Beelzeburb, The Story More Than a Decade in the Making

[Beelzeburb]

If you've owned a vehicle this long then you know that this story is going to take a while to tell properly. Go ahead and relax, I'm going to be here a while relating it. Don't worry though, I've been taking pictures all throughout the process.

Okay, I've been a member here since 2002, but adopted a new user name not that long ago. I've owned my Suburban even longer. It was at the tender young age of 14 and a half years old when a friend of mine had offhandedly insinuated that he could imagine me driving an old Suburban. I passingly mentioned his remark to my father, and a short while later this was mine:



Yes, that is a grainy 640x480 picture from a 1st gen digital camera. I had to retrieve it from a floppy disk (remember those?). It was taken in May of 1998.

My dad had bought this 1970 K10 Suburban for me as a father / son project. He paid $1500 for it and threw in an 18 year old Craftsman 536.255280 model Lawn Tractor in trade on top of that.

It was pretty much a bone stock 350 / Turbo 350 / NP205 combo with a 12 bolt rear, Dana 44 front, power drum brakes, power steering and an intact roof mounted A/C system. It had been ordered with the full width front and middle seat but no 3rd seat. Only the front seat was left, as some second row seat from a Jeep had been mounted directly to the floor in back without any brackets at all. I didn't think to take any pictures at the time, but the interior was still stock Medium Green with astro-turf instead of proper carpet. Just let your imagination run wild with that visual for a minute.

Here's the SPID because I know how much some of you guys like to peruse them:


The 350 ran on seven cylinders and still had all the factory emissions equipment. The passenger side front rocker panel was completely bashed in and I believe it was involved in some sort of front end collision at one time. The front panels, bumper and grille had been replaced with '71-'72 parts and re-painted the original Medium Green color (the paint was much thicker on these panels). No frame damage though. The rear bumper and left rear quarter had been hit more recently and became close good friends. Aside from that it was pretty straight, you know, insert the old “it'll buff out” line here.

The only other really notable things were the (in my opinion) ugly aftermarket rearview mirrors that had replaced the original medium sized tripod mount style ones, barndoor type rear and the gargantuan 40 gallon aftermarket fuel tank.
It looked almost exactly the same as in the above picture until I was ready to turn 16 and get my driver's license.

[vectorit]

OK, I'm in.

Can't wait to read more of this story!

Classic Chevrolet Suburban fans seem to have the best family stories!

[Beelzeburb]

I didn't expect such an immediate response, but since you asked for it, here's a little more:

My dad was a transmission mechanic for more than 25 years and owned his own shop for at least 15 of them. He helped prod along my interest in this vehicle as well as cars in general. Having grown up in Southern California he first got his vehicular fix as a child, riding and repairing motorcycles with his father, then transitioned into a full blown Volkswagen enthusiast before he moved into the transmission industry.

Me on the other hand? For instance, my dad completely overhauled and painted a 1969 Honda Z50a and gave it to me for my 5th birthday and I was never all that excited about the little 49cc motorcycle (I finally fired it up in 2010 after letting it sit for 7-8 years and it is undergoing some restoration, but that's another story for another time). I had had my own interests in High School (whew, glad I finally got that SWCCG monkey off my back), so at first my old man did most of the mechanical work himself.

He removed the engine and handed it off to a local machine shop for a going over. The block was bored 0.030” over and the stock heads were rebuilt. In went some new pistons, an RV cam, Edelbrock aluminum intake on top, high flow oil pump below, HEI ignition to help make controlled explosions, a nice set of Doug's headers paired with 2.5” exhaust tubes and dual 40” Blue Flame glasspacks rounded out the back end. I kept the receipt for the machine work, but it went missing somewhere. My dad threw in a larger 4 core radiator, some brand new GM motor mounts and had the Q-jet looked over by the local carb expert.



Being a transmission mechanic who had plied his trade at specialty shops like Art Carr and Hydramatic Performance (shortly before they became Jet Performance), he removed the original 3 speed Turbo 350 and put in one of his built TH700-R4 trannies. The original NP205 t-case was rebuilt and mated to the 700 via an Advance Adapters short shaft. The axles and brakes were left stock but he did barter and/or buy me some matching chrome rims and new 31-10-R15 tires.
Everything had been coming together smoothly and it was close to running, so he had me come down to the shop to start on the interior. I'd laid out an overall plan for the Suburban by this time. I wanted a white and light gray interior with a two-tone white / blue exterior.

Hooray for MS paint and Windows 98 Second Edition!


I had never painted anything larger than plastic model cars in the past, but he turned me loose to remove the interior, scuff up the original paint and mask everything off. He had a local paint shop mix up some white enamel, stirred in hardener and then sprayed over my prep work. To this day it actually doesn't look half bad but I have since learned much, much more about paint and proper prep work. At least my dad had plenty of experience painting and laid down nice, even coats that hid some of the imperfections.



Before the interior reached completion, I remember my dad was very excited to get the engine fired up for the first time. He drove it down the street with me in the passenger “seat” We were in fact sitting on top of inverted 5 gallon buckets, both grinning like wildmen and bracing for gear changes.

I cut and installed that carpet myself. It was just a remnant of some industrial loop pile that I held together with carpet tape. The previous owner had already cut those speaker holes in the doors so I re-used them. Being big into stereo equipment at the time I had to have some thumpin' tunes. Too bad I didn't develop my current taste in music until some years later (I'll miss you Vertical Horizon and all your pop rockish ways, wait, no I won't).
Do you see a theme forming yet? I do. The things you like when you are young may not be what you want when you age, mature a bit and gain experience. More on that later.

