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Yes, well said! I can appreciate both showroom fresh and au natural. Having more of the former vehicle types, I have to say I'm enjoying just letting go and not obsessing about making everything perfect.

I like your idea of work trucks too Randy. Seems like the idea has caught on a bit with the full-size trucks, but don't usually see it in the compact trucks. Your truck is coming along nicely.

Dale

Decided to remove the maroon license plate from the rear this morning and found this treasure sandwiched underneath. I believe the "73" at the top may indicate the original year the plate was issued. Do any of you AZ lifers remember these plates? This most definitely has to go on the front bumper of the 620! It's even almost the same color, and all those different colored annual tabs and paint patina just look so cool. It reminds me of those iconic suitcases you sometimes see with stickers all over them indicating where in the world a traveler has been. Excuse me if I'm a bit giddy, this was like finding buried treasure! I think it will perfectly complement the look I'm going for.

Cool!

Randy - The orange/black '73 plates indicate the year they started using that series of plate.

Those ran until the maroon and white plates were issued, so it could have been anywhere from 73 to the mid-80s IIRC.

My first car had the orange 73 plates until 1987.

Change of ownership dictated the change, so your truck would have had the 73 plates until 92 (based on the reg tabs), and it likely changed owners then.

If you hit up my guy at the third-party DMV, he can tell you how to get it reissued as your rear plate (I think they're still doing that).

Thanks for the education on the plates Greg. Really liked the look, and it was serendipitous it was the same color as the truck. Not sure why the plate was changed to the maroon one, as this was a one owner truck till the original owner died and it was purchased at an estate sale in 2021 by the guy I bought it from.

Today a lot of small but necessary tasks got done. Scraped all the gunk off the diff, cleaned the drain/fill plugs, and changed out the gear oil. I also test fit the new taillights and the refinished surrounds. Since I won't be running a rear bumper, I thought I'd paint the surrounds silver to emulate the chrome bumperettes some 620s had. The taillights are new Thai units. Stripped and repainted the license plate holder black as well.

I also installed a manual choke today, which involved standing on my head under the dash for extended periods. Had to do a fair amount of modifying to get it working properly. I had previously drained the gas tank, but there must have been just enough left in it for the fuel pump to pull it forward to my glass filter as I could see it was half full after cranking briefly. Tomorrow, I'll be dumping a few gallons of fuel in the tank and work on getting the truck to idle.

I also reinstalled the fuse block, after cleaning up all the contacts, applying a bit of dielectric grease for the plugins, and replacing one of the electrical contacts that was burnt.

I'm trying to determine how to lower the spare tire under the bed. I have the long jack handle, that I believe is supposed to be inserted above the license plate holder and then turned, but it does not seem to engage anything. Any help/advice would be appreciated. Thanks!

Wow, the tailgate turned out great! looking forward to hearing it run!

Randy, the handle inserts into the carrier (see yellow arrow) and upon rotation, raises or lowers the spare on the chain.

RE: plate - if the original owner failed to register the truck continuously throughout ownership, the red plate may have been issued. Could have been out of service for a period, or was a company vehicle converted to non-commercial use, who truly knows?

There's always certain details left out of the histories and stories that come along with an old vehicle.

Greg, I'm wondering if I might be missing the correct handle to insert. What I have is a 3-4 ft. red jacking handle that has a square tip on one end and a ring on the other. Does this look right to you?