The Story Of A Cummins Suburban (Lots Of Pics)

[1985-GMC]

I went back through and found it last night. http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/s...&postcount=875 That thing is slick. I'm gonna have to be a little extra creative since I have barn doors and I'll definitely have some interference issues if I don't.

[mosesburb]

Originally Posted by lower50's

You guys make me jealous with your trips. The awning is awesome I have been thinking of building something like that for my trailer.

Glad you like them!!

Originally Posted by Dieselwrencher

More great trip pics! That awning is very cool. Some screen sides and you can ward off pesky insects.

Thanks!! Maybe, but no. It is still super cool though.

Originally Posted by spacedebris

page 35 post 875. I have the page bookmarked as I think I'm gonna use a modified version when it comes time to make mine LOL

You owe me royalties!!

Originally Posted by 1985-GMC

I went back through and found it last night. http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/s...&postcount=875 That thing is slick. I'm gonna have to be a little extra creative since I have barn doors and I'll definitely have some interference issues if I don't.

Thanks!! You owe me royalties too!!

[1985-GMC]

Haha if that's the case I'll definitely be owing you and several others a lot of royalties for stealing all your ideas.

I can't remember where this picture came from but I thought it was pretty sweet too.

[70custom20]

I'm way, way late to the game here. I just found the diesel swap section of this board when I started reading through some of dieselwrencher's posts. I'm on page nine of your thread. Here on the east coast, most of the old '67-'72 4wd pickups and suburbans are pretty much non existent. My father in law had an old 4wd suburban back in the '80's. He did a body swap from his '70 K20 to the suburban chassis, and vice versa. My wife used to ride in it when she was a kid. The suburban body is long gone, but he still has the '70 K-20 pickup that he bought new in '69, it's beyond rough, lol. Anyway, you got my wheels turning, as many others that have read through this thread. I'm like a lot of the guys here, new to diesels, at least new to the idea of a diesel swap into one of these trucks. One of the things that kinda makes me shy away from the idea is how far back you have to set the engine, which puts the NV4500 farther back, transfer case, etc..... Being a pickup, I don't wanna lose the bench seat, these cabs are small enough to begin with. I love the modern upgrades, I'm dying to put AC in my truck, etc..... My junk is the typical 454, SM 465 with a 60 front, 14 bolt 4.10's truck. I started building the truck in '95 when I was 22 yrs old, and it's been on the road since '97. I'd love to pull it apart and start upgrading a lot of it, but right now time and space aren't in my favor. I'll have to get my photobucket account back in order so I can post a pic of two of my junk. Thanks for this thread, it's been a wealth of information. If you had to guess (maybe you already posted this in later pages) how much torque and horsepower do you think the Cummins is making?
Posted via Mobile Device

[mosesburb]

Originally Posted by 1985-GMC

Haha if that's the case I'll definitely be owing you and several others a lot of royalties for stealing all your ideas.

I can't remember where this picture came from but I thought it was pretty sweet too.

That Suburban looks like a sweet setup inside. The swingout is very nice. Very long too. You stated you have barn doors. With that, you be better off doing a double swingout instead of a single. Easier to use in confined area and you can make the side that corresponds with the door handle door open first so if you just have to throw something in, you don't have to deal with a monster swingout.

Originally Posted by 70custom20

I'm way, way late to the game here. I just found the diesel swap section of this board when I started reading through some of dieselwrencher's posts. I'm on page nine of your thread. Here on the east coast, most of the old '67-'72 4wd pickups and suburbans are pretty much non existent. My father in law had an old 4wd suburban back in the '80's. He did a body swap from his '70 K20 to the suburban chassis, and vice versa. My wife used to ride in it when she was a kid. The suburban body is long gone, but he still has the '70 K-20 pickup that he bought new in '69, it's beyond rough, lol. Anyway, you got my wheels turning, as many others that have read through this thread. I'm like a lot of the guys here, new to diesels, at least new to the idea of a diesel swap into one of these trucks. One of the things that kinda makes me shy away from the idea is how far back you have to set the engine, which puts the NV4500 farther back, transfer case, etc..... Being a pickup, I don't wanna lose the bench seat, these cabs are small enough to begin with. I love the modern upgrades, I'm dying to put AC in my truck, etc..... My junk is the typical 454, SM 465 with a 60 front, 14 bolt 4.10's truck. I started building the truck in '95 when I was 22 yrs old, and it's been on the road since '97. I'd love to pull it apart and start upgrading a lot of it, but right now time and space aren't in my favor. I'll have to get my photobucket account back in order so I can post a pic of two of my junk. Thanks for this thread, it's been a wealth of information. If you had to guess (maybe you already posted this in later pages) how much torque and horsepower do you think the Cummins is making?
Posted via Mobile Device

