The Story Of A Cummins Suburban (Lots Of Pics)

[MrBeast]

Man I am Really glad to see you are enjoying the burban.

I am fixing to move into a new shop next week I will finally be able to dive into my 72 getting going with my 4x4 & cummins swap.

[mosesburb]

Yeah, it is being thoroughly enjoyed--and used.

The damn air filter is still wet today. I brought it in the house tonight. I had time tonight to check the rest of the truck out. Trans and case were good. Rear axle was 1/2 quart low. No leakage anywhere. Hub seals are dry, pinion seal is dry, cover is dry, vent is dry, axle flanges are dry. Maybe someone siphoned some out?? Stealin' my gear oil!! Weird. I greased the front end and slip joints on the driveshafts. Now, if my air filter will dry out, I can reinstall it and put this thing back in service.

[jbclassix]

If you have articulated your rear axle enough, the oil ran toward the hubs... not harmful

['70_402]

this is truly one of the coolest builds i've ever seen... and two huge thumbs up with taking pics and documenting your journey... way to go man.

[mosesburb]

Originally Posted by 70'_402

this is truly one of the coolest builds i've ever seen... and two huge thumbs up with taking pics and documenting your journey... way to go man.

Hey, thanks!!

I was reminded today of a couple comments a buddy of mine made about this thing that I thought were pretty unique. I had to go over to his house for something a while back and when I pulled up he came out and said that inside the house it sounded like a super-sixteen with a load of concrete just pulled up. My truck sounds like a cement truck.

One other time I was going to stop by to help him out with something and I guess he was mowing his back lawn. He shut his mower off and thought he heard my truck running out front. He stopped and said cool, he's here. He went out front but was disappointed to find it was just a fire truck idling in the street.

[justcuz]

Not sure how big your air filter is or how it is shaped, but I have a couple of ideas for you. When I ran the foam outer on the paper element, I would dry it out by using a paint roller dryer (the kind that spins it). I would fold it in two and stick it where you would put a brush handle in the spinner. Also you can buy one of those salad spinners at a discount store. They are plastic and pretty inexpensive. In the end, I just got tired of the maintaining them and changed my paper more often. I blow them out with an air hose after each off road use, or every 2nd oil change (6,000 miles).

[mosesburb]

Now that I know what works best for cleaning the element, I can start with that instead of try this and try that.... Also, if I service it in summer instead of winter, the filter will be dry before I can put the hose down. Ideally, I would prefer a paper element, but in all of my research, I could not find one that fit my required size specifications. I prefer paper myself.

[mosesburb]

We decided to go up north and play in the fresh snow today. We were going to head over to my buddy's place (previous snow pics in this thread), but due to circumstances beyond our control, it ended up not being in our best interest to travel that far today. So, that being the case, we decided to just head up to Prescott. It should be a nice drive and it is high enough in elevation to get the snow necessary to operate the sled we brought along. The interstates were closed up north and the snow was tapering off this am, so we figured with a forecast of light flurries in Prescott we would be cool.

Well, the journey started off beautifully. We left the house ahead of schedule and with the interstate we were traveling on being closed north of where we were going, traffic was almost non-existent. The roads were clear and so were the skies:



Absolutely beautiful. The left lane was recently cindered, so passing was an easy task. We traveled down the road getting closer to our destination and when we got to Prescott Valley we had to stop for a red light. Upon accelereation from the light I immediately discovered the need to lock the front hubs and engage the front axle. I did that and all was well. Truck drives great in snow even with the Detroit locker in the rear and mud tires (not so good in ice, of course). Well, we got a bit closer to Prescott and we ran into the "light flurries" that were forecasted:



Yeah, visibility was not so good. We pulled into a parking lot to wait it out and see what happened:



We sat there for a bit and about ten minutes after the "light flurries" subsided, we were left with this:



It worked out good because I had called a friend of mine that lives up there and he was actually home so we swung by there. He was loading his hooptie up to go wheeling while we were there:



Right on the other side of his buggy happens to be a hill perfect for letting my boy test gravity on his sled. It was pretty steep and ended with a fenceline at the bottom but he did a good job of stopping before he hit it.

