1971 Chevy Suburban Redux

The tires that the Suburban rolled home on were 315/75r16 all terrain tires. That’s big… too big for my blood. I’m not really an off-roader, so a 35″ x 12.5″ tire, for my tastes, just looks silly. To each their own, and if you’re driving over sand-dunes or endlessly deep mud pits, then the bigger the better — but that’s not for me. I’m building this classic Chevy Suburban to be an honest-to-goodness sport utility vehicle: I want to be able to get along on jeep trails (actual double-track trails, not creekbeds), but cruising down the highway is even more important, because there’s a lot of highway between St. Louis and Yellowstone.

Most guys that upgrade their stock tires to a larger size seem to like beefy, wide tires. Tall, skinny tires have more of a small cult following. It seems the consensus among skinny tire proponents is that the 255/85r16 is the ideal tire size. That’s a true 33″ tire, at only 10″ wide. From a performance perspective, that’s probably really the best road manners (quietest and best fuel economy) and the best off-road characteristics in everything but super deep mud or sand. The problem is… you cannot find any sort of selection on these tires. Most of the choices are mud terrain tires, with maybe 3 or 4 choices, and there’s only one all terrain tire in that size that I’m aware of: the Cooper Discoverer ST. Even then, the ST is more like a hybrid between a mud terrain and an all terrain.

I had actually settled on a tire, and ordered a set from Discount Tire Direct. I decided to go with the BF Goodrich Mud Terrain T/A KM2 in 255/85r16. Everything I read is that they have surprisingly quiet ride, and the treadlife is really good for a mud terrain tire. They’ve got a wickedly aggressive looking tread pattern, which is maybe out of character for me, but they look cool! It all makes no difference though… Discount Tire Direct called back shortly after I placed my order, and they informed me that the BFG Mud Terrain T/A KM2 is on national backorder. Bummer. I check tirerack.com… same story.

The next closest size, and my second choice, was the 255/75r17. With the slightly larger wheel diameter, but lower profile sidewalls, the total height on those is about 32″. So I give up an inch in height vs the 255/85r16, but I keep the 10″ width. There are a ton of all terrain choices in this size, but a 1971 Chevy Suburban is a *big* truck, and I worried that a 32″ tire would feel a little small, especially since they’d be replacing 35″ tires. And with all terrain tires vs mud terrains, would they look like stock highway tires on the bug ‘Burb?

I went ahead and pulled the trigger. A couple days later UPS shows up with four Goodyear Wrangler SilentArmor tires in 255/75r17. That rubber would get wrapped around some good ol’ Cragar Soft 8 black steel wheels in 17″x8″. Here they are mounted up:

I actually really like the 75-series sidewall profile on the 17″ wheels – they’re not overly balloon-like, the way a lot of larger tires look on 15″ or 16″ wheels. Here’s a shot of the new tires next to the old 315/75r16 tires:

Clearly these 255/75r17 tires are smaller, but not too small. I’m liking them more and more. Here’s a shot of them lined up next to my daily driver, an F150 with 31×10.5r15 all terrain tires:

It’s hard to see really well against the black truck, but that photo still gives you an idea of the change.

On Sunday I got two of the new wheels/tires bolted up to my cleaned up 14-bolt semi-floater rear axle. I added brake lines to the axle this weekend too, so all it needs prior to bolting it up to the truck is gear oil. Here’s a photo of the axle with the wheels and tires.

I like it. I’m really happy with the size, and the Goodyear Wrangler SilentArmors will hopefully prove to be a nice, quiet all terrain tire, with enough tread to get me through a little slush and slop and gravel once in a while.

More updates to come soon. I made more progress on the truck this weekend, got some interior parts, firmed up on a deal for a diesel engine… but for now, it’s late, and I have work to do. Wish me luck!

Tracking numbers issued from each of those vendors… I’ll give you three guesses what’s coming…

Hopefully the blizzard doesn’t slow UPS down too much. I’ll post photos and info later this week.

I should also have an update on the diesel conversion soon too. Looks like I may have found a nice 6.2 GM diesel with the 700r4 overdrive transmission in a running truck. Oh, updates on the interior coming soon too.

Wow, lots of little updates on seemingly unrelated pieces right now. Hopefully this means that come summertime all those pieces will fall together. Stay tuned!

At work we’ve been doing some development and marketing for a diesel fuel system manufacturer. They make great performance products for diesel semi trucks as well as pickups. That got me to thinking… what about a Diesel in the ‘71 Suburban?

So I’ve done just a bit of superficial research and it looks like the 6.2 Chevy diesel isn’t computer controlled (so I don’t have to worry about an ECM and a wiring harness, and then the gauges, and then all that other stuff), and the 6.2 will basically bolt up in place of a small block Chevy motor. It will even bolt to the same bellhousing that I have on the TH350 transmission. From what I understand the TH350 will actually work with a diesel motor, but maybe needs a different valve body and torque converter.

So what do you all think? Swap out the 350 for a 6.2 diesel? Better fuel mileage, good durability, good low-end torque for the big Suburban.

AND… I can convert it to run on waste vegetable oil – I can build the American classic truck, travel the country burning WVO for fuel, all while sticking it to Big Oil.

If I do this I’ll have to paint it green work some “Green Machine” graphics onto the side.

