1961 Suburban- Joe, new member.

[Bigffjoe]

Hello everyone, my name is Joe,
it is nice to be able to use this great forum to help with fixing up my 1961 Chevy suburban 4x4. I am not sure what is stock or upgraded/different, but I have leaf spring, drub brakes, power steering, 1/2 ton running gear with 33" BFGs, pto winch, custom front bumper, pontiac 400 v8, manual transmission, 2 saddle fuel tanks.

I am 37 and have 2 boys,5 and 6, and a lovely girlfreind. I work for the City of Sandy (4yrs) as a public utility worker and am a volunteer firefighter/Engineer with Sandy Fire Dist. #72 (approx 15yrs) in Sandy Oregon witch is between Portland and Mt. Hood.

My Dad has had this carryall for as long as I can remember(early to mid 70's) and I have always thought it was a awesome rig that was unique. After growing up with this truck in the family I now own it and have been fixing it up, slowly, for the last few years. Having my boys, and a couple years ago getting divorced, I am financially challenged with not much at a time to allow for fixing. With my girlfriend, together for about a year now, and my Dad helping out to get problems tracked down and fix/upgrade many of the aging damage. I'm ready to get my carryall back on the road and make some memories with my family now as my dad did with me.

Back in the day my Dad also had put in a pontiac 400 and I rebuilt the motor about 10 years ago, got busy with life and the carryall got back burner-ed.
About a year and a half ago I resumed working on it, I replaced all the wheel cylinders due to rusted and leaking old ones. Also replaced the master cylinder. Clutch still works and now the brakes are working too. I cleaned out the edelbrock carb and installed a electric choke.... Working great and starts up nice.

We are looking into replacing the rusted out dual(4 lenses) headlight globes with newer ones and upgrading the headlight wiring. Lots of things to work on... Fuel tank with junk in it, wiring issues, body rust from sitting outside for most of its life and rust holes in the floor from a leaky front window seal.

Looking forward to meeting new people and sharing info about our classic rigs, and also see if there is some locals in the Portland Oregon metro area.