Gary Lewis

[Gary Lewis]

Well, I guess since I wrote the words "& Post A Blurb About Yourself" I'd better do so myself.

I'm 70 as of this writing in Aug of 2017, and am retired from a career in Information Technology.  But my background is really closer to engineering.  I'm very involved at church, enjoy traveling (or doing anything for that matter) with my wife of 48 years, and also like Bullnose trucks.

My father passed away about 3 years ago, but before he did he gave me his '81 F150 - "Dad's truck".  However, I had known I was going to get the truck for some time, so decided to learn about them by buying a similar one.  But I made the mistake of buying one that had been sitting for several years and proceeded to fix it up.  Wow, was that costly!  While doing that I bought a couple others that didn't run and parted them out - which is a much better idea.  Then I found one I called Rusty and bought it as it was another '81 and was pretty cheap but just "needed a clutch".  Nope, the rear end was blown up, the driveshafts were totally worn out, the engine ran well but leaked oil and coolant, and the transfer case needed rebuilt.  Then, about the time I got those problems ironed out I fell into Big Blue, an '85 F250HD.

You can read the stories on Dad's truck and Big Blue in their threads, but suffice to say that the Bullnose bug has bitten me very hard.  To the point that I've created a website to house documentation on them - a web site that I like to say is the best in the world for Bullnose documentation, but it may also be the worst in the world as I think it is the only one in the world.  And, I attribute it all to my father, who used to say that I'm "bull-headed".    

[fljab]

Dang Gary, I know that story!  For as long as I've been into used cars/trucks, I still make mistakes by searching for "the deal".  The only smart Bullnose deal I did was Joe's F100.  I paid more for it, but he had done and documented so much of the bullwork, that I have to do very little other than regular maintenance.  I need to get the AC done, but to be honest, the summer doesn't really bother me all that much.  I just open the side windows and the rear slider, and it's OK.

Of course, your Dad's truck is special and warrants the extra restoration costs.  And don't get me started on parts trucks!

[Gary Lewis]

The only smart acquisition I've done was of Big Blue.  And, if you know that story you'll understand how good that one was.  

[rooster5673]

Yes as I said I bought the truck new in 83 has to be something that I have enjoyed ever since I got bit. I was into Chevy II Super Sports for years having 62 thru 66 wife then got sick so I had to retire to take care of her. That really keeps me busy and limits how much time I have with the truck. My wife loves this truck I guess as much as I do. Yes we have been together for 46 years and I am 67 years old. The truck will go back to my grandson when my day comes to an end. I am hoping that day he will continue to love and take care of this. He has said that he would love to restore it but is a lot of money. We try to attend church every time at the Salvation Army. We have seniors on Wednesday men's club on Thursday so yes we stay busy went we can.

[Gary Lewis]

Rooster - I love stories where you still have your original truck.  

And, I love stories where people have been together that long.  Takes commitment.  Janey and I just celebrated our 50th.

Better yet are stories about church.  

Glad you and your truck are here.

[rooster5673]

thank you Gary I playing with the forum page trying to look up everything and then try to remember where I found it.

[RenoHuskerDu]

Small world. I too am retired from IT. I was an Ingres techie out of Cal, then worked my way up the ranks to hands-on tech mgr. Shoulda stayed there. I got lateral promoted to run the data center, internal hotline and the backup crew. I hated it. Nothing to do but manage people and go to meetings. I fired myself upon the next layoffs and went back to DBA team leader. In 95 I was seduced by the Dark Side and began doing software marketing. A piece of creative writing that I did on a car forum - test driving a 3.8L E34 M5 on the Autobahn near Freiburg - caught the eye of the Marketing veep, and he hired me over lunch. I didn't have to kill any Jedi children. Marketing for me was telling the truth in the most positive way possible and don't become a slick lying weasel. I wound up doing very well, flew around yurrup every quarter training the sales force on new product features, most of which I'd spec'd because I did inbound and outbound mktg.

Us IT guys are everware, eh?

I wish I had a Dad's Ford story like yours to tell but my dad isn't a car guy, or a people guy, or even a dad guy. I mostly raised myself. I do have a Dad's 1970 Charger 440 RT story I can tell some day. He let me borrow it when I was only 15.

[Gary Lewis]

Yes, we IT'ers are everware.  

An M5 on the Autobahn would be fun.  Was it the black one always lurking in the left lane one hill back?  The one that was always on me flashing its lights if I ever got in the left lane?

Marketing?  Not me.  I don't have a creative bone in my body.  I'm strictly a manager.  Numbers.  Budgets.  Personnel.  Ran a rather large infrastructure organization with data centers, help desks, networks, PC's, etc.

Having said that, I was one of three people that gave sales presentations to a well known retailer and we won the bid for outsourcing their IT.  One of the other companies in the competition was represented by Carly Fiorina.  

