86 Suburban w/ 56k miles

[Advanced Design]

That looks very good. Love your Suburban!

[Corts60]

Originally Posted by Advanced Design

That looks very good. Love your Suburban!

Thanks Doug!

[Corts60]

That’s more like it.

[Palf70Step]

[Corts60]

Thanks Bill!

I think it looks even better outside!

[Corts60]

Time to get this thing a little lower now. Drop spindles and rear shackles should be here in a couple weeks!

[Corts60]

Moving right along, time to tear down the engine for a new Melling MTC-1 camshaft. I plan to tow my boat quite a bit in the future and need a little more uumph than the underwhelming 165 factory horses. Haha

This is as far as I got today.

[Willowrun]

Cam swaps with the engine installed always add some fun to the mix. Interested to hear your seat of pants comparison to the stock cam.

[Advanced Design]

Will be a nice project to do. I will be following along too.

[Corts60]

Waiting for the engine parts to show up, but my lowering shackles arrived so I thought I might take a swing at those tonight. Boy will this be fun….

Turns out the ol’ assembly line put this bolt in so there is no way you could ever get it out. Time for the sawzall.

[Corts60]

Yep, I immediately regret digging into the suspension right now. Every bolt is frozen and needs to be cut out. Jooooooyyyyy.

[Corts60]

Well this escalated quickly. Every bolt was seized in the leaf spring eyes. I ended up cutting out everything. So! New leaf springs, hardware, and u-bolts are on the way. And can someone tell me what GM was thinking on the forward leaf spring perch, putting the nut in that little pocket? How is anyone supposed to get in there!

Here she is as of today. The axle is just laying there loose. I’m going to drop it off at a shop in town and have the pinion seal replaced while I’m in here.

[Corts60]

Got everything apart and all the perches and frames cleaned up ready for install. Now just waiting on parts!

Have to get a neighbor over here to help me load up the axle so I can take it to a shop for new seals.

[Wobpb377]

Your shop is just as clean as your burb

[Corts60]

I got the new Leafs and 2” drop shackles in. No pics yet. I think I only netted a 1.5” drop or so in actuality, but it’s enough for now I guess. I need to be able to tow my boat with this truck so doing an axle flip won’t be practical.

I decided not to put in the cam right now. I was only planning on spending $70 on the shackle kit, but ended up blowing close to $900 with new leafs and hardware. So that took the wind out of my sails for spending big money on the engine. Cam and proflo 4 will have to be next winter!

I did take the valve covers and intake off and cleaned everything up with paint and new gaskets. The valve cover gaskets were definitely due. Everything is back together now. I also installed a thrush welded muffler and love it! Sounds sooo much better.

[Corts60]

So then I thought I would knock out the drop spindles today since that shouldn’t take long, right? Nope. Lower ball joints are toast so now I have to wait until later this week when the new ones arrive. Dang it!

[Corts60]

All back together! Got the new lower ball joints in both sides and installed the drop spindles. Really happy with the front end stance. The truck has a little bit of a rake, so I may have to consider dropping the rear more. But I want to wait and see how she sits when I’m towing before I do that.

[Advanced Design]

Nice work on the drop, the Burb looks really good!

[Corts60]

Originally Posted by Advanced Design

Nice work on the drop, the Burb looks really good!

Thanks!

The rear is gonna have to come down some more for sure. I went to the shop and hooked it up to the boat trailer. She still sits too high even with a load on it, so I’ll be ordering the 4” drop leaf’s later this year.

[Corts60]

I ended up having some custom 1” wheel spacers made for the rear. The tires sat too far inside for me. These spacers are hub centric and very high quality. Pretty happy with them.

[OutlawDrifter]

Suburban is looking good! My K2500 has a 2" spacer on the rear, not big on the sucked in look myself.

Will you need to do an air bag helper with the 4" drop leaf?

[Corts60]

Originally Posted by OutlawDrifter

Suburban is looking good! My K2500 has a 2" spacer on the rear, not big on the sucked in look myself.

Will you need to do an air bag helper with the 4" drop leaf?

I think I’m gonna stay with the stock leafs for now. I want tow the boat around a little this summer and see how it goes.