Re: 53 Surburban "Family Truckster"
 

Some day we will meet....careful what you wish for..
Oh and you should have joined in if it makes you feel better..

Marc

Re: 53 Surburban "Family Truckster"
 

I had to head to Chicago today for work. I stopped off at Lane Automotive located in Watervallet, MI. It is a small parts distribution center similar to Summit Racing. Best part is my friend that owns Dutchboys hotrods put me on their account as an employee so I get a discount on most things I buy....

I picked up my hooker exhaust manifolds and an Ididit steering column. Thanks Doug for figuring out what length column I needed (32").

The steering looks to be a challenge. Doug how well does yours snake past the manifolds?

Marc

Re: 53 Surburban "Family Truckster"
 

Marc,

I moved my column a little to the left, aligning with the center of the gauges. That allows a pretty straight shot down to the rack as I recall.

Re: 53 Surburban "Family Truckster"
 

Nice parts!! Do those manifolds flow close to what headers flow? Or just fit better?

Re: 53 Surburban "Family Truckster"
 

In talking with Nate from PB Fab it sounds like I will need a 2 piece. Shaft. He is also working on a bracket for a carrier bearing. It looked to me like I would have to go the two piece route. He did say the angle isn't really steep.

I would say yes on both accounts. With the stock F body manifolds on the passenger side I would have needed to clearance the frame rail to fit. These fit fine without modifications..

Marc

Re: 53 Surburban "Family Truckster"
 

I put some time in on the Suburban this weekend. I started by installing my Accuair sensors. I was left with more questions than answers so I decided to make some calls to figure things out.

I moved to the back and after looking at how many places the rear wheels and axle hit the body I decided to remove my inner wheel tubs. this allowed the body to sit flat on the frame. I really want to run 22" rims but after seeing the limitations of the rear fender area I'm not sure that is possible. I have not given up yet though.

I decided to mount up some body panels to see how everything else fits. I moved to the fenders. A lot of this stuff is coming back to me from my 48. The front fenders have some tabs that stick down. By trimming these off flush you can lay out farther. I also hammered over the inner fender edges again at an attempt to gain more clearance. A lot of people probably think that this is crazy but it all adds up to create clearance where you can.

The other frustrating thing I determined this weekend is that the ZR2 rear-end is too wide. My wheels have crazy positive offset and with the rear fenders bolted on there is still not much room. I will have to narrow the rear-end. I need to figure out by how much. In hind site I should have stuck with my 67 Nova rear end. I think that is also what Chizzler used on his. Oh well.

Here are some pics. Oh that is my son Cooper clowning in the one photo.

Re: 53 Surburban "Family Truckster"
 

More....Oh tomorrow I have work off and my wife and I are shipping our boys off to a really nice camp for the week. My wife says "hey boys you know what you dad is going to be doing all week while you are away....working on the Suburban".....She knows me too well.

The inside of the fenders look rusty in the pics but it is actually undercoating flaking off. They are in better shape than they look.

Marc

Marc

Re: 53 Surburban "Family Truckster"
 

Looking good Marc

Re: 53 Surburban "Family Truckster"
 

Your Burb does look good laid out Marc. Too bad the rear is too wide, though like you said it can be narrowed. Just more work and money...

Man, those fenders are really solid!

Re: 53 Surburban "Family Truckster"
 

Looking good...Jim

Re: 53 Surburban "Family Truckster"
 

Hey marc. My tire size is a 6.70-15. conversion charts show it as A 205/75/15-215/70/15. Hope that helps. Burb is looking great.Keep at it.

Re: 53 Surburban "Family Truckster"
 

Looks great!!

Re: 53 Surburban "Family Truckster"
 

Re: 53 Surburban "Family Truckster"
 

Great looking suburban!! I am looking at trading for a 1950 suburban and was checking out your build when i saw a picture of my engine. I am glad i was an inspiration on the look of your ls. I am liking how yours is looking.

Re: 53 Surburban "Family Truckster"
 

Awesome progress!!!

Re: 53 Surburban "Family Truckster"
 

Thank you

Thanks Doug. I still need to roll the edges of the front fenders. One rear fender I had ot add a lower section where the running board mounts..

Thanks Jim

Thank you Chizzler. I'm going to try to fit a 29" wheel...I might need hot butter and a crowbar.

Thank you
Thanks Mark....I seem to like anything that is on the ground.

Yes, I saw you were looking at Thomas Tuckers old Suburban. It is one of my all time favorites. Although I have never seen pictures of the inside. I would be interested in seeing the rear notch area. On mine I will run all three rows of seats which will be another challenge to pull off.

