The Story Of A Cummins Suburban (Lots Of Pics)

[mosesburb]

Originally Posted by Dieselwrencher

That's a nother nice trip. That's interesting about the cabin too. Thanks for sharing it.

Thanks Man!!

[mosesburb]

Back in early September, Overland Journal put on an open house up at their secret lair in Prescott complete with product displays, slide shows, food and best of all, trail rides. By now you have probably figured out that when it comes to trail rides, we're an easy sell. We traveled up to the lair and promptly lined up in groups to hit the road. There was a "scenic" easy ride that promised no trail pinstriping and an advanced "technical" trail that promised everything short of body damage. Well, it's probably pretty obvious which one we signed up for. The "easy" trail was the most popular (no surprise there) what with all of the fancy, pretty, well outfitted "overland vehicles" in attendance. You sure don't want to scratch up that 70k+ vehicle driving it on unpaved roads. Then there are those of us who have vehicles to use as designed.

While gathering all of the vehicles I was asked by the trail leader (whom I have traveled with before) to be tail sweep for the run. One thing that bringing a group on a run like this is the ability of each driver is an unknown, so having someone at the back who knows the area and can deal with situations that arise is a must. I gladly agreed as I like being able to stop and take pictures without holding up the group to do so. We aired down right there and headed off to the trail. It was a very nice day, slightly overcast, but not raining, so a real nice day to travel. We hit the trail and we were on our way.

Now the trail was nothing that required much in the way of driver skill, but not too far down the trail, one driver was calling the leader on the radio asking for spotting help. I thought this to be odd as the trail has no real obstacles on it and the trail leader had already passed the point this driver was at. We stopped and were waiting. While we were waiting, I took a gratuitous truck pic:



After waiting for several minutes, I decided to wander up the parked parade of vehicles and see what was up. There was a Land Rover pickup truck parked in an odd fashion on an uphill part of the trail:



I'm no fan of Land Rovers, but this thing was pretty cool. It had a diesel engine of some sort in it and appeared to be fairly well equipped. I'm still not sure exactly what happened, if it was a mechanical issue or if the driver just peed down is leg, but it turned into a situation that required the trail leader to turn around and winch the truck up the hill. The whole scene was kind of an eye-opener to me as I never expected any kind of a situation to arise on a vanilla trail such as this. The pic doesn't show it, but the hill drops off pretty steep behind the vehicle in the direction it is pointing. The trail leader had the situation completely under control so no damage was incurred by any people or vehicles, but it did illustrate the need to be prepared for anything when traveling in the backcountry--especially with unknown drivers.

After we unceremoniously crested the hill, we parked at the top and had lunch. A little further down the trail we came upon what I *think* was the Bannie Mine:



Some nice scenery to the south:



From here we were heading over to Mt Trittle. Along the way we passed an old mine that I believe was the Davis-Dunkirk Mine:



A little further up the hill we came upon a really nice little switchback. It was engineered for something with legs or something at least a little bit shorter than a Suburban:



Up top, we got a nice view of Peeples Valley off to the west:



We also got a nice view of Granite Mountain to the north:



We splashed through some puddles on the way and I'm not sure what was in the puddles, but whatever it was, it could be marketed as some super adhesive. There are still remnants of this stuff on the truck. It is pressure washer resistant stuff.



An old ore chute off the side of the trail:



A mine up the hill:



A neat looking iron-filled rock on the trail:



So we headed back to the Overland Journal secret lair and partook of the festivities. A bunch of us had planned on camping up there, but everyone split out that night. Well, we were planning on camping and my boy wanted to stay, so we set up camp in the parking lot. I used it as some "stealth camping" practice. It worked out well and we looked like just another orange Suburban parked in the lot there. The black window coverings worked perfect for that.

So what to do now?? My boy suggested a route back to the house that involved a nice amount of dirt road. Works for me. We headed out of town on dirt and eventually hooked up with Poland Road. It was raining, but not too hard yet. While rolling down the road, I spotted a fork that went uphill. I've wanted to investigate this fork for some time, but never seemed to have the time available when we were in the area. It's not hard to talk the boy into doing some exploration and he's no stranger to the phrase "we better get out of here before the cops show up", so we parked and scurried up the hill. I sure wasn't prepared to see what we found at the top.



