was ordering our shakes-


And that's about it for our summer. The rat rod didn't give me much trouble overall. Coming back from our very first festival one of the bed mounts broke, which was my fault since I had only secured it in 4 spots and had not completely welded the mounts. I towed it back home that day since the bed was bouncing around dangerously close to the airbags. Welded everything tight and added 2 more mounts for a total of six mounting points.

The throttle linkage got stuck one time in traffic because one of the set screws backed out. That was slightly scary but I handled it alright and got her fixed in a parking lot.

I wire broke on the ignition control module causing it to run only when the key was in the start position, and it would die as soon as you let off the key. I was trying to get it fixed on the side of the road where I was and replaced the ICM with no luck (failing to see the broken wire since it was dark on the side of the road sort of thing). I really did not want to leave it out on the side of the street overnight, so I ended up driving it home with the starter lol. That was and interesting trip, but she made it ok and hasn't shown any ill effects from it.

She will get a little hot when the outside temp is in the upper 90s or above, but it's only been when we're in a parade or driving around town for a couple hours. The transmission did puke it's guts out of the overflow a few times, once again only when it's hot outside and she's being worked hard. From what I've read it's a common problem with these Ford trannies and is generally from being overfull. The 4X4 guys end up running a catch can out of the vent hole, so I may end up going that route.

Had to have a new tube put in the same front tire twice, it gets folded up on itself somehow. Tire shop said it's not quite the right size tube, but they couldn't find the exact one for it so I might have to track that down at some point.
 
Here was a full page ad I did in one of our local papers-


So after 5 parades, 6 shows/festivals, and driving it around as much as I could, and of course all the other stuff that goes along with a campaign (yard signs, debates, advertising, door knocking, etc.) I ended up losing the election :( It was close though, 48% to 52%, I lost by around 2300 out of 59,000 total votes. I had a blast doing it and I'm sure I'll still be involved in political things for quite a while. For now though, it is kind of nice to get back to regular life. I get to take the side boards of the rod and get the door paint off so she looks ten times better. I also get to start looking at the next project, although there are still a few loose ends to tie up on the International that I will still update here.

One thing I did add are titanium drag blocks. I know it's not everyone's cup of tea, but if you want attention there's no substitute for this-
http://youtu.be/6DrcihBmW5A
 
Rod turned out great... Sounds like you had a busy summer... Sorry you didn't win the election...
 
Just a couple of shots as I had the chance to strip all the political stuff off her and it was warm enough to take her out for a cruise. Just a few days before Christmas and it was close to 60 degrees here in Colorado, couldn't pass up the opportunity to take a spin and some pics.



 

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