I'm here!

[fljab]

Many of you know me from that other Bullnose forum.  I was wondering why Gary has been less active over there.  

I am in Central Florida near Kennedy Space Center in North Brevard County.  I have 3 Bullnose trucks currently, but hoping to thin down to 1 by spring, but need to swap some parts out with my other 2 before I do that.

I'll start posting here and there and get my account set up, so bear with me.

EDIT:  I read a few of the other new posts and noticed that A> it's like "old home week" here with members from FTE, and B>  I didn't say all that much about me and Fords and Ford trucks.  So, here we go -

I'm 62 and retired.  I worked @ KSC for 22 yrs and was able to get out of there at the end of shuttle with a pension.  Before that mostly did shipyard work in San Diego, Tampa, and Norfolk, and that experience was gained by 7 yrs + in the Navy in submarines as a Polaris A3 tech, of which most of the mechanical work are the launcher systems that are mostly pneumatic and hydraulic controlled.

In '87 I had got laid off by Lockheed in San Diego (best job I ever had) and coincidentally about a week later an old Navy bud living in Norfolk, VA invited me out to help him finish up a Johnny Cash special sailboat he built out of spare and salvage parts from a Marina he worked at.  I got a job right away with a ship repair company and lived with my friend and an assortment of others that crossed through the doors while I was there.  

About December, I was working on the aircraft carrier John F Kennedy (CV-67) and watching snow blow sideways across the hanger deck and thought "it's time to move south".  So, I came down here, lived with my Dad for a little bit and got a job @ KSC with Lockheed (Pre Martin Marietta merge) and never left.

Concurrent with that is I joined the Navy Reserves in Orlando in '88 and retired in '05, so I have that pension and benefits now as well.  I was just back there a couple of weeks ago to see a Master Chief retire after 32 yrs.  He was a Chief select and I was his sponsor then, so it was kinda special to see that.

My family always had Fords growing up, and I've had a bunch of them too.  I bought a beater '85 4x4 F150 a few yrs ago to have something for when I needed a truck.  I then bought Joe's truck out of Colorado - many of you know that story - and it's my daily driver now and still runs great thanks to all the work he did and the basic reliability of that platform.  I just bought a high option XLT Lariat Explorer '85 F150 Supercab longbed 4x4 351w C6 on the basis of the great body, but it needs some work to be reliable and set up the way I want it.  The other '85 will serve as parts for it and the '81, then the goal is to sell it by spring as a running driving truck for whatever I can get.

That's about it for now, I look forward to contributing here hopefully in a constructive way, and gaining from the knowledge of all of you.

[1986F150Six]

Welcome, fljab!

[Gary Lewis]

Yes, welcome!  We are glad you are here.

As for thinning the herd, I've had three several times in the last several years, and each time I get a gentle prod to get rid of one.

[fljab]

Yes, I get "prodded" on a regular basis.  I have a bunch of motorcycles too and have been selling parts off for a while now, but truck parts are just occupying the space the bike parts were in lol.