| " Me and My 70 " Part 1 |
| History ! |
| Alright, you want some history, here you go. " It was a dark, cold, dreary December morning when I first saw her. ( yeah right ! ) I work at a body shop in Hazel Park, MI and one of the guys that worked there brought this horrible looking, orange and white thing up to the shop and parked it in back. He'd been told repeatedlly by the police that he couldn't park it next to his trailer because he wasn't driving it, the plates were expired, it was on flats, etc. Never really gave it much thought, but over the course of the summer, eating my lunch behind the building on several occasions, I guess I must have let my imagination run off on its own once too often. I didn't even look it over real good. Actually, the thing that appealed to me the most was the awsome rear slant the door windows have and the fact that the driver's side from the roof line down to the tops of the wheel well lips was real straight. The longest panel in the truck had never been screwed with. You know. No collisions, no rust holes, no big gapping window holes. A nice straight panel. I heard talk that he had couple of guys looking at it but I didn't get the idea that they were serious. I also heard $200 was what he was asking. When we finally got around to talking I managed to talk him down to $150. So here I am Sept.1997, the somewhat proud owner of a 1970 GMC van. You'll notice that from now on it will be referred to as " her ". The rest of the guys at the shop thought I'd lost my marbles. Maybe I had. You should have seen her. Well, after scratching my head for a couple a days I decided that a major tune-up and an oil change had to be the first move. I was told that she did run, and not to bad at that, so that made me feel pretty confident. You know the old saying, "Don't count your chickens". . . Fresh oil change, tune-up, battery, go to turn the key and ZIP ZERO NADA Probably should have expected it. I know what your tkinking, $150 bucks, just what DID I expect. Turns out that it wasn't as serious as it sounded. At least not to me. A little bit of rewiring and it turned over, a little bit more and it was running. Topped off the rest of the fluids and went around the block to see what it was really like. She shook and shuddered pretty bad so I brought it back quick. The tires were separating from sitting so long but the real shudder was coming from the u-joints, which were darn near seized. Well to make a long story a little shorter, u-joints, all the brake lines up front, another oil change, another set of plugs, half a tank of real gas instead of the varnish that was in the tank and I actually could drive it in and out of the building pretty reliably. I guess thats when the real progress started to take place. "Sherman & Assoc.", a local aftermarket replacement panel warehouse had 72" rocker panels for $31.00 ea. Bought 2 lefts. Worked out better for me that way. They offered rear corners but all said and done there were none to be found. I also noticed that they are not even listed in there newest catalog. Kinda bummed me out. Thought I had rear corners. Stripped all the panels except the roof and was supprised to find only two paint jobs. The original color was the light green / turquoise (possibly with a white top???). Lots of surface rust so I spent an afternoon with a sandblaster and well you know what kind of results you get with one of those. Cleans up the good and removes the bad. But that fresh coat of primer made her look like a different van. Are you tired of reading yet ? Ok then, here's a little more. The front suspension was a lot of work but was pretty straight forward. I sandblasted the axle, springs, knuckles, backplates, you know, all that stuff you want to look real clean when your putting it back together. I replaced the king-pins and bushings, the brake drums, wheel cylinders, hardware kits, bearings, seals, front brake hoses, the steel lines I mentioned earlier, a set of tires, heck, I almost was ready to road test her again. You should have seen me limp back into the parking lot, dragging the gas tank by the ground wire, it looked like she had just given birth to a gas tank!!!!!!!!! Evidently the tank straps were so rusted that after a few chuckholes, it didn't want to stay with the truck anymore. Talk about embarassing. I'm sure I would have laughed pretty hard if I'd seen it and not been part of it. That's just a little bit me and my van, how I found her, the weird stuff thats happened, and still is for the most part. I do have a few pretty good stories about my van, like the timing chain incident, or the trip from Detroit to Memphis for the Penzoil Nationals held at Memphis Motorsports Park. So if I haven't bored ya, read on ! |
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