1971 Chevy Suburban Redux

I’ve got some work to catch up on at the office this weekend, but the weather’s supposed to be pretty nice, and if I can squeeze some time out in the garage, I’m gonna. Last weekend was great too, and I did manage to get a few things done.

Last week I mentioned that I got new wheels and tires. I got two of them mounted to the rear axles, and they look pretty good. I had cleaned and painted, and replaced a couple of gears in that GM 14-bolt semi-floater several months ago, and the only thing remaining was getting brake lines bent and connected.  Last weekend I did manage to get that done, so the rear axle is really ready for gear oil, and install. Now I can set that one aside until I’m ready to put it all back together.

I still need to rebuild the front axle. it’s a 3/4 ton GM 10-bolt front end. I have bet to pop the cover on it, so I hope the gears are all good. I’ll probably go through the same rebuilding process with the front that I did with the rear eventually, replacing bearings and seals, all the brake hardware, and putting a nice coat of POR-15 on it. That’ll probably come in the next few weeks. Here’s a shot of the 10-bolt axle:

I actually had a hard time confirming that this was a 10-bolt axle. It looks similar to a Dana 44, and most of the pictures and diagrams online show the differential cover as a pretty rounded shape. Mine looks like this, with a flat spot on the upper right:

Anywho, that’s gonna need some work, and I’ll get to that soon.

What I’ve also done in the meantime though, is remove and sell the Dana 44 and the HO72 rear-end from under the Suburban. Those were 4.10 gears, and just not what I wanted on for a highway truck. With limited parts available for the HO72, I figured it’d be easier to just swap the axles out entirely. the new ones have 3.23 gears… and that should get me good fuel economy.

Here’s a pic of T pumping the cherry picker to get the Dana 44 lifted up and in the back of my pickup:

Any now the Suburban is completely immobile:

The only other big news from last weekend is about the interior… I got a new one, from a late-model Chevy quad-cab pickup. The rear seats appear to be flip and fold just like in the Suburbans, so these ought to work perfect:

It’s the nice dark-grey velour, with the center jumpseat that folds into a console. This’ll give me 6 seats in the first two rows, and I’m thinking I’ll make some fold-up jump seats in the cargo area, rather than the third full bench.

All of that stuff’s going into storage this weekend though — the seats, the axles, the wheels, and the miscellaneous body parts that have been cluttering up my garage. This weekend I’ll tear down the front clip, and start preparing to pull the engine, tranny and transfercase. The SB 350 is got to go to make room for a 6.2 GM diesel from an ‘89 Blazer. We’ll see what kind of progress I can make this weekend.

Over the past week or two I think I’ve run this ‘71 Chevy Suburban out of gas two or three times, and I did it again on Friday night. It was dark by this time, and drizzly, as it had been all day. I was just about to crest a hill on a narrow two-lane road and the engine just died all at once. No sputter or warning, just instantaneous death. I flipped on the flashers and weighed my options. I did made a conscious effort to not pull off to the shoulder, as getting this 8,000lb brick rolling in soft chat and mud would not be pleasant.

There are no street lights on this section of road, so it’s dark, really dark. My windows and mirrors were speckled with raindrops and mist, so seeing at all was difficult. I figured I only really had one option at that point though… roll the truck back to the nearest intersection and park it on a side street. I put the column-shifter in Neutral and eased off the brakes. Riding the edge of the shoulder as tightly as I could, I managed to navigate the Sub backwards into a nearby neighborhood, only needing to get out and give the truck a shove once.

With the Suburban parked, I gathered my empty gas cans and head off on a short hike to the nearest gas station. I’ve been keeping these gas cans in the truck for the last couple weeks. See my older posts for my reasoning…

I did manage to get the truck started and drive it home, but I’ll take this as a sign — I gotta get this new gas tank installed ASAP.

I got a new gas tank delivered last week from LMC Truck. I think it’s a Chinese reproduction, but hard to beat for the price. Shipping was decent, however the included fuel level sender took a beating…

A little tweaking and bending with some pliers and we were in good shape, so it wasn’t that bad. Otherwise, I spent a little time Saturday just getting things ready, cleaning some items up. The boys helped me scrape and scrub the tank strap pads (the new tank didn’t come with them).

The new tank matched up pretty well with the original. Size and shape were accurate. The filler necks didn’t match though, so I’d have to get some new hose for that.

