4WD, Revisited

Dave B

Dave B

Joined
Oct 14, 1998
Messages
1,367
I make my living now with computers, but I worked as a professional mechanic for 20 years, starting when I was 15. I have done all types of repair work on American and Foreign iron, including exotics. I was/am a pretty good wrench.

That said, I confess that modern cars scare me. If I was in need of a motorized 'survival' vehicle, I would almost certainly chose to build up a 20 or 30-year-old full size American pickup truck. Points, plugs, condensor, carb: I can repair it with minimal tools, and without a diagnostic computer.

Small block V8, manual trans, carburator, replace all wear parts: if it breaks I can fix it.

Anyone out there who would buy such a vehicle if one was available?

db
 
Sounds good to me, with the only exception of the manual transmission. I know they are easier to work on, but I guess I am spoiled. I got so sick of shifting with several of my cars and first truck that I swore I would buy automatics, lol. Oh well I would probably jump on it anyways
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Lee

LIfe is too important to be taken seriously. Oscar Wilde
 
I'd be a little leery of Detroit iron from twenty years ago. I still have bitter memories of the dismal quality of American autos in the late seventies and early eighties.

That being said, I'd love to build a "Project Bronco." I prefer the post-1974 style, that Ford lamentably, IMHO, discontinued in 1996. (What's even worse is that I had a '96 and foolishly traded it in for an Explorer. The Explorer, which is the Eddie Bauer, is just too prissy for serious off roading. Its great for car camping and getting around in the snow, but It isn't the "truck" that the Bronco was.

I guess the trade was the "grown up" thing to do, as I spend much more time tooling around town and entertaining clients than I do off the blacktop.

When I can justify it, I hope to get an older Bronc that I won't have to rely on for daily transportation. It won't have to be pretty, just bulletproof.

Wow, this is a lot longer than intended.

E
 
I've got to agree with you there. My friends have a 78' ford F250 4x4 with 400 Cu. inch V8 in it. Its a farm truck and has about 160,00 miles of strictly hauling on it and is still going strong.The new ones may get better mileage and have more goodies in them but they can be to complicated for their own good. All those electronics and computers just end up causing trouble half the time.
Check out the car adds in your newspaper. I've noticed several old Fords that looked good in the last couple months.
Or if you want a classic car, my neighbor has a real old gold top mercedes that he wants to sell. It now has a fiber glass body due to the 500 lbs of bondo he used to make it look like crap. But he'd sell it to you for an unfair price all the same
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Fix it right the first time, use Baling Wire !
 
I wish I had the ability to keep an old 4wd in shape, but I lack mechanical aptitude beyond basic maintainence. That said, were I to have a good source for reliable repair, and a good deal on the vehicle, I would love an old Toyota off roader. I've played in some other older vehicles, especially enjoying an old grand cherokee painted sky blue with mud tires and whirly lights we had as a camp ambulance at a place I used to work, but I don't know enough about the abilities and reliability to want any of them.


Stryver
 
I'd like to expand a point that's becoming a recurring theme regarding "survival vehicles".

It seems that a big advantage to American iron is commonality. It's hard to find parts for say, a Toyota Landcruiser in (let's make one up) Backwater BFE, but right up the road in Nowheresville, your mom and pop auto parts store has that generic water pump for a small block Chevy. Right next to the Ford alternators. Keep in mind that carburetors and distributors are getting harder to find, especially carb parts, but nothing you can't scrounge up in a salvage yard, which tends to be stocked more with American iron parts rather than import. Import specialty salvage yards can be found, but the likeliness of finding a particular part depends on the popularity and longevity of the vehicle you own.

Don't get me wrong, I've had much better luck with imported vehicles than domestic. For example, the best and most reliable vehicle I ever owned was an old Nissan pickup, 193,000 on the original clutch, water pump, alternator, etc., (I saw the car a couple years after selling it, still running and driving down the road, go figure).

The point is, for a "survival" vehicle, one that you need to repair in the field, my own thoughts echo many being posted. It has to be easily repairable, and parts have to be available. I would guess that the longest-running, fewest-running-changes vehicles around would probably be a small block V-8, manual trans, 4WD pickup, most likely a Ford or Chevy.

I'll toss a question out: How popular really are Jeeps? They've become a common term, yet they seem to have a greater number of running changes (based on a friend who's owned several), and I've rarely seen them while salvage-yard-scrounging. I would also think that their size would limit their versatility and carrying capacity, in spite of what "The Rat Patrol" would have us believe.

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Don LeHue

Rome did not create a great empire by having meetings...they did it by killing all those who opposed them.

[This message has been edited by DonL (edited 03-10-2000).]
 
I wanted to reinforce the "American Iron' theme with a short story.

A few years ago I was helping a friend drive two trucks from Colorado to Maine. I was driving a 10 year old Chevy van, and Tom was driving an older Suburban that he had just bought - new engine, trans, paint, etc.

At 6:00AM on Sunday, just outside of York, Nebraska, His burb went from 8 cyl to 7. We pulled into a resturant and had breakfast, and waited for the rest of the town to come in after church. We got the name and phone of a local car guy from our waitress, and called him.

He gave us directions to his shop, and met us there. It seems that one of the new rocker arms had broken, and all parts stores were closed for another 20 hours. We wandered around his yard until we found a chevy 350 cylinder head sticking up out of the ground, and stripped a half dozen rocker arms from it. After cleaning them, we bolted one on the burb to replace the broken one (the rest we kept as spares), adjusted it, and drove to Maine. It cost tom about $25.

In a true survival scenario, the ability to keep stuff running without the Napa guy will be critical. There's more old American stuff lying around than all other stuff put together, and most of it is still usable (with proper care and knowlege).

I don't really expect WWIII, but I'm ready to replace my '93 pickup with something I can fix if it breaks. Maybe it's only a matter of economy. Maybe not.

db


 
I think I would vote for reliability over repairability. If I only wanted repairability, I'd carry a flint knife.


Stryver
 
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