[NZBurb]

Hi everyone.

I hope all is well with everyone and you’re enjoying the Christmas and new year period.

After reading all the amazing content and support on the forum I thought it was about time I contributed something!

The backstory

The family and I had wanted a classic Suburban for family trips and running around and having a bit of fun. Most of the Suburbans here in New Zealand, and there are not too many of them, are the 73-91 square bodies, but we wanted something a bit more classic and different.

I was on the look out for quite some time and was fortunate enough five years ago to come across my GMC K20, based in Arizona, by chance on Craigslist. At the time I did not realize how fortunate I was to stumble across her. A quick phone call locked her in and shortly thereafter she was being shipped to NZ - I still feel somewhat guilty for taking her out of the States (sorry!). Little did I know this would only be the start of the journey, which I imagine a number of you are familiar with :-)

She was in great condition with hardly any rust, the interior had been redone, a newish 350 Goodwrench had been installed, and she had some fancy shoes – the 37.5s” however we a bit too big and were downsized. Mechanically though the rear diff was getting noisy and loose, the transfer case shook and leaked oil, the TH350 just wasn’t quite doing it for me, and there was an odd vibration when taking your foot of the gas that we could never quite diagnose. I decided to go the full hog and replace the drive train with a 14 bolt with discs, reconditioned transfer case, and a reconditioned NV4500, and she now runs like a dream – writing that is a whole lot easier than the process the mechanic and I have been through!

Over the next six months I’ll be tidying up the interior and giving her a new spray to bring the paint back to life.

Road tripping

Given its summer here in New Zealand the whole country pretty much shuts down for an entire three weeks over the Christmas period. It’s great with no work happening and an opportunity to really step away with the family from the day-to-day busyness. We usually head up North to the beaches of the Coromandel but were a bit slow in booking accommodation this year, so thought we would do something different for us and have planned a two week road trip around the South Island. We usually take the kids down (we are based in Wellington at the bottom of the North Island) each year for a ski trip, so it will be really nice to check out the South Island in summer.

Inspired by FlayNavy30's adventure thread I thought I should pull together a road trip thread, as I love seeing and hearing how other people use their Suburbans. Our trip starts on 27 December (26th US time). I’ll look to post most days and will share some landscape and of course plenty of Suburban shots. I’m not a photographer so don’t expect anything too flash, but I hope it shares some of the fun we have with our special Burbs.

Thanks everyone,
Vaughan