Bringing Home a Piece of Americana

Bringing Home a Piece of Americana

Ok let’s get started! My son is 17 and looking for his first set of wheels he is thinking he wants a four wheel drive truck and has a budget under 5k way under. I started to school him a on the benefits of low tech old school vehicles. My advice went something like this; find a clean Chevy truck with a bullet proof 350. A General motors 350 can be found anywhere they are simple straight forward and every after market thing you can think of is offered and has been for so long that it’s affordable. I call this a nuts and bolts approach, anyone can work on them.
I started to look at a few vehicles but I always want a 67-72 model year. I love those years! The problem is so do thousands of other people. I know what you’re thinking it is my son’s truck and he should pick out what he likes. I agree leave it up to the him.
We received a call from his uncle who owns a 1972 Chevy Blazer and uses it for his daily driver in LA. They call it the beast! When you’re merging on the freeway and no one wants to let you in people do a double take and back off the throttle to avoid two tons of good old American steel! His uncle lets him know he going highbred and will be selling his truck. The price is right and I will be in LA soon so the deal is made.
I wanted to take a tow vehicle and a flat bed trailer out and pick it up in style. The only problem is my tow vehicle is in need of a Cummins motor and the trailer I borrowed last time I picked up a project I totaled. I had a few what if thoughts go through my head then bought one way tickets to California.
I arrived in La with my wife on a Saturday afternoon to attend a wedding and the next morning we would drive out to Colorado. I drove it about ten miles on Sunday and noticed excessive play in the front suspension, after taking a look under the truck I noticed the leaf spring hanger on the driver’s side was broken in two allowing the leaf spring to move around and the axle to shift. I was thinking how am I going to fix this now today! My brother came through again; He has a friend named Jerry that owns
JER FAB http://www.jer-fab.com/ Jerry opens the doors to his fab shop on Sunday and hooks me up with the tools to do the job, by the time I get the bolts out of the shackle he has the plasma cuter fired up and cutting the new shackle hangers. I do not want to get to side tracked from my long winded rant, but jer has some serious projects going on. Checking out his shop made me want to stay a week or so and dig into the blazer. Back to reality, I bolted on the shiny new hangers and hit the road.
We headed out interstate 15 to Vegas, I noticed the smell of coolant in the cab (leaking heater core) about that time it overheated, we made it to a rest stop about 90 miles out of Vegas. We waited about 30 minutes filled it with water and drove thru Vegas. The ride got a whole lot better when the outside temp dropped to 70 deg. We stayed the night in cedar city Utah.
The trip routed us through Grand Junction Co then right through the heart of the Rocky Mountains. Driving the classic with the windows down and the stereo turned up was a good time! The trip started in the heat of the desert and ended in snow and ice in the Rocky Mountains. We pulled in to home base after 18 hours 4 over heating stops and a lot of sightseeing.
The moral of the story is save a classic, there is a lot of maintence to keep one up unless you are going to do a frame off restoration, but it is worth it. There is something that cannot be duplicated in the driving exspernce with a modern ride. Now for a little bragging, check out the specs on this truck.
6 inch lift
Rs 9000 adjustable shocks
Corp 14 bolt rear
Dana 44 front
383 stroker FI
Turbo 350 Trans
Custom bumpers
12 K winch

Wickedmag.com 2010 Brian Gray