Crew Cabs, Campers, A Far-Traveling PHEV, And One Shamancycle: Members’ Rides

Did you enjoy hearing about Santiago’s fantastic rally racing BRZ last week? That one was a lot of fun. Delivering Members’ Rides to you each week is a blast, and I love the variety. We’ve featured everything from well-loved normie cars to high-end Porsches and Ferraris. It’s great to see how diverse this community is.

Members’ Rides is where we share the cars and stories of Autopian Members. The potential to be featured here is a perk for Autopian Members of every level, from the ultra-affordable “Cloth” tier all the way up to “Rich Corinthian Leather.” Click that link and join today!

This week we meet Jeff. Jeff (Knowonelse) is an engineer and technical writer living in California. He has a great-looking fleet of high-mileage classics, most of which have been in his family for many decades. His fleet even includes a bespoke crew cab pickup truck that was much better done than many Jason showed off the other day. There’s even a prime example of Jeff’s engineering prowess with a custom-made Burning Man moving sculpture that he takes to events. Let’s get into it!

How did you get into cars?

I remember being very young and Dad refinishing the wood on our ’49 Ford Woody wagon, and how great it looked. Growing up in Sacramento allowed me to see a great variety of cars, so I was able to see a lot of variety.

What’s currently in the garage?

• 1964 Ford F100
• 1967 VW Type 3 Squareback
• 1992 Ford F-350
• 2020 Toyota Prius
• Shamancycle

You said the F100 was your dad’s? How did he come by it?

The year was 1965. We had a Chevy truck with a basic square camper for my family (two brothers, Gram, and friends) to go camping or skiing. We said many times, “Why don’t they make a four-door truck?” While the family and I were coming back from a bike ride around the neighborhood, I saw this truck go down a cross street with a For Sale sign in the left rear window. Dad and I chased the truck down on our bikes, and Dad talked to the owner. The owner went into the California mountains to gather rocks to cut and polish in his workshop.

He used the truck to tow a flatbed trailer with boxes on the side for the collected rocks, and space between for a Jeep. Dad bought the truck in 1965, and I got it from him in 1994. And that is my grandkid helping me with the wheels on the truck. I started early with this one. He wants the blue truck, stock, not modified, restored.

Was it hard to get a four-door back then?

The original owner wanted a four-door truck and ordered this custom truck. He wanted a crew cab, automatic transmission, power brakes, and air conditioning. Much of what I have learned about the truck has been through Ford forums online over the years.

What have you learned about it?

It is a standard F100 long bed that has been shortened and a second cab section grafted in. One person identified it as a late ’64 as the bed was from an early ’65. For many years, when trying to replace parts, I would have to bring the part in to identify it. They used a Ford-O-Matic transmission, Buick Electra vacuum assist power brakes, and Park-Air air conditioning. Because the extra cab interfered with the stock drive shaft, they sectioned it and used a Chevy carrier bearing.

I discovered the master cylinder when I replaced it with a dual master to split the front and back brake systems. There is still a mystery component in there. Where the brake lever/mechanism comes through the firewall, there is a gizmo that angles the master cylinder away from the header. I keep asking at car shows, but no one has been able to identify which vehicle it came from. A while back, I found someone who was very familiar with such coach-built crew cabs. He was able to identify Crown (builder of buses) as the coach-builder of this one. I included some pictures of an Ultra Van for Mercedes to drool over.

Has it been hard to keep on the road?

Not really, it just runs! It has gone through a lot of starters over the years, though. Dad would tackle about anything other than engine work, and I only recall ever helping him with a tune-up one time.

Has it been modified at all over the years?

Dad had an extended overcab camper built for it, as they didn’t exist at the time. It weighed 3/4 ton dry, so add in 5 or 6 people plus gear, and it was overloaded for an F100. I’ve been through the dump scales often enough to know that, based on the GVWR, the legal load limit is 500 lbs due to the addition of the cab! Dad added overleaf springs to the rear and used 16 1/2 in wheels. I have replaced the springs with stock ones, but still have the overleaf springs.

What kind of shape is it in?

It has its fair share of battle scars. In the winter snow of the ’70s, it got rolled onto its left side and slid into a tree branch. The branch caved in the roof right over the driver, smashed the windshield, and dented the dash and cowl. The shop installed a vinyl dash cover from a ’65 to hide the dent. The left front fender was replaced, and the white paint is now starting to show as the light blue paint job is beginning to peel off after 50 years.

The cab is still slightly caved in on the right side, and that front door doesn’t quite hit the rubber seal. I finally had to have the leaf spring bushings replaced to find that removing the bolts required that the cab body in that area had to be smashed in! Dad replaced the tailgate at one point, probably during the cab cave-in repairs.

With that many miles, surely you’ve had to at least rebuild the engine or something, right?

