Picked up this cool little gem this past week ('85 Scottsdale)

[jrblanke]

While surfing craigslist this past week I ran across this '85 Scottsdale. The seller mentioned that he was moving and needed to sell. He continued to drop the price until I couldn't stand it anymore and had to go look at it. The truck has 66k miles on it and is mostly original. the previous owner (second owner) took off the sport mirrors and added those big honkin dumbo ear mirrors, and he also added the rain shields above the mirrors.

My first thoughts when I saw it was that the truck was owned by an old man. Sure enough the guy I bought it from was 69, and the person he got it from was the family of the person who bought it new. He said that it had new tires and that the old ones were giving him some trouble. When he took it to the tire place they told him that the tires were from 1985. Pretty scary that he was driving around on 25+ year old tires!

It has the 4.3L V6/700R4/3.08 combination. I have only driven it about 20 miles home so I don't know if I like the running gear combo yet or not. I like the fact that the 4.3 is different than the 305 that I often see, but it seems like it should have a lower rear end (such as a 3.73 perhaps) so that it runs in a more efficent RPM range. Like I said, the jury is still out on that one.

I don't have any plans for it yet other than removing some of the old man gear such as the bug shield, running boards, and bed rails. I might try to find some sport mirrors to put back on. I assume the guy had to drill holes in order to mount those big mirrors, so I am not sure what I am going to do about that yet.

The paint looks better in these pictures than it really is. It is a really cool truck!