The Story Of A Cummins Suburban (Lots Of Pics)

[justcuz]

The trip pictures were very cool. Thats exactly what owning these babies is all about! I have been looking at a lot of options, but in the long run a Suburban is the perfect excursion vehicle for me. The wheel base is shorter than the extended cab pickups and the standard cab pickups need a shell to do what I want. So now I am on the move to find a Suburban with a stick for my more rugged excursions. Moses every time I look at yours it brings me back to reality about how dang practical these vehicles truly are!

[mosesburb]

Originally Posted by Delmo

Great to meet you this weekend man and thanks for the tour of your truck. That thing is truley amazing.

It was great to meet you too. I love your truck!! The "tour of my truck"--makes it sound really big .

[mosesburb]

Originally Posted by justcuz

The trip pictures were very cool. Thats exactly what owning these babies is all about! I have been looking at a lot of options, but in the long run a Suburban is the perfect excursion vehicle for me. The wheel base is shorter than the extended cab pickups and the standard cab pickups need a shell to do what I want. So now I am on the move to find a Suburban with a stick for my more rugged excursions. Moses every time I look at yours it brings me back to reality about how dang practical these vehicles truly are!

Thank you. Yeah, it's kind of funny, I never realized how much I/we needed a Suburban until I had one. I will admit that there are times that I wish I had a long bed pickup (dump runs, slide in camper, oversize freight), but in the end, the day-to-day functionality (and back seat) of a Suburban is the cat's ass.

[Delmo]

And you think it's small?

[mosesburb]

Originally Posted by Delmo

And you think it's small?

Touche.

Originally Posted by sleepertruck72

mosesburb,
I read this entire thread the other night, and I just went over it again. I am loving the Cummins swap, and your attention to detail ! This build is awesome

I missed this one earlier. Thank you for the kind words. I haven't been doing much with it except driving the wheels off of it. We have been super-crazy busy at work with forced weekend work, so it leaves me with little time to do much. I need to take it out of service to do a much needed PM on it. It needs an oil change, fuel filter, air filter service, trans check and general inspection. Hopefully tomorrow.

I did find something to occupy some time at night though.



But, that is a story for another thread I guess. So here it is.

[Dieselwrencher]

Sweet, a nova. I used to have a 69 SS when I was younger. I also had a 71 with a 454, both were 4 speed cars.

[lowrollin70gmc]

Looks like a cat liked you windshield! Nice nova, so are we long lost brothers with suburbans and novas? I'm working on a 63 as my summer driver and the burb as a winter truck. I do like the handling part as it makes them way more enjoyable on the street.

You going to find a sportster next? Or a long bed?

[mosesburb]

Originally Posted by lowrollin70gmc

Looks like a cat liked you windshield! Nice nova, so are we long lost brothers with suburbans and novas? I'm working on a 63 as my summer driver and the burb as a winter truck. I do like the handling part as it makes them way more enjoyable on the street.

You going to find a sportster next? Or a long bed?

Long bed, but don't tell nobody...

[bigdog69]

Just found this thread today, GREAT BUILD! BUT, if you want to see a really ugly truck check mine out! http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/s...d.php?t=108677

[mosesburb]

Originally Posted by bigdog69

Just found this thread today, GREAT BUILD! BUT, if you want to see a really ugly truck check mine out! http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/s...d.php?t=108677

Thanks!! Yeah, your truck is definitely a special kind of ugly there.

Well, I finally managed to get its much needed PM started today. I did not get as much as I wanted to get done done, but I got a good start on it. I got the oil and filter changed. I changed the fuel filter. I serviced the air filter. I hate servicing air filters. I think it remains from my Briggs and Stratton days. I actually converted my whole fleet of Briggs over to dry paper because I hate servicing air filters, but I digress. I bought the AFE kit for servicing their air filters. It comes with a pump spray bottle of cleaner and an aerosol can of oil. Their cleaner is a joke. It might work good if you put it in a Hudson sprayer to get the volume of liquid needed to saturate the filter like the directions state is necessary. After a few go-rounds with the spritzer pump, I got fed up and grabbed my pressure sprayer with Simple Green and within ten minutes I was done and had a clean element. Unfortuantely, it was late by the time I got it washed out so it did not dry enough to oil it, so I will finish it up tomorrow. Still need to check the trans, transfer case and axles. I gave the underhood area a good bath as it was getting pretty dirty from all the trails and dust it sees.
At least I got something done on it besides just driving it.

