The Story Of A Cummins Suburban (Lots Of Pics)

[mosesburb]

All the guts are later model parts anyways.

[mosesburb]

The auxiliary heater installation. Sounds easy enough. Didn't see the head gasket coming, nor the cylinder head refresh. The batteries, oof. The power steering update/modifications. None of it. I just want to install my auxiliary heater. Now why in the world does a cat from Phoenix need an auxiliary heater?? Good question. After a run up south of Williams in early fall where I had some issues with the "buddy" heaters (both little Buddy and the regular Buddy Heater) I started looking at alternatives. The Buddy heaters work ok(ish) in ideal situations, but they have their drawbacks in my situation. With three people in the cabin, it gets a bit crampt making enough room to safely burn a Buddy heater. Also, the fiberboard headliner gets really hot above the heater. Getting the catalyst brick to light off when it is cold and at altitude takes quite awhile and while it is trying to heat up it is burning way fat and stinking up the inside of the truck. Not ideal.

I first looked at air heaters like the ones that are used in the sleepers on big trucks. They have their positive attributes (they make a ton of hot air), but to me, seem to have more negative ones. They need alot of free space around them. The combustion occurs inside the unit, inside the cabin of the vehicle. Makes some noise. My buddy Lance had one in his Sportsmobile and was not thrilled with it. That got me to looking at other possibilities. There is a heater that is similar to the air heater, but it heats coolant instead of air. Hmmm, this could solve a couple problems.

One of the obvious problems would be cabin heat, but another less obvious is cold starting. Now when I refer to cold starting I'm not talking about cold in Phoenix. 20* in PHX is not the same as 20* in Flagstaff. Besides the altitude, the 20* there is more "real" whereas the PHX 20* will only be there until the sun comes up, but even at that a quick bump of the starter and it will run. It will not do that in a genuine cold situation. If you haven't experienced it, search YouTube for "Cummins cold start". Mine sounds that bad. The heater is installed in between the engine and the heater core. It has a pump in it that will pump the coolant when the heater is running and the engine is not. It has a controller that will turn the blower motor on low to defrost the windows. After the heated water goes through the heater core, it flows into the engine where it warms that up as well. It is really an amazing setup.

The heater: It is a Webasto Blue Heat unit. This is the full pimp model. I even got the remote control unit for it. Push the button on the key fob and it starts. No leaving the house, motel room or sleeping bag in the back.



That is the basic install. It has no hoses going to it yet, but it is the only pic that I got of the unit. It is amazingly compact for what it does. It drinks diesel fuel to the tune of .8gal/10hrs. It required a dip tube be installed in the fuel tank:



So I didn't want to run the blower motor all night off and on. It is quite a distance away from the back and it draws a fair bit of amperage. A rear heater assembly would be better. I dug through a heater core catalog and came up with a couple options. The first one did not work for size reasons. The second one did work and quite well at that. It needed an enclosure so I fabbed one up that was fairly compact.



I realized after I had gotten most of it tacked together that I had the expanded metal rotated a bit. I thought about cutting it apart, but that's about as far as I got. I need a fan now. I was talking to my buddy Russ (Russ' 24hr Machine Service) and he had built a new computer recently and had a fan on it that moved ridiculous amounts of air. I got the name and ordered one from Newegg. Fifteen bones and free shipping. Sweet deal!! It moves a fair bit of air, is absolutely silent and pulls a maximum .25 amp.



So I am going to mount it right behind the third door. It will pull the air from the spare tire area. That means the air I am going to try to heat will run along side a very cold quarter panel. I pulled the panel and washed out the inside of the quarter and installed some FatMat acoustic insulation and then went over that with the foil coated bubble wrap stuff for thermal insulation.



Then I needed a new interior panel. I had been rocking the original cardboard units with the vinyl covering, but they were not going to be able to deal with the hole that I needed to cut in them. Something else was needed. Enter a sheet of metal way thicker than it needed to be.

First I made a template off the old one. Then I laid the template in place in the truck and cut out the hole I needed to clear the heater core. Then I transferred that onto the sheet metal and got after it with a plasma cutter.



