Should I return my truck to daily driver duty?

[70chevc10]

I have been away from the board here for a few years now, but have started to come by to check whats going on from time to time. And I must warn you, this may be a long post!

Here is my current situation; I'm currently finishing up my degree in economics while studying abroad in the Netherlands (a lot of fun, to say the least!). Knowing that it isn't cheap to live over here without working for 6 months, I sold my Jeep and VW to pay off bills/save some money. This means that when I get back, all I have left concerning a vehicle to drive is my truck. I live in Seattle, and will (HOPEFULLY) land a job somewhere in the city once I get back home.

So whats the point of all this? I am trying to decide if I should buy some cheap beater to drive around until I have some money saved up for a decent car, or drive my truck everywhere. In high school, I used my truck as a daily, and it served me very well. Once I moved to Seattle, I parked it at my moms place and only drove it in the spring/summer on nice days or to car shows. I would leave it in my parking spot in Seattle over the summer sometimes, and well.... my poor truck seems to hate this city. All sorts of new problems surfaced, and it remained in various states of repair over the 4 years I was in college. Every time I fixed something, something else broke and I never did know if that meant I fixed the problem or made it worse.

Examples of things that have gone wrong; suspension is complete junk. I bounce all over the road. It even scares me sometimes. Power valve in the carb went out causing me to foul the plugs OFTEN. Electric choke kept getting stuck on. ALWAYS. I would usually have to open the hood and manually push the choke off. The dizzy went out (and it took me nearly 3 months to figure out WHAT in the dizzy went out before I could fix it, due to being in class/working at the time). Brakes have gone a bit crazy. Sometimes the pedal just drops to the floor, even after having them bled. I need a new speedo gear in the trans because I switched to 3.73's and I cant really tell how fast I'm going, ever.

And the kicker, something is still wrong with the carb. I've had it professionally tuned, fiddled with the choke dozens of times, and I STILL foul all the plugs within only 500-1000 miles.

Basically, to get her back into daily driver condition, I would have to (FINALLY) redo the suspension and convert to discs (including a 4/6 drop while I'm at it), fix the speedo, get a new carb (I've given up on this one), fix the pass. side door bracket (it is loose and doesnt shut all the way), and hope/pray that nothing else goes wrong.


I added up the costs of parts and it would be $1,700 (not including an alignment or carb tuning, because I don't know how well I could tune it). This also includes a few misc. little items and new fluids. This is likely cheaper than buying some junker car that has unlimited potential problems.

What am I worried about while driving it daily in Seattle? Well for one, shes a bit of a looker:







Considering I have a rollpan out back, I'd have to worry about people bumping into me when I have to part on the street. I'd be scared of people breaking into it. I don't enjoy driving it in bad weather. 9mpg isn't fun (even when my Jeep was only getting 12...). I would HAVE to find an apartment that has a parking space. It has collector plates, so technically I'm not supposed to drive it everyday.

Other things I am considering is that the paint really isn't the best. There are some bubbles on the rockers, some scratches, 1 dent, a scrape on the passenger fender, etc. So really, a few more won't really hurt it too much, because EVENTUALLY I will have her all stripped down and redone (....someday).

Most importantly, I want to stop ignoring her! I've had a list (a hand-written one, at that!) of parts and things I've planned to do since I was 17 and first got her. I hope that if I can get it back to daily driving condition, It'll light a spark under my bum and get me motivated again.

Anyone have thoughts or opinions about this? I'll ad a few more pics, since everyone loves pictures!














And last, the scrape on the fender that I mentioned