Thanks brother....I have been following your suburban build...

Marc

Re: 53 Surburban "Family Truckster"
 

OK after speaking with Travis at AZ Pro Performance as well as Accuair I got my questions about mounting the sensors figured out. What worked good for me was to double side tape the sensor where I thought that I wanted to mount them and then take my measurements to confirm that I had the right range of motion. This worked great. The Accuair tech told me that the mounting of the sensors is the most difficult part of the install. This is cool because I got the front and rear mounted

I typically spend money on items that are clean and help and install go easier...In this case I purchased ride sensor mounts by Choppin Block from Travis at Pro Performance. They are billet aluminum and really make mounting of the sensor quite a bit easier. I love how clean the install looks.

On to the pics

Marc

Re: 53 Surburban "Family Truckster"
 

That will look sick driving down the rd. Love the clamps I will be adding ride height some day.

Re: 53 Surburban "Family Truckster"
 

Mounting looks clean...I'm going to borrow this in the near future...easier to ask for forgiviness, then to beg for permission... or something like that. LOL

Re: 53 Surburban "Family Truckster"
 

Ok, those clamps are on my shopping list. Thanks for the share Marc.

Re: 53 Surburban "Family Truckster"
 

Thanks Lower. This is my first experience with Accuair or ride height sensors.

No secrets here. If I were worried about others barrowing ideas I wouldn't have started a build thread...Its all good, that's why this site rocks...

They are not cheap ($18 ea - I think) but they are sturdy, they look plastic but are painted billet aluminum.

Marc

Re: 53 Surburban "Family Truckster"
 

OK, so one of the things that I wondered about with the size of the notch is can I run all three rows of seats. Not many people that are building them to layout are using all three seats.

Today I took one step closer to figuring it out. I had to cut 26" out of the center of the wood floor to clear the notch. The front mounts are fine. It looks like the rear seat will either have to move backward some or I will have to cut off/modify the legs of the rear seat.. If you look closely to can see the oval shapes where the legs mount to the floor. the rear only has two showing. the other two were 5" into the area that I cut out.

Here is a pic of the wood temporarily in place so I can fit the seats to see what modifications are necessary. I'm pretty excited to see it will most likely be possible.

The other thing that is cool is that if this truck is 1/2" off the ground it rolls very easily. My 48 will not roll smoothly this low. I need to keep this in mind when I reinstall the fenders to make sure it always rolls smoothly.

Thanks
Marc

Re: 53 Surburban "Family Truckster"
 

Are you replacing the wooden floor with metal?

Re: 53 Surburban "Family Truckster"
 

No I will be replacing the wood with new wood. What I'm doing here is strictly for mock up purposes. The idea I have in my head is using some cool distressed wood intended for the home. I would install a thinner plywood sheet and then make up the difference with the decorative wood. I can tell you, the original floor was a chore to remove without cutting into a punch of pieces. I can put my wood back in smaller sections because of the notch so it is easier. I do like how clean and sealed Doug's turned out though.....I have not figure out what I want to do for a notch cover yet (steel or wood).

Marc

Re: 53 Surburban "Family Truckster"
 

I started fitting the middle row and back row seats to see what modifications are needed. The middle seat is fine as is. For those of you that don't know, these middle seats are hard to come by. They are narrower than the rear seat and they are mounted to the left hand side to provide access by the passengers to the rear seat. For the rear seat I will most likely need to remove the legs and come up with some way to attach the front of the seat to the notch and then fab up some new rear legs. I might even narrow the seat 3"-4" to provide more room for wheel tubs. The watts link is killing me for rear seat placement......more to come, I need to stare at it a while longer before I start cutting.

Marc

Re: 53 Surburban "Family Truckster"
 

Just thinking aloud...maybe mount the third seat on a platform to go above the watts link?

Rather than narrowing a third seat, can you use a second seat in the third seat position so it is narrow enough to clear the wheel tubs? The third seat, as you know, could be sold for way more than a second seat would cost.

Re: 53 Surburban "Family Truckster"
 

Yes, I thought about that..i don't like the platform idea because I took so much time to hid stuff under the floor. I don't care for how it looks when you have the rear doors open. I actually thought about moving the middle seat to the rear and vise versa.... You could enter through the back doors to get access to the back seat. I have time to figure it out...ha ha

Porterbuilt is shipping my front core support mount tomorrow so I will be able to finalize how that mounts and bolt up the front fenders..

