My truck's NAKED!!!

[The Warden]

Hello!

As those who've known me for a while know, my truck had a lumber rack on it...it was a single-cab style rack (i.e. too short) off a '79 F-250. I put it on as one of the first things I did after getting the truck...it's been on the truck pretty much the entire time I've owned it, except for a time in the summer and fall of 2003 when I took the rack off to sand it down and paint it.

Tonight, the lumber rack was removed for the second and last time. Sadly, even after all of the sanding, grinding, and painting, rust was starting to come back through...the rust had started before I moved to the coast in 2007, so I'm thinking the rack was made from low quality steel in the first place. The rack's either getting scrapped or going to one of towcat's buddies; not 100% certain.

I took it off in preparation for driving to Southern California tomorrow...I get to chauffeur my grandmother from Los Angeles to San Diego in the truck, and I didn't think she would much appreciate the noise from the rack so, although I had previously decided that I was going to get rid of it, that decision got accelerated.

I took a couple of pics with the rack removed...there's one "before" picture here; my truck also got tires and a much-needed alignment tonight.

I liked the versatility of the rack, but I think the truck looks better without it, and it's exponentially quieter on the freeway now ...besides, now I can think about installing a gooseneck and/or 5th wheel hitch

Just thought I'd share...off to bed for me; I need to get an early start tomorrow

 

[Exekiel69]

Looks like the truck is doing much better with out the rack, rust was staining everything.
Enjoy Your trip.

 

[92F350CC]

I took my shell off a couple years back, which had been on the entire time I owned my truck up to that point, and replaced it with a ladder rack. Took a while to get used to the look. Never got used to the noise, and removed the rack after 2 months. Now the truck runs around naked.

 

[The Warden]

Looks like the truck is doing much better with out the rack, rust was staining everything.
Enjoy Your trip.

Actually, the rust on the body has little to do with the rack...the truck sat in the Mojave Desert for most of its life getting sand-blasted, and now I live a block and a half from the ocean. The salt air is eating the poor truck alive...unfortunately, at this point, the sheet metal's really beyond hope There is a plan in place to address the rust...I'll start a thread about that once the project gets underway

 

[Knuckledragger]

POR-15 is your friend. It will stop rust in almost any condition.

 

[The Warden]

POR-15 is your friend. It will stop rust in almost any condition.

I certainly wish I had known about that stuff in 2003 when I stripped down and repainted the rack!! But, c'est la vie...in any event, after my run to L.A. today, there's no way in Hades that that rack's ever going back on This is the first long trip I've done in the truck without the rack, and it was night-and-day!! The cab was, heaven forbid, reasonably quiet!! I still need to re-do the door seals and the felt seals around the front windows, and some more firewall insulation would be a good thing, but it was silent as a grave compared to the cacophony you'd hear in the cab when the rack was on!!

The noise was so bad that I generally didn't go much faster than 55 or so when the rack was on, and when I was in a hurry, I wore a set of ear protectors to keep my ears from ringing for the next week

Also, my EGT's were down a good 50 to 100 degrees at any given speed...and, the real kicker, I got 18.5 mpg on my first leg down here That was with the cruise control set at 70 mph on the I-5 (per my GPS, so my speedo was actually reading 75, but the odometer's accurate). Before, I would get 17 to 18 with the cruise set at 65 (per the speedo, so actually 60) and down to 14 or 15 at 70. I've broken 20 mpg before, but that was at 55 mph (50 actual).

Needless to say, I'm a very happy camper and thanks again to towcat and crew for helping get the rack off and for aligning the front end

 

[icanfixall]

Brian.. Get some home depot clear tubing and thread it thru the door weatherstrip. It really works well. Some cheap Fat Mat on the walls and floors works wonders to cut down the road noise too...

 

[The Warden]

Brian.. Get some home depot clear tubing and thread it thru the door weatherstrip. It really works well. Some cheap Fat Mat on the walls and floors works wonders to cut down the road noise too...

I'm Tim, not Brian unfortunately, I think the tubing won't do all that much for my weatherstripping. The rubber's actually cracked and torn in a few places...it really needs to be replaced.

One of the bad things about a desert truck...anything that's rubber or plastic's gotten terribly brittle and either has already been replaced or is in dire need of replacement. To exacerbate matters, all that paint that got sand-blasted off over the years the truck sat in the desert is now being actively replaced with rust but I have plans to address that