Ironically, Dieselwrencher probably has a better idea of power numbers on this than I would, but even at that, small adjustments of the pump make large changes in performance measured on the butt dyno, so power is very difficult to put an accurate number is on.

Anyway, as far as starting a conversion, it sounds like you have a good setup going there right now. To do the conversion in a quality fashion requires a ton of time and maybe even more money. One can be done cheaper, but if you want something reliable and serviceable, it takes a bunch to get it right. I recommend taking an accurate inventory of known items needed for the conversion and then double it for everything that pops up along the way. You are starting with basically what I had when I began this and to be honest, I would have probably been better off financially sticking with the big block and putting an overdrive transmission in it and using the rest of the pile of money spent on the conversion for fuel and good times. On this site alone, you have several good threads describing and illustrating the process. Look at the dates of the posts and see how long the conversions have taken. There have been many more that started out very strong and then fizzled out before they got to the home stretch. Know what you are starting into before you tear apart a solid, running truck.

There. Now should you decide to actually do it, make sure you start a thread so we can see the process. Threads are also a good motivator as well. It sounds goofy, but many times by posting pics etc, it gave some motivation to plug along through the doldrums of the project. Definitely post up some pics of what you have. Sounds like a good solid drivetrain!!

[1985-GMC]

Originally Posted by mosesburb

That Suburban looks like a sweet setup inside. The swingout is very nice. Very long too. You stated you have barn doors. With that, you be better off doing a double swingout instead of a single. Easier to use in confined area and you can make the side that corresponds with the door handle door open first so if you just have to throw something in, you don't have to deal with a monster swingout.

Hmm that gives me something else to think about. I really hadn't even considered doing a double swingout carrier but you're right about being able to use it in confined spaces and most of time you only open the right door anyway. Thanks for the tips!

[mosesburb]

Originally Posted by 1985-GMC

Hmm that gives me something else to think about. I really hadn't even considered doing a double swingout carrier but you're right about being able to use it in confined spaces and most of time you only open the right door anyway. Thanks for the tips!

When you use a similar vehicle in all kinds of different conditions/situations, you quickly realize things like this make a big difference.

[mosesburb]

So we got up the next morning, packed up camp, rolled up the makeshift awning and headed down the road toward Bryce Canyon National Park. Having camped just down the road from it, we didn't have far to go. We stopped at the guard shack and asked the ranger lady what were the sights to see. She asked if we were hiking and I kind of giggled a bit and said not today. She recommended stopping at all of the view areas along the way. Sounds good and we're off. Bryce Canyon NP is set up as an out and back, so I decided to head all the way down to the end and stop at all the points on the way back.

Misery and disappointment sets in right about now.....

For all of you that have been following along over the years, you may remember my epic trip to Glacier National Park when we waited for good weather and ended up going through the park in the rain and fog and saw almost nothing that we went to see. Why would I bring this up right now?? Well, similarities. Ridiculous similarities. Ugh. Really?!? Yes, really:



Photographing water vapor in the air is very challenging for me. The truck is visible in the picture, but was invisible in person from this distance. This wasn't fog. This was the clouds. FFS, what is it with us and National Parks??

We can't see jack here. Anywhere. Well, let's head back and see if we can see anything on the way back out.

Nope:



We can see a little bit here. Looks kind of creepy, but cool at the same time:



So all of the stops along the way are obscured by water vapor. We get back toward the entrance area and there are a couple different view points that are a mile or so off the main road. We are all pretty bummed at this point, so I ask it we are interested in traveling further to be disappointed. We all agreed that we should at least go through the motions, so off we go for more disappointment, just further off the main road. Well, maybe we are having a change of luck??



