One Ton Suburban

[LEWISMATKIN]

Ed, I just finished this thread and learned that your dad passed away on my Mom's birthday, October 24. My prayers and condolences to you and the rest of your family. May the peace of God, which passes all understanding, fill the hearts and minds of you and each of your family members.

your friend in Christ,

Lewis Ellis Matkin, Jr.
Ridge Manor, Fla.
1965 1002 305E (soon to be 401M)

[Ed Snyder]

Originally Posted by LEWISMATKIN

Ed, I just finished this thread and learned that your dad passed away on my Mom's birthday, October 24. My prayers and condolences to you and the rest of your family. May the peace of God, which passes all understanding, fill the hearts and minds of you and each of your family members.

your friend in Christ,

Lewis Ellis Matkin, Jr.
Ridge Manor, Fla.
1965 1002 305E (soon to be 401M)

Don't know how I missed this when you first posted it, Lewis, but I wanted to thank you for your kind words. Coincidentally, just since my Dad died in October, my mother-in-law died in November and my Dad's sister died in January. All three were in their 90s. For anyone interested, Google "Margaret Snyder" to learn about the founder of UNIFEM. She owned an apartment across the street from her long-time employer, the United Nations. Aunt Margaret took my wife and me on a tour of the UN building in 2000 where we got to see Nelson Mandela speaking to the Security Council.

[Funky61]

Ed I did look her up and "Peg" had quite the life!
Talk about living your life to the fullest as an author, educator, scholar, traveler/explorer and being a pioneer in Women's economic equality; She was way ahead of the curve.

[Ed Snyder]

Originally Posted by Funky61

Ed I did look her up and "Peg" had quite the life!
Talk about living your life to the fullest as an author, educator, scholar, traveler/explorer and being a pioneer in Women's economic equality; She was way ahead of the curve.

Thanks, Henry. Aunt Peg's resume really puts mine to shame. She certainly fit a lot of accomplishments into her life. Up until a couple of months ago she still walked everywhere in NYC. She had just moved into an assisted living facility back "home" in East Syracuse to be near her brother and other family members when her health took a nosedive. She passed away less than a week short of her 92nd birthday.

Seeing the Henry J photo on your post reminded me of a friend from my freshman year in college. He had a Henry J that he was working on to turn it into a drag strip special.

[Ed Snyder]

Some of you may be familiar with the Bring a Trailer website. Beware though -- it can suck you end and you can spend way too many hours on it! The youngest of my eight siblings, known as Auto Traitor on BaT, scored today by being selected for "Comment of the Day". See https://bringatrailer.com/todayonbat/2022-02-19/ You'll have to scroll way down past all the photos of vehicles for sale first, then click on "No Reserve: 1959 Plymouth Sport Suburban Project" to read Pete's whole comment. Since Pete was born in 1965, he can be excused for mis-remembering the Plymouth as a '59 when it was actually a '57.

[Funky61]

Very cool Ed!
That was a monster of a wagon with those big rear fins out back.

[Ed Snyder]

Originally Posted by Funky61

Very cool Ed!
That was a monster of a wagon with those big rear fins out back.

Thanks, Funky! Here are a couple of photos of what the '57 Plymouth Suburban looked like. Ours was the gold color.

[Ed Snyder]

The Sun tachometer in Dad's old one ton Suburban stopped working many years ago. I finally got motivated enough to troubleshoot it, and learned why Dad never bothered with it. First I had to lie under the front end to scrape undercoating off the bolt heads holding the grille on. After removing the grille, I had to remove the "wings" on either side of the core support too. The Sun tach was a dealer-installed option, so I don't know why they decided to hide the sending unit behind the grille.

After removing the sending unit and opening it up, I saw just what I was expecting -- lots of corrosion at both ends of the original mercury battery. After scraping off as much as I could, I installed a new AA battery as was suggested in an old post to the forum. However, after reinstalling the sending unit and starting the engine, I found that the tach still doesn't work.

So now I'm asking for suggestions on what to try next. I know replacing the Sun tach with a new one from Datcon or Isspro would be the easiest fix, but I'd like to preserve the original installation if possible. I seem to remember posts to the forum about converting the Sun tach to eliminate the remote sending unit, but haven't tried finding that yet.

See attached photos.

[Funky61]

Hi Ed; I found this article about a work around solution.

https://www.fordbarn.com/forum/showthread.php?p=1166337

Has battery number alternatives I was not able to find on the net.


And of course eBay Transmitter unit

https://www.ebay.com/itm/28546839840...mis&media=COPY

[Clarke]

Hello Ed,

In ref to the tach transmitter unit:

I’m not sure I have any value added feedback, but I thought I’d share a photo of the guts on my unit, in case there’s something you can compare.
Note: Because I was disappointed in how long the single battery configuration last on the tach, I soldered jumper wires over to the other side of the box, so I could install a second battery. I’m much happier with the life now.

In ref to my soldering job, I know, there are big blobs. But hey, I’m the kinda guy who uses a pound of nails for a pound of wood.

FYI, I believe I did a write up on my installation of the tach system years ago but I couldn’t find it. I’m not very good at searching through the archive threads. Anyway, I got lucky and found period correct components at a swap meet. However, maybe it’s the engineer in me, I like things symmetrical, so I mounted the tach transmitter unit on the driver side inner fender under the hood (opposite side to the battery regulator). Looks like it belongs there and well protected from road grime.

Best of luck!