Even though the plastic for the overhead A/C unit turned out to be brittle as eggshells I still wish I hadn't thrown the motor / evaporator assembly away around this time.
With the plastic and vinyl pieces that remained, I Krylon'd over their original hues to cover those seventies shades in a light gray. We disassembled the seatbelts and boiled them in some dye which made each one come out black (not our original intention). After a quick pass over the buckle's plastic covers with Krylon the belts went back together. This was many years before I learned about vinyl dye.

Luckily for us there was another Suburban at a junkyard in our town (with a population of 25,000) and we bought the shorter 2nd row seat from it (3rd row was already gone). My mom was gracious enough to cut apart the original seat fabric at the seams and make new patterns by tracing the pieces then sewing them together. I got to experience the joys of cutting foam with an electric carving knife to repair missing chunks then learn how to properly run wire and use hog ring pliers to secure seat fabric.
My dad drilled new holes in the rear area to mount the second seat, and welded large nuts to the underside brace so that it could be properly secured. He also strengthened the cracked front seat brackets by welding in a couple of angle iron reinforcements.




The door panels I covered myself with some ¼” foam, 3M adhesive and new fabric.
Like I said, I had to have my tunes:



This is what I had as my daily driver from 2000-2002.

I'll explain the abundance of gas cans later.

[lha1992]

Hey, nice Suburban!

Keep on with the story!

[dan76]

subscribed

[Beelzeburb]

For some reason I erroneously believed that gray primer purchased from the hardware store was some sort of miraculous super-coating. Ah, to be young and in love with Rustoleum (we have since broken off our relationship because she just wasn't meeting my needs anymore).



Spray primer over the top of existing rust and dents? Sure! Can't be bothered to remove emblems? Paint around them!

I did install some fancy deluxe side marker lights though. At the same time, deluxe pedal pads with corresponding trim adorned the interior.

Had some fun wheeling it. Got stuck at night while wheeling by myself once. I had to walk back to civilization and call my folks so they could come and pick me up (this was before the widespread use of cellphones).




Those pictures were taken after freeing my Suburban on the next day. I'd managed to wedge a boulder under the front leaf spring shackle and sit the rear end on the edge of a dry creek bed. In that position none of the wheels would get any traction.

Like so:


My dad drove his 1 ton 4x4 crew cab close and used it as an anchor to let us winch the big rock out from under the spring pack. After that I simply drove it out. Funny how obstacles are easier to navigate in the daylight, and with a spotter.

In another incident I sheared that super awesome short TH700-R4 shaft from Advance Adapters clean in two. I had been showing off and revving the engine in front of some friends. Before the RPMs came down low enough I pulled the column shifter into drive. My dad was pretty mad at my abuse, but he mercifully towed me to his shop and pulled the NP205 off. We sent the shaft back to AA and they determined it had had a defect then sent us a new one lickedy split.

Eventually I grew tired of rocking the ¾ primered look and my dad swung a deal with an acquaintance of his that did heavy equipment painting. We would take the Suburban in to have it straightened and properly primed. Before doing so we purchased a replacement passenger side rocker panel and new window seals all around.

This is what happens when you let a 17 year old loose with tools:



I removed all of the glass myself to save on labor costs. The windshield cracked during removal due to my inexperience and not wanting to ask for help. So much for saving some money. While I was at it I replaced the passenger side inner fender for reasons that probably don't need explaining here. I may have replaced the radiator support as well, either that or I was really overzealously stuck in disassembly mode that day. My father and I had done plenty of junkyard scrounging so I had a small collection of replacement parts and trim pieces gathered up, the inner fender being one of them. This was nearly 10 years ago, when 67-72 Chevy trucks were much more plentiful in salvage yards than they are now.

After this I drove it to the body shop. Yes, I drove there on back roads without a grille, no glass, bumpers or license plates either.
To avoid the expense of removing the glass again later when the Suburban would be painted, we had the body guys spray the window frames white while it was in their hands. I was still trying to get a feel for my automotive tastes, and after perusing a number of issues of Sport Truck Magazine had decided to include some tricks from the 2wd street crowd. I requested that our chosen body guys shave the marker lights and emblems as well as fill the holes left by two different sets of rearview mirrors that had found their way onto my Suburban.

A few weeks later we picked it up. I got to feel firsthand the temperature drop while driving past fields that were being irrigated. Also got a few bugs in my hair.

Here's what I got back:



This is what my Suburban looked like after re-installing the glass, trim and bumpers:



We couldn't reuse the original rear bumper because the edge had been pushed forward so far during some previous accident that it no longer fit over the straightened taillight panel. In the meantime I held the license plate up in the back window with duct tape which would lose its adhesivity (aka sticktuitiveness) in the heat of the day and fall off. I got pulled over on my way to Chemistry 1010 once because of it. The officer gave me a warning but then asked me all kinds of questions about the “cool old Suburban, you don't see these much anymore.” He didn't even notice that I hadn't yet attached any rearview mirrors until I pointed it out to him. “Yeah, you should probably take care of that,” he said and let me go on my way.

Most of the parts and weatherstripping came from Chevy Duty, including the repro rocker panel, side mirrors, pedal pads, door lock set and a repro shop manual for future reference. The only parts that didn't hold up well were the plastic “chrome” beads in the rear window weatherstripping. They faded and discolored quite badly. Everything else fit and worked well.

Having done all of this work, it was a little less embarrassing for others to be seen in (I forgot to mention that in High School it had been nominated as an “ugly vehicle of the month” and featured in the school paper). I still used it as my daily transportation. The Suburban had been left outside for at least some of the time during it's stay at the body shop because my CD player never did work right again after that (actually, it didn't work at all for four months, then miraculously came to life only to die mysteriously months later). I guess Kenwoods don't do well sitting uncovered during rainstorms.

