The color doesn’t translate great on-screen, but it’s a really desaturated green or olive color. This is actually a late-model GM under hood paint code.

Here are a few pics of the truck. Not a lot of long straight panels on this truck, but the doors were STRAIGHT. This truck was slick as glass…

Pulling off a front clip on full-framed trucks like this is pretty easy… just a lot of nut and bolt work. My older son even spent some time helping run bolts out with the air ratchet.

The hood came off first…

Then the grill and bumper…

The grill is actually in pretty good shape compared to a lot of these that I’ve seen. The aluminum grill frame isn’t great, but if you were creative, you could fix it probably (which is what I was going to do before deciding to go with the 1967 front clip). The egg-crate grill insert is really nice, with no missing sections, which seems to be a problem with these older inserts.

Moving on, then came the fenders. Most of the nut and bolt work is here — on the fenders. Each fender mounts to the radiator support with several bolts, and to the cab, and to the fender liner. Then, once you’ve got them off, you still have to remove any accessory brackets, and the hood hinges (which I’m doing here)…

The radiator support comes next, but I’ve left that attached for now.

This weekend I’ll pull the radiator support off and get the engine out. I have yet to confirm whether the radiator support for the 1971 is the same as the 1967. I have one from a 1967, but the lower half is rusted out, so I may end up cutting and grafting the two together if I need to.

When I get a chance, I’ll also post some side-by-side comparisons between the 1971 and 1967 Chevy fenders and hood when I get a change. It seems like I see a lot of questions online about interchangeability of these parts.

Otherwise, that gets us pretty caught up. I loaded a bunch of the extra parts into the back of my pickup to get them to storage…

And E helped me move the hood back in the garage for the time being…

He needed to take breaks every few feet, but he’s still a good assistant…

All of the parts from the 1971 Chevy Suburban front clip are for sale, by the way. I’m also going to sell the front fenders from the 1967 front clip. Make me an offer if anyone is interested. None of the parts are perfect, but all of them are workable. If noone wants the 1971 hood, I’ll probably make some wall art out of it… which might be kind of cool…

This weekend the motor and tranny come out, and things will get really interesting. Here’s a little teaser: body-off…

It starts on my forearm, just above where my welding gloves were, and ends right at my t-shirt sleeve. It got a little warm on Saturday for a jacket, but I guess I should have at least put some sunscreen on…

Either way, I managed to get some wheeled dollies done, so I can put my jackstands on the dollies, and wheel the Suburban around the garage without having to install my axles.

I built four of these out of 3/16″ angle iron, with four 330lb steel caster wheels each.

The classic Suburban is still massive, so setting it in motion is a chore, even with caster wheels, but this helps. I started pulling the front clip off, in preparation for pulling the engine/tranny. More on that later.

So, what’s the moral of this story… no naked arc welding. Gloves and a mask just don’t cut it.

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.

But I’ll say no for now. I don’t even have the 6.2 diesel yet. But turbo…

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!

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!

Truthfully, I’m killing several birds with one stone here, which is good if you like killing birds. The transmission on this F150 is actually a Mazda-made transmission called the M5R2. Or I’ve seen them called the M5OD. Ford put these in a ton of 1/2 ton trucks in the 90s as well as some 3/4 ton trucks, vans, Explorers and even the Thunderbird SuperCoupe. Whatever you call them, they’re apparently notorious for leaking transmission fluid from three plugs at the rear of the shift rails, and at the shifter pivot. Mine was leaking at both.

After spending some time cleaning up the garage and organizing my tools, I stopped delaying the inevitable, and got to work. I spent the first hour or two just familiarizing myself with the truck and getting some of the basics out of the way — removing the driveshafts, unbolting the crossmember, removing the starter. In the cab, the shifter and the transfer case shifter both have to be removed. The transmission shifter is held on by an interesting stud configuration. You remove the nut from the stud, then thread it onto the back of the stud, which pulls it out.

Maybe three or three and a half hours in I’ve got the transmission unbolted and ready to come out. It’s slow going, but I’m taking my time as I’ve got all day. Also, this truck is a 4×4, so there’s decent clearance underneath it, and I’m doing all of this with the F150 sitting on all four wheels rather than jacked up. It makes thing a bit cramped, and definitely slower, but it wasn’t too bad.

I decided early on to leave the transfer case attached to the transmission for this job. That may or may not have been a good idea. I realized after I had the tranny unbolted from the engine, that the transfer case was heavy enough to rock my transmission jack back onto two wheels. I had to put a floor jack under the transfer case to roll the entire unit out.