Marc

Re: 53 Surburban "Family Truckster"
 

When i was building my burb I tried my hardest to use the 3rd seat. It was just to awkward at the position it would be in. I ended up selling it to a guy that was doing a factory build. For me 5 people was enough. Burb is looking good Marc.

Re: 53 Surburban "Family Truckster"
 

Marc could you not mount the seat on top of the diff hump and have your legs hang just in front of the hump?

Re: 53 Surburban "Family Truckster"
 

I know you are using the original seat frames so what I did wont help.
I ended up getting flip seats out of a S10 that originally flipped to the side.. I mounted brackets to the floor so these would flip up and down. Not very comfy, a ***** to get in and out of and then no room for any storage if someone is back there.
But it is an idea. Wont be the look you are going for with your build.

But loving what you are doing so far....keep going at it. I am glad I got mine done when I did. New position has me on the road all the time. So far I have put 40 miles on my Burb this spring /summer :(

Re: 53 Surburban "Family Truckster"
 

I know that is the same stuff I'm struggling with. I'm not ready to throw in the towel yet.. I'm a slow learner

I not think so because it would put you right up against the back of the middle seat.

Thanks Jim.. Boooo to only putting 40 miles on yours. Take a vacation this fall and drive out the NSRA Nats north in Kalamazoo..

I will get more garage time this weekend.

Marc

Re: 53 Surburban "Family Truckster"
 

Not many people would take a rare 3rd row suburban seat and cut it up. Well you can only stare at something so long before you just have to start cutting.

The idea I had was to cut off the legs because it was interfering with the watts link and notch. Then I decided if I narrowed the seat a couple of inches it would help fit between the wheel tubs that I also need to widen. I narrows the seat 3". The ideas was to narrow it slightly so it is not overly noticeable. I was amazed at how well the seat springs and jute looked on the seats.

After I cut the seat frame tubes I used some cold rolled steel tub to reinforce where I cut. I plug welded it for strength. I was very happy with how it turned out. I will narrow the seat springs at a later date.

Marc

Re: 53 Surburban "Family Truckster"
 

More pics....I also noticed on of my wheel tubs had large dent in one side but not the other. At first I thought the wheel tubs were double walled. No someone along the line just filled dents with bondo...I started pounding out the dents and a bondo piece over 1" thick flew off....ha ha

I will be adding 3" to the wheel tubs to allow for a wider rear wheel.

Marc

Re: 53 Surburban "Family Truckster"
 

Nice job on the seat...Jim

Re: 53 Surburban "Family Truckster"
 

No one other than all of us will ever see the difference. Nice.

Re: 53 Surburban "Family Truckster"
 

Re: 53 Surburban "Family Truckster"
 

Hey Marc, good solution, well done!

Re: 53 Surburban "Family Truckster"
 

Thanks Jim

Yeah, I knew I could trust you guys..ha ha

Thanks Mark, I do think that it will help to fit it in there with the wider tubs.

Thanks Doug. I was glad it turned out. I was growing tired of staring at it...

Marc

Re: 53 Surburban "Family Truckster"
 

Nice simple fix, no one will notice ;)

Re: 53 Surburban "Family Truckster"
 

I had a pretty cool truck weekend. It started on Saturday when I was convinced to go to a local car show at Gilmore Car Museum. It is a must stop if you ever find yourself going through Kalamazoo, MI. I started up a conversation with the guy with this nice AD truck. It was very well built. 675 hp out of an LS1 engine. It was in Street trucks earlier this year. Through our conversation I mentioned that I was looking for a rear suburban fender (which are very hard to come by especially in the rust belt) he mentioned a guy with all sorts of Ad parts that he was selling. He mentioned that I should not wait if it was something that I wanted as this guy is selling off stuff all the time. I called him 15 minutes later and arranged a time to meet Sunday. It was an 1:20 minute drive one way.

The first thing I saw was this 55 first series Suburban which was complete free of rust and rot and I felt the price was fair. Then as I walked around the place I kind of felt like the guy was a hoarder of AD parts...He had so many rare hard to find parts. I took pictures because words can describe....it was hard to focus on anything because everywhere I looked I saw something else.

He had (2) full suburban floors just sitting in the weeds like he grew them. The seat riser was in great shape. He had (2) complete sets of rear fenders and a few others stashed away. He had countless hoods and font fenders. I bought a rear passenger side fender (best one he had) as well as a rear splash pan complete with mounting brackets. He had a lot of 54 stuff like the blue 5 window cab.

On to the pics.

Marc