We played around there for a while and then headed in to town to get something to eat. After we ate, we started heading back down the hill. On the way, we were greeted with some white hills that weren't so white when we passed them coming in:



I stopped somewhere along the way to unlock the hubs and was greeted with the beginnings of ice beards on the hubs: (the dents in the hub cap are previous hail damage)



So all in all it was a fun day. I did have some problems leading up to the departure, but nothing that was going to put the truck out of service. I will post more details as soon as I figure out exactly what happened.

[MrBeast]

Man seeing those pictures sure makes me miss the mountains, Texas is nice, but there is just something about the mountians and fresh snow.

I am sure it is that much better when you have a cummins suburban to go enjoy it with.

[jbclassix]

Your "light flurries" pictures look like what I was seeing yesterday coming home when the weather-man was calling for a chance of snow! When I left Cali for Wyoming so many people told me I was crazy for putting a detorit locker in my pick-up. Well for snow I wouldnt have it any other way IMO. I have the factory "locker" in the Yukon and it makes it so much easier to drive. I have the same differential in the 14B SF in the White burb and I think open in snow would suck. I want to put the same diff in the front of the white burb... just for fun! I love snow. I don't want to go anywhere without snow. I love your pictures! Oh yeah, I droe around Wyoming for a year without a front driveshaft in the Pick-up... only the locker!

[mosesburb]

Thanks!! Yeah, locker in snow = good. Locker on ice = baaad.

Well, now that my project is tapering off, I am able to accurately inventory my parts and supplies that have accumulated over the past eight years or so. I have made it a mission to organize the shop/shed/side yard/etc. It was getting pretty bad out there. Walking through my shop was very similar to walking through a three foot snow drift. Waaay too much stuff. I started cleaning it out a few weeks ago. I am throwing away, recycling, scrapping or organizing what I have. So far it has worked great. I am ejoying all of the available space I have now. I have gotten rid of about 10-12 garbage cans of stuff, probably the same number of recycle cans, I loaded the Suburban with about 1800lb of scrap, and I have a load of household hazmat and what looks like one dump run and one more trip to the scrap yard left. Ironically, I have not gone through my stash of Suburban parts yet. I have just been making room around the shop.

So, as I clean, I find more and more stuff. Some that was or is slated for installation on the Sub. Some of the stuff has been bouncing around for awhile. One of those items was a pinion shovel for the 14FF that I got from DIY 4X4. I had installed it when I got it, but the bolts were the wrong length and did not engage enough threads. I bought different bolts, but they were too long. Bah!! I pulled it off and left it in the shop. Well, I got sick of moving it around so I grabbed it and a handful of bolts and put it on. No issues whatsoever. I have no idea why it gave me so much grief prior, but I got it on now. I guess I really don't need it so much now that he pinion is rotated up now, but I figured I had it and I am sick of moving it in the shop, so maybe it will do some good on the truck instead.



I also came across a set of airbags that I had. These had not been lingering around for too long, but I still had moved them several times. So on they went. I pretty much used them as they were, but I used some of the IHC flange head bolts and flange lock-nut for the bracketry. These got used when I hauled the 1800+ pounds of scrap to the yard. I am engineering an air compressor setup on the truck to fill the bags. I haven't gotten it finished, so it is just bags right now.



I put new backup lenses in the truck when I built it a couple years ago. They turned yellow almost immediately. I picked up a set of NOS Guide backup lenses recently and decided to throw them in.

Crap vs NOS:



More crap vs NOS:



So with the craptastic quality of the backup lenses, I was a bit leery of getting aftermarket park lamp lenses for the front bumper. Well, in amongst my cleaning, I found the original bumper that was bent up pretty good at the frame shop once-upon-a-time. Whoa, the lenses look pretty good. I compared them to the ones that came in my used bumper and my originals are much brighter than those, so I swapped my originals back in:



So I am still in full-on cleaning mode, but some progress is being made on the truck. Hopefully I will get the rest of this cleaned up and get on to some projects that I am hoping to do while it is still cool out.

[67chevy1series]

looks good i wsh i had nos stuff.....not much nos stuff makes its way to calif. and if so it is usually 69 72 stuff

[DBear]

might have missed this, but what size lift you running on this rig....4 inch??

[mosesburb]

Originally Posted by DBear

might have missed this, but what size lift you running on this rig....4 inch??

