Building a New Mighty Grape

Since many aircraft owners have asked me about building our mogas fuel
truck (which we called "The Mighty Grape" because of its horrible
purple color) I thought I'd post my experiences with bringing our new
"Grape" -- a '95 Toyota T100 -- to life.

The Mighty Grape -- subject of magazine articles and a chapter in a
book -- has (since 2003) been a '95 Nissan mini-pickup truck. We used
it primarily to haul gasoline to our hangar at the airport, but it was
also useful for hauling stuff to the dump, storing lawn and garden
implements, etc. Our airplane prefers unleaded car gas which, at $2.19
per gallon, is a heckuva lot more economical than leaded aviation gas,
which is running $4 per gallon. Since our plane takes 84 gallons at a
fill, you can do the math. That truck paid for itself in just a few
months.

Well, after running 7700 gallons through that fuel transfer tank (that
was made to specifically fit the bed of the Nissan), the truck frame
rusted though. Since the fuel tank and pump, weighing over 350 pounds,
sat directly over the break in the frame, I decided it was time to
retire the old Nissan to less strenuous duty.

It was time to find a new fuel hauler.

After scanning the papers for a few days, we test drove a couple of
prospects. We looked at a '95 Ford F250, which was simply awesome. It
sat nine feet in the air, and everything was made out of solid chunks
of steel. Shifting was a chore, the seat was 12 feet across, it had
manual lock-outs -- in short, I loved it.

My wife, Mary, who is 5 feet tall in heels, looked like a toy poodle
sitting in the back window. She said "No friggin' way!" -- and we kept
looking.

The T100 was next. We drove it, and it drove well. Best of all, she
fit in it. The clutch was obviously slushy, the inside was beat, and
it hadn't been washed in years. The guy selling it was a finish
carpenter, and it had been his work truck. He was the third owner, and
it had been in Iowa for its whole life. He was asking $4500, basically
blue book value.

It had some nice things going for it. First, it was green, and grapes
can be green as well as purple -- so we wouldn't have to change the
name. Second, it had a color-matched topper, which we needed to keep
the fuel tank and assorted other goodies out of the snow and ice.
Finally, Mary liked the way the seat could move all the way up,
allowing her to shift easily.

It had some dings and scratches, but no rust at all -- a miracle in
itself in Iowa. So, I asked the seller -- a decent chap -- if he would
mind if I had my mechanic look it over before I made my decision. He
said that would be fine.

Well, my mechanic returned a two-page list of problems, totalling over
$2000. The clutch was shot. The front brakes were gone. The tires
were bad. The timing belt was 100K miles past due. The rear
driveshaft was toast. They recommended against buying it.

One very good thing about it: It had absolutely no rust, anywhere,
even on the frame. It had been Ziebarted, and washed regularly, even
if it didn't look like it.

Sadly I took the truck back to the seller, with the typed report from
my shop listing all the problems they had found. I told him that
perhaps he might find someone willing to pay $4500 for the truck, but
it wasn't going to be me -- and I handed him the report.

He looked it over, I told him to call me if he would reconsider the
price -- and we departed. I never thought I'd hear from him again.

That night he called me at home, and asked if I could swallow $3000. I
hemmed and hawwed, and told him that I'd sleep on it. The next day I
called him, told him I just couldn't give him $3K for an old truck that
needed $2K worth of repairs, and offered him $2500 -- plus a couple of
getaway weekends at our aviation theme-suite hotel. He jumped at it,
and we agreed to meet for lunch to close the deal.

Meanwhile, I got on the phone and started shopping the problems around
to various repair shops, looking for the best prices.

Within an hour of buying the truck, it was sitting in a local tire shop
getting two new tires, and front brakes. From there, I drove it
straight to the Toyota dealer, who spent the next day replacing the
timing belt, water pump, and accessory belt. (Interestingly, the
dealer's price on replacing the timing belt/water pump was HALF of what
the local shops wanted -- "only" $450. It's not every day that the
dealer is the cheapest, but it *does* happen.)

The next day I drove it to a local transmission shop for a new clutch.
As long as they would have the tranny apart, it made sense for them to
do the driveshaft. This turned out to be a big mistake.

The clutch replacement went quickly, but they had to send the
driveshaft out to a place in nearby Cedar Rapids, where they could
replace/refurbish any wear parts. (Carrier bearings, etc.)

At the end of waiting five days, this shop announced that the shaft was
beyond repair. (The part that went into the transmission was
egg-shaped.) So, they started looking for a used/serviceable shaft
and, after another day, they found one in Kentucky, which would cost
$350. I said okay.

