A little over 2 weeks ago now I was doing some calling around from leads on facebook looking for parts.  The one guy I called told me he had sold all his stuff to a guy about an hour from me and gave me his number because he said "maybe the guy won't use all the stuff he got from me, give him a call"

So, I did and it was kinda a dead end (or so I thought) The guy didn't want to sell any of the truck parts he bought from the other guy, but we struck up a conversation and the guy asked what I was building.  Well, I said a 28 1-ton truck.  To which he said I know but what are kind of truck are you building, tanker, tow truck, what?  

So, I started to describe that it was going to have a box on the back.  That back in the day Hercules offered what was called a 901 open express box and I was recreating one of those, to which he said "I have one of those"  

About this time my heart started to thump a little more than normal.  A few on the new forum (certainly not all) may recall my thread from the old forum detailing the recreation and my saga around needing the tailgate latches.  So, I described the box further to determine if what he had was the same and it was for the most part except, he said his was a fire truck he thought.  So, I asked if he was going to use the hardware off the box and he said probably not.  I said you want to sell it. He said he probably would.  

So, off my adult son and I drove on a Sunday after church and met the guy.  Boy did this guy have stuff, and stuff, and more stuff.  We wander through a jungle of boats, lawn mowers, cars, trucks, and an old yacht (all inside mind you) to a 26 I believe dilapidated Martin Parry constructed Chevy fire truck.  If I thought, there was a prayer in this century that I could have gotten the whole truck out I probably would have tried to buy the whole thing!  No luck there but I scored something that I never thought I was going to find complete in its original form.  I really thought I was going to have to recreate these parts and actually had started doing so.

 I'm still not sure if I'm going to use the metal covers that would go out on the ends of the rear cross sill.  They are cool though as they have the MP logo with the medieval type cross in the center.  The side braces with the two sweeping arches I won't be able to put to use either as the fire truck sides were several inches taller than that of the pickup box sides that Hercules made, and I've come to find out from martinparry.com that Martin Parry also offered a similar box.

Now on to the rest of the few things I need yet!