[RenoHuskerDu]

It was silver. And it was the fastest car out there that day. Only a 928 S4 was able to keep up with me. The V12 Benzes went into the mirror. But this was 1995, before the serious HP races started.  340 hp with the relatively-small frontal area of an E34 was fast indeed. I saw 267 kph, but did not check for speedo error.

Funny, as soon as I got promoted to pure management, I was a fish out of water. Cops woke me up at 3am once, two of my tape operators had gotten into a fistfight. They were both women. I fired the temp on the spot and made a mental note to get back into tech.

Man that 3.8L S38B38 sang a lusty song right up to redline. I think she also drank $40 of fuel in an hour or so.  Later BMWs became more frugal. My X5 40d was good for 245 kph but consumed half the fuel.

[Westerj]

IT guy here too. Mechanical Engineer gone wrong!!
Many college pals also jumped at opportunity for y2k.

Anyone try megasquirt on these machines??

[Gary Lewis]

Spent two years studying in EE, but ended up with Math & Physics.  This was before there was such a thing as IT as it was in the last of the 60's.  Work took me into what eventually became IT.

[85lebaront2]

Well, not an IT guy, but sired one, he is now IT manager for Olympus Foreign Parts (they cater to the high end imports, BMW, Porsche, MB, Jaguar). I studied engineering in college but washed out because the school was in the process of going from a Liberal Arts school to a technical school and between the math, engineering and being required to write 13 themes in one semester of English (not my bailiwick, my sister wrote my high school ones, and I helped her with math). I ended up enlisting in the Marine Corps reserve to avoid being drafted and getting an all expenses paid SE Asian vacation (funeral included if needed). After coming back from 6 mos. active duty I went back to school, but ended up without a good enough GPA to stay, worked in retail for a bit and went to a major Defense Contractor, was there not quite 4 years and got caught in some office politics and fired, went into auto repair finally owning my shop only to have my dad get talked into selling it out from under me. Went to the local Dodge/Mercedes-Benz/Jaguar/MG dealer and was there 3 years when a friend did some jawboning at the laboratory i Had worked in 1966-1970 and set up a job interview to get me back there, 30 years later I retired.

At my retirement dinner, my supervisor (a Mechanical Engineer) made the statement that one other of his employees and myself were the two best non-degreed engineers he had ever met. I designed a few things including a complete rework of the torque wrench calibration equipment. Another fellow and I speced out, designed and built a controller for a hot tensile furnace that cost half what the furnace manufacturer wanted and interfaces with the tensile machine computer.

[Westerj]

IT guys mess with old trucks to
 keep jedi skills sharp!

[Gary Lewis]

Westerj wrote

IT guys mess with old trucks to
 keep jedi skills sharp!

So THAT'S why I do it?!?!  Makes sense to me.

[chirkware]

Just came across this. Add me to the list of IT Guys working on Ford trucks. I'm not retired though... Still have 10-12 years left probably.

Also very involved in church, including, of course, the meager IT needs for the congregation.

Add me as well to the list of those with a"Dad's truck" story, though mine is about the 70 F100 my dad bought new. We call it Ole Blue these days but dad used to just call it his "Toot Toot" because it had an air horn and he'd always blow it when he pulled in the drive to announce he was home.

I'm so glad you setup this site. It is to the Bullnose trucks what Fordification is to Bumpsides. A wonderful resource! Thankfully the forums are still alive and well here unlike at Fordification. FTE lacks resources, but the forums are good on Bumps and some other generations there. I guess you might say GarysGarageMahal is as good as Fordification and FTE put together. 👍👍

[Gary Lewis]

Glad to have so many IT guys on here so I don't feel alone.  And people really involved in church, as am I, including some of the IT needs there.

As for FORDification, when I met our member Keith Dickson/FORDification he announced to his followers that our site is to Bullnose trucks what his site is to Dents & Bumps.

But are you saying that FORDification's forum isn't very active anymore?  If so, that's a shame as Keith has put a lot into it.

However, saying we are as good as Fordification and FTE put together is saying a whole lot.  

[chirkware]

I look at the Fordification forums from time to time and there's just not much activity lately. Keith hasn't posted in the forums three in months. FTE's forums are a lot more active.

When it comes to Bumpsides, Fordification wins on documentation. FTE has the forums covered but not much documentation. It's funny that you see forum posters on FTE constantly posting links to documentation on Keith's site. So yeah, it takes both those sites to cover the same bases we can get here for the Bullnose trucks.

There is a Fordification Facebook page and I think a lot of the discussion has just moved there. Keith himself started posted a lot less after he went to work for LMC but I'm starting to see him post more on Facebook lately now that he's settled in to that job.

[Gary Lewis]

You also see people on FTE post links to here since, as you said, they don't have documentation.  Chris/ctubutis and I tried to create documentation there but they not only wouldn't help but made changes that killed what documentation we'd created.

That was a blessing in disguise as it pushed me to create this site.  And then came the forum and the rest, as they say, is history.  

[JPGwinn]

i tried to post my profile