[Zoomad75]

Note to those guiding others onto trailers without ramps: Don't stand on the tongue of the trailer as it's driven on. I stood up there to guide and when the front tires rolled up the tongue went up as the ass of the trailer went down. I managed to stay put, but wisely got off before the rear tires came up! Keep in mind despite my size, I've got mad balance skills. LOL!

It was officially the last time the 75 was shifted into 4wd as a complete unit. Well, sorta complete! Funny thing was despite having open diffs it crawled up on the trailer like an old dog hopping into a truck to go for a ride. We joked that it was asking us what adventure were we going to this time?

As Larry said, the top got pulled. We wrestled the gate off too. As usual, stuff had broke back there and some prior owner (aka hack booger welder) welded a bolt in place where the pin goes behind the bumper for the gate torsion spring. We talked it over some suds and decided the sawzall is the tool for the job here. I hit the trigger on the bolt and magically the stupid booger welded bolt busted clean off the mount! Ha! So we check out the other side and it has the stock pin in place. We try to wiggle the gate to rotate the spring just right but no luck. So out comes the sawzall. We take a different tactic. I'll saw the end of the bumper off right by the pin so we can pry it off. Then I busted Larry's last blade a 1/4" from cutting the end off completely. Larry comes out with the mother of all prybars, slams it into the quarter then proceeds to twist the end of the bumper off. He was able to pry the spring over the pin and we wrestled the gate from the grip of the K5.

All in all, the Titanic level of rust is going to fight every last bolt we yank from the truck. But, it's pretty close to being done. It's sad to see it get torn up, but I'm happy to know the soul will live on. I'm excited to move forward with a better body.

Now one more word to the wise.. When you are jumping the starter with a screwdriver by standing directly in front of the engine (no core support or radiator in the way), remember when the starter does kick in, the big fan directly to your right is going to be ready to chop your side up if you move wrong. I hit it and felt the odd feeling of a fan blade hitting my side. Not hard but just enough to know it's there! Yikes! Don't do that!