Quote:
Originally Posted by mr48chev
I'd say that you guys are getting a bit carried away with the crash thing. Almost to the point of nonsense.
You actually want the front of the truck crumple some if you are in a front end impact to absorb the impact.
New top quality 3 point harness. Disk brakes, Check the whole suspension and have it in top shape.
Staying inside the cab and in position without flopping around is the single most important thing in any wreck. I've seen too many roll overs that the driver was thrown out that you could honestly drive away from the wreck beat up and all. I did drive my 70 away from the wreck where I rolled it two and a half times according to witnesses and it was on it's passenger side when I stopped. The cab, hood and fenders were totaled but the bed barely had a scratch.
One safety item not mentioned is the steering column. 70 still had the solid steering shaft from wheel to the U joint down the shaft. Not good in a front end impact even with a harness. That is something to consider.
The worse things about these trucks is that the rear wheels lock up when you hit the brakes hard and the back end comes around. I Had that happen when I rolled the 70 an spun my 71 out when I locked up the brakes when a guy in a Geo Metro zipped out in front of me from a stop sign. He is clueless on how close he came to being killed that night if I had been distracted at all. The truck spun so violently that it broke the alternator bracket.
I go along with replacing the wiring harness with a quality replacement and I would upgrade the lights to Halogens and do the usual white paint in the tail light buckets plus brighter bulbs.
Still education = quality drivers ed instruction plus taking her out in the truck and going through some drills in a big empty parking lot in both wet and dry weather so she knows what might happen if she locks up the brakes in a panic stop go a long way. My daughter was taught by a friend of mine who was a math teacher that taught drivers ed in the summer but was probably the best drivers ed instructor you will ever find. Kids he taught know how to drive right.
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Thanks. The truck has the collapsing steering column. The husband was actually wrong with the year (his dad had 5 of these trucks) this was the last one he bought and it's actually a 72. She is enrolled in driver's ed and her driving instructor is a retired police officer. We get lots of rain here, so she'll have to learn to handle that rather quickly. She had her first driving lesson in my husband's Ram 1500 yesterday and did pretty good considering it was her first time on the road with other vehicles. Before that she was driving in an empty parking lot. Soon my husband will make her go to work with him on Sunday's so she can drive on I-5 in the morning when the traffic is really light then she'll be left in the parking lot alone to drive for 3-5 hours while he works. He did this with our oldest and would set up cones or trash cans to make her park between them and learn how to make sudden stops and driving in the rain. After the 72 is road worthy they'll be taking it down there and she'll be driving it in that parking lot alone (my BIL lives near there). She's got this, learning on a modern V8 pickup will actually be a lot harder for her than driving an older slower V8 pickup.