Hello from S.E. Idaho

[riceranch]

Well after months of looking and searching around the site for what I needed, it's time to say hi, howdy before I start firing away with questions.

I've lately been living a life of seeing things and dreams come full circle from my youth. As a child my neighbor would start up his 67-72 Panel every night at 11 and come home at 6. I loved that truck, the glass packs, the faded green paint, the white wagon wheels with knobbies. I wanted to be just like him; working at Disneyland at night, painting then loading up for Speedway on Saturday afternoons. Fast forward 30 some years and I find myself in Idaho looking for a second car for the family. I have 6 people I need to transport and our idea of fun is over the rivers and through the woods so a Toyota van won't do it, the kids will be growing out of the Landcruiser shortly and if I could help it I wanted to stay away from vans.

February saw me finding a 69 Suburban 4wd 500 miles away but I could never get a call back, then in May I found one 80 miles away and again no call back. Then in July what appeared to be the one I found in May re-appeared 300 miles away. The children and wife needed a trip for the summer and everyone agreed that the Suburban would fill my old car fix, their back roads fixation with the comfort and reliability of a vehicle that lacked automatic windows.

So in July we loaded everyone up, trucked over to the other side of the state and picked up this beauty, a 1971 Chevy 3/4 Ton 4WD Suburban. Normal rust for a 40 year old truck in this area, repaint and some issues. But who cared, I had the truck I wanted, the children and wife were excited, I had the other rig full of tools and "emergency" fixes so off we go.

I knew something was up when the test drive consisted of a 10 mph trip around the block and the brakes, though there were almost at the floor board. But it would do 70, stopped better than my '52 Chevy had and after attempts to get Les Schwab to look at it and imposing on a friend of a friend to put it up on his lift we figured whatever goes wrong on the way home I can fix of we'll use the AAA towing we've been paying into for the last 20 years.

As it sits today, she's up on stands in the garage while I try to piece together rear brake drums and attempt to sort out whether it's worth it to use the internal parts I just picked up, keep hunting for drums or swap in a later rear axle/ disc brakes.



Mark-Anthony

[kcsa75]

Excellent!

Welcome to the forum. You're among friends when you're here. I can absolutely relate to your story.

[Lokin4AReason]

welcome to the forum ....