First off, I'd like to thank all the members of this board. I've been a member for just a year, but I had been following this group for about 5 years prior to joining...just soaking up the experiences of others and using that knowledge to purchase my '72 Suburban. I took my time as I've only owned the Beach-Burban for 2 1/2 years, and feel as though I knew the problem areas well enough to make an informed decision when I did pull the trigger! Ha! One can NEVER tell what surprises the previous owner has left for you to discover! Now I'm not knocking my choice (as the starting point for my project was much better than so many others that I have seen)...or the PO, who incidentally, was the original owner, but as I began to really dig-in, I uncovered "oddities" that have me either scratching my head or clutching my chest! That will be the focus of my thread...and if you would like to follow along, that would be great!
One of the first things I noticed the day I test drove my Burb was how incredibly hard it rode going down the street. It wasn't too springy and felt as if the shocks were doing an okay job of dampening...but there didn't seem to be any isolation between the body and the road, so I figured the body cushions would need to be replaced. I was more interested in the condition of the metal, and even though I could tell that some ancient bodywork had been done, overall, the metal quality made me smile! Initially, I only found a couple places where body filler was applied a little too generously to some dents, but as far as actual body rot, I only saw a small amount along the bottom edge of the rear hatch and three "quarter-size" bubbled areas at the very bottom of the rear wheel wells...ahead of the wheel and behind the wheel on the drivers side, but only behind the wheel on the passenger side because the previously mentioned bodywork included the area ahead of the wheel. Of course with picking at it and driving with bad body mounts, those bubbled areas have opened up a bit more than "quarter size"! Eventually, the old bodywork will be stripped and inspected...so time will tell...but I expected some metal work would be required!
