I bought a Suburban

[Dr_Snooz]

I've come full circle. If you'd told me 10 years ago that I'd be buying a rusty, beat up Suburban now and that I'd be absolutely stoked about it, I would have dismissed you as crazy. I was rolling phat in my BMW at the time and had no time for SUVs. All during the SUV craze of the '90s, I rode my bike and sneered at the gaz-guzzling soccer moms whizzing past.









How things change. We live in the hills now and Whole Foods is an hour away, each way. We have 8 people living here now and this seats 9, with room for ice chests left over. Our weekly grocery runs are going to be much easier now. Best of all, it's a 4x4 and a 3/4 ton. I can fill it with full-sized sheets of plywood, hitch up the trailer and pull it all out of my dirt driveway in the rain. The other truck just slithers sideways into the creek. Doh.

I don't know why, but driving these old square bodies just puts a smile on your face. This thing is a hoot. The interior is clean and bright and open and the bench seats with no headrests make it so much easier to visit with the passengers in the back.







While it looks like hell, mechanically, it's in surprisingly good condition. It did a lot of off-roading, but received careful maintenance. The diff oils were nice and clean. The transfer case oil was bright red and so forth.

My plans are to do very minor restoration, nothing visible, and really nothing else. The felt in the window tracks is falling apart, so that needs to be changed. I will get the A/C working again (I suspect that it's fine except for a slow leak) and probably tint the windows. Beyond that, I'll maintain it and keep rolling.

So, I'm an environmental hypocrite now. Oh well.

[Oldblueaccord]

Ah I always knew you were a Chevy guy at heart!

[Dr_Snooz]

Oh yeah. Super hardcore for generations. LOL

[Oldblueaccord]

Go E85 on that baby and save some whales.

[2oodoor]

Hey thats a nice one! Hey..gas is $1.86 gallon here right now btw

[Dr_Snooz]

Yep. And it's gonna get cheaper too. The economy is so good that oil prices are in the crapper and Saudi Arabia is on the brink of bankruptcy.

@OldBlue, I want off the oil cartel plantation in the worst way. I've been doing so much research into alternative energy and have yet to come up with anything compelling. When you start generating anything in volume, it becomes unworkable. Like to power an average American household with woodgas, you'd have to come up with more than a ton of biomass every month. Yikes!

(BTW, the nearest E85 station is 4 hours away, round-trip.)

[MessyHonda]

looks like a fun truck to offroad

[87accordlxi]

Put some horns on the front of that thing.

[Dr_Snooz]

Pfft. Only if they play "La Cucaracha"!

[cygnus x-1]

How things change. We live in the hills now and Whole Foods is an hour away, each way. We have 8 people living here now and this seats 9, with room for ice chests left over. Our weekly grocery runs are going to be much easier now. Best of all, it's a 4x4 and a 3/4 ton. I can fill it with full-sized sheets of plywood, hitch up the trailer and pull it all out of my dirt driveway in the rain. The other truck just slithers sideways into the creek. Doh.

There just is no substitute for a truck when you need to do truck things.

I don't know why, but driving these old square bodies just puts a smile on your face. This thing is a hoot. The interior is clean and bright and open and the bench seats with no headrests make it so much easier to visit with the passengers in the back.

This is one reason why I like older vehicles better than newer ones. You can actually see out the windows.

So, I'm an environmental hypocrite now. Oh well.

But you aren't really. By keeping an older vehicle going you save the huge amount of resources needed to build a new car. And if you think a newer truck is going to get significantly better fuel mileage, you're dreaming. Trucks get bad fuel mileage because they're big and heavy. There's just no way around it.

As for alternative fuels, you might look into a diesel swap and run waste/veg oil and/or biodiesel. Biodiesel will run neat without issue (obviously), and with waste oil you can mix it with regular diesel and not have to bother with a secondary heated fuel system.


C|

[87accordlxi]

Pfft. Only if they play "La Cucaracha"!

Come on now

[Dr_Snooz]

But you aren't really. By keeping an older vehicle going you save the huge amount of resources needed to build a new car. And if you think a newer truck is going to get significantly better fuel mileage, you're dreaming. Trucks get bad fuel mileage because they're big and heavy. There's just no way around it.

You're right on all points. If we viewed our environmentalism holistically, we'd be keeping old cars running much longer on things other than petroleum. That would make genuine environmental sense. Of course in our screwball crazy world where only CO2 matters and Priuses are considered environmentally responsible, then my Suburban is pure evil. When it comes to alternative fuels, especially, it's a lot easier to rig up an old car to run on something other than gas than it is to hack your new car to do it. At least for me it is.

Come on now

ROFL!!!