70 C-20 4x4 Suburban Father/Son project

[1leglance]

So there are many elements of this build that involved me telling Nick "good enough" and him having to grumble something along the lines of "it's not my truck"
Not that I don't think everything he has done has been beyond what I would do....it just isn't all up to HIS norms
I will say I am very happy with my huge AC condensor, big ol' trans cooler and even a power steering cooler he crammed in front of my core support.
It did require a bit of custom work to the hood latch and a bit of hammer work on the core support.


These same 2 fans have been doing an amazing job on my lowered 72 C-10 during a blazing summer, running full AC and sitting in killer traffic.
They should be good for slow crawling on summer trail runs where you can generate some serious engine/trans temps.


Now there were some parts of this project Nick didn't want ANY part of...and my new dual spotlights highlight the fun I got to have. I am pretty sure Nick banged his head on the inside handles enough to want to rip them off my rig. But I sure love'em.
And cool thing is Unity still makes everything you could want, including some seriously bright replacement bulbs I can't wait to play with.
I have a pair of vintage correct lights but these more modern ones were in much better shape so in they went.
And I will admit drilling the holes in freshly painted A pillars was one of the hardest things I have done on this rig

[1leglance]

Part of the conversion to fuel injection was a new tank...well new old tank. This is a 40 gal out of an 87 Burb with the inlet welded in the right spot.
New sender and pump installed and we were ready to trail a long way down the trail.
Oh and in case anyone was wondering about those long hoses...that is part of the reason I really enjoy working with Nick on projects. He thinks about things like having to drop the tank down the road...me I just want to slap it together and go play.


Of course things will be much more tiddy when all said and done but I had to snap a pic of the new fuse block. It was impressive to see how much work Nick put into changing things and improving what I thought was "good enough". But now that I understand the wiring layout and cleanness I like it.



I will try to get a better shot of the cluster this weekend. But you can still tell how cleaned up and nice this is. Nick even managed to fit in a special dual battery gauge I bought in Australia. It is a digital that looks analog and has a bunch of features I have not played with yet. But nice thing is I always know the status of both of my batteries.
There is also an Air Pressure gauge for the on board air/lockers.


This prototype version 16 or something of my center console. I wanted something that had the same rounded edged as our trucks. Had plenty of storage and filled the space.
I plan to cover it with grey vinyl to match the seats. It will have 2 dual USB ports, locker air switches x2 and a dual cig lighter port for the fridge & laptop (for navigation).
I still have to put together my laptop stand over this mess.
Oh and that switch panel will control all kinds of things...things that give Nick more wiring worries

[1leglance]

This gives a better idea of all the subtle stuff that was built...dual battery trays, with a solar controller on the aux side. AC setup with in dash and rear evap's and plenty more I can't think of but will make a big difference in the long run.


Lots of good quality OEM GM parts means I will be able to go in just about anywhere and say I am running an 87 burb and get what I need to get back on the road. Makes a difference in rural USA or Baja Mexico.


I really really need to capture a better image of the electrical panel I have here. Recently I was checking out some ambulances at a local junkyard and I think I have a way cleaner and better setup. Of course I also know Nick will chop off my other leg if I ever hack into this

More pics to come this weekend when we get the big blue burb on the road and wrap up some more inside stuff.

[justcuz]

Nice clean work for sure.
I like the coolant sight glass in the heater hose, where did you buy that?
It is always best to have a defined build plan, when deviating from it, consult your builder. The reason is if you did not build the entire system, changing adding or modifying anything (especially electrical) could have detrimental effects on the rest of the system and negatively impact performance of the vehicle.
Maybe you should have Nick build in a powered buss bar for your auxiliary electrical add ons.

[rjsdad]

How much was the MAACO paint job?

[1leglance]

MAACO was around $2500 for blue with white top and some body work
it is pretty but fragile...it scratches easily..seems to not be as bonded to the primer as I would like
oh well, when the brutal Phoenix sun chews it up in 5 yrs or so enough time will have passed to paint it with something a little more high quality.

