New Truck

Yep, and Brenda and I drove all the way down to Myrtle Creek, Oregon to pick it up. What a long day.

I have had the white 84 Chevy C10 for several years now (10?), and it's met most all of my needs just fine. It was there when I needed to move me when I got remarried, again after my divorce, and it was there when I moved 5 years later into this house when I bought it. I know that being a homeowner puts additional needs on a truck. There are always trips to Lowe's or Home Depot to get bags of dirt, or lengths of lumber, or a sheet of plywood. The C10 half ton was fine for that. It also had the advantage of being a really nice-riding truck--almost a car's ride. But when you want to carry something heavy a half-ton truck just won't cut it. We went to our local sand & gravel place and got a yard of dirt a couple weeks ago, and even though the guy loading did an excellent job at being slow and careful, the poor truck groaned when the weight was added. There is also the danger of shearing an axle on a half-ton truck because ALL the load is carried on the driving axles. As much as I wanted to drop some money into this truck for some upgrades, I knew it wasn't "the" truck. I started looking to trade up, and I've been looking for quite a while. When I found this one I sat on it and did nothing for several days, not wanting to make a trip that far to look at it, and also noting that the ad was several weeks old and was likely long gone. After it ate at my brain long enough I decided I had to know, so I contacted the guy. It was still available! How bout that.

It's an 84 GMC Sierra Classic 2wd. Freshly-rebuilt 350, TH400 automatic, tilt wheel, power windows, power locks, cloth interior, custom rear bumper, etc. It has headers (which I'm not a fan of), and all the A/C stuff was removed, but nothing has been butchered.

We drove down to get it this past Thursday. I almost scrubbed the idea of going when we awoke to snow on the ground and freezing temps, but I relented. After all, it wasn't going to be any less of a headache if I waited for another day to do it, right? It was still a long ways away and a pain-in-the-ass. Anyway, by the time we got there it was about 1pm, and after looking truck over and driving it, etc, we had killed almost another hour. I paid the man and we got on the road.

I wasn't prepared for the axle ratio. My research since then has determined it's likely got 4:10 gears in it. I couldn't tell with no tachometer, but I just wasn't mentally ready for the RPM's it was running at when we got on the freeway. I filled one tank (wasn't sure of the condition of the other one yet) as soon as we got going, and I had to stop and refill as soon as we crossed into Washington! Holy crap. That was running at about 65 on the speedo. We figured out (via cell phone) that the speedometer was reading about 5 mph fast. After I tanked up the second time I kept the speed down to 60 on my speedo (55 real) and got home with half a tank remaining! That was enlightening. We got home pretty late, and we were both drained, but it went well. It ran good, rode well (for a 3/4-ton haha) and gave me time to note lots of things that need my attention as I drove.

I got the title and license all done yesterday morning and commenced some clean up on it. I put the front end on ramps and dragged out the pressure washer to clean the bed. The bedliner was dirty as hell, so I hit that first. I was apprehensive about what I might find when I actually pulled the liner out of the bed, but it's almost like new underneath the liner! Nice.

After I determine if I want to swap any parts off the old truck, it's going up for sale.

Getting ready to pressure-wash the bed

Options included

Oh no, headers?! Hey, where the A/C stuff?

Naturally, a new truck needs a new blog, right? You can follow along at It's Hip to be Square... bodied! if you so desire. (The link is over on the right also.)