a2labs Posted June 20, 2012 Share Posted June 20, 2012 (edited) Hello everyone =) Ok introduction... Where to start? I guess relevant soob stuff would be good. I've always wanted a 4wd soob since I was in high school, being fond of off-roading, several of my friends had them, girlfriend had one, (good times) and I always thought it was cool to have 4wd in a car. 4wd or awd in cars wasn't so common back then. Living in Virginia however, with chemicals and salt on the roads, most soobs were literally rusted in half! Actually everything rusts in half here. I picked up an '85 GL wagon while working in the oilfields of Wyoming a few years ago, a real steal for $300, as all it needed was a battery and some tlc. At the time I had several other vehicles, so after some fine tuning, I put my new toy through several "tests" (dogged the crap out of it) without caring too much whether it blew up or not in the Wyoming snow, dirt, rocks, hills, etc. It proved itself to be very worthy, so when the bad economy finally landed in Wyoming, I sold all my other vehicles, packed my belongings into the soob, and headed back to my homeland of Virginia. I wasn't sure it would even make it those 2000 miles. It did make it, just fine, loaded down to the bump stops, and it has served me well for 3 years now. I had to replace an axle some while ago. I curiously broke a camshaft a while ago, wasn't doing anything crazy, just cruising in a straight line down the highway at 60mph. I was unable to determine the cause of the break, but a mechanic friend of mine suggested it could have been a factory defect. I do any mechanic work that's possible myself, so I went to a scrapyard and pulled a head thinking I would swap the whole head. But being the cheapskate that I am and not wanting to buy a head gasket, I only replaced the cam, cam housing, and lifters. That was over a month ago and everything has been fine so far, other than my cat breaking apart and clogging up my exhaust the other day. Fixed that too. So as it turns out, there's no jobs on the east coast, and I'm moving to Seattle in a few weeks to see what the west coast work scene is like. Will my trusty soob make it 2700 miles across the country? I certainly hope so, as I've been watching NW washington offroad and hatch patrol videos on youtube for years now and wishing I was there! Life is funny eh? I'm also currently making a roof rack for the soob out of emt electrical conduit, so look forward to pics of that in the near future. And if anyone wants to cross their fingers for my cross country trip, I'd really appreciate it. Glad to be here! :cool: (that was probably a long intro, sorry) Edited June 20, 2012 by a2labs typo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iceageg Posted June 20, 2012 Share Posted June 20, 2012 Welcome! From one newb to another. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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