[MrBeast]

Man I am Really glad to see you are enjoying the burban.

I am fixing to move into a new shop next week I will finally be able to dive into my 72 getting going with my 4x4 & cummins swap.

[mosesburb]

Yeah, it is being thoroughly enjoyed--and used.

The damn air filter is still wet today. I brought it in the house tonight. I had time tonight to check the rest of the truck out. Trans and case were good. Rear axle was 1/2 quart low. No leakage anywhere. Hub seals are dry, pinion seal is dry, cover is dry, vent is dry, axle flanges are dry. Maybe someone siphoned some out?? Stealin' my gear oil!! Weird. I greased the front end and slip joints on the driveshafts. Now, if my air filter will dry out, I can reinstall it and put this thing back in service.

[jbclassix]

If you have articulated your rear axle enough, the oil ran toward the hubs... not harmful

['70_402]

this is truly one of the coolest builds i've ever seen... and two huge thumbs up with taking pics and documenting your journey... way to go man.

[mosesburb]

Originally Posted by 70'_402

this is truly one of the coolest builds i've ever seen... and two huge thumbs up with taking pics and documenting your journey... way to go man.

Hey, thanks!!

I was reminded today of a couple comments a buddy of mine made about this thing that I thought were pretty unique. I had to go over to his house for something a while back and when I pulled up he came out and said that inside the house it sounded like a super-sixteen with a load of concrete just pulled up. My truck sounds like a cement truck.

One other time I was going to stop by to help him out with something and I guess he was mowing his back lawn. He shut his mower off and thought he heard my truck running out front. He stopped and said cool, he's here. He went out front but was disappointed to find it was just a fire truck idling in the street.

[justcuz]

Not sure how big your air filter is or how it is shaped, but I have a couple of ideas for you. When I ran the foam outer on the paper element, I would dry it out by using a paint roller dryer (the kind that spins it). I would fold it in two and stick it where you would put a brush handle in the spinner. Also you can buy one of those salad spinners at a discount store. They are plastic and pretty inexpensive. In the end, I just got tired of the maintaining them and changed my paper more often. I blow them out with an air hose after each off road use, or every 2nd oil change (6,000 miles).

[mosesburb]

Now that I know what works best for cleaning the element, I can start with that instead of try this and try that.... Also, if I service it in summer instead of winter, the filter will be dry before I can put the hose down. Ideally, I would prefer a paper element, but in all of my research, I could not find one that fit my required size specifications. I prefer paper myself.

[mosesburb]

We decided to go up north and play in the fresh snow today. We were going to head over to my buddy's place (previous snow pics in this thread), but due to circumstances beyond our control, it ended up not being in our best interest to travel that far today. So, that being the case, we decided to just head up to Prescott. It should be a nice drive and it is high enough in elevation to get the snow necessary to operate the sled we brought along. The interstates were closed up north and the snow was tapering off this am, so we figured with a forecast of light flurries in Prescott we would be cool.

Well, the journey started off beautifully. We left the house ahead of schedule and with the interstate we were traveling on being closed north of where we were going, traffic was almost non-existent. The roads were clear and so were the skies:



Absolutely beautiful. The left lane was recently cindered, so passing was an easy task. We traveled down the road getting closer to our destination and when we got to Prescott Valley we had to stop for a red light. Upon accelereation from the light I immediately discovered the need to lock the front hubs and engage the front axle. I did that and all was well. Truck drives great in snow even with the Detroit locker in the rear and mud tires (not so good in ice, of course). Well, we got a bit closer to Prescott and we ran into the "light flurries" that were forecasted:



Yeah, visibility was not so good. We pulled into a parking lot to wait it out and see what happened:



We sat there for a bit and about ten minutes after the "light flurries" subsided, we were left with this:



It worked out good because I had called a friend of mine that lives up there and he was actually home so we swung by there. He was loading his hooptie up to go wheeling while we were there:



Right on the other side of his buggy happens to be a hill perfect for letting my boy test gravity on his sled. It was pretty steep and ended with a fenceline at the bottom but he did a good job of stopping before he hit it.

We played around there for a while and then headed in to town to get something to eat. After we ate, we started heading back down the hill. On the way, we were greeted with some white hills that weren't so white when we passed them coming in:



I stopped somewhere along the way to unlock the hubs and was greeted with the beginnings of ice beards on the hubs: (the dents in the hub cap are previous hail damage)



So all in all it was a fun day. I did have some problems leading up to the departure, but nothing that was going to put the truck out of service. I will post more details as soon as I figure out exactly what happened.

