Primarily Petroliana Shop Talk Forums Thread Like Summary - Dipping my Toe Into The Petroliana Pool

A friend of mine is moving and can't take a lot of his "yard art" along with him so he's giving some of it to me. Amongst the items gifted is a complete March 1948 Tok L-HR Shortie in pretty restorable condition - I like the year because it was the second year for this model, my sister was born that year (a little younger than the pump though), and I'm a '46 model myself.

The pump is a very nasty Cat yellow paint (what's left of it anyway), and a prior owner painted over everything, trim, data plate, nozzle scuff plate, etc. It has some surface rust, no glass, badly weathered faces, and a badly dented door-side panel. Otherwise, it's a pretty easy redo. This is the large window model so a lot of the available repop parts aren't available for this one. I don't intend to make it museum quality (but really nice is my goal) and I don't care if it is historically correct (but close would be good). For example, I would like to put ad glass but I do believe the available ones are going to be too short for my window so I'm going to have to play with making my own glass and frosting it - if I can find a good decal

I've never done a pump before but I've long longed for one, too cheap to spring for the price but this one is "free", so what's to lose, right? Except for the $300 in repop parts I just paid out, that is, and there will be a bit more - but not much. I've done restorations of old equipment like my camelback Cincinnati-Bickford upright drill and a Ford C 6000 fire truck so I do have some knowledge, experience. and less patience than I would like to have. I know there is a lot of experience here and I plan on leaning on it during this journey.