In the summer of 2000, we spotted this dump truck near our house. At the time it was for sale, but too expensive, and I didn't need a truck anyway. But what the heck, we looked it over "just in case"!

It was in decent shape, the owner got sick, so the relatives where trying to sell it. Then one day it disappeared from the lot, and I thought "maybe that price wasn't too high after all?" , oh well, we missed out on that one.....

Time went by and I forgot all about the truck, then on a trip over to my parents house for Christmas Dinner we saw the truck again! This time in a different lot. It sat all winter and I thought, in the spring, "I'll contact these guys and see where the price is a year later".

So in the spring of 2001, I called about the truck. At the time gas was around a $1.75, and this was a gas truck, so they said bring you money and come and get it! I was stunned..Carol, I uh, I think I just bought a truck!

So we and picked it up and started working on it, as we do everything we buy. Then we got the letter from the DEQ about a "violation", and we had 30 days to "Clean up" or else pay fines!!! So Dumpy was needed up north, and was soon pressed into active service working with Helga at Bloom Lake.

We found that it ran terrible on the road, the engine was running too rich, burning tons of gas. It ran good enough to move dirt around at the lake, so we worked it hard doing that, changing the plugs daily to keep it going. When we finished the violation cleanup, I removed the carb and brought it home to rebuild it. I took the carb apart and didn't see anything wrong? but what do I know... So I installed all new gaskets and other stuff inside, hey maybe?.

We took the carb back up north, bolted it down, fired up the engine and...and...poop, nothing, still bad! We contacted Holley, the people that made the carb. They said only the wrong size jets can cause this problem, so I got 4 new jets ($6 for all) and headed north. I found that the main jets where 50% bigger than Holley's specs! Yahoo a problem!

I replaced the jets out in the field, reinstalled the carb, and he fired right up! It sounded good and had a better smell to it, I think I found that answer! It still doesn't run "right" but much, much better. I think it needs something in the ignition, the spark is wimpy and yellow, so that is one of this summers projects.

Now to figure out how to shift it! It has a 5 speed transmission followed by a 4 speed gearbox. And from what I told, you need to move both around to use about 20 different gear changes...we'll see about that!

We found the reason for the wimpy spark, after replacing and repairing everything in the ignition system, the only thing left was the coil, that had to be it! So I bought a coil and headed north to change it. When I removed the old one, I found someone else had changed the coil, and installed the connection backwards! WOW! Now he has tons of power!

With all of the new found power, we learned how to shift. It's not too bad, we drove down to the neighbors house a few times to get gravel for our road. I have a new found respect for truck drivers now!