Tom sort of skipped over the part where GM's initial design is , IMO , pretty darn good , especially for a cheap truck in 1969 ~it has , for example , fibre optics to illuminate the shift indicator on the steering column (DPO ripped it to junk of course,fixed now) and the heater's matrix is hard plumbed into the water jacket's by pass cooling loop so it's always hot & ready to supply hot air , when you don't need heating in the cab , it just dumps the unwanted hot air out and serves as additional cooling in the desert .
Lots of nice little touches like rear coil springs and a Pan hard bar , as the brandy new shocks were devoid of *any* damping ability whatsoever it pogoed it's way across the Desert but now that I've installed new Bilstein HD shocks on all four corners , it rides well and handles terrific .
Sadly GM kinda cheaped out on both build quality and much worry about rust prevention so not many of these fine old trucks are left now .
With a bit of diligence , luck and hard work , I hope this will be the last truck I ever buy .
-Nate
Tom wrote:
>
> Max,
>
> You have NO idea! Nate's deaf as a post (actually, that may be mean
> to posts) so he can cruise along with window's wide open and the roar of the
> wind (that he can't hear) trying to burst ear drums. Since I still
> consult, occasionally, on music mixes and sound tracks, I'm not so cool with
> that.
>
> Of course, in the 1/2 century this truck has been working, no one
> thought about replacing the worn out window channels. So the windows rattle
> like snare drums even when rolled up. And this particular design was never
> equipped with any sound deadening on the broad expanses of sheet metal. So
> instead of sitting in an environment like a 126 or 123, it's like sitting
> inside a drum.
>
> Nate won't buy any vehicle unless he first has convinced himself that
> it has a good variety of obscure mechanical, electrical and other issues to
> confound him for a few months. So this one, which is an automatic,
> converted from originally being a manual, had an f-'d up column. Watching him
> struggle to get it into or out of gear was a pretty good reminder of the
> truism "white men can't dance." (Of course, once we got it home, he just
> disassembled the steering column, replaced the various broken bits, and made it
> work like new.)
>
> It wouldn't be a real vehicle for a long trip if the instruments
> worked, or even the instrument lighting. So we spent plenty of time in the
> evening with Nate squinting at the dash, trying to figure out what was going on
> (like, 'can we get to the next gas station (100 miles ahead) on the
> indicated 1/16 tank left?') Or, 'is that wisp of smoke curling up out of the
> dash really a bad thing or just something that smells bad?
>
> Actually, now that I reminisce about the trip, I have to admit that
> the passenger's side of the cab might have been a little quieter than the
> driver's side, because the leaves packed into the fresh air inlet, vent, HVAC
> system, etc. were so dense that they had to have some damping effect on the
> various panels of sheet metal (It really doesn't have an "HVAC" system,
> just a heater, with broken controls.)
>
> But it was a good trip. Especially things like getting stopped by the
> gate guards at the White Sands Missle range in N.M. and seeing that the
> construction of a lot of the '60s vintage missles in their museum area had
> about the same build quality as a GM truck of that period. Amazing that we
> ever won the Cold War.
>
> The mileage will improve when Nate gets the silly after market 15"
> wheels off of it and puts some real wheels and tires on it.
>
> This past weekend, we found the same truck in a junkyard and recovered
> the heater controls, so maybe it will not be an icebox during the upcoming
> winter. And the proper door latch shims, so the doors will close without
> damaging their latches (this is the kind of little stuff that Nate obsesses
> on, that most people ignore - which is why Nate's rides last so long).
>
> Tom
>
>
>
>
>
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