Sorry I'm Late

[RSCamaro]

Great site so far from what I've seen and read so far. My name is Ron and I hale from New Windsor New York, about a mile or so from the Hudson River.

My story starts last fall. My buddy tells me that he can get a great deal on a 68' Stepside. I thought that it sounded like a good deal, a customer of his was asking 2K for it and it seemed to be in good shape, (I was told this). He couldn't seem to make up his mind about it though. My understanding was that it was a 68' short wheelbase, 4wd, 4 speed, with an 88' TBI 350.

I started thinking that I could be happy with something like that for a winter vehicle if the price was right, $2'000 for a fuel injected 3wd truck sounded real good at the time. My friend talked to the guy and decided that $3k is what he would sell it to me for. I just got disgusted at that point and said that it was a lost sale. I mean who adds 50% onto the price and expects anyone to bite, too bad for him.

A couple of months go by and I decided to take a look at it on my way home one day. I stopped in the guys shopand looked the truck over. Seemed to have been an old resto slight custom job. Rust starting to show up under the paint, lots of plastic filler, orange peel in most of the paint(but not horrible), a driveway type of resto. Talk to the guy about the truck, he says that now he just wants to get it off the lot so he can bring in something else. I guess the young person who owned it previously didn't think that it was a very good vehicle to take to college. He told me that I could have it for $2,200 so I took it.

I was told that it had a hesitation off idle and that the 4wd worked. I bought it, registered it, and went to pick it up. It wouldn't stay running, spent about and hour on the thing. Finally had a wrecker bring it home. Not very happy with it so far, and its a really heavy vehicle to be jockeying around the driveway to get it in to the garage by yourself.

Here's the list of things wrong with it. I'm not sure I'd believe this list myself but its true. (1.) Dead battery, to be expected. (2.) Dead alternater (3.) No alternater light. (4.) No SES light (5.) No O2 sensor (6.) Largely leaking radiator (7.) Non power master cylinder leaking (8.) Brake lines from master cylinder to frame all bent and twisted, looked like crap (9.) Under hood wiring was a complete utter mess. (10.) Horn dead (11.) Drivers side hood hinge welded to the hood, sort of (12.) Fuel guage inoperative (13.) Late model steering column with key cylinder that sticks when turned all the way over to start (14.) Window tracks, guides, and seals all need to be replace. To be expected. (15.) Silver/aluminum tape and bondo repair at the roof line above the windshield (16.) Late model wiring harness jammed under dash on top of some of the original wiring harness parts (17.) Heater motor sort of works, at about 200 rpm :-) (18.) Seat is in place, no adjustment so far as I can tell, not that I need it to go any more foward (19.) All of the seperate brake lines from the rear end to the front fender were rusted out and they all blew out as I was replacing them piece by piece. (20.) No seat belts, could have been that way originally I think (21.) Looks like the wooden bed was replaced with sheetmetal (22.) Though the paint is ok for a 20 footer the bodywork under it isn't.

On the other hand, I'm really liking the looks, stance, color, and just working on it. Most of the things above have been adressed. Most likely I'll drive it like I stole it and replace whatever I have to as it is needed. Complete wiring harness is going to be one of the first things I think. Thanks for reading my drivel.

...Ron