A little something I've been working on:
This'll help keep those pesky leaves and twigs out of the cowl and kick panel vents. After a quick test fit, it still needs some tweaking and straightening before it's ready for filler and final smoothing. I also took care of a few minor annoyances. I replaced the washer fluid pump and horn hardware, so those two items are fully functional again. This week I also got a nice package from the UPS man, something I've wanted for a good while now. It's my very own redhead! Redhead Steering Gears rebuilt P/S box that is, not a mail order bride.
Got it installed in an afternoon along with replacing the missing square bushing pieces in the intermediate coupler. With everything bolted back up, the wheel rotated back and forth a few times and the power steering fluid level topped up it made a nicely noticeable difference. It tracks straight down the highway and no longer requires 1/4 turn of the wheel before any directional change commences. Since then I've been driving the Suburban all over and continuing the engine break in process.
One of the first things I did was drive it out into the dirt and make sure the transfer case shifter worked. Everything was good there, no real difficulty in shifting through all positions and the front hubs are easy to engage. I also found a couple of dirt / construction debris piles to test the suspension articulation. I was worried that perhaps the front brake lines might not be quite long enough, but they looked fine near full flex. I did find that I'll need some longer bumpstops for the rear though. When fully stuffed, the rear tires rub directly on the plywood in the wheelwell. No pictures of that though, forgot to bring my camera. After that I drove over to the nearest gas station. It was the first time in nearly a decade that I'd put more than 20 gallons of fuel into anything. 27.6 gallons of gas took a big bite out of the 'ole wallet.
After putting a few more miles on it, I noticed a new noise from the engine bay. With the Suburban parked back at home I could see that one of the bolts holding the power steering pump bracket to the block had nearly worked itself completely free. The other bolt that was supposed to be holding the pump firmly in place had had it's head snapped clean off back before I ever rebuilt this engine. It was a very tricky spot to get into, but after a few hours I finally fixed the problem, properly secured the pump and resolved that noise. Still no other weird noises or leaks to report aside from a very minor rear main seal drip. It tracks straight and true on the road, the ball joints and tie rod ends seem nice and tight. It cruises very well at 75-80 mph. Right now the tach reads approx. 2400 rpm at that speed, but it'll drop to around 2200 rpm when I install the 35” tall tires. The brakes work very well, but in panic stop situations it locks up one or two of the wheels before the others. That might be as simple as bleeding the system because I actually replaced the BMC twice recently (original master leaked, 1st reman unit leaked, 2nd reman can hold it's fluids). I finally got around to calibrating the electronic speedometer today, so sometime in the near future I can start calculating MPG. Also, some time this week I'm going to see if I can get the A/C system charged at the shop my friend works at. All in all I'm simply having a nice, pleasant time cruising around just putting some miles on it and fielding questions about the old girl at the auto parts stores.