Louie from St Louis, or near there...

[lhampton]

Hi, I'm Louie. I'm in East Alton IL, which is just to the East and a little North of St Louis MO. I'm in my 40's and work in the landscaping industry. I more or less fell into this line of work when I was 19.
I grew up in SouthEast MO, going to visit my Grandfather, a farmer of German decent, who was incapable of throwing anything out, or buying anything new. I learned several things from my Grandfather, one of those being the ability to reason through how machinery should work, and figure out why it doesn't. For years I took this for granted, believing that everybody had that ability. I was shocked when I realized that that didn't come naturaly, and thankful to him for the patience that it must have taken for him to pass that, and many other bits of knowledge down to me.
My Grandfather passed away several years ago. I was able to hold onto one of his old farm trucks. A 1949 Chevy 4400 with the original 216 inline 6. It has been parked for several years, and I am slowly bringing it back to life. Hopefully, the way he would want it.
So now I'm doing work on my Grandfathers farm truck, and the guy I work for has me working on some of his pet projects; a '66 Firebird, '48 Kaiser Willy pickup, an '87 Jeep, and a dune buggy. I'm doing ok on the mechanical, but I'm in over my head on the metal work. I'm hoping to find some help here.