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.