70 C-20 4x4 Suburban Father/Son project

[babylonflyer]

1LL I just got the name... Well what can u say im slow!!


Mucho mouse poop!!

If u need help breaking ur 350/400/205 combo ..let me know .. I can break those main spline in the 400 kinda fast with some mud around!!

Very cool keep us updated

[1leglance]

You guys are too funny...


Ok snapped a few pics of my own tonight and more questions..
This my donor tcase out of the 87 burb, looks like a 208 for sure


I don't really like how close that drivers side exhaust pipe is to the oil filter and oil pan. I will be adding some sort of heat wrap or shield or something.
It looks to me like there are lines coming out of the engine that might go to an oil cooler? I want to do an oil cooler and remote filter no matter what.


Here is a close up of those lines, and I found where the turbo gets it's oil.


So if I keep this 208 or swap to a 241 I assume I will need to get this shifter linkage from my donor at least right?, That means I will have a different shift for the tcase in my floor than my current 205 correct?


Now you can see the bracket that looks like it is missing something in this pic? Thoughts?


Another odd thing...it seems my CDR has a pipe that just leads to nothing...metal to rubber to the inner fender by the rad. I thought it was supposed to tie in somewhere before or after the turbo to create that positive crankcase ventilation?



Again thanks for all the info guys, it is really helping.
At this point I should mention that my wife is the office manager of a shop that welds/machines diesel engine heads/blocks and can do it all short of complete assembly. I am really leaning towards pulling this engine, tearing it down, get it checked out and at least doing a ring/valve/gasket simple rebuild. Also I would get the injection pump looked over and new injectors. Gear driven timing set and few other goodies.

All thoughts welcome and keep the info coming.

[jbclassix]

Let's see if I can help...

the NP208 was used in the military M1008 1.25T CUCV's so It should hold up for a while.

For your oil filter, you can replace your adapter with one out of a later model 6.5L if you want. It will turn your filter 90deg out which might give you more space. Or just relocate it.

You can relocate the shifter assembly to the floor of the 70... They really don't look that bad, several members have done that already (that's what I was going to do)

I believe that mystery bracket is for the cruise control

And yes, that hose that is going to nowhere is supposed to get plummed into the air intake before the turbo inlet.

Hope that helps!

[1leglance]

excellent info jb thanks!

I am debating going to a floor shifter instead of a column setup so both the trans & tcase are side by side. I will be making a custom center console anyway so I could hide them in style

[1leglance]

Finally got the new bucket seats installed thanks to my new buddy Nick. Not enough that I have been hounding him for diesel install knowledge (sweet cummins setup in his 72 burb) but I also wanted some mentoring on welding and fab stuff.

So this last Sunday I took up most all his day and we had a good time.

Let's have the pics tell the story...

First we needed to get an idea of where to put the seat...oh and some of those wood blocks were what the previous owner had holding his seats in place!


Nick had his mad fabricator hat on and was all about the details. Which was a good lesson for me as I am often all about the "good enough"


Tacking the bits in place was an interesting thing to learn about. At least that is what Nick said he was doing to my seat


Old guy who owned the rig before either needed a few attempts to get the seat in the right spot or a few beers before getting the drill out.


Next phase was figuring out where the rear seats needed to be for my relocation of the AC stuff.


Yeah we worked into the dark. And still didn't finish, but that is ok as I learned a ton and got to share a couple of meals with Nicks very cool family.

[1leglance]

Monday was MLK Day and instead of working on the seat frames it was more fun to spend the day with my younger son and my nephew. While my kid is a gun/knife nut (to the point of forging his own knives), my nephew had never shot before. Well that is no longer true (oh and we did clean up all our brass & target debris)


Here is the rear seat frame after I got done with my welds and fab'ing..not as pretty as Nicks work but seems plenty strong. This will get enclosed in metal & wood to blow the cold air up the center console through vents to the driver & passengers.



Plenty of room under here to build some enclosed storage space...maybe a drawer, maybe just a locking box.


Front and rear done enough to test next weekend on a 2 day camping trip. If all works well then I will pull everything for paint.



Happy wife, happy life. She would not even sit in the nasty old man seats that were in there before.


No grouchy teenager here, plenty of leg room for him.