This place, in and of itself, is no great find, other than I have never found it before. I knew it was in the area, but never knew what the last step to find it was. This tunnel is just down the road from the train tunnel that is shown in an earlier trip posting. If you don't remember, or never saw it, I'll save you the time of hunting it down:





That is a nice tunnel. Very solid and very dry. This one is not so dry:



Yep, full of water. I knew it was from research I had done on it, but I'd love to be able to walk the length of it. We wandered around up top and found some stuff here and there.



Neat old stone masonry wall:



I would have liked to keep wandering up there, but it was raining pretty good and my boy only had tennis shoes on. His feet were soaked and we were getting more wet every second we were up there. I figured we should get back to a warm vehicle and some dry clothes for the boy. We dried off and headed down the trail:



All in all, it was a great trip. We learned to always be prepared when running with people outside our normal group and got some practice some stealth camping so if the need ever arises it won't be such a learning experience in a situation where we are trying to not attract attention.

[Dieselwrencher]

That's a cool trip and cool tunnells. It really makes a person think how bad those early mine workers had it. Always digging and breathing that crap and all the while living in a make shift tent I'm sure. Do you ever run into a mud slide area or washed out trails when you're out there and rain storms come up on ya?

[mosesburb]

Originally Posted by Dieselwrencher

That's a cool trip and cool tunnells. It really makes a person think how bad those early mine workers had it. Always digging and breathing that crap and all the while living in a make shift tent I'm sure. Do you ever run into a mud slide area or washed out trails when you're out there and rain storms come up on ya?

Yeah, men were men back then.
Never dealt with a mud slide, but occasionally we do encounter a washed out area of a trail. Never so much we couldn't cross it, but definitely pucker-worth a few times. Usually they are on shelf roads where water crosses the road. A deluge up the hill will move a lot of earth once it gets funneled down the mountain. The most common time to find washouts is this time of year when the snow is melting up north or after a real wet spring where water volume and velocity is great. That will move the loose pack alluvial deposits down stream taking what is/was the trail with it as it flows.

[hgs_notes]

If I ever get out your way to explore I'll have to remember my air monitor and scuba gear for those tunnels.

[dhaymaker]

As always, mosesburb, great story telling and excellent photography to support the story! Thank you, so much, for sharing with us!

[justcuz]

We're you able to see the perimeter of the Yarnell Fire or was it too far south? I can't recall if it actually made it to Peeples Valley or they just evacuated it in anticipation of the fire movement. Last time we came down the hill through the forest we experienced thunder, lightning and a downpour! Really was kind of neat to have all that happening as you are moving down the road. I usually head out through Peeples Valley to Yarnell and down the hill to head back to California. The drive through the forest was a first and the weather made it a real treat.

[mosesburb]

Originally Posted by dhaymaker

As always, mosesburb, great story telling and excellent photography to support the story! Thank you, so much, for sharing with us!

Thanks!! Glad you enjoyed it!!

Originally Posted by justcuz

We're you able to see the perimeter of the Yarnell Fire or was it too far south? I can't recall if it actually made it to Peeples Valley or they just evacuated it in anticipation of the fire movement. Last time we came down the hill through the forest we experienced thunder, lightning and a downpour! Really was kind of neat to have all that happening as you are moving down the road. I usually head out through Peeples Valley to Yarnell and down the hill to head back to California. The drive through the forest was a first and the weather made it a real treat.

I'm not sure if it could be seen or not. I didn't notice it if it was. Sounds like a nice drive you had there.

[mosesburb]

At the end of October another wilderness first aid training deal was arranged. This time it was up north of Sedona overlooking the valley to the south.

A view from camp when we arrived:



Shortly after we arrived, we split up into groups. One group:



The other group:



Shortly after we began, we were visited by the Forest Service's finest:



It seems we weren't following one of the new Forest Service rules to a "T". Meh.

So we learned all kinds of different things that need to be known in a backcountry emergency situation. It actually illustrates what can't be done very well and very often the best option is to secure the injured and transport to a real medical facility. A lot of what is covered is how to prepare the injured for transport and how to diagnose some of the more common conditions that can arise in the wilderness--like dehydration.