Paint just ain't cheap and the way we get desert pinstripping here in the southwest it is hard to invest alot of money into.
I might look into something much harder down the road but my wife likes how it looks and this is the first 4wd that she makes positive comments on so I am happy

[Average Joe]

Quality work! I digg the functionality of your Sub.

[mosesburb]

Well, since the owner found it necessary to take yet ANOTHER vacation during this project, I figured it would be a good time to add a little color to the story from the guy in the trenches here (he's not here to protest and once he gets back, maybe he'll fire me!!). Several pics were posted that didn't really come out too clear, so I'll add some that are a bit easier to look at. Anyways, lets take a quick look at some of the behind the scenes action taking place on this janke hooptie.

We started with a NOS TBI intake manifold from my inventory:



This truck also got a Denso H/D starter:



We scrounged our parts out of some local wrecking yards and I proceeded to go through all of them before installation. Here is the throttle body when I was installing new shaft bushings:



I also modified the original pressure regulator so it is adjustable now:



Here it is with its new Delco IAC and TPS on it:



I went through the distributor using all new Delco components (except for the Blue Streak cap and rotor):



Shot of the dual electric fan setup that got installed. He bought the shroud from somewhere and it is set up for some other brand of 12" fans. These Spal hurricane machines I found which are also 12" require a larger hole in the shroud, so I plasma cut a 3/8" ring out of the inside diameter of the fan holes in the shroud. I got those mounted up then I converted the connectors on the fans over to a MetriPack 630 setup so the connectors will be the same as a factory electric fan setup and weatherproof as well.



The radiator was found to be junk, so it was replaced also.

In order to convey how nice this is turning out, one must understand what the raw material consisted of. The following pics are some of what was removed to try to de-janke this thing:





High-speed, light weight battery hold-down:



Uh, <facepalm>: (The brake pedal was his birthday present from me last year. Having an aftermarket left leg makes hitting the tiny stock brake pedal very difficult, so I figured this would be a good addition to the truck)



Dual battery setup: Safety third!!



Nothing but the best:



Now the wiring was a challenge as there are so many accessories in this particular truck that many modifications had to be made before a harness could be installed. We started with an American Autowire setup that we got from tkorinek. It is a real nice setup, it uses high quality GXL wire, but I had to put a bunch of hours into modification to make what we needed to run all of the electrical crap in this truck. Just a note, if you don't have a bunch of weird stuff in your rig, the harness goes in very easily--I highly recommend them. So anyways, I put a bunch of time into the harness and the end result looked like this:



Getting a bit closer:



Underhood rough-in:



We used a really neat Dakota Digital fan controller to control the electric fans, but with where this hooptie is going to be taken, I figured an emergency bypass of everything fancy in the fan circuit would be a good idea. The fuses get pulled out of the Weatherpack fuse holders and those connectors get installed in these female connectors. The ring terminal gets connected to the main power distribution bus bar with a wing nut and the fans are on, period. No switches, no relays, nothing. If the fan motors work and the truck has 12 volts, the fans will be on.



All of the wiring for rear ac, roof rack lights and solar panel. All run in appropriate size and color codes using the OE thermal cross linked polyethylene jacketed wire: (the remnants of the stock lamp harness has been removed since the pic was taken...)



The fuel injection setup needed a cable style gas pedal setup, so I made and adapter to run the cable setup mounted to the mechanical pedal mounts in the firewall:



Installed:



Here is a little clearer photo of the cluster I built for this thing. Lance wanted the tach hose clamped to the column.....Ugh. I couldn't do that, so I mounted it in the dash. It is one of those Autometer retro series pieces. Looks kind of neat in there:



A three gauge dash-top cluster:



A slightly clearer pic of the cool pack I built for the truck. It consists of a full-height condenser. I had to modify the hood latch for clearance of the condenser. The large heat exchanger on the driver side is the 10 x 11 x 1-1/2" thick trans cooler with a thermostat visible at the bottom of the center grille support. The heat exchanger on the passenger side is for the power steering fluid. Here in the desert, power steering fluid gets insanely hot, so a cooler is a good addition to prolong the life of o-rings in the pump and box. I made all of the ac lines to fit the specific areas where they could fit into.:



Speaking of ac hoses, here are the underhood hoses complete with tees for the rear ac lines:



This is what they looked like when I brought them home:



Here is a better pic of the electrical "sub-panel" on the passenger side of the firewall:



So I think I have caught up to where Lance has posted without getting ahead of him on it. Maybe if I do he'll fire me!! Woohoo!!

