Impressed with our Burb!

[RDrancher]

Our thirty year old Suburban...doesn't idle well, timed by ear (missing timing tab), egr most likely burnt up, carb is jacked, cat clogged and rusted out, and I'm pretty sure the guy I bought it from at the tire shop didn't balance the tires. I've had everything I need to get her into shape for the last year...except time. I own my own biz and we've been blessed to be swamped with work for the last three years.

Since we've owned the Burb we've had fun running to the local 1/8th mile to tailgate and here and there for this and that, but nothing more than a few miles. I planned on getting her ship-shape before really putting the old girl into service...then, I needed her!

My stepson graduated from Air Force BMT this week and I needed to get seven of us (ranging from one year old to old like me) to San Antonio. I have a couple crew cab diesel rigs, but they don't hold seven bodies, so I decided to prepare the Burb. My preparation consisted of packing spare belts, hoses, plugs and an HEI module into a small toolbox...pointing her South and hitting the road.

The only thing I had to "fix" during our 12 hour trip was to add one quart of oil. I found a no-shake sweet spot at 67-69 mph and she averaged 13 mpg.

I'm impressed!

[Nodnarb76]

Great story! These things last forever!
Been daily driving mine for 2 1/2 years now, 75 miles a day round trip to work!

[68Timber]

Awesome! I've had a few Burb's but never a square, I hope to fix that sooner or later.

[krazy_texan]

couple summers ago i was in route to Fort worth, Tx from Des Moines, Ia with my 1990 burb it did great averaging 16mpg all the way to BFE kansas then had a freak accident and the transfer case grenaded on me. have that fixed now and wont hesitate to drive it anywhere.

[RDrancher]

We'll be covering much of the same highway in a few weeks, heading to Waterloo for my mom's 90th birthday. We'll be leaving the diesel crewcabs at home and taking the Burb. The old gal rides like a Caddy.

During out last trip I noticed a slight vibration at speed. I thought that it was a tire out of balance, but I've since determined it to be the center support / carrier bearing. I'll be replacing that and installing a Weiand intake and Summit carb before the trip. I might even get to the exhaust...or not. Should be fun.

[justpball]

They are so fun!!! Great story!

[Hoods69BadBowTie]

That's awesome great story made me smile. Nothing like rolling in some old rig and having fun while doing it glad it went off with out any major hitches

[RDrancher]

Just rolled in from a 1700 mile round trip to Cedar Falls, Iowa for my mom's 90th B-day bash. Once again...I got exactly nothing done on the Burb before heading out. Didn't even get time to replace the center support bearing. Talk about an adventure in transportation! The old girl handled the trip just fine, loaded up with five of us and all of our gear. We hit rain most of the way there and heavy mind-numbing fog most of the way back, but we had a lot of fun hitting the road in our thirty year old, no-prep rig.

Rocking year plates, Felix and peeling clear patina somewhere in Kansas.

[RDrancher]

Well I still haven't done anything with our Burb since our Iowa trip, but I did knock the mud daubers off her and got out to the Old School Bracket Summer Nationals at Northstar Dragway this weekend. https://www.facebook.com/NSDTX/

[RDrancher]

A few months ago I parked the Burb since it started losing a quart of oil on even a small trip. I'm sure it's been burning some, but the majority was running down the back of the engine. My son and I finally started on the intake/carb swap yesterday. This was some vacuum/oil leaking son of a gun. The oil pressure sending unit was leaking too. What a mess.

I've been waiting a long time to use this t-shirt for a rag...

[RDrancher]

After our last trip to town I figured I either had to park the Burb indefinitely or get some work done on it. The oil leaks were out of control and the engine miss was getting so bad that I could barely keep it running at stop signs. Besides those major problems, the steering wheel has turned into the sticky side of warm duct tape and the shocks are history, (just to name a couple of a hundred or so things.)

I should of gotten some of the repairs/mods done before we moved when I had a garage, but I didn't. So since I haven't gotten around to pouring the floor or installing electricity in my barn/shop...let's get out the tools and get some work done in the gravel. I'm a glutton for punishment.

Some of the goodies I'm going to finally install have been in my possession for quite awhile. The Weiand Action Plus intake and Summit 600cfm carb are two of them.


My stepson is a lot smaller than me (not to mention 40 yrs. younger). I can still kinda get in and work on it like this, but the result is...in my sig.


Rolling shop and workbench.


The Weiand was cheap and they cut a few corners...or more accurately SHOULD have cut at least one for the a/c bracket. Had to do a little grinding on the bracket.


And the alternator mounting hole was a good 1/4" away from the hole in the bracket. My washer mod doesn't look great, but it works.

[RDrancher]

I did have an issue with the intake gaskets. The first set had been sitting in my toolbox for a couple of years and one fell apart when I opened the package. I headed for the nearest 20-mile-away parts store and picked up a set of Edelbrock gaskets that the counter monkey said were his favorite. When I got back and set one of the gaskets on there it didn't fit. Apparently they are for Edelbrock heads which are a smidge taller on the intake side. Note to self...take reading glasses to parts store. Back to the parts store once again. Turned out okay since since somewhere along the way I misplaced the carb studs. Ii picked up two different length sets and was glad I did. I needed a longer one to mount the tv cable, throttle cable bracket. The bracket doesn't line up perfectly straight since the Summit carb base is different than a regular Holley. The bracket tab doesn't index quite right.

We put in a new set of plugs and wires that I had on hand. I'll still have to work on the wire and fuel line routing.


New a/c compressor and oil pressure sending unit too.


