[Spridgets] trucks

Wm. Severin Thompson wsthompson at thicko.com
Tue Jun 22 08:08:06 MDT 2010


No, mine has leaf springs. My brother restored a 1/2 ton, and that has
coils.

The 1967 thru 1972 Chevy and GMC trucks were really tough. You see very few
Fords of that era surviving.

In my post-divorce #2 downsizing, I sold my 1 ton Dodge diesel dually, but I
still need a truck to haul dogs, and bigger crap that won't fit in my 95
Grand Cherokee. I did keep my slide in camper, and if I ever experience an
economic recovery in this lifetime, I hope to return to vintage racing in an
"old school" way... pulling an open trailer behind the GMC Custom Camper.

-----Original Message-----
From: Bud Osbourne [mailto:abcoz at hky.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, June 22, 2010 8:48 AM
To: Wm. Severin Thompson; 'Billy Zoom'; 'Edmund Conen'; 'Spridgets List'
Subject: Re: [Spridgets] trucks

Now that's what I would call a great, old truck, at a great price.  Can't 
recall if that series still had the metal dash, something I prefer to the 
padded, vinyl dash coverings that dry out, discolor and crack with age. 
Does it have coil springs in the rear?  Seems to me that Chevy/GMC used coil

springs on both ends of those trucks before switching back to semi-elliptics

in the rear in '73.
When I started getting company pick-up trucks provided to me, in '73, our 
company still had one '72 Chevy, which the port engineers refused to give up

in favor of the "new" series.  I drove several of the "new" Chevy trucks 
('73 thru...what was it...'80-something) as company vehicles.  All but two 
were '8 foot beds and all but three had the 350 four barrel engine, and 
Turbo-Hydromatic.  One, a 3/4 ton model, had a/c, dealer-installed dual gas 
tanks (my service area responsibilities included the Upper Mississippi River

from Cairo to LaCrosse, Wis. during the arab oil embargo era), which I 
almost lived in for a couple of years.  I have to say that it was my 
favorite.  My least favorite were a couple of 1/2 tons, with 6' beds and the

(by then) very anemic 6 cylinder.  They were never made to carry the load of

tools, trash pumps and spare cargo pump parts I needed to carry around. 
But, until the '82 model, I never had a problem with any of them (the '82 
needed an engine rebuild at relatively low mileage).
My oldest son drives a new ('06 I think) F-150 and has already had the 
transmission crap-out on him at 40,000 miles, along with some other, minor 
problems that an older truck would NEVER have.  He's like to just get an old

truck, from down south somewhere, and be done with truck payments and 
expensive repairs & maintenance.  But, since he doesn't have time to restore

a pre'75 truck, he's stuck with the new stuff.
BTW, for those of you who like old trucks, there's an excellent magazine, 
called Vintage Truck, dedicated to old, light trucks, vans & station wagons.

Check it out.

Bud Osbourne

----- Original Message ----- 


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