this whole story started when he brought his BJ42 over for an estimate of redoing the frame. he wanted me to lift the body off and swap a new frame in, problem was there was no body left to lift, if i would have tried it would have colasped in half.
i gave him a quote for a full restoration and he left, called me half way home and told me it was a LOT of money... yep
a week or so later he had the half upfront to do the 42 up but i told him to come over and i wanted to show him something. i showed him this unit and left him alone, everyhour or so i would go out and ask him if everything was alright. "oh yah, just looking it over".
he left after about 3 hours of crawling underneath, a test drive, crawlign around under the hood and inside. part way home he phoned and asked me what i would give him for the 42 and i told him to keep the 42 as a winter beater till it died... and i also gave him a deal sitting on the table if he did want to sell the 42 anytime in the next 2 years "as long as it is still running".
there was no pressure and the next week he bought the 74, his 42 got totalled a few months back and he ended up buying a Nissan Cefiro off me "because the 74 is too nice to drive in the winter"...
he seems happy enough, he shows up about once every couple months to go for pizza. most of my customers end up being friends which says a lot right there...
the 42 really wasn't worth fixing, the truck had 500,000 on it 4 speed, manual steering and the body and frame was gone. i agree the 40 series has character but in my eyes so do the 70 series... i guess some of my customers agree with me...