The Summit carb fired up and idled like a champ right out of the box. And my messy, hunk of coughing, spitting 350 sounded like a sewing machine even before I moved the distributor. Oil pressure at 30 psi at idle. Nice! Then I noticed an oil leak...bad...running down the back of the motor. At first I thought it might be the rear main, but after jacking it up for room and removing the flex plate cover to take a look-see, I think it's the valve cover gaskets. Those are getting replaced today, so I'll know for sure.

While we were working I got a package from Summit. I guess they should have put it in a pallet cage. No damage to the Western Chassis drop spindles though.

[RDrancher]

Valve covers resealed, painted and no leaks anywhere. I do need to do a bunch of cleaning from stem to stern. It looks like the bottom of the Exxon Valdez.



My wife brought me a selection of her never-wears to brighten up the timing mark on the harmonic balancer. The neon greenish worked great.


On the test drive I noticed a slight lag when I stomped on it and slight overshift going into 3rd so there's some adjusting to do. It does feel like the engine regained a few long lost horses, but it's still a dog. I'm sure the cat is plugged so exhaust work is in order. One major benefit to getting the intake leaks sealed up is that yesterday was the first time since I bought the Burb that the exhaust smell doesn't burn your eyes. Progress!

[rusty76]

Cool ride. I am definitely in on this.

[68Timber]

Diggin it for sure. How is the interior? Cool how the deluxe two-tone paint survived, especially the blue 'fade and flake off" colors.

[RDrancher]

Thanks guys!

The interior is in pretty good shape. The dash pad needs replaced, but the carpet and headliner are okay.The back seat is perfect and the third row has one cigarette melt spot in it, but otherwise it's fine. The buckets have pretty bad wear, but I'm not sure if I'll redo them since the wife wants a bench. I'll get some pics once I remove all the parts boxes.

The two-tone paint has become four or five-tone since the clear started peeling. Somewhere down the line it'll be the lighter metallic blue with a white roof (I think.)

My wife is out team sorting with her buds today so I'm in charge of the circus. While the two little clowns were busy trading blows, I removed (pried, banged, shredded) the OE shift knob. The replacement is a vintage one from non other than Monkey Wards. It came unopened from old stock and contained an assortment of sleeves. I just test fit it for now.



I have a new steering wheel, but not the adapter. Metal flake a coming.

[rusty76]

Cool

[RDrancher]

From the get-go I knew that I wanted 15" steel wheels, but not rallies. I couldn't find any oem steelies locally, so I ordered a set of from wheels_tires_more. The wheels were described as 15"x6" to fit a K10, 5 lug. Uh...ok. That should have been my first clue that they had none (clues that is.) The wheels arrived packaged nicely and were beautifully refinished in gloss black by Keystone. Unfortunately that was about the only thing nice about them. Three of the four wheels were wrong. One was a 5 on 4.75 and two were the wrong backspacing and not the same one either. I decided to keep the one correct wheel for a spare. Here it is with a few different looks.




I searched around for another source and found that Jegs had Wheel Vintiques Series 62 15x6's in bare form for over 20 bucks off each. That's a pretty good deal so I ordered a set...but they're backordered and won't be here until after March 6th. In the meantime I ordered a set of 15x7 Cragar 69's and set of center caps. I'll reveal the center caps once the whole shebang arrives next week. If it turns out looking like it does inside my head...it should look pretty good.

[rusty76]

I like the wheel choice.

[RDrancher]

So this morning I decided not to start a new job and drop the front of the Burb instead. Since that meant my son would also not be starting a new job, I put him to work while I supervised.


My youngest found a good spot for one of the old rusty caps.


Leftovers...


I was surprised that the old aluminum wheels bolted up without rubbing the lower control arms. The camber is so far off that I may have to put in shims just to drive it to the alignment shop. I couldn't help but take a stinkbug stance pic.

[rusty76]

Awesome

[RDrancher]

We ran into problem when taking the rear apart today. The nut inside the fixed end spring hanger is not welded on and there is no access to it like on the trucks. I was able to get a socket on it to but don't have a ratchet short enough to fit in there and I'm not sure there's enough room between the nut and frame to get a ratchet and the socket in there anyway. I think I'll buy another 7/8" box end wrench to sacrifice. It needs to be bent at a 90* to hold the nut.

[RDrancher]

The drop is done!

Here's a couple of things that we learned. Western Chassis shock extenders are not drilled large enough for the stock lower bolts. Maybe my Burb was a Friday or Monday build, but the driver side shackle bolts were definitely installed at the factory before the body and from the wrong direction. No way to get either of them out since the spare tire well is in the way. It would be easy to grind the head off and use a new bolt....but... Instead, I chose to tweak, jam, pry and manhandle the rear sideways and over the top of the spring after the fixed end was unbolted. Unbolting the dif mounted e-brake holder was a must for this route. Speaking of the fixed end, here's the specialty tool for holding the nut. Flat stock welded to a 7/8" socket. Sorry for the blurry pic.


New goodies arrived while we were working.




I used Monroe air shocks and mounted the filler in the...well, filler area.


The muffler outlet pipe had come loose from the muffler and the tailpipe was hanging pretty low, so we welded it back up so it doesn't drag.

[RDrancher]

Here she is finally.


I have 2.5" of clearance to the frame with 100psi in the shocks. With me 215lbs and my son 150ish bouncing on the bumper it would not bottom out easily. Doesn't feel overly stiff either. With no air in the shocks (20 lbs minimum spec'd by Monroe) I could get it to bottom out by myself. I forgot to measure, but I don't think having the 100psi in the shocks raised it by more than .5" or so. I was surprised since I thought they would raise the back up like the bags on my flatbed.


I'm going to try to get it aligned tomorrow. I'm not looking forward to driving it to the shop though. The negative camber makes it almost undrivable. I might see if I can pickup a few camber shims and stick them in there before heading out.

[rusty76]

Looking good. I'm really dig the ride height.