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One Piece at a Time: My 1985 Diesel Suburban
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One Piece at a Time: My 1985 Diesel Suburban
View attachment 230753 This is my first car.
My father bought the Suburban new in 1985, and I spent many weekends at his elbow as he serviced and maintained the truck. It provided no shortage of opportunities - a leaking lift pump, a few alternators and water pumps, a two piece rear main seal that was designed to leak, and a passenger door that never shut right would eat its door post bushings. My dad enjoys caring for a vehicle as a sort of active meditation. I recall him referring to a car as, "the simplest relationship you'll ever have."
I was fourteen when he set the truck aside for me. While that may seem a bit premature, it wasn't any mystery what I wanted for a first car. I made my wishes known early, very early - on the way home from the dealership with my dad when he took delivery of the Suburban, and reminders evenly scattered through my childhood years: road trips, camp outs and drives around the block where I would steer while he worked the pedals. Such would be a hallmark of my persistent nature. With the exception of a momentary flirtation with a '69 Dodge Charger R/T - it was red with a cream tail stripe and a black vinyl top and still had the original 440 and 727 - it was always the Suburban. That Charger was a neighborhood car and we passed it regularly in the way one drives by derelict driveway-bound cars that are in the opposite direction from wherever you're going. At some point, I floated the idea of the Dodge to my dad, but that conversation ended quickly and with a finality that I knew we wouldn't discuss it again. It would be another twenty years before I could live out that dream.
Back to the truck; to which GM had applied one of its best worst paint jobs. They called it Indigo Blue, though after a few short years it began to look more like enameled leprosy. I think they said it was a defective primer. In true 1980s GM fashion, they refused to make it right and my dad wasn't about to get it repainted. By the time I was driving it in high school, there were patches of contrasting repair paint and primer all over. It was ugly, and I loved it. The rhythm and smell of the 6.2L diesel, and the feeling of driving a truck that (I thought at the time) could do anything and go anywhere....
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