Spiffing Up Big Red

It has been more than 1 1/2 years since we bought Big Red. It's been a good truck, done everything that we asked of it, and hasn't produced very many maintenance bills. Recently I've been doing a few little upgrades to make it even more useful to us.

When we bought Big Red, it had a rubber bed mat in it that was bought back in 1985. Rubber doesn't last forever, and the bed mat was literally falling apart! When we picked up a load of dirt the other week, it was difficult to shovel all the dirt out because of the disintegrating bed mat. You can see a piece of it in this picture:

When the bed mat is on top of the load, not under it, it's time for a new bed mat! So I ordered one through our local truck accessory store. It showed up this week and it looks much nicer. Hopefully it works way better too!

I've also been doing some wiring work on Big Red. Its trailer wiring was all designed to work with a fifth wheel camper. We don't own a camper, or any other fifth wheel or gooseneck trailers. We needed trailer light connections at the bumper! We also needed the ability to connect up to four pin (our trailer) and six pin systems (our neighbor's trailer that we sometimes borrow). So I bought a four pin system that connects directly into the truck's electrical harness. That's the multi-colored wires in the middle:

I also bought a four-to-six pin converter that plugs into the four pin converter. That is the black wire going off to the right. The converter also has extra wires that I can connect to the brake controller. Now I can choose whichever system I want to use and plug it right in. The six pin converter has a nice classic looking receptacle that looks perfect on a chrome bumper, don't you think?

All of this wiring was done so that Big Red would be ready to haul cows, dirt, and anything else we need. Here it is hooked up and ready to go pick up some calves:

(Sadly, right after this picture was taken Amanda came home and we swapped in her SUV to do the towing. Probably saved $5 in gas by using her car.)
Big Red is a gas hog. There is no way to change that. It has a Big Block engine that was designed back when gas could be bought for $0.36/gallon. It makes great torque and can haul a big trailer without straining, but every time it turns a single revolution it sucks 454 cubic inches of air/fuel mixture. Cruising at 2000 revolutions per minute (rpm), gallons of gas disappear pretty quick. GMC planned for this and equipped Big Red with the ability to carry 40 gallons of gas! With gas prices going up this spring, I've been keeping the tanks full as a very small hedge against rising prices. That means there is about $150 worth of gas in Big Red all the time! I thought that was worth protecting, so I got new locking gas caps:

That's it for the moment. I bought a floor jack a little while ago and I'm anxious to use it to pick up Big Red and do some real work on it! Hopefully that will happen this summer!
David