The clouds were rolling around through the area so quickly I had to be quick on the shutter to get some good pics. Not saying these are good, but they are better than the "ghost images" I had been getting at every stop prior (notice the gray layer at the top of the pic??).



Gotta be quick:



At the last stop I had the best luck. This place is just visual overload:



Our last stop netted the best views and literally saved the day:



So we went down and checked out the lodge. While roaming through the gift shop my wife accidentally swiped a shirt for me. She had thrown it over her shoulder while we were looking around and when I was paying for the stuff, she forgot to put it on the counter. It wasn't realized until we got in the truck. It was actually a rather funny incident. I took the shirt back in and explained the situation that I needed to pay for this shirt. Traveling often makes for some fun stories LOL. On our way out of the lodge, effectively being a history loving gear head on vacation, I found an old service station that was built in 1947 and last used sometime in the 80's (I think). It was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1995. It had some really cool architecture and a few artifacts still inside.



A different angle:



Through the glass:



So we headed out and stopped at a restaurant outside of the park for a late lunch. We spotted a parking spot and jumped on it. No sooner were we out of the truck and some old boy came up to us telling me there is a sign over there (a tiny, very easily missed sign) saying this is for compact vehicles only and we can't park here. I only drive large vehicles and had the truck parked in a professional manner that obstructed nothing, but this parking monitor's authority was going to be respected. You're really going to make me move?? Oh yeah, I HAD to move. All the way across the lot. So we went in and had lunch. While we were in there the sky absolutely opened up. Deluge. Insane amount of water. We had to wait it out because we were parked on the other side of the lot now. It finally let up and we headed down the road to Tropic where we got a room and had to do some laundry. We found out that the only public laundry facilities were all the way back across town. So we gathered up our stuff and walked all the way back across town (couple hundred yards maybe??). Met a cool guy who normally travels the area on a dual sport bike, but was traveling with his wife and dog, so they were in their Jeep. Had a nice visit with the while our clothes were cleaning. He had all kinds of information on neat trails and roads in southern Utah. Unfortunately everything just got rained on.... This is going to be an issue in the near future....

[spacedebris]

Originally Posted by 70custom20

If you had to guess (maybe you already posted this in later pages) how much torque and horsepower do you think the Cummins is making?
Posted via Mobile Device

I cant speak for mosesburb as I dont know exactly what mods or adjustments he did to his but that is one of the nice things about these old 12V cummins. Many of the mods can bring gobs of power with just a few easy adjustments that you can practically get any numbers you want.

I'll speak to the one I'm sticking into my 60 panel. My 12v came out of a 95 Dodge 2500. Now mine is with an auto trans. Bone stock it is rated for ~160Hp 2500rpm and 400 lb-ft 1500rpm. Now this in itself would be plenty for these old burbs considering that my 60 came with a straight 6 and about 135Hp.

With just a slight adjustment to the fuel plate and my cummins can be making nearly double those numbers (300Hp and 800 lb-ft) without even having to upgrade any of the internals. And it can do this safely and keep it perfectly reliable for a daily driver. now if you want even more then some simple upgrades to the internals (upgraded injectors, springs, and such) would be advisable but still not very hard on the budget. But IMO 300 / 800 would be more than enough to do anything you want for a daily driver, any more would likely get you into trouble.

[lower50's]

Visual overload is right that place is beautiful!! You should publish a book with your back road adventures, love reading them.

[MaxPF]

Originally Posted by spacedebris

With just a slight adjustment to the fuel plate and my cummins can be making nearly double those numbers (300Hp and 800 lb-ft) without even having to upgrade any of the internals.

I don't know where you got that information, but.... no. Check my sig for my mods. The #6 plate in a 160HP pump is good for 230HP and 605lb-ft with stock injectors and WG settings. Trying to simply push the stock plate forward will yield similar numbers, but it will be smoky and hot. Not listed in my sig line is a 3K GSK and timing bumped to 15°. If I had to guess I'd say I am maybe barely bumping 300HP and 700lb-ft torque. I can get more from my injectors, but not with my current turbo.

