Rescue rig

SuperBuickGuy

Well-known member
Joined
Jul 16, 2012
Messages
3,861
Location
Seattle, WA
I'm pretty active in Search and Rescue, and needed a vehicle for it. I also needed a pickup. At the time I had a cool, yet not-terribly-useful-for-SAR 2wd, lowered, SWB Chevy pickup. It was a 250 straight 6 with a 3 speed on the column. I traded it straight for this, a non-running 4x4 1/2 truck
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for this
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Converted it to 3/4 ton, posi axles with 4 wheel disk brakes
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interior was pretty shot
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so I put new carpet/new seat upholstery on it.... (not in love with the seat cover, but different story)
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tunes
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as anyone knows - the 6.2 diesel gets great mileage; but they are terribly slow. In fact, I had another 6.2 truck before this that I swapped out the motor for a 400 then a 350.... this time, I figured I'd try a 300 turbo kit I bought
 
I know TT will be disappointed to know that I didn't use a chinese turbo (not even a chinese dog)

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and yes, I said "$300 turbo" - craigslist baby :thumbs:

at least I used a chinese winch :1st:
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I really like this winch - it's got a wireless control :thumbs:
the bumper came from a garage sale $25.00

I added an inverter
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it's so nice to be able to run an full-size air compressor when I'm airing up tires

and the turbo installed
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I also fixed the A/C on the truck...

rescue rig in her natural habitat
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and yesterday I got it back from the paint shop
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Many happy smiley miles man....BUT, in your line of work, they maybe not so smiley....:gurney::gurney::beer::beer:
 
I continue to be amazed at how much of a difference the Banks turbo system makes to the truck... BBC power... 20 mpg (empty, highway) and the ability to pull anything you can get a hitch on.
 
my last diesel pickup was brown and tan, 1981, long bed K20, lifted, 35" tires.... oh yeah! my brother always referred to it as the "fall guy truck" - I'd have given Farrah a ride :)
 
a bit more work

I bought air bags for the truck last year, but never got around to putting them on.... when I did (the first round) I realized I had the wrong kit... and the time to return had long expired.

so a bit of square tube later and they're installed
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as much as I hated to do it, I think those air bags are made in the USA (they say "firestone" on them).... but at least the steel tube for the blocks (I'm sure) came from China - so it's all good

all tomatoes aside, I would fabricate backing plates for the disk brakes I put on the truck to keep rocks from wearing grooves in the rotors (oops). It goes against my original thinking which was to keep the mud from getting jammed between the backing plate and the rotors by leaving them off... ah well, live an learn - I love how well the disk brakes work in this application.
 
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