That year my part-time job sufficiently paid for fuel, and that was it. Every time I filled that 40 gallon tank at $1.65 a gallon it put a serious dent in my wallet. I ran around with a spare jerry can or two in the back everywhere I went because running out of gas was a regular occurrence, despite the size of my tank. The fuel gauge simply never worked. Replacing the gauge didn't do anything, and it wasn't until years later that I found the bare wire that had kept shorting, either killing my gas gauge or frying the printed gauge circuit. It was the same story with my blower motor. I thought it had fried itself, but years later I found that the cable to actuate it had snapped in two.

Another amusing thing happened during a cold evening on a 50 mile drive. The speedometer started emitting a high pitched squeal and then the needle fell off. My reaction was to quickly pull over and unhooked the speedo cable from the back of the gauge. I could never be bothered to get to the bottom of that particular problem, so it was driven sans speedometer and odometer from then on. I got to be pretty good at knowing my speed based on engine noise (no tachometer either).

The dogs at home knew when I was in the neighborhood because of the rumble from those glasspacks. I was enrolled in my freshman year at college and trying to decide on a major. We also came across a van tilt column and planned to eventually install it in the Suburban.

My dad even bought a '72 4x4 short stepper as a project for himself. Oddly enough, the '72 truck had a '70 front clip and my '70 Suburban had a '72 front clip.


Everything was basically well and good.

Then my grandfather rolled his pickup truck.

[Beelzeburb]

See that white Chevy truck parked behind my Suburban in the last post? That was my Grandfather's 1988 C3500 with a 454 and TH700-R4 my dad built for him. That transmission had survived behind the big block for a number of years with my grandfather regularly towing a 24' Bayliner Trophy. The truck was parked in that spot on the side of my father's shop because my grandparents had been traveling too fast on a washboard dirt road one day. Grandpa (who was driving) had turned the wheel to negotiate a curve, but the truck kept going straight. It rolled once and landed back on all four wheels. They wound up in a ditch with one flat tire but luckily no one was hurt. My grandparents swapped that one flat for the spare, piloted it to my dad's shop and rented a car to drive home.

I'm not sure what negotiations happened with the insurance company, and it was unfortunate the ole' workhorse had to die like that, but one large lump of iron from it would live on. A crazy scheme began to formulate. It involved taking those 7.4L of displacement and transplanting them into the Suburban. We also planned to upgrade the drivetrain to compensate and went as far as locating a ¾ ton front axle and disc brake power booster. The C3500 had been equipped with a Dana 80 rear axle, but we passed on it due to lack of aftermarket support.



I kept driving the Suburban as it was until I wore through the front brake shoes. During the summer of 2002 I had a job 45 miles from home, so my dad found a 4x4 longbed Dodge D50 for me to drive around in the meantime. Great little truck after we went through two cracked stock carbs then wizened up and installed a Weber instead. Much better fuel economy than my 7.5 mpg town, 10 mpg highway Suburban. Plus, I got to drive a vehicle with a manual transmission full time, which would be a handy skill later in life.

I drove my Suburban to that summer job once, no front brakes and all (because we were diagnosing the mystery vacuum leak on the D50 carburettor). Constantly downshifting to slow down while descending switchbacks in a crowded National Park was an interesting challenge. That was the last time I piloted it under it's own power. It is now 2010. Eight years have transpired and the Suburban has been very, very slowly transforming the whole time.

This is one of the last pictures I took of it before the Suburban was put into hibernation:



I was out of the country for a couple of years. If you can put 2 and 2 together based on my geographic location and demographics you'll figure out why. When I came back the entire drivetrain from the Burb had been removed. The 355 was on the shop floor, the NP205 was under a bench somewhere, and the TH700-R4 had been installed in a customer's vehicle. The front Dana 44 was long gone as was the rear 12 bolt.

Aww, such a sad widdle mouse motor all cold and lonely on the concrete floor.



I was perfectly fine with that though. My dad had replaced the ½ ton running gear with a '71-'72 Dana 60 full floating rear axle and the ¾ ton front axle we had rescued from the salvage yard (we didn't yet realize it was a 10 bolt, not the ¾ ton Dana 44 disc brake front we had assumed). He had modified the Dana 60 to fit my Suburban by chopping off the spring perches and positioning both at the correct width. Thinking ahead he welded them on at a bit of an angle to help with future pinion alignment. He'd yanked the 454 from my grandpa's truck, had it cleaned, honed and all ready to reassemble. I kept busy spring of '05 by piecing it together in the afternoons after I found a job locally.





That was my dad's '54 Bel Air convertible in the background. The story about how he acquired it was a convoluted one involving a mechanic's lien, a mental institution and prison inmates. He sold it to a private party a few years later. By this time he had also parted ways with the '72 shortbed stepside.

The 454 went together as a stock rebuild, no need to overbore. The crank, rods, pistons, everything checked out so it went back together according to factory spec. Not bad for a motor with 143,000 miles on it. The only changes were in the camshaft, exhaust and Edelbrock 3764 TBI intake manifold. Okay, and the GMPP valve covers. I just had to have 'em so I purchased some through Summit Racing. And that K&N 63-1007-1 Aircharger kit too. My dad being busy with running a shop, and wanting me to gain experience again, had me assemble the engine myself with only the service manual for reference. He did check in over my shoulder every once in a while though.

There were some other pieces to the puzzle that my old man had been stockpiling. Namely a 4L80E and NP241C he had rebuilt and stashed under a teardown bench.



After a few months of assembling grocery store shelves for 8+ hours a day some crazy idea hit home that I didn't want to work in a factory performing manual labor for the rest of my life, so I settled on a career choice and was accepted at a school in Arizona. That meant leaving behind my non-running Suburban once again for a 3 year program. Wanna know something? It's really hard to work on a car when you're a 7 hour drive away from it.