And that is the 350,000-mile question, but the answer is no! Neither the engine nor the transmission has been rebuilt, but one of the pistons has been replaced after pinging. I saw the hole in the piston after the shop replaced it. Apparently, the two garages at the top of the Grapevine were familiar with such work, seeing it all the time.

How often do you drive that beast?

Not all that often, unfortunately. Due to rust altering the thickness of the metal, the wheels cannot be fully balanced, so its top speed is 55 MPH or else it shakes badly. I drive it around town at least every two weeks, and I still use it as a truck to haul stuff. Occasionally, I will take it to a local cars/coffee event. And I tow the Shamancycle with it around town.

What favorite memories include this rig?

Plenty of memories driving around the southwest in the camper with family, going to National Parks, skiing, camping, kayaking, and bicycling. We would go up to Boreal Ski Area and camp in the parking lot, with dad having to move us when the snowplow came down our row. Dad hauling us to the kayaking put-in, dropping us off and driving to the take-out, patiently waiting all day for us to get there. Playing cards through the camper/cab windows with my cousin as I dealt cards against the window, and my cousin pointing to cards to play.

Another time, when Mom was driving, I was in the overcab of the camper lying down and looking out the front window as snow was falling at night. A magical scene reminiscent of the later Star Wars hyperspace scene.

The memories don’t stop there, though. Here’s my grandkid helping me with the wheels on the truck (below). I started early with this one. He wants the blue truck to be restored – to stock, not modified.

Let’s talk squareback!

Believe it or not, I bought the VW back in 1978. At the time, my cousin, my brother, and his friend had ’67ish squarebacks. I have always favored practical vehicles like station wagons, vans, and trucks over sedans, so as soon as I found this one, my ’71 Fiat 128 sedan was sold. I found the squareback in the back of a VW dealer with 100k miles and popping heads for $500, and drove it home.

How hard has it been to keep this going?

When I was driving it regularly, it wasn’t too much trouble to maintain with a good VW shop nearby. As I racked up miles, I had the engine rebuilt a couple of times. It did tend to overheat. At one point, I had the squareback, ’64 and ’67 sunroof deluxe VW buses, a ’64 VW Baja bug, a ’71 Honda CB350, and an extra motor. At the moment, the squareback is partially dismantled because I had the hole where the battery was supposed to be welded up last week. The interior was removed with a plan to have a shop restore it, but life got in the way. I am now planning on just getting it put back together enough to drive, as I miss driving it.

Is it mostly original, or more of a “Ship of Theseus” situation?

The engine has been replaced a few times, and the transmission a couple of times. I had the engine rebuilt a few years ago. It’s a bit of a hodgepodge these days. The hood was replaced after it flew open on a freeway and bent. When I first got the car, I did some body work and filled holes in the hood in prep for the MAACO paint job. Sanding deeper in one hole, I found 23 colors of paint – not layers, colors! That would be a good question for the Autopians to speculate about.

You mentioned that it needs some rust repair and bodywork. Any other issues?

During the recent engine rebuild, I took my two extra pairs of carbs and the ones I had been using since I bought it and finally built up a pair of proper carbs with the proper jets. The carbs that were installed when I bought the car were from a later VW bus, and were always too rich, thus the overheating. I researched which carbs and jets it was supposed to have, only to find that due to the air cleaner not being symmetrical, the jets on one side were different from the other.

What do you love most about your squareback?

It drives really well, can haul a lot inside and on top. It’s also quite roomy for me. I was also able to put my kids in the back seat when they were in car seats. It’s just fun to drive.

Are these still pretty easy to find parts for?

We still have a local import parts specialty place in town that used to specialize in VWs, so obtaining basic parts isn’t a problem. I was able to find almost all of the bits and bobs I needed for the restoration. The few hard-to-find parts can be obtained through a long-established Type-3 email group that has extensive knowledge about them and still gathers every two years for the Type 3 Invasion held in different parts of the country. I have not modernized anything, as I tend to prefer stock over customizing. When I restore it, I will paint it stock blue.

What’s the story behind the F350?

I’ve had it about eight years now. I had an ’87 Ford F250 single cab with locking front hubs 4WD, and after growing up with a crew cab, owning a single cab was just weird, so I sold that to pick this up.

Did you buy it with the camper?

I bought the camper cheap before I got the truck. I was thinking it would be a hoot to put it on the ’64 and take it to car shows. Driving the ’87 with that camper on it was scary, so I looked around for a proper truck for the camper, which was the ’92. It had camper tie-downs attached to the bed as well as a set to the frame.

You don’t see many crew cabs from this era. Was it hard to find?

I didn’t have much problem finding one, as they are fairly available here. The challenge was finding one with the camper attachments.

Is it strictly a camping rig, or does it do other jobs too?