[Dieselwrencher]

Man, those pics are beautiful! That's your luck to find the only lot attendant in BFE too!

On power, you can't really compare a P-pump engine to a VE engine. VE's seem to make more torque than HP compared to a P pump engine. We have had a 94 160 p pump engine make 415hp with stock parts. Adjusted timing, some big tweaks to the injectors but with stock worn nozzles, and even a WH1c. It was super hot but it did it. Everyone of these engines reacts to different tweaks as well.

Nick's with a little bigger injectors, HX35W, and what else he's done is probably in the 250-275hp range. It could be up to 300hp. Who really knows though. I had a non intercooled engine to 325 and it's still going in Oregon. But, 300hp in one of these is plenty to get the job done and still affordable to drive and enjoy them.

[mosesburb]

Originally Posted by Dieselwrencher

Man, those pics are beautiful! That's your luck to find the only lot attendant in BFE too!

There is actually a little populated area right outside the park with a restaurant, motel, campground etc. I felt really bad for the people who were enjoying a nice day in the campground when we pulled in and then moments later had a lake fall out of the sky on their tents, camp, etc.

[mosesburb]

Originally Posted by lower50's

Visual overload is right that place is beautiful!! You should publish a book with your back road adventures, love reading them.

Thanks!! I'm glad you like them. Sometimes they are more interesting than others.

[mosesburb]

So the next day our only other scheduled event on our trip is to occur. We are to meet someone in the middle of nowhere, at a given time, coming from vast distances in opposite directions, and even Verizon has no service for miles in any direction. Sure, why not?? Let's go!!

So we left the thriving metropolis of Tropic and headed east down Hwy 12. We took a side jaunt down to a scenic location:



I felt old when I had to explain what Kodachrome is, or was as the case may be. We took a side road through some camp areas and put to a massive monolith:



Remember the rain from yesterday?? We were on a dirt road going out to that point and I got out to lock the hubs as I had a sneaky suspicion that it was going to be needed. I was sneaky right on that one. The gravel surface we were on changed at a cattle guard to dirt. Clay dirt. The water had moistened the clay making mud, which was only an inch or two deep, but slicker than greased banana peels. It was a challenge keeping the truck on the road. I didn't want to spin the tires to clean them because it would tear up the trail and the tires would just pack up again. We made it out to the point and back. I stopped to take a picture on the way back. I climbed up on the roof rack and got what I think is a nice picture of the view:



Now an interesting thing happened right here. When I got back in the truck, my boy asked me where my phone was (I don't recall him ever asking that before). I said it is right here, pointing at the floor. But it wasn't there. I checked the dash, not there. I checked the end of the charging cable, not there. WTF happened to it?? I got out and looked around the truck, climbed up on the roof again, all for nothing. I was back in the truck wondering WTF I'm gonig to do now and for some reason I looked in the LH mirror and about 30 yards behind the truck, in the middle of the road, lays my phone. I jump out, run back and pick it up only to find that it is fine. No damage whatsoever. How the hell did it get back there?? Well, come to find out, that is where I locked the hubs going in and it must have dropped out of its latch and onto the ground. It just so happened I liked that spot and decided to stop and take some pictures, and my boy for whatever reason asked where my phone was at that point. Very strange sequence of events that all lined up to return my phone to me. Yay!!

There is some spectacular scenery in this place:



A natural monument to, uh, something....



Standing water and mud. Thought it looked cool:



More scenery:



I really liked this state park. It's a little off the beaten path, but worth the extra miles.

Scenic barn:



Escalante area:



Gratuitous truck pic:



Really cool view ahead:



More scenery (notice the wet pavement...)



We went over Boulder mountain in a torrential downpour. After turning east at Fruita, we came upon this:



More great scenery:



It is very difficult choosing which pics to post and which to pass...



More:



Ever changing compositions along this road:



More:



All of the rain has filled up normally dry stream beds. I told my boy that we are kind of lucky to see water flowing in this area.



