First, some background: I'm planning to move from southern California
to the Phoenix, Arizona area in late 2000 for a couple reasons: 1) I
will be able to afford enough land there to support a healthy green
truck collection, in which to cart around my healthy green radio
collection, and 2) California is a pit of despair. Now, I was planning
to save as much as possible and put off getting any green trucks until
after the move, until I found out how much moving trucks cost. Ouch! I
might actually save money in the long run if I bought a reasonable
M35A2 in the next auction, fixed it up as little as possible to make
it safe and reliable to drive, paid to store it somewhere for the next
year or so, and then moved myself, even if I had to make a couple
trips. And I would have a big, soot-belching green truck to show for
it, too!
There's an upcoming DRMO auction with about 24 non-residue M35A2
and/or M109 trucks offered at bases near me, and I took a look at the
winning bids from the last auction. I had to change my shirt due to a
sudden acute drooling spell. As long as I can find a suitable place
where I can afford to store and work on the truck, I might just be the
proud owner of an M35A2 in a month or so! I've asked a friend at work
who has an airplane to see if any of his flying buddies have spare
hangar space for rent...
I have never owned an MV before, and I have fairly limited experience
doing major vehicle repair (I haven't done much more complicated
things than brake adjustments, oil changes, etc. on my own civvy truck
yet, because I don't have a second vehicle to drive to work or to the
parts store while it's in pieces). I hope to find a truck that I can
reasonably expect to make drivable and reliable in a year of weekends
with a $1500-$2000 bid, and no more than $2000 in parts. I do not plan
to take Mr. Doyle's advice about buying two trucks at this time,
though I'd certainly do that if I already had enough of my own
property to store them on. I don't plan to do any significant cosmetic
restoration until after I move, except for replacing missing or
unservicable canvas, spot-painting as necessary to avoid rust, etc. I
can make it prettier after the move.
So, I have a few questions for the list:
1) Am I crazy?
2) Specifically, what should I look for when I examine these trucks,
other than obvious things like "hmm, shouldn't that truck have more
engines?"
3) How expensive might it be to haul a non-working M35A2 up to 100
miles on a flatbed truck? I don't plan to start it up until I give it
a thorough going-over.
Thanks for any advice!
-- Mark J. Blair, KE6MYK <mblair1@home.net> PGP 2.6.2 public key available from http://pgp.ai.mit.edu/ Web page: http://www.qsl.net/ke6myk/ DO NOT SEND ANY UNSOLICITED COMMERCIAL EMAIL TO THIS SITE=== To unsubscribe from the mil-veh mailing list, send the single word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of a message to <mil-veh-request@skylee.com>.