1971 Chevy Suburban Redux

I mentioned a week or two ago that I scored some new axles, complete, to replace the existing ones I have. They’re from a 3/4 ton Chevy pickup, and they have 3.23 gears in them, so they’ll be perfect for the 1971 Suburban. While digging in to rebuild the rearend, I found that the spider gears had nearly exploded — big chunks missing.

Long story short, finding these spider gears was harder than I expected, for a very popular Chevy truck rear end. I finally ordered a kit that includes spider gears, side gears, the spider gear shaft and related washers, etc. Local shop, Axle Boy (www.axleboy.com), was able to get me the set in two days for cheaper than I found it anywhere else, even online. Super nice guys there. I haven’t interacted with them much, but they’ve been really helpful so far.

I picked up the new gears today. Here’s a comparison of the old spider gears and the new:

I’ll get the gears all installed this weekend, and then I’m just waiting on the brake parts to show up. Pretty soon I’ll be running on a completely new rear axle –  which means burn-outs without worrying about about blowing up my rear end

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).

I’m thinking of renaming this blog “This Old Suburban”. It’s got a nice ring to it I think. Other alternatives would be something like “This Old Gas-Leaking, Loud, Rusty Suburban”.

It’s the gas-leaking part that I guess I need to remedy first. On Monday morning I couldn’t get it to stay running. Starting was fine (it’s colder this week than last), but keeping it running without pumping the pedal just wasn’t happening.

I noticed later in the day that there was about a 12″ by 8″ damp spot on the concrete under the truck. When I first picked it up, I had to fix a couple of cracked, leaking fuel lines, and I suspect this is more of the same.

So… now my priority list for this weekend starts with this: 1) fix leaking fuel lines 2) rebuild carburetor (it’s leaking too).

We’ll see how long that takes. I think it’ll be easy and I’ll still be able to get the suspension lowered and seats mounted. We’ll see…