New Guy from Montana

[71CumminsBurb]

Hello all! I am a longtime lurker but only recently registered. I've always enjoyed browsing this site and drooling over all the amazing 67-72 trucks out there.

My first truck was a 70 c-10 2wd, affectionately known as bugger. It was my very first car ever, and it was treated as such . Eventually I got a job that paid enough while I was still in school to be able to modify things here and there..(it helped that the first "real" job was @ Checker Auto) and the truck went from a 350-3 on the tree to a 396-th400 with a stout 12blt in the back. I went through and updated the brakes (converting them all over to power disks) and dropped it with an Early Classics 4-6 kit. It was ugly and drank fuel but it surprised A LOT of people at stoplights (which I don't condone anymore...by the way) and I wasted A LOT of money on tires...

Then I got a little older and realized that the truck wasn't going to work for everyday commuting so it was relegated to the side yard as a newer toyota 4x4 took over as the go to rig.

Not long after I got married, life happened and old bugger was parted and sold after becoming part the landscaping for so long.

Since that time I have really come full circle with my car obession. I did the import thing, the truck thing, the motorcycle thing and most recently the big diesel thing. Never got into the lowrider scene though...that is just silly to me.

By full circle I mean I sold my 99.5 powerstoke, sold my TDi jetta and bought a 71 3/4 ton 4x4 suburban (always loved the 67-72's and needed a rig big enough for the whole family...) and another Toyota...yup, I said it....another Toyota. It's a mommy rig though.

Anyway, my family and I enjoyed a year and a half of the suburban as it was purchsed, going on many cruises and camp outs until I couldn't take certain "issues" anymore.

One was the fuel economy...a paltry 8mpg. I knew a lifted burb with a 350sb-th350 running on 35's would be fuel hungry but I didnt think that it would be that bad...

Second was that in it's current configuration it couldn't do everything that I wanted it to do.

So, after a long deliberation out came the tools and a heart transplant began.

I sourced a 1st gen cummins (remembering how well my "slightly" modified powertroke could handle everything I threw at it) and moved forward with a complete drivetrain swap.

I chose the 1st gen cummins for it's reliability, fuel economy and tune-ability. That and it's EMP proof...so why not! I decided to use the dodge getrag 360 (some hate em, but I don't plan to throw 1000ftlbs at it so it will suffice) and a dodge np205.

So, thats where I'm at now. motor is in, trans-transcase is in. Now I trying to figure out the small stuff. I know I'm close and it's becoming harder and harder to not just throw old parts at it to get it going. I'm testing my resolve as I told myself that this build was going to be done right the first time and that I didn't want to do a tear down every year to change or upgrade something I rushed through to get it going.

I gave myself a drop dead time of OCT-31. By then, the snow and cold will be here in full force and I dont want another winter wasted without our family fun rig!!!