Then I added a reinforcement rib and some sound deadener to the back side of the new panel and put some carpet on the outside:



Then I added it all together and came up with this:



The heater hoses run in front of the right rear tire: (the zip ties were a temporary deal--they have been replaced with factory Adel clamps)



I figured this was asking for problems so I got a mud flap to cut up to fill the space and give the hoses some armor. Got this Koneta Safety Guard Anti Sail/Anti Spray unit courtesy of the back curbing at the Love's truck stop in beautiful (gack) downtown Eloy AZ.



Laid out the dimensions on it:



Cut it and fit it into place:



So there it is. My heater is finally installed and we are ready to go. Or are we??

[MrBeast]

Cool setup.

Are you running inner fenderwells in the front?

[mosesburb]

Originally Posted by MrBeast

Cool setup.

Are you running inner fenderwells in the front?

Yes, absolutely. I had the right one out for this install and that is when I noticed the head gasket was seeping, thus starting the snowball rolling and rolling and..........

[MrBeast]

Originally Posted by mosesburb

Yes, absolutely. I had the right one out for this install and that is when I noticed the head gasket was seeping, thus starting the snowball rolling and rolling and..........

Funny how that works isn't it.

[ryanroo]

Very nice! i was looking forward to seeing this after we talked.
Ryan

[Coboyle04]

very cool, that aux heater is very similar to my plan......have you thought about an air intake vent on the rear of the quarter panel so the air can have better flow?

[mosesburb]

Originally Posted by ryanroo

Very nice! i was looking forward to seeing this after we talked.
Ryan

Thanks man. I'm glad I finally got it done.

Originally Posted by Coboyle04

very cool, that aux heater is very similar to my plan......have you thought about an air intake vent on the rear of the quarter panel so the air can have better flow?

Thanks!! I'm not following what you are asking on the intake vent though?? Obviously I haven't thought of it, but I am always open to different ideas.
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[Coboyle04]

with the rear heater inside the quater panel there might not be enough air flow -resulting in a lazy draft of heat due to lack of "intake"....especially if it is isulated really well. so i thought about keeping a channel open to an "intake" vent placed on the other end of the quarter panel. this way you are gauranteed a contstant and large volume of air flow resulting in greater defrosting and heating power.

to keep the look close to original i thought about using the vent from 67-72 chevy truck door jam

[mosesburb]

Originally Posted by Coboyle04

with the rear heater inside the quater panel there might not be enough air flow -resulting in a lazy draft of heat due to lack of "intake"....especially if it is isulated really well. so i thought about keeping a channel open to an "intake" vent placed on the other end of the quarter panel. this way you are gauranteed a contstant and large volume of air flow resulting in greater defrosting and heating power.

to keep the look close to original i thought about using the vent from 67-72 chevy truck door jam

Ah, I'm with you now. airflow should not be an issue. The air is drawn the opening between the side panel and quarter panel from the spare tire area where there is a pretty large opening. The passage is quite large so there is really no restriction present. While the fan does move a fair bit of air, it doesn't move anywhere near enough volume to over run the available space. I do like the idea though. Thanks!!
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[Coboyle04]

right on.....i think mine will need it since i plan to put it on the drivers side

[jbclassix]

Man those blue heat units are sweet! I priced one new when we lived in WY but jeez! Warm start-up or 4 months rent!
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[Coboyle04]

do you have a grid heater or engine block warmer

[mosesburb]

Originally Posted by Coboyle04

right on.....i think mine will need it since i plan to put it on the drivers side

Yeah, there you will probably need some sort of vent asm.

Originally Posted by jbclassix

Man those blue heat units are sweet! I priced one new when we lived in WY but jeez! Warm start-up or 4 months rent!

Yeah, no kidding, hey. Obviously this one was used, but it was still bucks and everything I had to get from Webasto was priced as though it was gold plated and had platinum stripes. Wow. Another fun aspect of these things is that they are very popular in Europe, but they run the organization like the two divisions are not affiliated at all. Nope we don't make that. But then I found it on a site out of Germany. So they do, but the US division has no idea of what the European division has or does.

Larry actually got me going on this (through no effort of his own). He posted a pic captioned somehting like "cold outside, warm inside"



It got me to thinking about various methods of heating the cabin on my truck for cooler weather camping. I'm glad I went with the coolant heater as it is so useful besides when we are in the truck.