Water flowing down the massive sandstone walls:



So that's about enough for today. Do we make our rendezvous?? Do both vehicles make the long distance journey and end up at this point in the middle of nowhere at the same time?? You will have to tune in for the next installment to find out exactly what happened.

[1985-GMC]

Originally Posted by mosesburb

So that's about enough for today. Do we make our rendezvous?? Do both vehicles make the long distance journey and end up at this point in the middle of nowhere at the same time?? You will have to tune in for the next installment to find out exactly what happened.

Hahaha that's hilarious! More great pictures making me want to take weekend adventures out there.

Just curious if you ever use any kind of GPS app or something that logs everywhere you drive in that thing? I think it'd be cool to see a map with all the squiggly lines showing everywhere the burb has driven over the years.

[MaxPF]

Originally Posted by mosesburb

So the next day our only other scheduled event on our trip is to occur. We are to meet someone in the middle of nowhere, at a given time, coming from vast distances in opposite directions, and even Verizon has no service for miles in any direction. Sure, why not?? Let's go!!

So we left the thriving metropolis of Tropic and headed east down Hwy 12. We took a side jaunt down to a scenic location:



I felt old when I had to explain what Kodachrome is, or was as the case may be.

Did you remember to tell him it was also a Paul Simon song, so he could say "Paul who?". Yup, we're getting old.

[mosesburb]

Originally Posted by 1985-GMC

Hahaha that's hilarious! More great pictures making me want to take weekend adventures out there.

[Mr Burns voice] Excellent....[/Mr Burns voice] This has been my evil plan the whole time. Use these truck to go places and see stuff.

Originally Posted by 1985-GMC

Just curious if you ever use any kind of GPS app or something that logs everywhere you drive in that thing? I think it'd be cool to see a map with all the squiggly lines showing everywhere the burb has driven over the years.

We do, well, sort of. We always run a SPOT satellite messenger with the optional tracking feature that drops a bread crumb every ten minutes. This makes a "line" of dots, but at high speeds the dots are far apart and at trail speeds the dots can stack up. The track remains on their site for a few days then it disappears. This is very helpful for those not traveling with us to know where we are at any given time (within ten minutes). So if my boy and I head out somewhere by ourselves, my wife can see that we are still moving and her boy is ok.

We also run a netbook with two nav programs running. A Delorme map program that is similar to portable GPS units. Distance from here to there. Directions to nearest hospital, gas station etc. This also drops a point every so often so a route can be retraced if desired.

In addition to that, we run Ozi Explorer which is a really neat program that can run any map that can have at least three geo-referenced points on it. We run USGS 7.5" Quadrangle maps on ours. These also plot your location on the old maps and the dots create a line--a fairly precise line at that. There is some navigation ability on this map program, but it is much more labor intensive, but when the road you're on doesn't show up on "normal" GPS devices/programs, you can't be too choosey.

So there is a bunch of background info to not really answer your question. If you add all of this stuff together for any given trip, we do have a line, but to add everything together for an "everywhere we've been" is not really possible and would really be a jumbled mess that is very difficult to interpret if we could. I should learn how to extract our track files per trip. Those would be kind of neat to look at. Hmm.

Originally Posted by MaxPF

Did you remember to tell him it was also a Paul Simon song, so he could say "Paul who?". Yup, we're getting old.

He knows Paul Simon as well as the song, but I'm not sure he actually knew what Kodachrome actually is/was. Ironically, my spell check doesn't know what Kodachrome is either lol.

[1985-GMC]

You answered my question. I knew it would be impossible to go back and log everywhere you've been, just thought it'd be neat if by chance you did. You would almost have to be running some kind of app dedicated to just that everytime you go out. I know I wouldn't have the patience to mess with that all the time unless it was super simple and user friendly. But ain't nobody got time fo dat

[lower50's]

Great next chapter. How many days long are your trips? It is unusual to have rain there this time of year correct?

[mosesburb]

Originally Posted by 1985-GMC

You answered my question. I knew it would be impossible to go back and log everywhere you've been, just thought it'd be neat if by chance you did. You would almost have to be running some kind of app dedicated to just that everytime you go out. I know I wouldn't have the patience to mess with that all the time unless it was super simple and user friendly. But ain't nobody got time fo dat

A buddy of mine uses a different personal tracker and when I bring up his tracking page it shows everything he's done until I filter it down to the last 12 or 24 hrs. It is kind of neat, but common travel areas turn into a bit of a mess.