[Average Joe]

Thanx for the extra pics Mosesburb. That was quite a upgrade!

[mosesburb]

Originally Posted by Average Joe

Thanx for the extra pics Mosesburb. That was quite a upgrade!

Yeah, it sure was. Once I got it to a point that some miles needed to be put on it, I contacted Lance and he jumped on his private jet (the one he uses only for vacations) and came home to take delivery of his prized hooptie. All seems well after working out a few bugs here and there (I suggested firing me over the problems, but he refuses to do that--what's a guy have to do to get fired around here??) I received no communications pertaining to this vehicle today, so I'm assuming it is functioning as intended.

It still has some more things to be done/finished, but it was time to start driving it to shake out any problems, etc. One issue is the cam in this motor is much larger than a TBI system is prepared to deal with, so I just ordered the third prom for it. The second was worlds better than the first, but is still putting too much fuel into the motor. It sounds like this one should do the trick. Beyond that, it's just a matter of the little things that pop up when this much stuff is changed at one time.

[justcuz]

Nice work Nick! Those wiring photos before the project looked a little scary.
I still want to know where the coolant sight glass in the heater hose came from?

[notchbackgta]

Originally Posted by justcuz

I still want to know where the coolant sight glass in the heater hose came from?

I think that is a coolant shut off for the heater core for an aftermarket A/C system, but I could be wrong

[justcuz]

Is it electric? I see a possible green wire going to it. I thought is was a sight glass or a coolant filter of some type. A sight glass would be nice to have, since it would show air pockets in the system while running, you could also check your water pump performance easily that way too.

[mosesburb]

If it has a green wire going to it then it is the heater control valve. Yes, it is electrical and it is hotter than the hubs of hell in normal operation. I inadvertently touched it with a finger tip and it almost immediately blistered (temp not related to coolant temp). It is part of the Vintage Air kit.

Maybe the owner can tear himself away from vacation planning and post up some more pics of progress...... I know for a fact there has been some...

[1leglance]

Why post on the building when it is more fun to post on the playing in the dirt

As is my norm I can't wait for a project to be "finished" before getting in the dirt...mainly because I never believe they are ever finished and because there are just many cool places to go to wait too long..

And it has been a long long couple months to have my burb down...but well worth it.
Even through we still have some tuning to do the thing runs so well it is like a stock early 90's burb. And that is a great complement to Nick that his work makes the truck drive like it is right off a showroom floor.
Nick is a bit of a worry wort so our first outing had to be fairly close to town but at least we got into a nice variety of trail conditions as we headed out east of Phoenix to play.

Airing down is so always good idea and with my Extreme Outback setup it will be more of a pleasure to air up again. The Extreme Outback stuff has been on all my rigs. Now full disclosure I used to be sponsored by them but I paid full boat for this High Output compressor and tank and will again on every rig in the future. Just great stuff with great people backing it up.
Here are our rigs getting ready to air down in the parking lot where all the buggy guys park their trailers.


Nick wanted me running in full diagnostic mode so we would know what to do for the next chip burn.
Of course my console is still in temp/trial mode and the laptop stand isn't built but why would that stop me


Easy start to the day just keeping an eye out for high speed oncoming side by sides, atvs, motos, trucks and who knows what else.

[1leglance]

Getting a little more interesting with some rocks, gravel and twisty areas of the trail.


Watch the speed around corners as you never know what you might bonk into.


Or what interesting things might be written on the rocks...nothing ancient here, just a friendly comment about current mine claims.


This was fresh enough to get a little beef jerky off of for lunch....but the smell was a bit strong so back into the rigs and down the trail we went.


I am not a rockcrawler by nature but if there is something cool worth seeing I don't mind taking on a challenge. However my goal is to to keep the gear from getting broken, and not just because I don't want Nick to have to work on my toys anymore.