[Beelzeburb]

Seeing as all of the drivetrain was out of the vehicle, for some time now the plan had been to perform a full body-off rebuild. We figured “why not, we're already this far”. Famous last words if there ever were some, right up there with the nefarious phrase “How hard can it be?”.
Before departing Utah, I disassembled the front end in anticipation of digging much deeper into this vehicle than I had yet ventured.



My school program ran year-round (hence 3 years = bachelors degree). The only times I could be at home and play with the 'ole Burb were during Spring break, Fall break and occasionally Winter break. Each of them about a week long. I had a lot of work to pack into fourteen or so days a year.

Winter break of 2005 we performed an Off Road Design 4” rear shackle flip and also replaced the 10 bolt front with a '77-'79 ¾ ton Dana 44 sourced from an acquaintance in our neighborhood. My dad had some longer front leaf springs laying around and stuck them in the nose end to help level things out. I had ordered a Tuff Country 4”-6” raised steering arm and threw it on at the same time.

The rims in the next pics were some 16 inchers from a Dodge that my Dad scrounged up. They came with those 32.5” tires mounted to them. The front license plate I had jammed in the firewall to keep the larger vermin out while El Burbo Maldito sat awaiting my eventual return.



From the side view you can see that the rear axle sat too close to the body. At least it looked to be sitting level instead of displaying that usual Suburban rear sag.



There was some rust resurfacing already. It turned out that the body work we had had done years back consisted mostly of body filler applied thickly over semi-straightened, but still swiss cheesed metal.

Things got a little tricky in 2006. I was attending school full time and had also picked up a full time job at the beginning of the year to pay for rent, food, fuel, etc... I skipped going home for spring break because I was still pretty new at work. Disposable income did start to accrue in my piggy bank though.

One of the advantages of being away from the vehicle for months at a time was that I would research plausible modifications and formulate a very well laid out plan to overcome the problems I'd encountered on my last visit. I would order parts and have them shipped to my dad's shop where he'd set them aside until later.

It was during Fall break of 2006 when the body became separate from the frame for the first time in 36 years.

[foamypirate]

Good stuff. I enjoyed reading it.

Oh, and being from Utah myself, I know exactly what you were doing out of country.

[SOON2BLAZE]

Where you at, north main in Cedar City? St George here.

[vectorit]

Interesting story!

I had family living in the Hurricane/La Verkin UT area for a few years, still got some friends there. Nice place.

[Beelzeburb]

Wow, SOON2BLAZE hit the nail on the head. Many of the pictures so far were in fact taken on North Main in Cedar.

Speaking of the Hurricane / La Verkin / Toquerville area vectorit, I just drove through there this past weekend. It was free entry to National Parks week. I'll probably be back there soon because I've got a buddy with an AMC Gremlin and we'll be scouring a wrecking yard there for parts.

Here's a picture I took while out doing a little hiking on Saturday:

Just can't argue with the scenery around here.

[vectorit]

Yea the scenery in that area is breath taking. I did a lot of deer hunting in Southern UT for years, and just hiking through that area was worth the trip even if I didn't fill my tag.

[SOON2BLAZE]

Well I must confess, I stopped by that shop more than a few times when I would go mtn biking in cedar to look for parts. The burb had been there for a while and there had been a few 67-72 trucks parked next to it. Lots of 67-72's still on the road up there.

[Sublvr72]

nice story! Keep it going!

[Beelzeburb]

I got a little ahead of myself story-wise. One last thing we did before removing the body was to set the big block into the engine bay to see if/where we would need to modify the firewall for clearance reasons. The passenger side wasn't going to be a problem, but it became obvious that a section of the driver's side would have to be cut up and reshaped to clear the cylinder head. We were able to put my hardly used GM motor mounts from the 355 to good use once again and the mount holes lined up perfectly with the frame. Another observation we made was that the oil pan was going to be a fairly tight fit but it didn't seem to pose a serious problem. Back out came the 454 and onto the engine stand once more.

On with the show.

After rolling my Suburban into the shop, and plenty of careful consideration, this is what we came up with.




The front lift arms were under the body seam, adjacent to the second set of floor supports. The rear arms sat under the wood floor on one of the rear cross braces. You can see that we had to stack a couple to adapters to get the height needed out back. I had done some research and purchased four pneumatic caster wheels in a compromise between low price and high weight capacity. I fabricated adapters from plate steel in order to bolt the front set to the first body mount holes, and attached the rear ones directly to an under floor cross brace.

It didn't all work according to plan.

After rolling the frame out of the shop...



We lowered the body...



The front wheels worked beautifully. The rear ones immediately folded the support they were attached to. After lots of finagling I gave up and just used a floor jack to get it out the door and back to the gravel. A spare set of jack stands would hold the rear up for the time being.



The frame was wheeled back into another bay where I commenced to remove, tag and bag all of the fittings that were still on it.



By this time I'd learned proper procedure for organizing parts as I took them off and started snapping many more pictures. We had previously removed the 40 gallon aftermarket tank because 1. it was too big and bulky and 2. we were planning on swapping in a tank with EFI pump compatibility in the near future.



That tag listed the manufacturer as “TRAVEL ACCESSORIES MFG. CO. INC.”
A stencil on the side read “DO NOT WELD OR TORCH”
I sold it to the scrap man a few years later.

My dad surprised me at spring break of 2007 with a completely sandblasted frame. We were ready to try out this stuff I had already been reading about for some time, POR-15.

[Average Joe]

Great build and write up. Keep it coming!!

[71swb4x4]

Great story!! That is going to be a nice solid Burb when you get done with it.

On a side note my in-laws live in Hurricane. That whole southern Utah area is just gorgeous.

[Beelzeburb]

Thanks for the replies so far everyone.

I've got plenty more of this to disseminate so don't worry, I'll post it all up eventually.