Yeah, that is what the lift was marketed as. I think it was a bit more that four as a friend of mine had a 72 K20 Sub with six inches of lift and they were equal in height, so who knows.

[mosesburb]

I guess things are getting a bit boring around this thread as I haven't been doing much except driving this thing lately. So, with that being the case, I will bore you some more with some fantastic pictures of my recent adventure. Actually they are not that fantastic, but hey, maybe it will inspire more people to get their tin in the wind as opposed to having their junk in the driveway.

On with the boredom!! Well, there was some spring break activity around the house so plans were made. Those plans quickly deteriorated as the plans were a bit ambitious for the time given to complete the adventure. I decided to put a plan together to see if some dirt could be put under the BFG's. Success was achieved.

Once upon a time, long, long ago, before the age of highways (or cars for that matter), there was a mining community called Jerome (yeah, the same one as before--what can I say, I like the town). In this town they mined copper. The only way for supplies to get into town and ore to get out was to pack it on mule/burros and haul it out. This is a very expensive way to transport ore (especially when copper prices drop). It was decided that a better way needed to be developed. The better way was a railroad. There was no easy way to get there though. That minor detail did not stop them from building one anyway. So, this railroad had to be narrow gauge because of the terrain it had to traverse. It is claimed that it was the crookedest railroad in the world when it was built--I have not verified this, but in the twelve miles right out of Jerome, there are 126 curves in it just right there, so I would say that it is a plausible statement. When finished it would run about thirty miles over to a town called Jerome Junction (now called Chino Valley) where it met up with the standard gauge railroad.

Sometime after the invention of the motor vehicle and improved road systems, this railroad was deemed obsolete as supplies were brough up through the valley instead of over the mountain (and there were smelters on site at this point), so the tracks were pulled up and it became just another dirt road. Well, this dirt road still exists today, and we ran it (again). The last trip to Jerome came into town from the east, this one comes in from the west.

Ok, enough of the blah, blah. Here are some pics.

The rail road starts out in high desert scrub and is basically just a long straight dirt road. After a while it strts gaining some altitude and starts bending and weaving more. It is a nice narrow shelf road once it hits the hills:



It continues on and there are several narrow cuts through hills/mountains:



Along the way, years ago, I found this thing that I guess would be best described as a culvert. It goes under the rail bed and is made of red rock monoliths.



The craftsmanship of this thing is gorgeous!! This was made to be functional--not aesthetically pleasing, but the men who built it crafted it in such a way that it is amazing to look at. This thing would be a steel tube today. This is all hand finished red rock:



This 45* bend in the abutment is on the downstream side of the culvert. I have no idea why it is there on the downstream side, but it gives an idea of the quality of workmanship involved:



This is the only one that I know of on the line, but it is so hard to find that there may be several more and I just never saw them. It is very well hidden and even knowing where it is, it is very difficult to re-find. Along the trail the color of the rock being driven over changes regularly. In the middle of this pic you can see the rock change from grey to red (right to left was the direction of travel at this point):



Somewhere along the way, my orange Suburban became camouflaged with its surroundings--kind of a rare occurence with an orange vehicle:



That pic was taken with my phone because at some point, in the middle of nowhere my phone goes off. I have a text message. It was the guy filling in for me at work texting me to say he hates the area that I work in and that I need to come back to work so he doesn't have to run it anymore. Well, being the comassionate person that I am, I began taking pics every few minutes and sending them to him. He did not see the humor in it that I did. Some people.

The limestone that was used in the smelter was quarried not too far from town on the railroad. This is near the quarry:



Gratuitous truck shot: (another phone pic)



Well, this gets us close to Jerome. I have pics (and stories) that continue on from here that I can post if anyone would like some additional boredom, but I am out of time for today.

[1985-GMC]

Yes please continue on with the "story" and pics! That is one of the reasons that makes this thread so cool so please carry on when you have time. I would love to some day go on trips and see cool places like this in my old trucks.

[MrBeast]

Diesel Burban Adventures, do you really need anything else?

[FRENCHBLUE72]

Id like more boredom..

[mosesburb]

Originally Posted by MrBeast

Diesel Burban Adventures, do you really need anything else?

Some people would probably like more, but I am pretty content with it.

Originally Posted by FRENCHBLUE72

Id like more boredom..

