79 GMC Sierra "Back in the Family"

[Turambar]

I'm new to the forum, and before I started a post with a barrage of questions, I thought it might be beneficial to show what I am working with.

First, a little history...

In 1979 my parents bought their first vehicle, a '79 GMC Sierra with a 250 engine and th400 transmission. I was born in '80, and by '86 my parents had divorced. I had some good early childhood memories in that truck, and somewhere I have a picture of 3 year old me with my hand on the front bumper.

Fast forward a little bit, and you arrive at 1995. I got my licence that year in Louisiana, and my father told me that, if I wanted it, I could come and get the old family truck. He and I were somewhat estranged at the time, but it was decided that in the summer of '96 I would come and spend two weeks with him to work on the truck and bring it home. Those two weeks were some of the only "good times" that I remember having with my father. The truck had set a few years before I got it, and we did about 3k worth of work to it while I was there.

Like many other idiot teenagers before me, I got tired of the truck and sold it 2 years later.

A decade passed, and I wondered what happened to that truck. I remember good times in it while my family was whole, working on it with my dad, and tearing up the roads in it while a teenager. Luckily, I still had the VIN and Louisiana works on the "good ol' boy" system. A cop friend tracked down the truck, but the owner wanted way too much for it. So, I forgot about it until October of 2013.

The tale of how I got the truck back this time is long, hilarious, and convoluted, but I have it in my possession. I also have some money to throw at the project (not a lot mind you, but enough to do a decent restore).

This is me grinning like an idiot after getting it home:



Alternatively, this thread could be called "A computer geek gets by with a lot of help from his friends." I am by no means a gear head, but I have learned a lot, and we have already done a lot to the truck. More pics to follow soon...

And questions... lots of questions...