[Beelzeburb]

So far this has been kind of a fun retrospective. I've been able to recall the origins of my predilection for products like Simple Green for light grease removal and POR-15 for rust-proofing. I can remember seeing first hand how the internal combustion engine functioned and learning so many things 'hands on' that books simply can't impress on a young mind in the same way. Needless to say, by this time I was completely hooked on the car thing. My dad and I could understand each other's language and share our scheming plots for the future of this and other vehicles. He had some project cars of his own along the way, but nothing would keep his interest for very long and these vehicles usually wound up in the hands of the first person to walk in the door holding the right amount of cash. Aside from the Bel Air and the '72 truck he'd had a '66 Jeep Wagoneer, J10 and J20, '34 Plymouth, and a Datsun 510 two door. Half of them were basket-cases.

Where was I? Oh yeah, spring of '07 with a freshly sandblasted frame and axles.

This was my pleasant surprise:



The whole frame as well as the axles, springs, steering box and even the back sides of the rims had been sandblasted clean. I set about scraping off any thickly coated grime that the blast media hadn't completely removed and de-greasing each of those spots.



The frame was ready to rock while the axles were rolled aside and given the same prep treatment



The new rust you can see on the Dana 44 is from water I'd used to rinse off some degreaser. It oxidized instantaneously. Before I could blink that surface rust was everywhere the water had touched. I used a different degreaser after that, one that would completely evaporate and not leave behind a residue that needed rinsing to remove. Minor surface rust like that wasn't a problem though. The POR-15 adhered very well to the rough surface created on the metal by the sandblasting.

Donning a full body paint suit, respirator and head cap, my dad filled his HVLP gun with undiluted POR-15 straight from the can. After some minor adjustment to the spray nozzle we were in business.

Over a couple of days he sprayed two full coats on the entire frame, axles, the whole shebang. Low humidity in Southern Utah's high desert meant that it would take until the next day for one coat to be semi-cured and no longer tacky.

Man did it look good.



We didn't look so good, what with POR-15 all over our hands and anywhere that hadn't been covered. It took about two weeks for that stuff to wear off as new skin cells displaced the old ones on our bodies. I was smart enough to order some of their special thinner, but it only worked if we didn't get our hands wet first. It set up muy pronto in direct contact with water. Years later the bay we painted the frame in still had a darker floor than the surrounding concrete.

My dad had sprayed the first coat on a Friday, so Saturday morning we snuck up to the shop for the second coat. On Saturday afternoon I was shopping for new shoes and the clerk had brought me a pair that seemed unusually dirty. He gave me a really funny look when I asked for another pair in the same size, one that didn't look so grimy. I didn't realize until later that the clerk probably suspected I'd smudged them up with my filthy looking mitts.

On Monday I threw the axles back on:



I had the rest of the week to figure out how to properly mount the drivetrain. To begin we went ahead and set that rat motor in place.



You can see everything lined up and ready to go in that shot. 454 nestled between the framerails, 4L80E, NP241C behind it, fuel lines and then a 31 gallon EFI Blazer tank at the back. The tank we had scrounged up from a local junkyard as I thought it looked like a good fit. After going back to the shop and doing some measuring it seemed that the tank would wedge perfectly and very snugly between the rear framerails. I had considered a stainless steel ECE tank, but the price was much more agreeable at the junkyard.

I pulled a torque converter from the shop's stock and threw it on. The original t-case adapter had a hairline crack in it, so another was found in the shop's inventory of parts. With the transmission and transfer case bolted together I hoisted them into place with a cherry picker (hydraulic engine hoist if you prefer) and attached the bellhousing with some new zinc coated Grade 5 hardware.



By the way, shouldn't something hold that super-dooper drivetrain up?
Don't worry, that picture was taken just after unhooking the cherry picker but before supporting it with a jackstand. We scratched our heads then hemmed and hawed for a while trying to figure out the crossmember conundrum. The crossmember would have to be able to clear a front driveshaft, be up high enough to not drag on rocks but still reach to the t-case adapter and support everything. My dad had a collection of a half dozen crossmembers from various applications lounging behind the shop. You can see some of them in the picture of the old gas tank. I picked through the metallic bouquet, trying out various combinations and theorizing.

In the end we used the original crossmember as a base. The slots in the bottom were enlarged with a die grinder to clear the sockets needed to attach the nuts for the base of the mount. One of the crossmembers from out back (probably an eighties GM truck) had the proper spacing for the mount in the center, but if I recall correctly it was too long, or didn't fit flat against the frame. It did, however, have a hump in the middle of the crossmember where a mount had sat. With a cutting blade in the angle grinder I chopped the hump out of the newer crossmember. After it was cleaned up we welded it to the top of the old crossmember.

It worked! The added height of the hump allowed the mount to sit right in the sweet spot. I was able to attach it at the bottom with the correct nuts and best of all it would clear the front driveshaft on the passenger side.

Here, you'll understand what I'm babbling about if you see a picture taken quite a few steps later:



In this next picture you can barely see the bottom of the crossmember in place on the bare frame after POR-15 coating it.



I slathered the rad support by hand with cheap paint brushes. POR-15 fills brush strokes very well. The radiator support was sitting on the front while I figured out how the mounting hardware fit. The headers were on loan from a local exhaust shop. The ones my dad later ordered for it didn't have those goofy A.I.R. injection ports.

I could see a slight complication with the Blazer fuel tank though. There was a crossmember in the way where I planned to mount it (the one it is sitting on top of in the picture). I added that to my list of problems to research back in Arizona.

[Beelzeburb]

I stated previously that in early '06 life became pretty hectic with both a full time job and attending school full time. Things got even trickier in the spring of 2007. I had saved about 2k in cash and it was burning a hole in my pocket (more like taunting me from my fireproof safe, you can never be too careful with roommates). I convinced myself that buying some Edelbrock 60499 aluminum heads for my 454 would be the pinnacle of awesome. Then I realized that the $920 assembled price tag was for one cylinder head, not a pair.