There’s the whole unit. You can see not only how bad the shifter pivot and shift rail plugs were leaking, but also how bad the slave cylinder was leaking.

The first thing I decided to knock out was the shifter pivot. I had bought this repair kit on Ebay a couple of months ago, and it had been sitting on my desk at work.

The kit seemed pretty good. The new seals for the pivot ball definitely tightened up the feel of the shifter. One problem I ran into was the two studs that the shifter pivots on. I punched out the old ones to replace with the new, but the new ones were just barely too small, not large enough to press into place. So I did end up reusing the old studs. They didn’t seem extremely worn though.

Next on the list was the rubber plugs at the back of the shift rails. There is a lot of chatter  on the interwebs about these guys leaking. From the factory, these ship with rubber plugs, that, over time, harden and shrink from heat and age. I was able to spin mine freely. The OEM plugs are fairly deep, and the flange for the tailshaft housing is close enough that there was no risk of the plugs flying out on their own, but that flange might have been the only thing keeping them in place.

The obvious question in replacing these parts is whether to replace them with OEM rubber plugs, or something more durable. Several guys online have pointed to steel freeze plugs from Dorman (# 555-108). I couldn’t find the Dorman part anywhere locally, but I did find an equivalent Dana part (# 219-3052). Napa had two of the freeze plugs in stock, and they were able to get a driver to bring another one out from a different store for me. That’s some excellent service for a total sale of $2.21 for all three plugs. I was able to press these plugs in using two pry-bars — one to keep the plugs lined up, and one to actually lever them into the hole. Here’s a shot of the new plugs in place:

I did end up dabbing a coat of RTV over the plugs just to be safe, but it was probably unnecessary.

Next up was the clutch slave cylinder. It’s only held on by two bolts inside the bellhousing. The whole reason for the tranny removal was the fact that this is a concentric slave cylinder, which actually fits directly over the input shaft. Many cars, including older F150s have external slave cylinders, and they use a clutch fork as a lever to actuate the pressure plate. With the concentric slave, you have to remove the tranny just to get to it.

The one that was on there didn’t appear to be an OEM unit, but I don’t really know for sure, and I didn’t spend much time looking for a Ford Motorcraft logo. I do know this one had a plastic body, no boot over the spring, and the throwout bearing was pretty worn out. I got the replacement at Advanced Auto Parts and it seemed like a nice unit. The body was all aluminum and there was a rubber boot over the spring. Installation was simple — just those two small bolts.

After installing the new clutch slave cylinder, it was time to put it all back together. While I had the transmission I went ahead and put in a new clutch kit: pressure plate, clutch disk and pilot bearing. The one that came out didn’t seem bad, but for barely $100 worth of parts, there’s no real good reason to not replace it while things are already disassembled.

Things lined up pretty well, and I had the transmission in place with the input shaft aligned with the clutch within a few minutes. It didn’t take much more wiggling to mate the input shaft splines up with the clutch disk. That’s where things got tough though — going from “pretty much lined up” to “seated in place and ready to bolt up” was way more aggravating and exhausting than I’d hoped for. I spent in the neighborhood of a full hour just to get the transmission bolted up.

Shaking, and rocking, and wiggling… I got very close several times. A trip to the parts house for a couple of 3″ bolts made the difference. I was able to get the bellhousing within 3/8″ of the motor. Then using the long 3″ bolts, I ran a couple of anchors in to hold things in position while I rocked the transmission all the way into place. From there the rest of the job was pretty much nuts and bolts — just the reverse of the first half of the job.

After buttoning things up I spent a few minutes bleeding the clutch system and we were good to go. The clutch feels really good now. Nice consistent and smooth feel in the clutch pedal. All in all, if you include a couple of trips to the parts store for odds and ends, and breaks for a couple of meals, the job took me in the neighborhood of 10 hours. If I were more familiar with these trucks, things could have gone much faster. And obviously, if I had a bit more room in my crowded two-car garage, that would have helped too.

But overall, the job wasn’t too bad… and a heck of a lot cheaper than paying a transmission shop to replace the clutch. Now I’ve got a running truck to use in dealing with my other unexpected setback: my dead air compressor. Next weekend I’ll have to pick up a new one and get that installed and ready to go. And I gotta get to that point, because I have a prospect interested in my HO72 rearend. That means I have to get it swapped out for my new 14-bolt rearend.

Plenty to do, and I can’t wait to get some of this other monkey business out of the way so I can make some real progress on the Suburban. I’ll keep you posted.

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.

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.