About 6 or 7 months after I bought the Nissan, I was driving home from work one night (I worked Swings at the time) sometime around 0130 or so. As I was getting closer to the house, a deer ran across the road. I was in a good mood and decided to slow down and let him go...until I felt this 'THUD' coming from the back of the truck. I couldn't believe it! A Deer hit ME!!. I turned around and drove by where I had gotten nailed and there was a deer crumpled up on the curb...about the size of a Great Dane. Texas deer are pretty much weenies, after all - I guess not everything is bigger in Texas, eh? When I turned around again and the headlights lit him up, he struggled to his feet, shook himself off, and took off across the field. Damn it!!! My Nissan has a big ol' dent in the fender now (of what was a pretty straight body), and that freakin' little deer got up and ran away. And my wife asked me if the deer was OK afterwards...to my dismay. You know, it wasn't going to cost us anything for them to make a new deer. To repair the fender on the other hand...

You can just make out the dent in the picture above - it's that mangled area just behind the rear wheel.

The truck had been going along happily (despite its dent) until last July when the engine blew the head gasket. I didn't think too much of it and took the head off the engine and discovered some damage to the block and the no. 4 piston where the head gasket had blown. Fortunately, the cylinder wall hadn't been damaged, so I proceded to rebuild the engine. I must have done something right because she's still running almost 5000 miles and 10 months later.

I was looking to restore it a bit with the new wheels, window tint and some new seats, and then take care of the deer strike bodywork, but I jumped on the chance to buy my new Dodge Ram. When I found out I was getting the truck, a friend of mine at work said he'd be interested in buying the Nissan from me instead of me trading it in - dent and all. So naturally, I jumped on that, too. The truck is still in San Angelo, and my friend is currently enjoying it with his boys - they play paintball almost every weekend and needed a truck to haul the goodies to the field - so it all worked out.

Before I sold it, I finally got those new wheels put on and actually took a couple of shots of it cleaned up. The first one is at the top of the page, and here's the other one. The pictures were pretty washed out because I shot almost straight into the rising sun when I took them - bummer.

You can see how the truck did on THIS page when I went to San Antonio to go wheelin' with my buddy Dave. My other pal Ron Stevenson tagged along as well...we had a blast.

BTW - Thanks for the great deal on the wheels, Dave.