[1985-GMC]

Cool pictures, that's beautiful over there! It was T-shirt weather in texas today, no white stuff here!

[MrBeast]

Man seeing those pictures sure makes me miss the mountains, Texas is nice, but there is just something about the mountians and fresh snow.

I am sure it is that much better when you have a cummins suburban to go enjoy it with.

[jbclassix]

Your "light flurries" pictures look like what I was seeing yesterday coming home when the weather-man was calling for a chance of snow! When I left Cali for Wyoming so many people told me I was crazy for putting a detorit locker in my pick-up. Well for snow I wouldnt have it any other way IMO. I have the factory "locker" in the Yukon and it makes it so much easier to drive. I have the same differential in the 14B SF in the White burb and I think open in snow would suck. I want to put the same diff in the front of the white burb... just for fun! I love snow. I don't want to go anywhere without snow. I love your pictures! Oh yeah, I droe around Wyoming for a year without a front driveshaft in the Pick-up... only the locker!

[mosesburb]

Thanks!! Yeah, locker in snow = good. Locker on ice = baaad.

Well, now that my project is tapering off, I am able to accurately inventory my parts and supplies that have accumulated over the past eight years or so. I have made it a mission to organize the shop/shed/side yard/etc. It was getting pretty bad out there. Walking through my shop was very similar to walking through a three foot snow drift. Waaay too much stuff. I started cleaning it out a few weeks ago. I am throwing away, recycling, scrapping or organizing what I have. So far it has worked great. I am ejoying all of the available space I have now. I have gotten rid of about 10-12 garbage cans of stuff, probably the same number of recycle cans, I loaded the Suburban with about 1800lb of scrap, and I have a load of household hazmat and what looks like one dump run and one more trip to the scrap yard left. Ironically, I have not gone through my stash of Suburban parts yet. I have just been making room around the shop.

So, as I clean, I find more and more stuff. Some that was or is slated for installation on the Sub. Some of the stuff has been bouncing around for awhile. One of those items was a pinion shovel for the 14FF that I got from DIY 4X4. I had installed it when I got it, but the bolts were the wrong length and did not engage enough threads. I bought different bolts, but they were too long. Bah!! I pulled it off and left it in the shop. Well, I got sick of moving it around so I grabbed it and a handful of bolts and put it on. No issues whatsoever. I have no idea why it gave me so much grief prior, but I got it on now. I guess I really don't need it so much now that he pinion is rotated up now, but I figured I had it and I am sick of moving it in the shop, so maybe it will do some good on the truck instead.



I also came across a set of airbags that I had. These had not been lingering around for too long, but I still had moved them several times. So on they went. I pretty much used them as they were, but I used some of the IHC flange head bolts and flange lock-nut for the bracketry. These got used when I hauled the 1800+ pounds of scrap to the yard. I am engineering an air compressor setup on the truck to fill the bags. I haven't gotten it finished, so it is just bags right now.



I put new backup lenses in the truck when I built it a couple years ago. They turned yellow almost immediately. I picked up a set of NOS Guide backup lenses recently and decided to throw them in.

Crap vs NOS:



More crap vs NOS:



So with the craptastic quality of the backup lenses, I was a bit leery of getting aftermarket park lamp lenses for the front bumper. Well, in amongst my cleaning, I found the original bumper that was bent up pretty good at the frame shop once-upon-a-time. Whoa, the lenses look pretty good. I compared them to the ones that came in my used bumper and my originals are much brighter than those, so I swapped my originals back in:



So I am still in full-on cleaning mode, but some progress is being made on the truck. Hopefully I will get the rest of this cleaned up and get on to some projects that I am hoping to do while it is still cool out.

[67chevy1series]

looks good i wsh i had nos stuff.....not much nos stuff makes its way to calif. and if so it is usually 69 72 stuff

[DBear]

might have missed this, but what size lift you running on this rig....4 inch??

[mosesburb]

Originally Posted by DBear

might have missed this, but what size lift you running on this rig....4 inch??

Yeah, that is what the lift was marketed as. I think it was a bit more that four as a friend of mine had a 72 K20 Sub with six inches of lift and they were equal in height, so who knows.