WH I live in Northern Nevada 80 miles south of Oregon roughly 150 north of Reno, so likely it isn't worth it for you to come all the way out here for it, but you're welcome to it if you decide to take it off my hands, let me know if you would like it.
If you don't want to do the work yourself, ask your motorcycle guy who he recommends for auto work.
Its not that I do not want to (work on it myself), I really want to learn more about this kind of stuff.
I do not own the property I live on, the guy whose land I live on does not want any more vehicles in disrepair on his property, there is a truck here already falling apart that he is getting 600 a yr to store and a few other various vehicles he is storing & he has said no to anymore.
Plus the truck is in town and I'm back at the ranch, driving it here ( if it made it ) would do more damage-and there is no place in town where I could leave it and work on it.
Asking the mc mechanic for referrals is an excellent idea, he is "only" 80 miles away too.
but I know my bike is working and know it needs front and rear brakes and a few other things so the bike will be my vehicle for the summer. As far as the truck goes, once bitten twice shy, I would shoot it...if I could afford ammo.
Ok, I'm going to take a guess that he doesn't know what he is talking about ( it wouldn't be the first time )
and maybe there's something wrong with the brakes on that side 
Could be a part broke and dropped down in the wrong place, or a bunch of mud jammed up in the drum. I once had a self-adjuster that just kept tightening no matter what, and I finally turned it around or something so that you just manually adjusted it like the really old ones.
I'm thinking that if a bearing was putting out that much smoke, then you would have had much more obvious problems while driving 
How did you get it home, or did you ...? (nope, its behind the town gas station and about to accrue storage fees, starting to strip it today sometime with mr ranch owner who gets the battery )
If I wasn't so far away, I would come help you with it - even though my knees are shot and I can't hardly even work on my own stuff anymore. ( I know the feeling, ACL surgery in 2005, or was it 04? senior moments... )
For that matter, I would like to have the old pickup myself except you said it was an automatic, right ? :(
( yep, but the tranny works though)
By the way, I used to live way out in the mountains on very little money. But I was young then and I fixed everything myself. If I didn't know how then I learned by asking and doing. I tore down and put back together a diesel engine where the tractor was broke down in the middle of the woods - TWICE, a couple years apart, because the first time I didn't have the money to put in all new pistons. 
When I was young I was living in Manhattan & didn't learn a darn useful thing , well except I learned I didn't want to live there anymore