[Beelzeburb]

Very nice work so far. Glad to see some good progress taking place already.

[jbclassix]

Looks good! I like your AC system!

[1leglance]

Hey JB,
we will see if my idea to relocate the AC works or not. Once I have the diesel engine installed I will route the hoses and I hope already have the center console built.
In theory it should work better on the floor than it did on the rear roof...but we will see

[1leglance]

So I had some time over the last few days to start tearing down the donor rig...
And thanks once again to Nick my new diesel guru for tips on extra stuff to get from the donor!

This is what I started with. Lots more rust than I first thought which has made the tear down process harder as things don't want to come apart. We are so spoiled here in the desert to be pretty much rust free. Not sure where this rig spent most of it's life?


I am so not happy with the way the previous folks did the hose work. All I can think of is to print this pic and tape it to the 70 burb with a note "Don't do this!"


The old radiator tells a real horror story...clearly it was a leaker, and the oil coil or lines or something was also letting a bit go. It does have metal tanks which I like. I plan to take it by my fav rad shop and talk to them about repair vs replacement, I just don't want plastic tanks.
I am also debating getting the trannie & oil coolers out of the rad...thoughts? I don't do much cold weather stuff (hate the cold) so not too worried about that.


I was finally happy to get to this point which is much closer to pulling the engine. Don't worry I was taking plenty more pics of how all the tubing & wiring went.


A better view of the turbo setup. Nick thinks it is a Banks & ATS combo hack job. Maybe put together with craigs & fleabay parts?


This crossover pipe will be done differently no matter what it takes. I can't stand the way it runs along the oil pan, way too close to the belts and looks like it must cook the harmonic balancer.


Always fun to find cooked wires that the previous owner just did hack jobs to get around.


But on a note of joy I will say that having a wife who is an office manager of a diesel machine shop is nice when you need a part cleaned. This is the junkyard J code manifold that is ready for install.


Oh joy, power door locks will be in my future. I like the looks of the old iron but some modern stuff is nice


The previous owner already hacked past the glow plug controller, which is fine by me as I plan a full manual setup anyway. I would rather a stealthy glow button as a theft prevention measure.


And there are still a few bits I want like the 40gal tank & skid plate. I also got the rear aux heater, rear AC, receiver hitch, a bunch of wire, connectors and I need to try to get out the front shoulder belts since they are blue!


Monday should be "pull the engine day" and then I can get the donor carcus out of the way and pour some concrete for a new workshop to be ready for the transplant surgery.

My plan with the engine/trans/tcase goes like this:
Take heads & block to my wifes shop, have them look for cracks and tell me if it all is any good.
If all is well then I will ring/bearing/gasket it and reassemble.

Take the turbo to a company we know very well and have them check it out.

Take the IP in for a rebuild with top parts so I can run junk fuel in Baja and maybe some bio. New injectors of course.

Take the trans into a shop for a look over and make sure it is ready to continue life behind a oil burner

Combine my tcase with a Dodge one off of craigs to get one that has fixed yokes.
Check into the clocking rig and see if I can make that work.

Any and all thoughts welcome!

[jbclassix]

Definitely not a pure Banks kit there. You would be better off running external trans and engine coolers. You will also be better off letting the whole radiator breathe. Did you notice on the donor how the right 3 inches of the fins were behind the core support? pre-combustion chambers make a lot of heat.

[Maxxd07]

Love it!

[1leglance]

So I got the engine out & torn down last night and all the bits off to their shops today.
Figured I better post some pics and get some thoughts from everyone...

Some of these lines are pretty bent up...I think I will look into either a new set or a partial to replace the bent ones.


Here is the passenger side head...nothing scary to my naked eye. The gasket looked good and although I am no expert I didn't see anything that jumped out at me.


Drivers side head...also nothing bad to the naked, untrained eye of mine. Also the block deck looked good.


This was stamped on the pistons....no idea what it means. But I am sure I will hear from my wifes shop if things are way out of wack.


This turbo oil return will get redone with a welded bung. The leaking must have been a real pain.


No idea what all this means but I didn't see any cracked bits and all looked good.


Well almost all...the timing chain had some slack in it. I plan to run a gear drive setup so I won't have to worry about chains any more.