Originally Posted by lower50's

Great next chapter. How many days long are your trips? It is unusual to have rain there this time of year correct?

Thanks!! Total time varies from year to year. Usually depends how much time I can finagle off from work. At this point we are six days in (I think). There is still more to come though.

[1985-GMC]

Do you happen to know the name of the tracker? I'd like to have something like that when I start using my suburban.

[mosesburb]

Originally Posted by 1985-GMC

Do you happen to know the name of the tracker? I'd like to have something like that when I start using my suburban.

His is a Delorme InReach. Neat deal, but a bit pricey if you're not using it pretty regularly.

[1985-GMC]

Ok cool, thanks for the info. I'll look into it. Now I'll stop cluttering up your thread with questions... Lol

[mosesburb]

So a quick recap has us heading down the road in the rain, to a point in the middle of nowhere, to meet someone we haven't talked to in almost 24 hours who is coming from even father away than we are.

The rain has been absolutely crazy at times. Dry washes are running fast. Normally dry silt trails/roads are mud bogs or grease fests. After leaving Capitol Reef we get to Hanksville and turn south. Running along I turn my 2m radio on and am amazed that I am receiving transmissions from the person we are looking to meet up with. I try responding, but he can not receive my transmissions. Come to find out that during an investigation later on, the radio had its settings changed to a monitor only setting when I loaned it to him for chasing a race in Mexico. Anyway, receiving these transmissions is very relieving. He was coming from Phoenix and now we know he made it to the area. We are still a bit over an hour out yet and I can't tell him that we are high balling it his way. Just for the hell of it I tried my phone and of course nothing worked. So we kept on boogying south and we stopped at Hite Marina overlook:



Now, if you're thinking there is no marina in the pic, you would be absolutely correct. If you look to the left of about the center of the pic, you will see a boat launch ramp that has been extended, but no longer is in a lake. The extended years of drought has removed the lake from the area and only the Colorado River still runs through the area. A little bit off the bottom of the ramp and to the left in the pic (about where the oval patch of dark green grass is now) used to be a marina where bunches of house boats were moored. Not any more....

Looking to the left of the previous pic. Most of the green used to be under water:



This area had been hit hard with rain not too long before we got there. Large chunks of cliff had been washed or broken off and now lay on the highway that has been under-cut by the swift moving currents in the pseudo-canyon you drop altitude in:



This is a major highway in the area, not some podunk back road like we usually travel on. More debris on the road: (the large white vehicle a few vehicles ahead of us was a large bus and if you look to the left of the bus you can just make out a guy in a black shirt--he was the spotter for the bus to descend the hill)



This one is kind of difficult to see, but there are several waterfalls happening in this pic. They are all the color of the cliff, so they blend in very well:



Further down:



I like this one. Just to the right of the middle of the pic is a vertical, light colored line. This is a tall waterfall as evident by the water hitting the rock below it:



We finally make it to this bridge. Neat bridge, but that's not the significance of it. This is to be the meet up point for our other vehicle:



After all the miles and tribulations, we made it!! Both of us!!



Those of you who have been following along will recognize this blue Suburban as the "other" Suburban in my life. I've been building it for the past few years. We travel regularly with its owners, my buddy Lance and his wife. They wanted to run with us on this trip, but had other obligations so we ran our trip and when they became available mid-way through our trip, we set up our "impossible meet-up" and managed to pull it off.

We exchanged greetings and checked out the bridge for a few minutes, then loaded up and headed down the road to Natural Bridges National Monument.



We went in and found a trail that led down to a really neat bridge:



The water was running red:



We hiked down under the bridge. This is looking back up at it:



More red water:



Interesting washed out hole in the wall:



Another super neat bridge:



We got out of there and headed down the road to Bluff where we had a room waiting for us in a lake that in normal situations would be a parking lot. We got some dinner down the road and started discussing our plans for the next day.