Back in February 2010, I found this truck on Craiglist for my daughter and son-in-law to use to get in and out of their off-grid home in the Santa Cruz Mountains, about 2 miles from my Ranch. They had a very rough fire road to negotiate and it had been very hard on the Forester I gave them - my daughter doesn't like to drive under 45 mph, except in parking lots. After buying the rig my daughter dubbed it "Farnsworth" and, defying tradition, declared it to be, "he" not "she".
A couple of years later, I spotted a nice '73 J4800 service body driver on CraigsList for only $1k and I talked them into buying her (again declared a "he" and renamed Sherman - the tank by my daughter). He made it home about 120 miles under his own steam, although stopping was interesting due to a non-functioning power-brake booster. That build is pending, and is posted on the Forum, but is being postponed for a while - I have yet to even bring him down from my now-sold Ranch.
Four years of pretty rough riding through foot-deep ruts, 18" deep potholes and foot-high water-bars took it's tole on the suspension (never had more than two shocks on it anyway, one each on opposite corners) but he was otherwise a real trooper, always doing what was asked of him. An F250 4x4 diesel replaced him and Sherman as their daily commuters and so they were moved to the Ranch and put into semi-retirement. I had my built '75 CJ5 to use as my Ranch vehicle so I really didn't need to use the big boys.
Fast forward to Sept 2015 and my kids moved to more civilized digs near the ocean, with pavement and everything and I sell the Ranch to move north to Shasta County, where my wife was born and raised. I also acquired and rebuilt a very nice '64 Pacific Mariner runabout and was looking for a period correct tow vehicle to haul it to our area lakes. Since the kids didn't want to have both trucks to their small lot, they gave me Farnsworth and I started looking at various options for making him a nice haul truck for my boat.
Something like this is my goal.
Back to history. Thanks to Google images, I located Farnsworth's original owner - his handle is MikeD on IFSJA - and he and his blog gave me a bit earlier history. Mike had a '69 Waggy, TH400 and Dauntless V8, that he called Fire Truck (after an exciting but small engine fire) that he was pouring love and $$$$ into (you know the mantra - JEEP, Just Empty Every Pocket). Anyway, Mike found the Glad he later called Speedy languishing in the woods, long abandoned with the driver's side window down and the gas cap off. For reasons only forum members will understand, in February 2002, Mike felt compelled to haul Speedy home and pour more hard earned $$$$ into another FSJ.
At some point, Mike decided to part out his Waggy and various parts - Dash, Dauntless V8 and TH400 (to replace the knocking 327 and steller T-18A) found their way into Speedy.
Back to my saga. In late September, I cleaned the rat crap out of Farnsworth, changed fluids and got him started and running nicely, and was going to head home to the shadow of Lassen Peak, me in my daughter's F250 with a car trailer full of household goods, and her driving Farnsworth bringing up the rear. After I pulled onto US 101, I looked in my mirror to see if she was coming, just in time to see her merging into traffic at a pretty good pace, and then disappear, truck and all, in a cloud of black smoke and white steam. The truck emerged from the cloud diving for the shoulder. Yes, Farnsworth had thrown a rod.
I towed him to a friend's shop about a mile away and there he sat until last weekend, when I trailered him home and began the search for a new engine.
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