Back to tinkering on my '76 Jimmy C-2500 to-day , I decided to flush the cooling system and replace the heater hoses as I think they're the originals , I hand flushed the heater core forward & reverse a few times , got a lot of rusty silt out of it and the block too when I removed the block's drain plug . I also looked closely at the temp. gauge sender as the gauge doesn't work and Lo ! the DPO / DPM had replaced it with a sender for an idiot light no wonder it never worked , even after I replaced the wiring . Sheesh . Of course , they'd wound it so far into the cylinder head , I couldn't get it loose with an open end wrench and had to go buy a new 15/16" box wrench I'll prolly never use again . I also discovered they'd managed to break the distributor hold down ~ that's a new one on me . I think some one rather enjoyed beating on this poor old truck just to see how much abuse it would take and still run . Whilst I was working on it , the guy on the other side of the block came by with his trailer , he was going to fetch a $100 1976 Suburban , one owner with all the original seats etc. , he offered it to me , I didn't want it so he took it right from the original owner's house to Pick-A-Part , maybe I'll get lucky and find it in the yard before the boobs tear it to shreds for grins ~ I'd love to grab some '76 specific stuff , harness' and so on . What a shame that no one wants these fine old trucks even when they're in good shape , no rust , one owner , low mileage etc. , etc.
Buyem All ! When I were a laddie in Rural New England , most farmers had twenty or more old cars & trucks scattered about the fields, some were really nice like the Graham my brother bought for $600 , the farmer had bought it new for his long deceased wife . I gave up trying to save them all only recently . To day I yanked out the seat and cleaned the cab floor of old spilled coffee and God knows what else , installed some original padding I scored @ P-A-P and a red carpet I got out of a Suburban ~ turns out the floor shift trucks need a 1" _wider_ carpet so now there's a gap on the passenger's side . it's *much* quieter though and hopefully I'll have the radio in ere long . I'm hoping to build a new dash binnacle using Suburban gauges complete , maybe before I drive it to Az. next week , maybe not . They're not really important , I just like having everything working . I flushed all the crap out of the cooling system including some hard to get heater debris , neutralized the water jacket and changed the hoses , re-filled with new coolant and the heater now blows nice & hot instead of warm . Back to work to-morrow, g'night all .