Originally Posted by Coboyle04

do you have a grid heater or engine block warmer

Yes, both. Block heater would be enough, but unfortunately there usually is no place to plug them in where we camp.

[mosesburb]

So all of this thrashing leads us to the reason for the timeframe. Another Old Iron Run. Pre 1980 vehicles only. Some o fyou may remember the one from last year that got snowed out (sort of). This one went much better--no hotels involved.

Mike and Melissa in their 1971 F250 High Boy arrived Friday along with three Pinzgauers and one Volvo 6x6. We made the journey from Phoenix along with two early Broncos Saturday morning.

The late arrivals:



The high point is Signal peak with the entrance to Kofa Queen Canyon to the left.:



Lunch time:



Tailings pile from the North Star mine:



KofA butte:



Camp Saturday night:



....scenery:



Hellecious guard dog(s):



Everyone cut out Sunday at lunch except for Mike and Melissa and Us/Lance. This left just the two vehicles to run the rest of the trails. Wilburn Cabin: a few miles after we left here, we came upon this cat and his buddy on quads, one pulling a trailer. He inquired about whether this was the correct trail to Wilburn Cabin and the condition of the trail and the cabin. He said he had not been here in 27 years when he brought his great aunt, whose husband (his great uncle) had built the cabin, in for the dedication of the Kofa NWR. The cabin was in great shape and had a couple bed frames in it and there was a sign saying that people were welcome to stay/camp there.



Even has a shower:



After we left Wilburn Cabin, we hit the trail toward Kofa Cabin. We had to widen several miles of it. I cleaned a whole bunch of brush/debris out of the interior of my truck from this trail:



Mike and Melissa climbing a hill:



The Pinzers and the Volvo, all being on portals, would have really enjoyed what happened shortly after that pic was taken. The metal in my hand was transported to that spot by my differentials. It was removed by some very strategically placed rocks in the center of the trail that the Pinzers and the Volvo would not have even had to adjust the placement of their trucks to cross without incident. I can picture them lining up their lawn chairs in a row watching the show while pointing and giggling, then driving their trucks back and forth across the "obstacle" explaining how they fail to understand the problem. Maybe not. LOL.



We arrived at the Kofa Cabin. It was also open for people to spend the night in. It had a 55gal drum wood stove and a couple bed frames in it. Lance took th eopportunity and slept in there that night.





After a much cooler night, we packed up and headed out. Quartzite to Vicksburg via Kofa NWR took us 166 miles (30 miles on the highway). We pointed the trucks west toward the Harquahala Mountain.

That's where we are going. Right to the top.



This fairly represents a good portion of the trail, but there are a few pretty nasty sections:



There is a section in this pic toward the top that got so bad they installed concrete:



Yes, it IS that steep:



Here is what is currently residing at the top:



So all in all it was a great trip. We met a whole bunch of great people and got to see a bunch of cool trucks. It would have been better if the early leavers could have run with us on Monday, but I understand all too well about the whole "required attendance" at work. I hope to be able to share a trail with the other participants in the future and if the opportunity presents itself, I highly recommend it to others. Our thanks again go to Mike and Melissa for another great trip.

[jbclassix]

Extremely jealous at this moment.
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[gerfunken]

Looks like a great adventure.

[Dieselwrencher]

Wow Nick, another awesome trip. Now I see why you shaved your rear diff. Where is Kofa Cabin at? That would be a cool place to visit before someone screws it up and you can't get in to it.

[gerfunken]

Originally Posted by Dieselwrencher

Wow Nick, another awesome trip. Now I see why you shaved your rear diff. Where is Kofa Cabin at? That would be a cool place to visit before someone screws it up and you can't get in to it.

Well, the area is between I-10 and I-8, somewhere in-between Yuma, Quartzite, Buckeye & Gila Bend.

[justcuz]

Nick,

I need to correct a comment I made about Silverton. We actually stayed in Durango.

Sorry to hear about your misadventure while here (in California) at the beach, if I had been on line I would have seen the issue and drove down to help out. Glad you got the repairs done, sounds like you had some great helpers.