The tank straps appeared to be the correct length, but the bends in the wrong places. This actually concerned me a little, but the metal was really soft (aluminum maybe?), so I managed to just match them up and bend them to the correct shape.

In general, this weekend was a slow mover for me. Sunday, we ran out of coffee, so I just went without and I had the craziest headache. I do drink too much coffee, but I don’t usually get withdraw symptoms like that. I think that, in combination with the drizzly, dreary weather, and I just kind of shuffled around, a little Eeyore-like. I hope this isn’t a sign of things to come. Lack of motivation this early in this project can’t be a good thing.

After some breakfast and at least motivating myself to get out to the garage, I start in on prepping the space where the tank will be mounted. I had pulled the original take a few weeks ago, but before the new one went in I wanted to clean the frame rails up and put some rust preventative  on them since it’ll be tough to reach that later. I wire-brushed the rails and hosed it all down with brake clean. I used Eastwood’s Rust Encapsulator in spray-bomb form to cover the steel. The Eastwood stuff sprayed on pretty well, and did what I needed for now.

After that, the tank went in pretty easy. Stretching the filler hose onto the neck was a pain in the butt, but it could have gone much worse. After that I had a little help from E tightening up the tank straps.

When E tightened as much as I could, I finished snugging up all of the bolts. And that was pretty much it.

Now, basically I just re-routed the fuel lines… stripped out 6-feet of junk lines that connected the aux fuel tank to the system, and purged the remaining two or three gallons of old gasoline. The boys loved this view as the gasoline syphonned into a drain pan. Inappropriate jokes followed from my 5 and 10 year olds, as usual.

Now here’s the best part of this whole weekend project… after installing the new fuel tank, this old Suburban actually runs way better! Up until now, when the engine got hot it would idle rougher and rougher, eventually flooding itself out. With a couple of gallons of fresh gas in this shiny new tank, I let the engine idle for 10 minutes or so, then drove it around the block for 5 minutes, letting it idle again after getting back to the driveway. I cleaned up shop while letting the truck idle for another 10 minutes or so, then took it for a longer drive, maybe another 10 minutes. Still, rock solid idle and predictable running. I let it idle for another 5 minutes, and then drove it for another five.  Very, very consistent, which is a first.

I’m not really sure what to attribute this to — perhaps the aux tank had water or varnish or some other junk in it, or perhaps the fuel pickup in the new tank just provides more consistent fuel delivery. Either way, it’s better… much better. I drove it today as well with the same consistent results, so I’m pretty pumped. The fuel gauge still doesn’t work, but I’m less concerned with that now since I can actually fill the tank with more than three or four gallons at a time without worry of it leaking out. Clean livin’.

Next weekend the adventure continues. I think I’ll shoot for fixing the parking brake cables and getting it inspected (fingers crossed that brake cables are the only remaining thing it needs).

After that, it’s time for bodywork! Cannot wait for that. Stay tuned!

The ol’ ‘71 Suburban has been running pretty well. In the shower this morning I was happily reminiscing about the fact that I’ve driven the Sub all week, and I haven’t had to open the hood once. Maybe that’s a sad fact, but it kinda made me grin.

All of that is great news, but my daily commute is only just shy of 3 miles each way. What’s been curious, is that twice this week (wait, three times now), right at the end of my drive, pulling into the driveway, the truck dies. I’ve assumed it was just low enough on gas, and the motion of turning sloshed what’s left in the tank away from the pickup line. Did the same thing this morning as I pull into work.

Ok, so I made it *almost* a full week without opening the hood. After idling the truck into a parking spot this morning, I shut it off and pop the hood. There’s fuel in the filter, so fuel delivery isn’t the problem… A little closer inspection reveals what might be the culprit — the CARB IS STILL LEAKING!!!

I only see anything on the choke side of the carburetor, looks like around the throttle shaft. Or maybe it’s the gasket between the carb body and the base plate. The symptoms are weird… the truck runs fine until about 10 to 12 minutes of driving, then it happens, and it happens really quickly.

I supposed I’ll troubleshoot that this weekend. I think that getting the following three items worked out will make this classic Suburban totally reliable and drivable: adjust carb for better off-idle performance (maybe adjust the accelerator pump shot), fix leaking carb (if that fixes the hot stalling), and sort out gas tank situation (the lack of a gas gauge is kind of driving me nuts).

