1979 K20 "War Wagon"

[Fw190d9]

While this is not a new build thread, I thought it would be cool to show some pics and history of the beloved War Wagon that I have owned and modified for the last 25 years.

WW history: 25 years ago I was working at the family ranch as the one and only mechanic. I took care of Cat D7s, backhoes, motor graders and a gaggle of ranch trucks in South Texas. One day while visiting one of the hunting camps, I came across this old K20 sitting in the weeds, no wheels on it, abandoned and with a mesquite tree growing up thru the passenger floorboards and out thru the passenger door window. I had some time to kill that day so I poked around a bit on the old custom delux and while it looked pretty sad, I thought it had some potential. The motor looked sound and all the running gear was in place. The roof was completely rusted out and it had an old bus seat bolted to the roof for drive hunting. I noticed it was a K20 and had a really solid frame and the beefy 14 bolt to boot. I asked around and was informed that the original owner had abandoned it and was long gone. My boss said son, if you want that old pile of crap, you can have it. Sweet! I returned to the camp next day with a flatbed and winched(drug) it up on to the trailer and carted it back to the shop. Once I started looking at it, I found the reason for abandonment, it had 2 broken leafs on the front. Following a scheming session, I went to the local yard and found an 82 blazer that had been rolled. It had a rancho 4" lift on it, so I swiped the springs and shocks and put em on the K20. A little tinkering got the old 350 running so I started driving it around the ranch a bit. We do alot of bird hunting down here so I thought it would make a great quail hunting truck. Out came the torch and the rusty roof and bus seat went bye bye along with all the doors. I was big into oxy/acy welding back then so I cut pieces of sheet metal from the roof and welded over all the openings between the panels that were exposed when the roof came off. The first outing with the truck with 8 guys with shotguns caused my boss to declare it looked like a War Wagon. Thus the WW was born. I sure wish I had pictures of it from back then but the earliest I have is from about 10 years ago. By this point I had fabbed a front bumper seat set up along with the "kid cage" elevated seat in the rear. Here's a pic of my daughter getting her first driving lesson.