I am working on possibly going out to Toroweep toward the last of this month with a buddy who lives in St. George. So far we are looking at 4 vehicles and possibly 8 folks. Probably just a 2 or 3 day deal. In at St. George to Mt Trumble to Toroweep, back out to Mt Trumble over Mudd Mtn to the lake front past Devils Throat and maybe a side trip to the Savanic Mine. I'll keep you posted.

[mosesburb]

Originally Posted by jbclassix

Extremely jealous at this moment.
Posted via Mobile Device

Get one of your projects going and come with. Then you can be posting the pics.

Originally Posted by gerfunken

Looks like a great adventure.

It was. Where have you been?? I haven't seen you around lately (or have I been operating in a different area of the site??).

Originally Posted by Dieselwrencher

Wow Nick, another awesome trip. Now I see why you shaved your rear diff. Where is Kofa Cabin at? That would be a cool place to visit before someone screws it up and you can't get in to it.

Yeah, maybe not shaved enough. I'm not much on shaving. Mike dragged his rear diff with his F250 on 35's too. I managed to drag front and rear somehow though.

KofA Cabin is about 20mi south/southwest of Vicksburg Junction, which is on I10, east of Quartzite.

Originally Posted by justcuz

Nick,

I need to correct a comment I made about Silverton. We actually stayed in Durango.

Darn, I was hoping to get a review of a Silverton hotel.

Originally Posted by justcuz

Sorry to hear about your misadventure while here (in California) at the beach, if I had been on line I would have seen the issue and drove down to help out. Glad you got the repairs done, sounds like you had some great helpers.

That was an adventure, that's for sure. I appreciate the thought, but no worries about not being around. We got it taken care of and honestly, I don't think it could have worked out any better than it did. Hell, I'm not sure I could have pulled that off in that timeframe HERE, much less there like we did.

Originally Posted by justcuz

I am working on possibly going out to Toroweep toward the last of this month with a buddy who lives in St. George. So far we are looking at 4 vehicles and possibly 8 folks. Probably just a 2 or 3 day deal. In at St. George to Mt Trumble to Toroweep, back out to Mt Trumble over Mudd Mtn to the lake front past Devils Throat and maybe a side trip to the Savanic Mine. I'll keep you posted.

Sounds like fun!!

[mosesburb]

So as we got off the freeway to drop Lance off at his place, I noticed a new vibration at idle. Swell. I loooooove vibrations. Ugh. We dropped him off and headed home. I was trying to see what actions would affect the vibration. I really couldn't pinpoint anything in particular. It seemed to run fine, stop fine, no real issues other than this odd vibration. We got home, unloaded the truck, blew it out and I got to looking around. One item I forgot to mention in the previous avalanche of parts installed was a transmission mount. The one that was in there had failed completely at some point. It wasn't in failed mode very long because I remember looking at the clearance between the transfer case and the skid plate and noticed it seemed to be getting closer to the plate. When I noticed it had failed, the case was almost touching the plate. I think it had been failing for awhile, but finally let go. I installed a factory GM mount before we left. All was well with that, but mot so much with the motor mounts.

A little back-story on that trail up to Harquahala Peak is that much of it was nice dirt trail. Some of it was a little loose/rutted, etc--typical trail. There were a few spots that were very steep and very loose. This cause the truck to bounce up and down while not going forward or backward--just up and down, shock-loading the living daylights out of the drivetrain. This is all with the new trans mount. So I have a broken motor mount now. Not a surprise considering what the truck experienced getting us to the top. I'm actually a little surprised it was only one.

So, now I need new motor mounts. No biggie, I just used stock Dodge mounts from the dealer when I built it, I'll just go to Dodge and get some more. Well, I did a little research before I went to Dodge and found that it seems Dodge mounts are no longer domestically produced anymore. Swell. I despise aftermarket mounts because they are total crap and now it seems Dodge is selling them in their own boxes. I found reports of premature failures which does not go well with what I do with my vehicle. What now?? well, in my research I came across Auto World out of Great Falls MT. They make a urethane mount that replaces the original 1st gen Cummins mount. Now I am no fan of urethane mounts at all. They have their place, but my truck is not one of them. I decide to give them a call and see what they have to say. I really want a rubber mount because when my motor is idling, it is not felt in the truck. Totally smooth. I REALLY like that.