Wow, that would have been quite the investment. For that kind of money I would likely be able to acquire another project vehicle in Arizona and quell the wrenchin' bug that ate at me while separate from the Suburban. Hmm, what kind of vehicle?

A 67-72 2wd short fleet could have been nice, plus, I knew the body style inside and out Even the fixer uppers were outside the limits of my initial budget though. A LWB could be had for much cheaper, but I didn't have access to a shop or welder to try my hand at shortening the frame and bed down. I spotted a straight 2wd suburban in front of a carpet place and went in to ask about it. That one could have been acquired for the entirety of my budget, which would leave me with no money for inevitable maintenance and repairs. I occasionally perused Craigslist ads, calling a few owners of trucks and burbs for a while, kind of getting a feel for what was out there.

My vehicle history thus far had included the Suburban, that Dodge D50 pickup, An Olds 98 (with all the amenities an early nineties Florida retiree could need or want) and another SUV. It was then that the epiphany came. “Know what,” I thought to myself, “I've never owned a sports car.” That was it, I wanted to find out what it was like to own something fast and light that didn't have seating for an entire family. What kind of sporty car could I find for under 2 grand that'd be old enough for exemption from emissions testing in most states?

This was getting kind of exciting. Those Suburbans and cheap LWB C10s from Craigslist were on the back burner now.
Chevy II/Nova? Maybe. Same general time period as my Suburban, lots of mechanical similarities.
Honda? Too new, too F&F.
1st gen Ford Mustang? Too much initial financial outlay.
BMW 2002? Again, too much initial investment.
Sixties 2 door Plymouth? Kinda cool, but didn't feel right.
Datsun 240Z? What's that? Is that what Nissan used to be called?
Wait, Datsun made a sports car? Bone stock it had fully independent suspension, power front disk brakes, weighed 2350 lbs, came with an overhead cam 7 main bearing straight six with both a forged crankshaft and rods, was fed by dual side-draft carburetors and all of that came paired with a manual transmission in 1970?
After lots of online research I bought the fourth one I had ever seen with my own eyes, cracked fiberglass cowl induction hood and all.



Now I had two vehicles in Arizona (where I was a college student living in a rented room) and one in Utah. One of the three ran.

“Wait,” you say to yourself, “wasn't I reading a thread about an American made Chevrolet Suburban up until just a minute ago?

Yes, yes you were but you've fallen into my devious trap. Muahhahhaaaahhaaha!



Ow, my vocal chords hurt now.

No, you haven't really fallen into a trap. I'll get back to the Suburban shortly.
I mention the Z because I bought it with the idea of doing all of the work myself (many thanks to the guys on the HybridZ.org forums for their help along the way). I had to see for myself that I could bring a vehicle back to life. My $900 rust free non-runner went on to become an engine swapped N/A little rocket with 100 more horsepower than it left the factory with. And I did do all the work myself with simple tools, on the concrete floor of my landlord / roommate's garage, including rebuilding an engine on a big sheet of cardboard.

Here's an example of the engine bay.
Before:

After:


That's all of my slight deviation for now. I promise it has an influence on the rest of the Suburban story later down the road.
I had determined that this crazy hobby was both A: a horribly debilitating disease and B: sometimes a means to an end. Plus, I was finally able to appease the wrenching bug that ate at me during those long months I was separate from my Suburban.

[Beelzeburb]

A week before coming home for fall break of 2007 I drove out to DVAP to get a crucial piece for the Blazer fuel tank install. Their yard had a LWB 67-72 truck sans bed, which was perfect for my needs. I had one of the yard lackeys torch the rearmost crossmember out for me. They charged a princely sum for it, but I didn't have the patience to try and locate a 67-72 LWB in one of Phoenix's pick 'n pull yards and then sit in the sun trying to remove it's rear crossmember with hand tools. September in Maricopa County is not a pleasant time to work outdoors.

After measuring, mocking up and then relocating the original crossmember this is what I came up with:



That extra crossmember I had sourced went in front of the fuel tank. My original one was moved to just behind it. All tightened down, the tank's original rub pads cinched snugly against both crossmembers. Since I wasn't planning on dealing with rust for a long time after the Suburban reached completion, all of the fasteners I could replace on the frame and elsewhere have been stainless steel. I regularly depleted the local hardware store's stock.

That same week I had taken the fuel tank to a man in town my dad recommended me to. Said man removed the fuel filler neck from the tank, relocated it to the opposite side and filled in the hole that was left behind. This way it was positioned to utilize the stock fuel filler location without running excessively long lines anywhere.

The tank was secured in position with some new '73-'91 straps as I didn't have a clue where the originals had wandered off to. New holes were drilled in the crossmembers for stainless bolts to pass through and fit into couplers added to the tank straps.

If you look really close at that last picture you'll spot my Off Road Design 1” Zero Rate Add-a-Leaves bolted under the rear spring packs. These were necessary because they let us move the axle rearward 1.5”. If you recall, the tires had been too close to the fenders after we installed ORD's 4” shackle flip. As an added bonus, the rear was lifted an extra inch.

We reused the fuel hard lines from either my grandfather's '88 truck, or another Chevy of the same vintage. I was surprised how closely they fit the contours of my frame. A little bit of bending and tweaking took place to get them properly secured back by the tank itself but other than that everything curved perfectly. The front braided steel lines that lead to the TBI unit got a little pinched at some point in time, so I contemplated eventually replacing them.

Sometime over the past year I had ordered a full stainless steel hard brake line kit for the Suburban. Actually, I ordered Inline Tube p/n SCTB71B4 which is for a 1972 Suburban 4wd with power disc brakes. It was the option that seemed to suit my rig the best. The sales rep who took my order at Inline Tube wasn't quite sure I knew what I was doing, but the fit was almost perfect when the lines were secured in place. The rear axle hard lines couldn't be used as they were completely different, and a couple of sections needed a little adjusting with the line bender but in 2010 everything is currently connected and holding pressure.

