October 19th, 2009
Pick Me Up, Pickup Truck!
It was bound to happen. I’ve had the “itch” lately to get my hands dirty and spin wrenches. I vacillated between an old motorcycle, and old car, a boat, a various trinkety hobby toys like a radio controlled airplane. What ended up winning was something I wasn’t quite sure I’d ever own.
It’s a pickup truck. And if that wasn’t enough of a departure from the “norm” for me, it’s got an automatic transmission, a V6 engine, and it’s baby-blue.
My rationale was a bit curious: my current car is not entirely conducive to some of my hobbies (and with over 100,000 miles on the clock, it has shown that it’s not entirely immune to breaking). I’m also considering taking a wooden boat course next year, and the idea of traipsing home from Maine with a canoe sticking out of the back of the Mercedes is almost comedic.
Meet “Baby Blue”. She’s a 1992 GMC Sonoma long box. And before the UNC fans chime in and ask; no, I did not pick those colors deliberately. I found a clean Georgia truck and decided that I could tolerate white and powder blue as much as any other color.
She’s a stout work truck with plenty of amenities for work: a durable 4.3 litre throttle-body injected V6, a TH400R4 transmission with an oil cooler, a 3.08 rear end and a heavy-duty radiator to keep things running cool. The air conditioning works and the notorious intake manifold gasket isn’t leaking.
Of course, the acquisition wasn’t without its obligatory wrench spinning. Those who know me know that I’m a bit obsessive-compulsive about vehicle maintenance, and I wanted to make sure that Baby Blue was well cared for and reliable. Thus, the oil and filter change. The tranny lfuid and filter change. New spark plugs, distributor and rotor. New air filter, fuel filter, engine temperature sensors and PCV valve. New brake fluid, differential fluid and power steering fluid, and I even put new wiper blades on it just to be nice.
When I got the truck home I also discovered a little puddle of antifreeze on the passenger floor. A new heater core solved that problem.
I’m enjoying working on a vehicle that has the mechanical sophistication of a 30 year old farm tractor; there’s a rugged honesty engineered into vehicles like this that I appreciate. It goes with the rubber floor (no carpet here), the bench seat (if you think baseball diamond bleachers are comfortable, you’ll be right at home here), the “styled in the 1980’s and making no attempt to look otherwise” plastic dashboard, and what must have been a base-level AM/FM radio that was sadly replaced with the world’s ugliest Jensen radio. I’m looking for an “original” AM/FM radio on eBay and will toss the Jenson in the junk heap at the earliest possible opportunity.
Driving it has been an … experience. The steering has that lofty vagueness normally reserved for large ocean-going yachts and city buses. The suspension barks out every bump and crack in the road like a freshly recruited pimple-faced army private, and the engine – for all its torque and brawn – does nothing to suggest that the 85 MPH speedometer is an understatement.
Still, there’s a sense that I can do things with this truck. I can imagine myself hauling the unfinished shell of a wooden boat from Maine. All manner of old, useless junk will undoubtedly find its way into my garage (making itself at home next to the 1950’s Sears outboard motor patiently awaiting restoration, and the now-dead scooter that has been in rigor-mortis since last February).
Indeed, this truck will let me amass junk on a scale I’ve never before known!