We intended to camp in it, but medical issues with my wife made it not work. We use it to store our go-bags, so if we receive an evacuation warning, we can get the dogs, a few things, jump in the camper, and go.

What do you love most about it

It will haul or tow anything! A truck like this doesn’t care if there is a camper, towing a flatbed with a car. In all situations, it only ever gets 11 MPG. It is very comfortable to drive, as I found out while towing a car on the trailer to the Seattle area from the Sacramento area in a one-day drive. The Curious Forge obtained a walk-in kiln we were told weighed 4000 lbs. The crane that lifted it over the fence onto my trailer had a scale, and it weighed 7000 lbs!

What kind of shape is it in?

It is in decent shape, no rust, repainted hood due to the common peeling paint that the PO did. I have had to replace a few things on it to find that it was a transition vehicle. Some stuff from ’91 and some from ’92, so figuring out which parts were needed was a challenge. We plan to keep it around until we reach a point where we can get a Sprinter-scale RV (gas, not diesel) and then sell it.

Prius time! This is your third – what were the first two?

The first was a 2006 that I put 300k miles on, as I was commuting 100 miles per day. The replacement was a ’07 that I had for several years. Then, eventually, a financial opportunity allowed me to get the 2020, and I sold the ’07 to my kid for cheap.

How do you like it?

This is a great car for me. It drives well on my occasional 700-mile one-day drives to my family in the Seattle area. I have a roof rack, so hauling long pieces of lumber is easy, while 10-footers fit inside.

Did you specifically want it with the AWD or just what was available?

I deliberately wanted the AWD. We live at 3000 feet and routinely get snow, and a non-AWD Prius actively prevents driving!

Which Prius has been your favorite?

This one, and it’s not even close. It is far better. For most of my career, I commuted about an hour each way, so MPG was important, and I got about 45 MPG from each of them.

Any fun stories about your wife’s Rav4 PHEV?

We used to use the Prius with a 1300-watt sine wave inverter to power the house via extension cords when the power went out, but the Rav4 has a built-in inverter and socket, so it is really easy. A couple of years ago, we powered the house for 10 days, and it only used about a gallon per day. We wanted a PHEV since the majority of our driving is local. We can go for about a week on the 45-mile range, and just plug it into our 120v outlet.

OK, now what the heck is a Shamancycle and how did this thing come to be?

In the earliest days of The Curious Forge Makerspace (I am a founding member; we started in 2011), Phoebe Legere, a musician and artist, had the vision for this build. Phoebe was looking for someone to build the Shamancycle for the Shamandome camp at Burning Man. It was a spirit animal to fly across the playa to bring back people for the shamans to heal.

Phoebe found Dirk Schmidhofer’s plans for a pedal pub on the internet. I contacted Dirk, who gave me permission to use his plans. Dirk had an engineer provide a structural engineering review. I reduced the pedalers from eight to six, and instead of a pub, a stage was built for Phoebe. It took me about a year and over 2000 hours to build it, with assistance from Curious Forge members who also provided some artistic touches. Phoebe built the eagle head.

And how was the Shamancycle received?

We were weird even for Burning Man! Art cars typically have cars underneath and giant sound systems. We were pedal-powered with a live band. Keyboard, drums, and trumpet! We have had 20 people on the Shamancycle. Nowadays, we take it to parades, maker faires, and the local middle school Flight Day, which celebrates flight and engineering. The kids love it!

What parts came from what on this?

The front end is from a ’67 VW bug, so we had suspension, brakes, and steering. The rear end is from a Tacoma, and I retained the parking brakes, which are hooked up to a F150 parking brake, so I can slow it down on downhills or park it. The rear seats are from a Ford Tempo. There is a brake master cylinder intended for dune buggy builds. I mechanically tied the steering wheel using bicycle gears to the wing mechanism. Being an engineer (ME and Aero degrees), having fixed wings would not do. I took the Ackermann steering mechanism design and turned it 90 degrees for the wing mechanism.

Beyond that, I set the head in a mechanism to allow it to turn side to side manually. Although the tail feathers are too high, they can be manipulated to spread wider, narrower, up, or down. I dismantled well over a dozen bicycles for the Shamancycle. The drivetrain is a nine-foot-long piece of 3/4″ steel bar attached to the input shaft of the Tacoma rear end. With the bicycle gear train, one side had to go in a figure 8 to turn the drive shaft the correct direction. I developed a way to keep the chain from dragging against itself, and it uses PVC pipe at the crossover. I deliberately used expanded metal as the floor so people could see the drive shaft and gears underneath.

Thanks Jeff!

Are you an Autopian Member? Do you have an awesome garage you want to share with all of Autopia? Go here and fill out the survey to get added to the list. Don’t miss out, we have a lot of fun, and you could be world famous and see your cars plastered all over the best car site on Earth! Click Here to learn more and become a Member today!