The headers in that last picture are the final ones my dad bought for me. A nice set of ceramic coated D303Y Doug's.

Now it was starting to look like something.

Next order of business was to put the body back on the frame. I had ordered the stock replacement body mounts from Brothers Trucks many moons ago. They were on back order from General Motors for a few months, but arrived in time for the install.

I was ready to replace those old body mount bolts too.



The new ones would be zinc-coated Grade 5 or Grade 8 hardware.

Before the body went back on the frame it had to be pushed back into the shop and corralled onto the lift. Those little caster front tires miraculously still held air a year and a half later. The back ones were still useless. First I had to place a piece of plywood in the gravel under the Suburban, then the floor jack rolled on top of the plywood sheet. Otherwise we would have never negotiated the gravel with those tiny solid metal wheels on a floor jack. The proverbial sailing was fairly smooth once we got back onto the pavement. It took three guys to simultaneously push and steer all that mass up the slope that led to the bay we were headed for.

I had to go back and check my pictures in order to determine where the lift arms and stands had been placed when we removed the body. I didn't want to be lowering it onto the frame only to realize that one of the lift arms was going to hit before the body did.
One of the plans I had formulated during the 'off season' if you will, was to clean and POR-15 coat the underside of the body before it was reattached to the frame.



Because this was a shop that had to be open for business five days a week, I only got time to sand, prep and coat the parts that would be immediately covered up and made inaccessible later by the frame and drivetrain. I took a closer look at the rusty front floor supports and added them to my shopping list.
The other area I wanted to tackle before the body and frame met up again was the firewall. It was going to be unreachable behind that large motor, plus it still needed to be modified to clear that driver's side valve cover. A number of extra holes in the firewall were welded shut by yours truly at the same time. I'd been planning on a Vintage Air system for the future and liked the idea of a smoother firewall.

Here's how my firewall mod looked:



I think I took a junk transmission pan and cut it up because it already had the curvature I wanted. These were some of my first weld jobs and I wasn't very familiar with adjusting the settings on my dad's 220V machine, so the wire went on thick without much penetration. There were a couple of rust pinholes in the vent box on the passenger side that I took care of at this time as well.

All in all it looked pretty good with two coats of POR-15 applied by hand with 50¢ paintbrushes.





Now the moment of truth was upon us. Would the body and frame fit back together the way they should and agree to play nice with each other?









Wait for it....









No!

For some reason or another that big block engine seemed to be even further back than when we had mocked it up. Gaaaa!

I went inside the cab with a cut-off wheel and chopped out half of the work I had done on the driver's side, plus I trimmed it back a couple more inches to clear that pesky valve cover. My dad raised the body back up with the lift, and mini sledge in hand he coerced the passenger side of the firewall with his own brand of persuasion. That POR-15 could hold up to some abuse if it was applied properly.

Everything finally fit.



The front fenders, inner fenders, hood and bumper were quickly thrown on with a couple of bolts each. I had purchased a SS bolt kit from Brothers but saved it for the future, whenever the final assembly would take place.
It looked like a Suburban again for the first time in more than two years.



As an added side effect, it was no longer taking up a bay (or at times two) in my dad's shop. Back out to the gravel it went until my next visit. This time no floor jacks were required to hold up the rear end.

[low'n slow]

Real cool story. Don't keep us in suspense for 2 long.

[Beelzeburb]

Originally Posted by low'n slow

Real cool story. Don't keep us in suspense for 2 long.

Thanks. I'm trying to keep sort of a controlled flow. Not an overwhelming deluge of info at once, but not too spartan either. If anyone has any questions about any of the modifications I've made the the Suburban feel free to ask and I'll see if I can remember what I did.


Okay, back to 2007.
I worked Thanksgiving that year in order to get Christmas time off. Winter break of '07 I had a wiring diagram and computer pinout in my hands. Thus began the long and boring process of picking through each of the wires from both the computer and body harnesses of my grandfather's old truck. My dad had stripped out everything that might potentially be useful down the road. We still had the gauge cluster, A/C condenser, cruise control module, aluminum radiator, fuel tank complete with sender plus lots of other bits and bobs. Laboriously I removed every system and wire that wouldn't be needed.

Parking lamps? Don't need 'em.
Wires leading to the heater? Toss 'em.
Fuel pump relay? Don't cut that sucker.
Windshield wiper switch? Goodbye.

So on and so forth, ad infinitum. I picked through every fusebox connection one by one, eliminating circuits that wouldn't be used and unhooking the ones that would. I had purchased an American Autowire '69-'72 Classic Update “Deluxe” 18 circuit system that would be forming the basis of my power distribution system.

Replacing this:


With this:

Every vital connection on the old harness was tagged in case they would need to be used for reference later.

At some point in time years earlier I had temporarily removed the Suburban's dash cluster and I remember vividly having to deal with the mess from disconnecting that oil pressure gauge. “I wonder what's up with this funny copper tube? Oh well, it's just going to a gauge, must be some special kind of wire sheath.” I also learned that the shift indicator was fiber optic cable only after chopping it in half with wire cutters. I guess 17 was old enough to start learning to read directions before tearing into something. From this point on though, everything I had taken apart and heaped in various storage areas would be cleaned, modified if need be and then reassembled.

There were still plenty of other small things on the Suburban that needed taking care of. For a birthday my dad bought me a COMPUSHIFT controller with optional LCD readout for my 4L80E. I didn't know then just how expensive and vital a piece it was or I would have thanked him more profusely.