After dinner, we were treated to a fire starting demonstration. This guy can start a fire with two sticks and a shoelace faster than I can start one with a Bic:



The next morning we packed up and a few of us traveled down the trail a ways to a place where we could park and proceeded to hike out to a point to find an airplane crash site. A view on the way out:



The site is the final resting place of a Stinson Reliant SR-9C that belonged to and was piloted by Gerald Vultee and his wife Sylvia was his only passenger. Unfortunately, they both perished in the crash. There is a great article about the crash here: http://verdenews.com/main.asp?Sectio...rticleID=43609 and of course there is the usual Wiki link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vultee_Aircraft . The Wiki is more about the Vultee Company, but it has a good timeline of the company and who bought and sold it throughout the years.

Most of the aircraft is gone having been salvaged after the crash and scrappers over time reducing the total amount of remains to nearly nothing, but still pretty good compared to many wreck sites throughout the state/southwest. There are, however, still some pieces of the airframe still visible.

The tail section/elevator/rear wheel mounting:



A piece of exhaust manifold with a chunk of engine exhaust port on it:



A general overview of the site:



We found some local wildlife on the hike out; the infamous horny toad:



A look back over to where we camped. We were right above the white cliff off to the right:



All in all it was a good trip. Learning about how to keep people alive in emergency situations is a very good thing to know. Seeing a crash site and learning some history about it was right up my alley. I'm not much on hiking, but in the end it was well worth the effort.

[1985-GMC]

Man those are some awesome views! Some day... some day. I think I'd have to bring a dirt bike along with me though to do some more off-trail exploring.

[hgs_notes]

This...

Originally Posted by mosesburb

This time it was up north of Sedona overlooking the valley to the south.

AWESOME!

[justcuz]

Oh Oh,
All your Photobucket pictures are no longer visible!

"Look who's popular.
Is this your photo?
Upgrade to plus with
Additional bandwidth"

Is the message that comes up.
It is a shame to lose all your beautiful pictures Nick.

[mosesburb]

Originally Posted by justcuz

Oh Oh,
All your Photobucket pictures are no longer visible!

"Look who's popular.
Is this your photo?
Upgrade to plus with
Additional bandwidth"

Is the message that comes up.
It is a shame to lose all your beautiful pictures Nick.

Photobucket only allows so much usage (bandwidth) of their site for free per month. When people view the pictures, bandwidth is used, sometimes to a point that the usage exceeds the allowed amount which is what happened this month. They have options available for purchase to allow unlimited bandwidth, but unfortunately the unwanted free time that I now have to post all of these new pictures also means I have no extra money to spend on things like more bandwidth. It will reset itself sometime in the near future all of the pics will become visible again. I figured it would happen with all of the pics I was posting lately, but I figured it was a good use of my time at that point. I have a bunch more pics to post, both travel and modifications, so stay tuned, we'll be back on the air shortly here.

[ryanroo]

Alright, who forgot to pay the bill?

[justcuz]

I hope "unwanted free time" means lack of overtime and nothing more serious.

Does the Overland Expo charge to just come in and look around and if so are advance tickets cheaper than at the door?
I really want to come out and see some of this, I think I may have a scheduling conflict but maybe I can send the wife and come to this.

I am going to call their info line tomorrow.

[mosesburb]

Originally Posted by justcuz

I hope "unwanted free time" means lack of overtime and nothing more serious.

Unfortunately, it's a lack of overtime and regular time. With any luck, I should be back at it soon.

Originally Posted by justcuz

Does the Overland Expo charge to just come in and look around and if so are advance tickets cheaper than at the door?

Yes, and yes. Day passes are available (these are what I get) and then there is a fee levied upon arrival for camping on site. Not camping, then no additional fee. I have a link to a 50% off advanced purchase deal. I'll see if I can find it.

Originally Posted by justcuz

I really want to come out and see some of this, I think I may have a scheduling conflict but maybe I can send the wife and come to this.

I am going to call their info line tomorrow.

It really is a neat deal. There are vendors on site selling their wares, but I think there could be a lot more of them. It really breaks down into a tradeshow for the overland/camping crowd. There are some great people to meet and vehicles to see. I like wandering the camping area just to check out all the cool rigs parked out there. So much cool stuff. The main event seems tailored to the "accepted" vehicles; i.e. Land Rovers, Toyotas, Jeeps (not rock crawling type), Ford Sportsmobiles etc, but there are plenty of "other" makes out there that don't fit the "build it out of a catalog" category to make it really interesting. Then there are the mega-dollar, hugh jass trucks that wouldn't fit down half of the trails we go on. Those are way cool too. If you think you'll make it, let me know and I'll get you my contact info. I'll be out there with Larry, Lance and a few others not from this site.

