Very nice to see that there are others out there that can truly appreciate these very cool rare trucks. When I got this truck as a kid, remarkably it was in a barn just two miles from my parents house. As the story goes, it was abandoned in a peach orchard in back of the barn owners house, mind you this was back in 1970, and it belonged to a bunch of hippies that had it, and it had spun a bearing in the GMC 270 six banger and they just left it there with a note that said they would be back for it, they never came back. Typical story, the bearing got fixed, and the farm owner initiated a mechanics lien against it and I bought the truck for the stellar sum of $350.00, the total cost of the repair bill.
When I got word of it, I had to go see it, sure enough there it was in the barn, I was 17 and the old tye dye hippie in me instantly fell in love with it!
Long story short, I bought it and started driving it in high school, and it was my first bigger truck, so the painful lesson of how expensive truck parts were going to be was a great first lesson to be learned. I took the 4 speed rock crusher out and put in a Clark 5 speed with 30% over drive, with that low geared rear end, it would then do a blistering 55 MPH, and you could hear that 5 speed sign a song that was the very tune you hear in vintage International dump trucks.
As time progressed, as stated, I parked it in 71, and it didn't move again till a couple of years ago, when i sold it to the new owner. The new owner had been looking for one of these for many years, it was a pure element of serendipity that he found me through a variety of circumstances, because it was never advertised to be for sale, it was a pure fluke that he found my phone number from another owner that had met me at the Arlington fly in Arlington Washington.
Indeed all of the radio gear that was in the truck originally was long gone, and the element of finding the very cool special trailer that was designed for it is even more rare still.
I have suggested that the new owner do a complete body off frame ground up inspection and rebuild, but trying to do it as a purest military rig is totally out of the question, he wants to keep the body the way it is, but he wants to get rid of the original running gear and put in modern day running gear that will let him really use the machine and be able to cruise cross country in style with it. So that means a newer updated rear end, a new front end with much better suspension and power steering and power brakes, I assume he will use a diesel engine, there is so much room under the floor board you can put in a variety of different power plants, i suggested a power train of the International DT 466 series with an Eaton automatic transmission, but he can pretty much call his own shot on the power train, its his rig now. I will say that the original special bow tie badge that comes with these trucks that fits the center of the snapping turtle pug nose hood, it is very hard to find, so if any of you come across one, simply post it and let me know, I know that the new owner would love to have one.
I look forward to hearing from all of you in regards to the various story's of all of yours adventures in the K-18 panel wagons. I will enclose a few shots of the new owner when he was taking it out of my parents pasture.
Sincerely,
Dennis.