[1leglance]

This looked a little strange but the more I looked at the seal the more I figured it might be ok. Of course the machine shop will be happy to tell me if all isn't well.


I think this means the crank & rods have not been messed with before. Or at least not ground down.


This was a bit weird...when I went to pull the fuel pump pushrod only 1/2 came out. Who knows if it had been run like this. The cam looked ok and the fuel pump also so I don't think it was run for long, if at all.


A little more turbo info for anyone in the know...I don't know and thus why I post the pics

[jbclassix]

Awesome pictures! The stamp on the piston means the engine has been bored out .050 and you have .050 oversized pistons. The first part of the stamp is the part number.

I believe the roto-master is what Banks used in in its very first turbo kits. If you don't use your mechanical fuel pump, you can plumb your turbo oil return in there. As for your timing chain, I would recommend staying with the factory double roller.

Everything else looks good! Dirty, but good!

One thing not a lot of people know about it that the 6.2L diesel heads have bigger valves than the 6.5L...

[rcbildr]

The bracket that looks like it's missing something is for the cruise control servo thingy.

[1leglance]

Well one of the shop guys came in and told my wife that the block has cracks (she is the office manager of a diesel engine machine shop).
She went out and snapped these pics with her phone and sent them to me.
I have not spoken to the owner who runs the shop to see if he is willing to try & fix it. I do know that he wasn't real excited about working on a 6.2 in the first place
So I think I will start the hunt for a 6.2 block or complete engine in case he won't work on it, if anyone has leads.

[jbclassix]

Those are NASTY dude! That is a major bummer! I wonder if the turbo was boosting too high. There is a 6.2L in a yard here... but no clue of the condition... and its far

[1leglance]

thanks JB...I am getting some good lines on blocks & engines on the diesel forums so I hope something pans out.
Lucky for me though my small block runs great so I am no out a rig to play in

[babylonflyer]

keep truckin with that small block..... sucks about the block

[1leglance]

So no progress lately as I am both searching for a block/engine for the 6.2....
and considering any other option.
Right now these are my thoughts:
-forget the 6.2 and look for another diesel & auto trans option
-stick with the 350 and put my freshly rebuilt 700r4 behind that
-forget the entire idea of a swap and get to work on paint/interior and actually be able to drive the truck instead of having it down

All thoughts welcome, it is cheaper to talk it out than make a mistake in choice.

[jbclassix]

Originally Posted by 1leglance

So no progress lately as I am both searching for a block/engine for the 6.2....
and considering any other option.
Right now these are my thoughts:
-forget the 6.2 and look for another diesel & auto trans option
-stick with the 350 and put my freshly rebuilt 700r4 behind that
-forget the entire idea of a swap and get to work on paint/interior and actually be able to drive the truck instead of having it down

All thoughts welcome, it is cheaper to talk it out than make a mistake in choice.

Careful! That's the route I thought would be best! I ended up with a huge hole in the side of my burb and haven't had it on the road since 2009!

If you want to go the diesel route, maybe find a 6.5L... they can take more boost than the 6.2 which probably caused that crack issue

[1leglance]

I hear all ya'll.....

Lots to ponder...but since it is been a while since I posted and pics I figured it would be good to let everything know the rig is getting used on a daily basis.
I did a quick overnighter to help a buddy test out his new trailer


Oh and this is my current rear setup...

I used 2 pads as I was solo and could be comfy.
The 3 pelicans are kitchen, dry food, recovery/tools.
I put the pads on top of the cases to test how sleeping on a platform (with a drawer) would be. Worked great with still enough room to sit up and put my leg on.
Also the flat folding seats are nice for getting in & out of the side door.

[justcuz]

Those seats turned out nice. Sorry to hear about the engine. I know you don't want much of a lift, but if you a considering a lift at all I would suggest stock 1 ton 3 leaf springs. Heres the catch though, your stock springs are shorter than the square body springs. What you would have to do is probably keep your current leafs and add the lower 1 ton leaf to your existing pack. I am pretty sure the top 2 leafs have a military wrap ( I can check tomorrow, I have them on my 76 3/4 ton). This will give you about a 1-2 inch lift depending on the condition of your current stock springs.

[jbclassix]

Hey man, any updates on the burb?