[justcuz]

Nick,
I am going to be there on Saturday the 17th.
I am bringing 2 friends from the Prescott area.
I pm'ed you my number so we can get in contact when we arrive.

I hope you are back to work now.
I have to go back to Michigan in July again to finish settling my Stepmom's estate. I may not get back home before September. Hopefully we can do a fall trip this year.

Was in Sedona last week for a couple days did a couple little loop trips outside of town, but was not there long enough to hit any real dirt, just a few miles of unpaved road.
It was beautiful though and the weather was perfect, wish I had about 4 more days there.

[justcuz]

Took Route 66 from Seligman to Kingman also.
Saw a Travelall setting in a yard going through Truxton that looked like it needed some love.
Don't shoot me but I like Traveall's They are built on a 120" wheelbase, have four doors, a huge engine compartment and easily swappable running gear.
A Chevy 5.7 roller motor or an LS engine, NV4500, NP241, 14 bolt with a Detroit and a Ford high pinion 44 or 60 would be a perfect vehicle.
I like Travelall's because they are right in between a Wagoneer and a Suburban in size.

[Dean'smeanmachine]

Originally Posted by justcuz

Took Route 66 from Seligman to Kingman also.
Saw a Travelall setting in a yard going through Truxton that looked like it needed some love.
Don't shoot me but I like Traveall's They are built on a 120" wheelbase, have four doors, a huge engine compartment and easily swappable running gear.
A Chevy 5.7 roller motor or an LS engine, NV4500, NP241, 14 bolt with a Detroit and a Ford high pinion 44 or 60 would be a perfect vehicle.
I like Travelall's because they are right in between a Wagoneer and a Suburban in size.

i love travelalls, my uncle had an old 60something travelall sitting in his yard

[mosesburb]

Originally Posted by justcuz

Nick,
I am going to be there on Saturday the 17th.
I am bringing 2 friends from the Prescott area.
I pm'ed you my number so we can get in contact when we arrive.

I hope you are back to work now.
I have to go back to Michigan in July again to finish settling my Stepmom's estate. I may not get back home before September. Hopefully we can do a fall trip this year.

Was in Sedona last week for a couple days did a couple little loop trips outside of town, but was not there long enough to hit any real dirt, just a few miles of unpaved road.
It was beautiful though and the weather was perfect, wish I had about 4 more days there.

Sounds good. Yeah, I'm back at work as of a couple weeks ago.

[justcuz]

Nick,
I was thinking of coming in Munds Lake Rd. It looks like less than 10 miles of dirt from 17 to 90. I only found one thing that said the end of Munds Lake Rd. is pretty bumpy.
St Marys Rd. is recommended but that creates quite a backtrack IMO.
I could also take 213 that goes by Stoneman Lake, but it looks like it has more dirt than Munds Lake Rd. Then I take 3 north to 90.
Are you familiar with the area and what do you recommend?

[mosesburb]

Originally Posted by justcuz

Nick,
I was thinking of coming in Munds Lake Rd. It looks like less than 10 miles of dirt from 17 to 90. I only found one thing that said the end of Munds Lake Rd. is pretty bumpy.
St Marys Rd. is recommended but that creates quite a backtrack IMO.
I could also take 213 that goes by Stoneman Lake, but it looks like it has more dirt than Munds Lake Rd. Then I take 3 north to 90.
Are you familiar with the area and what do you recommend?

I always go in through Munds Park. It's a dirt road. It's not paved. It's not glass. I consider it a fairly high speed road as far as dirt roads go, but I have found that my opinion of road surface quality differs drastically from some other people's opinions. I have gotten people out of traffic delays by sending them down roads that will take them where they need to go only to hear how terrible the road was later. Some of these "terrible" roads have seen me doing well over 60mph on them. In a Suburban. On leaf springs. With Rancho RS9000 shocks. But I digress. I know from some of the stuff you have posted up that you will be fine on the road through Munds Park. If it gets too bumpy, go faster or slower. One of the options will help dramatically. You have to figure out which one though....

[justcuz]

Thanks Nick,
Munds Lake Rd. it is!
We will be using the 2000 Suburban this trip, however it is a capable dirt road cruiser.
Too bad Larry is not bringing his Suburban, you could line them up for the trifecta picture!

