'71 Chevelle Pickup (El Camino) Owner :)

[golddrakul]

No, I'm not lost; just acquired the aforementioned car as a rolling project for my son and I. He's 17 and has wanted an El Camino since he was 15, finally found one in good enough shape that he could enjoy driving it while we work on it. Since it's mechanically the same car, and mechanical work is what it needs, I joined up here looking for help and insight.

Anyway, I'm in the Chicago area, have owned a red '67 Chevelle [my first car!!], silver '69 Chevelle, and green '70 Chevelle over the years. If I only knew then what they'd be worth today!! My '67 was a 283 with a Muncie 4 speed and posi rear end and black interior [buckets with console]; started my car owning days the right way!! Was wicked quick light to light, couldn't do much in a long run. But was it fun!!

Now as a parent I'm a little more concerned about reliability and gas mileage, how time does change us. So this car is for safe fun, hopefully with a minimum of teen-age stupidity. This '71 has a 350 GM Crate motor recently installed, a TH350, Edelbrock manifold, and Edelbrock 1405 carb. Barely ran when we got it, fixed many things since then. Next project is the rear axle pinion bearing is going, very bad at this point. Looking at possibly replacing the entire housing [it's a 2.56 open 10 bolt] with another 10 bolt; hopefully something with a 3.08 with posi. Found a couple of 12 bolts listed locally, but they turned out to be from Cutlasses and even though they will physically fit everything I read says I'm better off to stick with a Chevy axle. So there you have my story, I'll be searching the site and going through the threads checking stuff out; hoping people here are willing to accept a "Half-brother".