Five days later, after Christmas, it arrived -- and it was the wrong
part. It was for an automatic transmission, and mine is a 5-speed.
Back to the drawing board. Meanwhile, the guy at that Cedar Rapids
shop (who did all their ordering) was on vacation....till after the
first of the year.

I was screwed.

So, the tranny shop owner finally started looking -- something he
SHOULD have been doing from the start -- and found one in South Dakota.
I okayed it, and he ordered it. Meanwhile, he and his tranny shop
were moving from one location to another -- in the middle of doing my
truck. They transported my truck from the old shop to their new shop
-- a distance of four blocks -- by putting it in 4-wheel drive, and
driving it without a rear driveshaft...

New Year's Day came and went -- and still no driveshaft. I was now
visiting this shop every day, sometimes twice a day, just to keep my
face in theirs. I was never rude, but I was always *there* -- and they
got the message. Finally, they start wondering where the shaft was --
it was now four days overdue -- and they start calling around.

Apparently the shippers had tried to deliver the damned thing to the
old shop (even though there was a big "Moved To..." sign in the window)
and they ended up taking it back to their warehouse in Des Moines,
marked "Undeliverable".

I about had a cow.

After some stern words, the shippers managed to get the shaft delivered
to the shop that afternoon -- fantastic! Unfortunately, it didn't come
with any bolts -- and my shop had lost mine during the big move. They
simply didn't have the bolts to attach the driveshaft, and had to order
new ones from Toyota. They would overnight them.

FINALLY, the next day the bolts arrived -- without nuts. Luckily, the
shop had nuts that fit (God knows if they're the right ones, but by
this time, I didn't care...), and I was out the door with my "NEW"
truck, over three weeks after buying it.

But the saga wasn't over. Remember, this is a fuel truck, so I had to
have the transfer tank, pump, and associated wiring moved from the
Nissan to the T100. So, it was off to yet ANOTHER shop, this one owned
by a friend who had installed the tank in the Nissan, back in '03. At
3 in the afternoon we started moving the tank....

....we finished at midnight -- NINE HOURS later. Because the T100 has
an extended cab, the space between the front of the bed and the wheel
wells was smaller (by four inches) than in the Nissan -- even though
the truck itself is MUCH bigger. So, we had to heat the wheel wells
with a torch, and beat a section of them flat with a ball-peen hammer.
This eventually punched holes in the wells, so we had to tack some
steel back in there, to make the wheel wells whole. (The thing has
nine inches between the tires and the wheel wells, so losing one little
corner of them won't matter at all.)

Fun stuff like breathing fumes from burning undercoating and lifting
the transfer tank in and out of the bed half a dozen times (while we
measured, cut and pounded) took many hours. We then reapplied fresh
undercoating, put the topper back on, and started moving the wiring....

....which turned out to be three feet short. The Nissan was a MUCH
smaller truck, and the wiring was too short, too. So, off I went to
Menard's to buy heavy-duty wire....

With that finally done, we started drinking beer, and talking about
what else we could do to make the truck "right". This is always a
slippery slope, but it resulted in some good stuff happening. The
rusted in, "permanently attached" trailer hitch gave way after heating
it with a torch, and beating it with a sledge hammer about four
thousand times. (No more skinned shins.) The induction chamber hadn't
been cleaned in probably 100K miles, and was full of crap and
corruption. We cleaned it with a special solvent and a tooth brush,
and were rewarded with a smoother, more powerful engine.

At last, at midnight I took my truck home -- bringing the long,
seemingly endless saga to a close.

But it was worth it. The truck runs and drives great, the price was
right, and I've got the peace of mind that comes with knowing that many
of the "wear items" on this truck have been replaced. Best of all,
because it's a much heavier duty truck, hauling 350 pounds of fuel in
this thing is a real joy compared to the little Nissan. The T100
doesn't wallow around like the Nissan did, thanks to its MUCH beefier
4x4 suspension.

I've now started working on the dumb little cosmetic things. Today, I
installed custom seat covers (Ebay: $30), covering up the terribly worn
(only on the driver's side) upholstery. (Luckily, the seller had
incredibly heavy-duty floor mats down, so the carpet is pristine.) I
used some of the unseasonably nice winter weather to wash and wax it
today, removing years of grime. It's actually pretty good looking,
under all that dirt!

Now, does anyone know where I can find replacement hydraulic pistons to
replace the ones that used to hold up the back and side windows on the
topper? I'm tired of them hitting me in the back of the head!

:-)
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
'95 T100 4x4 Extended Cab
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"