[1leglance]

And this was the cool stuff worth seeing...some really neat mining operations from back in the day. These guys knew how to pick a spot to setup.


Local stone and much muscle went into putting this place together. Impressive.


Iron rods through the walls with cool nuts on the ends to hold the smelter building together.
And you could still see lots of melted slag on the walls.




Not sure where the bricks were made but the arch work was nice and it has held up to the test of time.


I hiked up the wash to check out the spring where the water for this operation came from. Pretty view back to the ruins. Of course the guys who built all this were not about the scenery. Just getting the ore crushed, smelted and into a form that resulted in money in the bank.
This was a silver operation if I remember right, one of the bazillion mines in the desert southwest and nice to not find one with graffiti or trash everywhere.

[1leglance]

Since the rig ran so well on its first outing we figured we ought to head out of town and play a bit for Black Friday and the Saturday after...beats the crowds any day.

Some strange white mineral deposit from something marked on an old map as a "deep well", the families had fun climbing all over it.


King of Arizona mine and surrounding mines are some neat places to check out. A bunch of work to get the good stuff out of the ground back in the day.


Army proving grounds where live fire happens. Lucky for us nothing going on with the holiday weekend so we could cross over to get to asphalt. At least we hoped there was nothing since the gates were open and no flags flying.


Strange rock hill, really looked out of place. And I parked here at the military signage/gate to make sure we all agreed that it was ok to cross. Nothing like being the guy in front when you aren't sure if the artillery range is live


We found ourselves in Fort Horn, this is one of the place Gen Patton did his desert training in prep for taking on the Germans in Africa. The rocks are laid out where the huts and roads were. Very cool to imagine what it was like in the 40's.


Monument to the men who died out here learning that you need more than a quart of water a day to survive in the desert...hey remember this is the same time in history when folks would go on a picnic to watch atomic bomb testing.
Close up on the stone on the shrine.




All in all I am super happy with all the hard work Nick put into my rig. Still a few things to do but it runs sooo much better and unlike past rigs I don't ever catch myself thinking about replacing it with something else.
Old iron is a joy to see in the driveway, a blast to drive and my entire family is happy with the rig. It has plenty of room to sleep inside and all the ability to go down a trail or down a highway that I could want.

[justcuz]

Cool trip. You ever get an idea of your fuel consumption?
My Dad served under Pattons command for a time in Europe. He was in the 83rd Infantry in WWII.
Anybody up on their history knows the winter of 1944-45 was one of Europes worst
I never could get my Dad to go camping with me.
He said after he came home he pledged to never sleep another night on the ground.

[1leglance]

Mixed 75mph highway and rocky to deep sand trail gave me 11.1mpg for the first tank I calc'd.
Nick wants to get more Scanner data and have another prom or two burnt to see if he can dial up more fuel pressure to better atomize things.
I will keep updating mpg numbers tank by tank, I am a slow driver by nature and these things are bricks so I will be happy even if 12mpg is by best as it runs so well.

Glad your dad made it home from a terrible war. And I can understand why he feels the way he does, but maybe day trips and cabin stays would get him on the trail

[justcuz]

You should be able to do a little better than that. My 93 gets 15-16 on the road, 12-13 around town. That is with 285/75x16's and 3.73 gears. Engine is stock with a 3" cat back exhaust. My Dad was not much of an outdoorsman. Thought I was nuts for my lifestyle, when I was young. Wild land firefighter, 4 wheeling, rock climbing and camping.
We shared a lot of other interests, outdoorsmanship was not one of them.

[1leglance]

I will be happy with whatever the mpg turns out to be...happy when I look at the rig and happy on the trail.
4.10 gears, big square body design, 6600lbs of steel, nothing to help me pass a pump

[Average Joe]

Thanks for the latest outing pics. Cool to see all the mods working well. Thats one heckuva good friend you got!

[1leglance]

I know it has been a really long time since I updated this thread...just too much fun actually out using my Burb.
However I did start a new thread on my efforts to learn ECM tuning for my TBI setup.
http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/s...32#post7358032

Once it is worked out I will put an update into this thread

[RANDY COX]

I liked the pixs I surely do miss my ole burb....