I had figured out what order the radiator support mounting hardware should be assembled in, and it was properly secured to the frame. A junkyard sourced battery tray was sandblasted then POR-15 coated and installed next. I bought an original style big block radiator shroud from Brothers Trucks but they sent me the wrong one. After shipping it back at my own expense I later got the right piece and it fit beautifully after reinstalling my 4 core heavy duty radiator with some new HD rubber insulators. The fan even sat perfectly half in half out of the shroud. After securing the top of the shroud in place it became a mystery of sorts how the bottom half of the radiator shroud would be held in place. In the mean time I thew some zip-ties on to keep it from moving around too much.

The list of tasks yet to accomplish was still pretty large. I didn't have an oil filter in place, there were no driveshafts, no transmission cooler, the wiring was somewhat sorted but by no means close to being hooked up to anything yet. The fuel line fittings needed tightened and the vent line routed, the brake booster and master cylinder weren't hooked up to anything, I needed radiator hoses, hadn't figured out what to do for a serpentine belt after deleting the A.I.R. Pump, didn't have a throttle cable, no power steering lines, the longer springs my dad had put in the front of the Suburban now hit the frame with the weight of the body on it, I didn't have flexible brake lines, axle vent hoses, no shock absorbers, no steering stabilizer, no exhaust, no A/C system, the fuel filler neck wasn't connected to anything, the parking brake cables were too short, the engine, transmission and t-case didn't have any fluid in them yet, the engine hadn't been primed (again, no oil), no starter, no flywheel cover, the passenger side header hit the rear spring shackle bolt, and I needed to figure out what to do for an O2 sensor among other needs and wants.

[Beelzeburb]

There was no spring break in 2008 because I had already completed my program and in April they gave me a diploma. I quit my job and moved back home to prepare for a career by expanding my portfolio. Having torn apart and rebuilt or replaced much of the driveline on my 240Z, then diagnosing and correcting driveability problems with it I was quite a bit better equipped to tackle the remaining challenges of the Suburban.

I would like to say that this was a particularly productive period with the Suburban, but not much happened for a variety of reasons. I was busy working on my portfolio and in August attended a large industry conference and exhibition plying my wares as it were. This was also the year that my dad, who had been my compatriot in this project from day one, was diagnosed with cancer. I wound up being his middle man to run the day to day affairs of the shop as he progressed through surgery, radiation treatment and chemotherapy. He passed away in April of 2009 at the age of 45.

He was an incredible and exemplary man. I will always treasure the time that I was able to spend with him.

Without him we could unfortunately no longer run the business, so for two months I was in charge of clearing out the building, selling off equipment and scrapping tons (literally) of used transmissions and parts while my mother dealt with closing accounts and ceasing all business operations.

I sold four of my father's vehicles in the space of a month because there would be no way to store them any longer. Among them was a 1954 Buick Century Wagon I had helped him scope out and retrieve from Arizona the year before (one of 1500 produced in '54). I held on to one vehicle at his request, a yellow 1970 Chevy K/5 Blazer he had purchased in March of 2007. It had been the one project vehicle of his over the past 10 years that in my opinion had progressed the most. He'd removed the original 307 / 3 Speed Manual / Dana 20 drivetrain (for which I also found a buyer).



In their place went the old 355 from my Suburban (he'd been wanting to put it in something for years) which had been mated to an NV4500 and NP241C, both of which he had rebuilt. He'd done his research and ordered all of the needed adapters then found a way to mount a hydraulic clutch to the firewall and all other necessary linkages. It was a functional vehicle with full exhaust (he re-purposed the old exhaust from my Suburban, but had some Magnaflow mufflers added instead of my old glasspacks), shortened driveshafts and the tilt van column that was supposed to go in my Suburban. He'd stuck it in the Blazer because it was “just laying around looking forlorn and neglected”. I was able to drive the Blazer home under its own power. When I find the time to start cutting out and replacing its floor pans I'll post a project thread just for the Blazer here.

Here's one picture until then:



Before the Suburban left the shop, I had some work to do. If it was going to be towed home, even on a flatbed trailer I'd want some form of brakes, and if I had exclusive access to two-post lifts and a shop full of tools and equipment, then by golly I was going to use them. My original plan was to quickly hash the Suburban together and drive it home, all the while preparing to vacate the premises, but the landlord of the building we were leasing reneged on a previous oral agreement to let us “take whatever time you need” in clearing out of the location.

First order of business. Adding an oil filter and oil cooler to the engine. I gathered up any part that may have had a relationship with my Suburban. One of the needed items was the oil cooler adapter.



The Mark IV Big Block engine I was using didn't have a direct screw on filter nipple, instead a sandwich adapter fit between the block and the filter. I found the adapter in a box of parts and cleaned it up.



I knew that the original style clip in connectors with plastic retainers had a lousy reputation, so some large ID ½” brass fittings were located for the adapter. Didn't want a pressure drop because of a restriction in the system. Some matching brass fittings were threaded into a used stacked plate style transmission cooler that was being re-purposed as an engine oil cooler. I ordered a sandwich adapter gasket set as well. If / where the originals could be found was an unknown at the time.



$40 later I had 25' of ½” cooler hose. I wanted to make sure there would be plenty for both the feed and return.


While cleaning out the shop I found my old NP205 still languishing under a teardown bench:


I hung onto it, and also removed the range box from a used NP203 in case the urge ever hit to order a doubler adapter. That would be another entry for another day though.
Behind the transfer case are my old 40” Blue Flame glasspacks that I found outside. The stock cast iron intake manifold from the 454 was lounging somewhere inconspicuous. Ever wondered what one of these things weighs? I was curious too and threw it on my scale to find out. Unfortunately I seem to have misplaced my notes from that day but when I find them I'll post what I measured.

My engine that had once been so clean and shiny was now covered in a thick coat of dust.