The 1947 - Present Chevrolet & GMC Truck Message Board Network

About a year ago an elderly friend of the family had a 69 chevy cst 4x4 ,longbed , 4 speed with factory air just sitting outdoors for the last 25 years , I asked him what was wrong with it and he said " nothing, it just got bad fuel mileage so i parked it " .
After digging a little deeper Roger told me like many of his other classic vehicles, he had bought this one almost new back in 1971 and had driven it up to mid-nineties , when he had the engine replaced and shortly parked it afterwards.
Since this particular vehicle was just sitting outside , I was allowed to take it home and turn it in to my project truck . Wow! How awesome is that !
And to think , in the blunder of my youth i had sold my first 68 shortwide project , and now had a chance to redeem myself .
After getting it home giving it a good powerwash and throughly inspecting, i was extremely pleased at what i had aquired , minus the wagonspoke wheels,and a cheap paintjob, it was Completely, stock , everything was still there , even the factory radio , all fluids were clean and full , and the old truck was pretty darn straight overall.
The worst i could find was that both rocker panels and one cab corner and cab-brace was rusted out and the factory seat was slashed as if someone had forgotten about the box knife in their backpocket and sat down.
Mechanically the first issues were the brakes were shot from sitting so long , passenger front drum was seized , a rodent had chewed thru the coil wire and the engine was sitting so long to turn over we had to pull the plugs squirt in some lucus upper cylinder lube and pull behind another vehicle while slipping it into 2nd gear .
Now it is running with all new brakes , i cleaned out and overhauled the factory quadrajet and regularly take the truck on short little backroad trips .
Ive still got tons of things i want to do to it and eventually want to turn it into my camping truck , and am thankful for forums like this one where i can get answers to any questions that come up along the way.