This weekend I finally got back in the garage, and back to work on the ol’ 1971 Chevy Suburban. With the cold weather, I’m keeping the garage door closed while I work, which means I can’t move parts around and really spread out like I’d prefer. I did manage to clear out enough room to work though…

The real problem I have, is that in this normal two-car garage, I’ve got the giant Chevy Suburban, and all my canoes and kayaks (a 21′ surf ski, two 18′6″ race canoes, a 16′6″ touring canoe and my older son’s 14′ kayak), and the whole family’s bikes (two of mine are up at the office to make more room), and all my tools. And then the lawn tools — good lord, the lawn tools. If those don’t take up a ton of space, nothing does. Put all of that together, and it’s a lot of stuff for a normal sized garage. I guess I shouldn’t complain. I’m lucky enough to have acquired all this stuff, which is sort of a blessing, even if I don’t have enough room to store it all (but geez, the lawn tools… I don’t even like working on the lawn).

So back to the Suburban… about six months ago I left off working on the right quarter panel. I got the tail light section fitted in, and the wheel-arch pretty much ready to go as well. The last piece to wrap that section up was the lower section, behind the wheel. My plan was to shape and fabricate this part out of some left-over pieces of sheet metal, but I decided to go the easy route, and buy the section from LMC Truck. Here’s what it looks like:

It looks like a well-made part. Shipping from LMC was super-fast, as usual. The fit of the part was a totally different story though. Here’s what this section looks like in place:

You can see that the flat section on the rear is much, much wider than the sheet metal actually on the Suburban. I was afraid of this, as I had the same problem with the tail-light panel (see my post on Tail Light Repair Panel Shennanigans). Here’s another look at it:

You can see that the gap is pretty significant. Luckily the tail light panel is complete from top to bottom… I can just cut the tail light section off of the lower panel. A little measuring… a little cutting… a little welding… and the right quarter is essentially done.

After making some rough measurements, I start cutting, and that’s where the title of this post comes in. Into Retirement — that’s where my air compressor is going. If you want to truly test a man’s patience, put him to work with an air saw or a cutoff wheel, and a compressor that can’t keep up.

I don’t blame the compressor really… I bought this old 30 gallon Craftsman compressor when I was probably 18, maybe younger. Honestly, I am amazed it’s lasted this long. I’ve used DA sanders, cutoff wheels, even sandblasters with it, knowing full well that it couldn’t keep up. But I’ve kept pushing it. I’ve painted several complete cars with it, lots and lots of car parts, some airplane parts, a couple of canoes, a bunch of bike frames, a motorcycle, and lots of other miscellaneous stuff with it. I’ve used it to run the impact wrench on countless lug nuts. I should have known that working on this beast of a Suburban would finally drive it into permanent retirement.

I don’t think the pump cylinder really has much compression left in it. It just takes –f–o–r–e–v–e–r– to fill this tiny tank, and with an air saw, I am only getting a few seconds of run-time anyway before the motor kicks back on.

So as much as I really wanted to make good progress this weekend… I didn’t. And now I’m shopping for a new air compressor. That means once I do pick one out, I’ll have to get it all set up in my garage, which means I’ll have lost another half a day of Suburban time. I’m just hoping that a new compressor will help me work that much faster.

It has been nearly 6 months since I last posted, and we’re in the middle of winter now (so the garage is cold). I’ve had a nice Dayton space heater sitting, still boxed up, in my garage for about three years now, just waiting for installation. This heater runs on a 220v circuit, which is what’s prevented me from setting it up to this point. My breaker panel is in the basement, in the farthest corner of the house so it means running 100+ feet of romex, installing a new circuit breaker, etc. etc. Well I finally broke down and did it… and the heater works great.

Now the garage (and the Suburban) is toasty and warm, just waiting for some activity. But where did the last six months go? Well to my throngs of loyal blog followers, here’s what I’ve been up to for the past 6-months…

Back in July, I was preparing for this bout… I was the main event at a fight show at the Atomic Cowboy (not a clue how I ended up the main event). I’m the one in red…

Then we did a little night time orienteering the kids and one of their friends…

Then back in the ring at the Ringside World Championships in KC…

The ring doctor decided that the blood and the broken nose was enough reason to not let me keep fighting…

From the ring to the river — after Ringside I did a little training to get ready for the Race For the Rivers. My only canoe race of the season so far…

And while I was in a paddling state of mind, T and I prepared for the Chicago River Flatwater Classic. To get my paint and bodywork fix, I decided to restore our old Wenonah WWXX racing canoe. Here’s the before and after (below in grey is us at the Flatwater Classic two years ago, the blue-green is this year)…

While in Chicago we did a little vacationing…

On race day Taylor hammered… he’s a much stronger paddler every time we go out…

And we took 1st place again in the Adult/Child division…

At that point I couldn’t get paddling off my mind, so I bought Twogood Mako surf ski from former Olympian Mike Herbert…

I just needed a fast ski to round out my fleet…

Things have been busy at work this year in general, then a big project for Bud Light came up, so there were a lot of late nights building these kiosks for the Port Paradise III cruise…

We got to install three of these kiosks on each of two gigantic cruise ships…

While we were at it, we got to visit a bit of the Bahamas…

On top of that, I helped the St. Peters Boxing club turn this pile of steel…

Into this heavy bag rack for their new gym location…

So that’s pretty much it. Oh, and T started Junior High and was on the cross country team this fall, while still boxing. E started Kindergarten this year and he’s in wrestling now too. And now it’s the holidays so the weekends have been busy with family and friends.

Soon, very soon, I’ll be back to work on the Suburban. I’ve been inventorying my parts and doing a little audit of the work I’ve done so far. I think the next step is to continue on finishing up the right-side quarter. I’m definitely in the market for a clamshell tailgate instead of the barn doors I have on the Sub now, so let me know if you know of any for sale.

I expect to get a new post up with some actual progress, pretty soon. Stay tuned!