The Story Of A Cummins Suburban (Lots Of Pics)

[mosesburb]

Progress has been occurring lately, but I have not shown any pics to prove it. I pulled my temporary "bellhousing crossmember" out amd installed the empty transmission and transfer case to see what was going to work or, in my case, not work. I figured doing this part with empty components would be better seeing as how I can't lift either component when they are loaded with more iron. The components actually fit fairly well. I did have to modify the floor pan a bit to get them up high enough. I had a cutoff of a 4 x 14 glue-lam that I put on my floor jack and ran up into the floor behind the trans hump. I applied some upward force to it, then I got inside with a heavy rubber hammer and beat the outer edges of the former flat area down to form a nice raised section behind the hump to produce a very factory appearing raised area. Directly behind the hump and in front of my modification is a very low valley. This had to go. I cut it out then I laid some sheet metal over the hole and formed it to make an extended trans hump. I welded it to the removable hump and screwed it to the floor behind the hole so the hump could be removed if necessary. All this resulted in me being able to install the trans and case fairly level in the chassis.



A little side note about the transfer case. I had been searching everywhere for a round pattern '205 to no avail. I had found an empty, NOS housing on ebay and I emailed the seller to find out what shipping would be, then went out in the shop to get some more work done. Well, in the mean time, my wife and boy got home. I realized that they had been home awhile and my boy had not come out in the shop yet. Hmmm, what is he doing?? So I go in the house, walk past the computer room and HOLY COW!!!! There are a bazillion error messages on the screen and my boy is sitting in front of it.
I figure I should try to undo whatever he got into. I start closing the error messages and get into a whole bunch of ebay messages stating something to the effect of: "Sorry the item you wanted to buy now has already been sold" Cool, I really did not want any....Dana 60 knuckles for a Ford. I close about twenty of these message windows and come to the last one that states "Congratulations, you won this item!!" Oh no!! What did you just buy me?!? It turns out, he clicked the buy it now button on the NOS round pattern housing. Well, I hope shipping isn't too much there boy. Turns out the shipping wasn't too bad, but the case was a bit higher than I would have liked to paid. Oh well, I have it now.

So with my floor modified, it was time to start assembling the components.

Mainshaft stack-up:



Major parts in:



South Bend clutch and Advance Adapters bellhousing installed:



I tried a couple factory crossmembers that did not work--of course. So I ended up making my own with two pices of 1" round tubing and plated with 1/4" flat plate. The part the trans mount bolts to is what is left of a piece of 2 x 3 .188 wall tubing cut to fit the angle the crossmember sits at.

Here is an installed pic:



Somewhere in amongst all this, I built the exhaust system. It is a 3.5" mandrel bent system. I got some straight pipe and 180* U-bends and went to town. It turned out pretty good. I wish I could have found some smaller radius bends than I had, so the little "pie" cuts would have had some more curve to them. They look like little pieces of straight pipe when they are installed. Hell, I probably should have just made them out of straight pipe--it would have been alot easier than cutting a specific size piece out of a bent pipe.

While I was making the system, I decided to punish myself a bit more and make one section of it twice--one witha muffler and one without. That way I can remove the muffler and offend at will whenever I feel like it. The sections look different, but they are actually the same as one is standing straight up and the other is leaning against the wall.



Someone mentioned exhaust pipe clearance around the transfer case. I ended up with about 1.5" above and below in this pic (although it does not show it too well).



In my initial plan, I was going to need a two piece drive shaft due to length. Well, as it worked out, I had to run a one piece because I had a lot less room than I initially thought I would have. No biggie, other than I had bought a super-nice two piece shaft out of a late model. I really did not want to scrap this shaft so I found the driveshaft company that I have used for the past 18-20 years. They had moved, but I located them and one of the guys still worked there. I explained what I wanted to do and he said it could be done. What I had him do was take the front half of the two piece, swap it end-for-end, knock the carrier bearing off and machine the ends so it could be re-tubed with the heavier .083 tubing. It worked out perfect and he said the factory Spicer u-joints were still in great shape, so he left them in rather than selling me new ones.

Here is what I ended up with:



Here is a close-up of the slip joint. The inner race of the carrier bearing had to be left on for the slip joint bootie to fit correctly. It is a sealed bootie, so no dust/mud will be able to enter.



So, some of you keeping score at home may have realized that the necessary components required for this yard ornament to move under its own power are present. Now, for legal reasons, I can't say that it has been driven even around the block once [cough] or six times [/cough], but if I had I bet it would have ridden pretty damn rough for the first lap with those tires being so flat-spotted. The second lap probably would have found the tires to be more round and be able to feel out the vehicle a bit better. The third through sixth laps, I would assume, would have been very enjoyable with a contest between me and my boy to see who could fit a bigger smile on their face and knowing my boy, he would have asked to go fast again. Now of course the interior is basically missing, with the seats sturdily retained by the awesome power of gravity and there are a pile of seatbelts in there, so it would have been wise to stay in the immediate vicinity of my house, never leaving the nighborhood and never going past third gear, but I would never do such a thing......

Can we go around one more time dad?? Uh,..........OK!!!!