So I call Auto World and get this lady on the phone. I asked her a few questions about the mounts explaining that I really wanted original rubber, but it seems they are crap now. She confirms that they are indeed crap now and because of this they contacted an unnamed urethane mount manufacturer to make some quality mounts. I stated my reasons for not wanting urethane--excessive vibration transfer being the biggest reason. She said they had this urethane company make a set of mounts that they promptly installed in their C30 shop truck with a Cummins. They promptly removed them and sent them back because they were too hard. Transferred too much vibration. The urethane company sent another set. they sent them back. Too hard. I *think* it was the fourth set that ended up being the right durometer. She said their mounts are actually slightly "deader" than the oe mounts. I say OK, hook this brother up. They are pricey, but they are domestic and this lady sounds like she knows her product very well. I'm rolling the dice here.

They arrived and I really liked what I saw. The next day I pulled the mounts out and replaced them with these. They are IDENTICAL in EVERY way to the original mounts. I could not find any discrepancies between the new and the old mounts. Very impressive.





This was the cause of my new vibration:



No good no more.

So, a whole bunch of money on some super-double-throw-down-wizz-bang mounts. Yep. Worth every last penny too. I honestly did not think I would be as impressed as I was, but these things are everything the nice lady said they were and maybe even more. They dampen vibration every bit as well as the original rubber mounts did. Obviously I have not had them off road yet, nor on a super loose, super steep hill climb, but so far they are fantastic. I am very glad I found them.

Another issue that arose was the left headlight stopped functioning. Once again, no worries as this trail definitely threw enough vibrations at the truck to kill a headlight (or ten). These halogens were salvaged out of the truck I parted out for the first drivetrain I put in this truck (big block, th475, 205, 3/4T axles), so who knows how old they actually are. They were plenty bright, but when in Rome, see what else is available, right?? Well, I am no fan of these lamp assemblies that it seems like everyone is selling that take the composite type bulbs. There are too many drawbacks as far as I'm concerned. I want something stupid simple (pretty much the theme of this truck). If I take a stone to a lamp, I want to be able to stop at the Kwik-E-Mart and grab a replacement, not place an order for a new housing--special order, we only sell them in pairs etc. I don't want to modify my harness, etc. Anyways, I went to the local cheesy chain store to see what they had. The cat there said these are good. They were a little over double the price of standard halogens, but what the hell, after the last month of parts outlay, what's a few more??

Sylvania Silver Stars:



This is a shot of the old halogen:



This is the Silver Star:



When I did this I realized I had never tried to take pics of headlights before. It is more difficult than i thought it would be. In the first pic it is pretty yellow. In the second pic it is more white. That is actually a pretty good representation of the difference in light color. The new ones are very white. I didn't want blue. I don't like those. Bright?? Yes, but not for me. I was really trying to determine if they were brighter and whiter etc, but I really couldn't tell for sure until one night when I was leaving work and pulled the headlights on and was amazed at how bright they were. Brighter and whiter than my work truck with two new composite headlamp assemblies running 9004 bulbs. Very impressive.

Simple headlamp change for a big improvement in light output. Well, not quite. Leave it to me to require a TIG welder to change a headlight:



The damn tab broke off the retaining ring. I went into my stash and found another ring, but it was too different, so I cleaned up the tab, grabbed the stainless rod and welded it back on.

Nothing simple for me it seems....

[justcuz]

Considering the amount of off road mileage you have put on this vehicle I guess it is about time for some things to pop up. Just another wonderful part of off road vehicles and their continued usage.

[mosesburb]

Originally Posted by justcuz

Considering the amount of off road mileage you have put on this vehicle I guess it is about time for some things to pop up. Just another wonderful part of off road vehicles and their continued usage.

Yeah, I whine a bit, but I really can't complain. All my vehicles are paid for, so I just look at things like this as making a truck payment. When the repairs are done, the truck is paid off again.
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[gerfunken]

Originally Posted by mosesburb

It was. Where have you been?? I haven't seen you around lately (or have I been operating in a different area of the site??).

I've been around, but not posting much (but spying on your, Dieselwrencher & Ryanroo's build threads). I spent last summer working on my cab, trying to repair all of the rust. I've also finally decided to go diesel, and have finally found a donor vehicle that I brought home last weekend. The work on my truck has pretty much come to a stand-still with work, school & family taking more priority than my truck has.