Retiree Nurses '49 Chevy Pickup Back to Health

By Bruce W. Smith

"Mom, now your education begins."

Those were the first words Mary Corrington's son, Tom, said when the registered nurse was handed the keys to a 1949 Chevrolet pickup she'd found rotting under a pile of junk in a barn near her home in Eugene, Ore.

That was six years ago. Today Corrington, who is 72 and enjoying retirement in "the slow lane," says her son was right: It was a learning experience doing her first restoration, bringing an old, forgotten relic from the late '40s back to pristine condition.

"When we went to roll it out of the place she was stored," Corrington said, "the old truck was going backward down an incline. There were no brakes and the emergency brake broke off. … It took four people to stop her. The brakes were shot, so my son redid the brakes for me. He said, 'I don't care if it runs but it needs to be able to stop.' "

The retired RN is all about being in charge; she's meticulous, and hands-on, typical of someone who spent every day of her career helping to save lives. She took on her beloved pickup the same way she did her patients — she has done whatever it took to nurse it back to health.

She didn't waste any time, either. She tore out the rotted boards in the bed, bought pine replacements and spent the first winter hand-rubbing both sides of the boards with eight coats of wood-finishing varnish so they'd be ready when it was time to put them in.

During the same period she gutted the interior, took the seat to a local upholstery shop, and then tackled sanding and repairing the cab.

It took months of sweat equity, but screw by screw, bolt by bolt, stitch by stich Corrington readied every piece needed to put the Chevy back together, including making a headliner to match the original. She splurged a bit, buying special insulation to keep the summer sun at bay.

During the refurbish process she had a local electronics expert rebuild the radio, vacuum tubes, push buttons, faceplate and more.

She took the same care with the old Chevy's original heater.

"I spent hours at my kitchen table through the winters, polishing and working dents and scratches out of the little heater," Corrington said. "It's a rare one with an aluminum plate that says 'Deluxe.' When it was as good as I could make it, I painted the words back as original and reattached it to the heater."

Although trying to keep it all "numbers original," she did add two items that weren't originally on this pickup: a rearview mirror and a passenger-side sun visor.

The Chevy's 216-cubic-inch inline six-cylinder engine compartment wasn't in any better shape than the interior: The wiring was nearly rotted away; the engine filthy. With the help of her son and grandson, Corrington pulled everything out and started cleaning and rebuilding.

Corrington said she "bit the bullet" and bought a cloth-wrapped vintage wiring loom for that period truck as well as a voltage regulator, rebuilt generator and plug wires.

She and her 16-year-old grandson enjoyed some unique bonding time as they sat in the kitchen rebuilding the engine's carburetor while across town the cracked engine block was being repaired and readied for a complete rebuild using stock parts.

Arthritis prevented Corrington from manhandling the heavy transmission, clutch and rear-end rebuild. So her son, a mechanic with plenty of experience rebuilding vintage trucks, handled those tasks while Corrington sanded, painted and refurbished/replaced smaller parts along with tackling a myriad of other details.

That included pulling out the corner windows and having them polished instead of replaced. She continued her automotive education by replacing the front turn signals with driving lights and converting the parking lights to turn signals. She even cleaned up and repaired the old spotlight that served its original Montana owner back in the 1950s as a way to hunt game at night.

Corrington said she didn't handle the final paint/bodywork. She turned that over to Todd's Auto Body in nearby Springfield. The shop followed her instructions to use single-stage Seacrest Green to make her beauty shine.

After the paint job, Corrington put the interior back together and then meticulously went over every inch of the old Chevy to make sure nothing was missed. Corrington was finally able put the boards back in the bed.

Then she cleaned, hand-sanded and carefully painted each of the four rims that now had brand-new bias-ply Coker Firestone tires in place of the rotted ones that were under her truck when this all began.

"She turned out so pretty that I decided to show her," Corrington said. During the past several years her '49 has been a consistent car-show winner. "But she's not a trailer queen!"

Last year Corrington convoyed with her son and his old truck on a 14-day, 3,000-mile road trip to see the Grand Canyon and travel historic Route 66. She towed a custom tear-drop trailer behind her green 3100, loving every minute.

"Oh, we did have our adventures. She is still six volt and runs on bias-plies. The joys and trials of driving a restored-to-original vintage truck were part of the experience that I would not trade for anything," she said with a twinkle in her eyes.

They didn't travel fast, and the graphics on the back of the trailer warned those who came roaring up behind with this saying as simple as the '49 Chevy towing it: "Enjoying the journey from the slow lane."

Now that's healing power.

Cars.com photos by Bruce W. Smith

Comments (23) in Offbeat