It was a busy weekend this past weekend. On top of that, the weather was just nasty… not fun to be working out in the cold garage or on the cold driveway. As a result, not much progress was made over the last few days. Certainly not a waste though.

I did put new alternator and power steering belts on the ‘Burban. In the process I realized the alternator wiring was nearly corroded away entirely, so I took the opportunity to rewire the whole thing, at least as far back as I easily could. So I guess that’s progress. I piddled around with a couple of other odds and ends… tightened up bolts on the transfer case and tranny, hoping to slow any fluid leaks.

It was actually cold and gross enough outside that I figured I’d confirm once and for all whether or not the Suburban will fit in our garage. Inching forward… with the door open… my eyes poking out above the roofline… right foot outstretched, toggling between gas and brake pedals…

Just… barely… fits… My post from a few weeks ago shows the contrast, pre-lowering…

So now it’s confirmed, I’ve got a couple of inches to spare on the height of the Suburban… but I have already confirmed that the Chevy is too long to fit (at least with the big PTO winch bumper it is). Either way, I’m not complaining. It’s much better to roll the creeper around on smooth garage-floor concrete than on rough driveway concrete.

I never did post any photos or info about what made all this possible — removing the gigantic homemade suspension lift blocks that were welded to the rear axle’s spring perches. These gems appear to be stacks, upon stacks of steel plates welded together (about 8 inches of steel plates welded together), then welded to the axle.

After getting the Suburban jacked up and supported on stands (an adventure in itself), I tried to remove the spring U-bolts by hand, with a big breaker bar and a socket.

No luck.

Then I tried heating the bolts with a torch to loosen them.

No luck.

At this point it dawned on me, why not just grind right through them and hammer what’s left of them out the other end.

Above you can see I have the inboard U-bolt already off, and the outboard U-bold half-way gone. Once those are gone, I get to work on grinding away the lowest visible weld bead on the block — which isn’t easy to do with all the dirt and corrosion.

After grinding the bead down far enough to expose a seam most of the way around, I just start whacking the thing with a sledgehammer. You can see above that what’s left of the weld gives way, and the lift block tumbles off, leaving this…

Not too bad. Just a little cleanup with the grinder and I’m ready to button it up. I put it all back together using the 4″ lift blocks that came out of the front. Probably not a permanent solution, but good enough for now.

The other side was just more of the same, which went smoothly, and pretty quickly. I only ran into one little snag, when I just barely buzzed the new brake line with the grinder and put a hole right through it.

Otherwise… not too bad a job. Putting *another* brake line on it and bleeding, etc, etc added an hour or so to my task that day, but I didn’t mind too much. The 4″ blocks on the rear put the height just ever-so-slightly low in the rear, but it’s very, very close to level with the front (probably so close you can’t even tell without measuring).

I think that gets my story pretty much up to date. After an unproductive weekend last weekend, I really need to get the gas tank situation and the choke issues (no fast idle circuit because there’s no choke hardware) worked out. After those two items, I think it’ll be time for some bodywork. That’ll make the missus happy… she’s embarrassed to have the neighbors see the beast in our driveway

We picked up the 1971 Chevy Suburban 4×4 last Saturday. Took some work just to get it started to drive it off the trailer and into the driveway once we got back though. Seemed like it was the fuel pump (no fuel getting to the carb), so I replaced that. Now I’ve never even had a car with a carbeurator before, so a mechanical fuel pump is really old-school for me.

Anywho, got the new pump on… no dice. I was able to pour gas down into the carb (it’s a Holley 4-barrel) and get it to fire up, and eventually got it running. Couple quarts of ATF and it was drivable.

History on this truck to come in a later post, but back to the maiden voyage… This morning I go out to the driveway and figure I’ll try and fire it up. The previous owner had a spring clip holding the choke plates open. I removed the spring to the choke actually “choked” and it fired right up. Amazing! This thing sat in a barn for 5 years, and it still runs strong.

Well I got it started, but it wouldn’t stay running. Had to keep it idling with my foot on the gas until it warmed up. Then put that spring back on the choke plates. I’m not sure yet, but I suspect the choke doesn’t work at all (I think it’s electric, but I haven’t even spent enough time messing with it to figure that out).

Very long story short… I drove it to work this morning. It’s about 3 miles, and the thing drives really nice. Shifts fine. It’s loud, with some old Thrush glasspacks on it, but still, it’s amazing that it drives.