[Beelzeburb]

Originally Posted by low'n slow

Take a full size shovel. If you wonder why, take one of those folding shovels and dig a hole with it. You'll soon realize they look cool but aren't worth spit when you have a lot of dirt to move.

Aha, you must never have seen me wield one of these 3 lb 1960s surplus German Army folding beauties before.





Those cheap Wal-Mart / REI / Cabelas folding “shovels” have nothing on these fine, solid pieces of equipment. The length of the handle combined with the nice, hefty weight makes for a truly excellent chopping / scooping / digging implement. I actually have used these to dig very big holes in sandy soil as well as clay and even goopy mud when out stuck somewhere too.

Originally Posted by 72blazer_mud_bogger

awesome thread

Well thank you.

Originally Posted by Nothinghead

Well, it took me several hours to get here, but I finished your entire build. Pretty crazy stuff! Awesome looking truck. I can't wait to see the interior and body play out.

Cool, glad you made it through. I guess it does make for a long read in its entirety so far. I was recently trying to make a quick overview explanation, flying through all the pages here and it still took me 10 minutes. There will of course be plenty more to come eventually though, what with all the appearance improvements and creature comforts that still need taken care of.

Well, by now I suppose another update is in order. I was invited by board member 1legance to do a little wheeling in the Kingman, AZ area with some older 4x4s last month. We were planning to have three 67-72 4x4 burbs all in one spot (together with Mosesburb from the forums here), but 1legance couldn't make it at the last minute because of some kidney stones. Before we get into an overview of that trip though, perhaps I should cover some of the small improvements that took place in the month beforehand.

In anticipation of encountering unknown terrain, I finally added a simple transfer case skidplate.



I had a few laying around, and this one seemed to contour closely with my existing crossmember. I do need to take it back off eventually and heat/bend the other half so that it can be held on with more than two bolts at the front. I'll clean and paint it then too.

Another small, but important improvement involved adding those '73-'80 front tow hooks I mentioned a while back. I mocked up their positioning with the front bumper in place and very carefully measured a number of times, making certain each one was in the same spot and would at least clear the Big Bubba. Then I used a center punch to mark the holes that needed to be drilled. Lastly, they were secured with some mile long, 5/8” diameter bolts. Now I have solid recovery points both front and rear.



This year I finally ponied up the cash and bought a Caster/Camber gauge. Should pay for itself pretty quickly now that I can do my own alignments on the 4 vehicles I have currently. This way I was finally able to measure the actual caster on the Suburban instead of just the installed angle of the axle. Turns out I was only running 2° positive with those shims on the front axle, so out they came. Doesn't seem to have made any difference in steering feel though.

Another minor fix was necessary when the intake manifold bolt I'd taken out and gooped up with thread sealer a while back started weeping coolant again. This time it got a hefty wrapping of Teflon tape together with more thread sealer goop and hasn't been a problem since. An additional engine bay modification / fix was necessary on the driver side inner fender. I had been noticing for some time now that it rubbed and/or impinged on a couple of items. Out it came, and with a ball-peen hammer, then some light hammer and dolly work I created extra clearance for both the transmission cable shift linkage and the power steering lines. Now I could finally shift the transmission into 2nd gear, but there's still some more pounding and adjusting to do before it will engage manual 1st. The last bit of exterior work was another round of bleeding the rear brakes which brought them back to normal again.

Moving on to the interior, I cleaned up the grime that had built up on the white paint and the gray vinyl pieces inside during the many years the Suburban sat around in various states of disassembly. I also reinstalled all of the door and interior panels along with the front arm rests. The kick panel leg vents went back in too, which has helped keep my legs warmer during what is left of the cold weather. Those two things knocked down the interior noise level quite a bit. There still isn't any carpet, sound deadener mat, heat insulation or headliner though, so it isn't exactly “quiet” inside. Oh, and I also bolted the Halotron extinguisher's mount directly to the transmission hump so that it is in a very easily accessible and highly visible area.



Now I want to get a 10lb unit for the rear too.

Time for a quick overview of the trip down to Kingman and back. It was planned to be a short Saturday and Sunday outing around the Hualapai mountains. I left home on Friday afternoon with approx. 610 miles on the rebuilt drivetrain. On the freeway between here and Vegas I kept the speed at around 80 mph which put the RPMs at about 2500. I also kept my foot down for the grades and spent plenty of time with the torque converter clutch disengaged while traveling uphill which raised RPMs even more. Still, the transmission temperature never exceeded about 185° despite the external temperature climbing higher the closer I got to Vegas. That driving style didn't lend itself to fuel economy though, as my first fill up yielded 9.3mpg. I was expecting the Suburban to be more of a handful handling-wise in a crowded place like Vegas. It wasn't though. It took corners just as fast as everyone else, could keep up with traffic no problem and really has excellent road manners. It tracks perfectly straight if you let go of the steering wheel, and the visibility is great with all that glass too.

Saturday morning I met up with Nick's family (mosesburb) in his orange Burb as well as Mike and Melissa who are a forum member & his wife from over at Expedition Portal. They'd put together this trip and were piloting a '71 F250. We ventured out after breakfast, were on the trail (with periodic stopping points) until the afternoon when we reached our camping spot. At that point some stormy weather was beginning to make its presence known, so we decided to head on back down the mountain ahead of it. I stayed the night in Kingman again and turned my rig back homeward on Sunday morning. Despite the rockiness of some sections of the trail, the bouncing and a little 4WD action, my Suburban performed flawlessly the whole trip. There were no fluid leaks or drips, no hiccups, no binding or chafing, nothing. I never saw the transmission temperature over 195° even out on the trail, and the engine temp never topped 190. The only casualty was my unsecured inner grill which bounced out on the way back down the mountain. I ran over it without knowing until miles later. Nick was kind enough to pick it up and hand me back the pieces later. I actually zip-tied it into a recognizable shape and threw the thing back in on Sunday morning for the ride home.

Just a couple of pics from the trip:




For the highway jaunt back to Southern Utah, there was no hurry at all. I decided to keep the speedometer at 70 mph (tach at about 2150 RPM and TCC locked the whole way) and enjoy the scenery a little more. Between Kingman, AZ and Mesquite, NV the suburban returned 11.5 mpg. My goal has always been 12 mpg highway, so it seems entirely possible that once the motor is a little more broken in it'll achieve those numbers. Still, for a heavy vehicle with a 4 in. lift, such horrible aerodynamics, 315 section width tires filled to 30 psi and a 454 running 14.5 psi fuel pressure at idle, it did really well in my opinion. In fact, it managed to return better highway fuel economy than a new 454SS 2WD pickup was rated for back in 1990. I finally got the odometer into quadruple digits on the ride home, and it is up to 1,300+ miles so far. I've been driving the Suburban around town quite a bit recently (I get people looking and pointing just about every time), but my mind is still somewhat incredulous that this mass of steel, glass, plastic and rubber that was essentially a large pile of yard art for about 10 years is a vehicle I can hop in, turn the key and go whenever & wherever (within reason) I'd like.

The next little things I'll be taking care of now will be getting the A/C system charged and having the front driveshaft shortened. I'd have liked the ability to switch on the A/C down through the Vegas area the first time. On the way back I actually had the heater on (which works really well by the way) because of that storm which rolled in the night before. Nick was the one who pointed out that my front driveshaft was a little long and that the slip yoke could possibly bottom out, so it'll be at the local Six States soon. Other than that, I might get out and do some light local wheeling / exploring this weekend.