Saddle Tramp
Well-Known Member
- First Name
- Jerald
- Joined
- Sep 9, 2018
- Threads
- 5
- Messages
- 63
- Reaction score
- 91
- Location
- Artesia, NM
- Vehicle(s)
- 2020 F350 Lariat, 2019 Ranger Lariat, 2017 Honda CRV
- Occupation
- Retired Rancher
- Thread starter
- #1
The highlight of this forum to me is Mr Schilke’s posts. I thoroughly enjoy reading about some of the behind the scenes, of development, etc of the Ranger! I would like to share with you a brief bio of Mr Bill, and his experiences with that wonderful little truck that Mr Schilke was such a large part of. Mr Bill, is one of the most interesting people I have met. Extremely intelligent, astute businessman, very mechanical, probably the most generous person I have been around. I think it’s safe to say he gives away a larger percentage of his income than anyone I know. He finds a lot of ways to give, a few examples would be helping to build a church on an Indian Reservation, or handing hundreds of dollars to a single mothers at Christmas, with the instructions you can spend it on anything but food. Then there’s the time he won 55 grand, on a lottery ticket at a convenience store, the employees of that store each received 2 grand apiece, a family in a neighboring town that were having a difficult time, got a big piece of it, and he even spent some of it on himself.
He is a self taught welder, machinist, and fabricator, and has extremely well equipped machine shop, including a lathe he acquired from Sandia Labs. There are interesting stories about all the machines in his shop, most of which were acquired for pennies on the dollar.
His background, includes a variety of jobs working for other people, mostly mechanically related, he also was a machinist, tractor puller, part owner of a dirt track, city purchasing agent, Fire Chief of two different volunteer fire departments, past president of the “National T Bucket Alliance”. He also built a wheel-stander car, “Wheelstang”,that he and his wife toured the country with for several years, It did wheel stands up to 150 mph, also he had it where it would literally leap vertically off the ground. They lived frugally traveling with this car, not eating in restaurants etc. His wife after a few years was afraid he was going to get injured in the car and talked him into selling it. The car had generated some pretty good money, that allowed him to start a very nice business, the physical part that he mostly built with his own hands.
His first love I guess is T Buckets, he has built a lot of them, he would build one for himself, get bored with it after awhile, sell it and build another one. One he sold went all the way to Australia. He also has helped a staggering number of people build T Buckets. His current T Bucket, is the “Aluma T”. Anything that could be fabricated out of aluminum on this car is. Oh and he loves Jaguar, rear end suspension assemblies, I think he has put them in a lot of cars he has built.
Well now to the Rangers, he has owned about 7 of them. They were all 4 bangers, except for the one he currently drives. Most of them had 50 or 60 thousand on them when he bought them. Most of them he bought on eBay. He didn’t test drive any of them before purchasing, and he didn’t pay over $2000.00 for any of them except for the 2011 6 cylinder he is driving now. All of them were running when he sold them. He did say when the mileage was getting really high on them, he would quit changing the oil, just change filters. When he was done with them, he would sell them for $1500.00. now is that cheap transportation. He thinks he averaged putting about 225,000 on them. When they got 200,000 on them, he would start looking for another one. The most miles he put on one was one he bought on eBay, that was on a car lot in Oklahoma, he put 320,000 on it! He had no engine failures on them. He had one break a timing belt, and he said he replaced a few clutches. In his younger, stronger days, he said he got where he could replace a clutch, in 35 to 40 min. I would have thought that a person that built beautiful RestoMod show cars for his wife, T buckets etc, for himself, and currently he is working on a Pierce Arrow, would maybe trick out the Rangers a little, it didn’t happen they were strictly work trucks, the only mod they were getting was a toolbox.
One thing that amazed me about his trucks, and how amazingly well they performed, is he wasn’t putting highway miles on them. When he got on the highway, it was in a motor home, or F350, pulling a car trailer to a car show, or T Bucket, convention. The Rangers were used hard, stop and go town driving, up and down the alleys of his extensive business facility, going to the car parts store, grocery store, cafe, bank, etc.
He is a self taught welder, machinist, and fabricator, and has extremely well equipped machine shop, including a lathe he acquired from Sandia Labs. There are interesting stories about all the machines in his shop, most of which were acquired for pennies on the dollar.
His background, includes a variety of jobs working for other people, mostly mechanically related, he also was a machinist, tractor puller, part owner of a dirt track, city purchasing agent, Fire Chief of two different volunteer fire departments, past president of the “National T Bucket Alliance”. He also built a wheel-stander car, “Wheelstang”,that he and his wife toured the country with for several years, It did wheel stands up to 150 mph, also he had it where it would literally leap vertically off the ground. They lived frugally traveling with this car, not eating in restaurants etc. His wife after a few years was afraid he was going to get injured in the car and talked him into selling it. The car had generated some pretty good money, that allowed him to start a very nice business, the physical part that he mostly built with his own hands.
His first love I guess is T Buckets, he has built a lot of them, he would build one for himself, get bored with it after awhile, sell it and build another one. One he sold went all the way to Australia. He also has helped a staggering number of people build T Buckets. His current T Bucket, is the “Aluma T”. Anything that could be fabricated out of aluminum on this car is. Oh and he loves Jaguar, rear end suspension assemblies, I think he has put them in a lot of cars he has built.
Well now to the Rangers, he has owned about 7 of them. They were all 4 bangers, except for the one he currently drives. Most of them had 50 or 60 thousand on them when he bought them. Most of them he bought on eBay. He didn’t test drive any of them before purchasing, and he didn’t pay over $2000.00 for any of them except for the 2011 6 cylinder he is driving now. All of them were running when he sold them. He did say when the mileage was getting really high on them, he would quit changing the oil, just change filters. When he was done with them, he would sell them for $1500.00. now is that cheap transportation. He thinks he averaged putting about 225,000 on them. When they got 200,000 on them, he would start looking for another one. The most miles he put on one was one he bought on eBay, that was on a car lot in Oklahoma, he put 320,000 on it! He had no engine failures on them. He had one break a timing belt, and he said he replaced a few clutches. In his younger, stronger days, he said he got where he could replace a clutch, in 35 to 40 min. I would have thought that a person that built beautiful RestoMod show cars for his wife, T buckets etc, for himself, and currently he is working on a Pierce Arrow, would maybe trick out the Rangers a little, it didn’t happen they were strictly work trucks, the only mod they were getting was a toolbox.
One thing that amazed me about his trucks, and how amazingly well they performed, is he wasn’t putting highway miles on them. When he got on the highway, it was in a motor home, or F350, pulling a car trailer to a car show, or T Bucket, convention. The Rangers were used hard, stop and go town driving, up and down the alleys of his extensive business facility, going to the car parts store, grocery store, cafe, bank, etc.
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