[justcuz]

Nick,
It was nice to meet you and Larry at the Expo.
We came in and out Stoneman Lake Rd. Stan wanted to check out the lake, what was left of it!
This generally goes against my routine. I always try to return a different route than I came in on, but Stan and his wife were my hosts for the weekend.
We spent a lot of time watching the driving course and looking at vehicles in the parking and camping area too.
All in all we had a fun day.

[mosesburb]

So I spent October installing a new drivetrain in my buddy Lance's '70 Suburban. He got a 700R built up with all kinds of HD internals and a real nice converter. I built a NP208 with a fixed rear output and he bought the 3/4T axles that I built for my Suburban from my parts guy that I sold them to a couple years ago. He picked them up and then dropped them off to have ARB lockers installed in them to save my time installing them. In the mean time, he had some custom leaf packs built to lift the truck up a very specific amount. Having only one stock leg remaining, climbing into my Sub is a bit of a challenge for him, so he didn't want to duplicate my height on his truck. He spent some quality time with one of his boys and a floor jack determining the exact height that he could handle on a daily basis. With all of that figured out, the leaf packs were built and some really nice remote reservoir Fox shocks were installed. Then it came to my place for the drivetrain swap. Now a trans, case and axles is no big deal, but this thing needed everything in between. I figured out a relationship between time and work years ago and it has proven itself to be very accurate over the years. 90% of the work takes 10% of the time and the last 10% of the work takes 90% of the time. This project proved to fit that function perfectly. The front axle from my Sub that he bought was a disc brake unit. A huge improvement over his drum brake unit, but it also required a new master cylinder, power booster, brake lines etc. The trans needed new cooler lines and some electrical stuff to control the lockup converter. No big deal other than the electrical system in this truck can best be described as a top heavy train entering a sharp curve with the throttle wiiiiiiide open. Well, it's probably not even that good. So anyways, everything added up to the better part of a month's worth of weekends to get it put together and seemingly functional. Well, whenever Lance and I spend time around each other, we tend to talk about traveling. This time was no different. We decided that since both of our birthdays are within about a week of each other, we needed to go somewhere. But where??

We finally decided on a whole itinerary of southern Arizona. I finished up his Suburban just in time to take it on a super-extendo test drive (anybody see a pattern here??) We headed out Saturday AM and set a course heading south. We soon found ourselves in Tombstone. We didn't do any of the tourist crap while we were there. Instead we headed over to the courthouse museum. In my opinion, that is the only reason to stop in that town. It is a really cool museum with a ton of cool artifacts from the heyday of the town.

Gratuitous truck pics from Tombstone:



From there we headed down the road to an old ghost town called Gleeson. This is an old dry goods store:



A view of the hills surrounding Gleeson:



The restored Jail house:



The remains of the Gleeson School:



They used hoist cable for rebar:



Wandering around the basement of the school:



So we cut out of Gleeson and headed off toward Bisbee. Along the way we passed a sign which, in all of my travels, I had never seen before. It kind of made me wonder how I was supposed to prepare for it:



Upon entering Bisbee we first saw the old open pit:



Above the pit:



We passed through town and headed up Mule Pass to find a place to camp. We found a sweet place and set up camp. Being that it was my birthday that day, I was regaled with the Happy Birthday Song in three languages while sitting around the campfire. We got up the next morning and decided to amend our itinerary and head back into Bisbee to do some wandering around town. It is a neat old copper mining town similar to Jerome and actually has many ties to Jerome as well.

Main Street in old-town Bisbee:



Compact cars you say?? Meh, it's just a suggestion:



Neat old hotel in town:



Doors to the county courthouse in town:



Super-cool light posts in courthouse courtyard:



A rather non-descript piece of decorative ironwork. It wasn't really picture-worthy until I noticed the entire thing was riveted together:



I like the old main streets with the vestibules at the entrances. This one was labeled for a former tenant:



This is an antique store now, but once upon a time it was:



Cool art-deco style building in Lowell (basically a "suburb" of Bisbee):



It was funny, we were all down here checking out the vintage main street and got caught in an instantaneous deluge. It was bright and sunny--and pouring rain. It lasted all of five minutes or so. The sun never went away. Odd.

The long drive home:



So, it ended up being a 534 mile test drive on an entirely untested rig. While we did have a couple issues, none were with any recent mods to the drivetrain. I prefer not to do test drives like this, but when a trip is on the line, exceptions can be made I guess. It ended up being a great trip and very worthy of the effort required to pull it off.