Ok, if you insist;

So, as you approach Jerome, you come upon the piles of overburden removed from the mine when they switched from tunnel/shaft mining to open pit mining. This is a tiny mine in comparison to the massive behemoths in operation today down in Hayden and out in Globe, but it is still amazing to see the amount of material moved:



The buildings in the right corner of the hood belong to a former "suburb" of Jerome. Back in the mining days there were actually a few suburbs of Jerome. This one, like most, grew up around a mine shaft that was dug in search of the copper ore that is so prevalent in this area. Well, the copper mine failed, but only because they hit gold and silver instead of copper. Uh, whoops. So the town of Haynes Arizona was begun. After the mine played out, a few hearty individuals remained and opened the site as "The Ghost Town".



It is basically a giant collection of crap. It really must be experienced to be able to appreciate the broad depth of the collection. There is a massive collection of old, large trucks: (this is only a few of them)







There were quite a few International Harvesters in the collection. I'm not too knowedgable on the combines but there were a few pretty cool examples of Chicago's finest in there. This one was pretty cool and very complete:



There were sheds full of all kinds of stuff. One shed had loads of old chainsaws in it. On the floor, hanging from the rafters, on shelves:



Over in another corner were outboard motors. Here is just a few of them:



One building was set up to look like an old parts house:



Then there is the 10,154 cubic inch engine that powered a generator at another mining town. It was transported here (somehow) and can be started for your enjoyment for only ten bucks:



We wandered around here for awhile and then set a course for Jerome itself. It is only about a mile away at this point and if anyone is interested, I have some pics of that town too.

[1sik7t2]

American pickers should go there some time

Originally Posted by mosesburb

some people would probably like more, but i am pretty content with it.



Ok, if you insist;

so, as you approach jerome, you come upon the piles of overburden removed from the mine when they switched from tunnel/shaft mining to open pit mining. This is a tiny mine in comparison to the massive behemoths in operation today down in hayden and out in globe, but it is still amazing to see the amount of material moved:



the buildings in the right corner of the hood belong to a former "suburb" of jerome. Back in the mining days there were actually a few suburbs of jerome. This one, like most, grew up around a mine shaft that was dug in search of the copper ore that is so prevalent in this area. Well, the copper mine failed, but only because they hit gold and silver instead of copper. Uh, whoops. So the town of haynes arizona was begun. After the mine played out, a few hearty individuals remained and opened the site as "the ghost town".



it is basically a giant collection of crap. It really must be experienced to be able to appreciate the broad depth of the collection. There is a massive collection of old, large trucks: (this is only a few of them)







there were quite a few international harvesters in the collection. I'm not too knowedgable on the combines but there were a few pretty cool examples of chicago's finest in there. This one was pretty cool and very complete:



there were sheds full of all kinds of stuff. One shed had loads of old chainsaws in it. On the floor, hanging from the rafters, on shelves:



over in another corner were outboard motors. Here is just a few of them:



one building was set up to look like an old parts house:



then there is the 10,154 cubic inch engine that powered a generator at another mining town. It was transported here (somehow) and can be started for your enjoyment for only ten bucks:



we wandered around here for awhile and then set a course for jerome itself. It is only about a mile away at this point and if anyone is interested, i have some pics of that town too.

[mosesburb]

Originally Posted by 1sik7t2

American pickers should go there some time

It would be a fun show there, but I bet the old timer wouldn't sell anything. Just a hunch though. The collection seems way too diverse to have any of it be for sale. I could be wrong though.

The pics really do not do the size of the collection any justice whatsoever--seriously. It is enourmous. Everything wedged into any available space. It actually takes away from some of the visual impact of the collection just because it is so crampt. Absolutely amazing collection though. I could probably spend a few weeks in there just checking the stuff out. Very cool.

[Dinos63]

wow what agreat build thread, and moose you i love your work and this truck nice job!!

[MrBeast]

No, I cant take any more boredom, My brain has been overcome with the urge to get an old Dodge Power Wagon, Stuff a Cummins in it, and put a Old restored Lincoln Welder on the back.

Too many projects, must resist urge for more!

[Sequoyah]

Me and my wife were out there and stayed in the old hospital. Merkin and caduceus vineyards have a shop there in town too! It's Maynard James Keenan's venture into wine making. Fun town!

[FRENCHBLUE72]

Very cool little town..