Project- Suburban HD

'05TJLWBRUBY

Adventurer
Well it's been a while since I've done a big build. I'm currently without any cool trailer projects so figured something new was in order. Decided I'd share it here to help keep on track and get it finished. Long term goal being reliable multi-purpose do everything family hauler.

So the story begins here, with a 1978 Chev 3/4 ton. I've owned a number of Chev's in the past but this was the first my wife and I bought together when we got married out of college. I had slowly worked on it over the years, it had a 350 with TH400, 203, D44 front, 14ff rear, spring lift, 35s, AGR steering setup, rock rod, etc., etc. Not a bad truck for what it was.



testing- see if I remember how to load pics...

Best of Luck,

Mike
 

'05TJLWBRUBY

Adventurer
It worked! so we'll continue... Several years later, we were thrilled to be expecting our first baby. Our main rig is/was an '05 Jeep LJ Rubicon we bought brand new off the lot in '05. I had quickly began modifying that right from the start up to where it is today, many revisions later. All of our rigs must maintain dual-purpose use in order to provide daily driver use as well as get us off the beaten path camping, hunting, exploring, enjoying the great outdoors as much as we can. The Jeep is probably somewhat over-built still sitting on 33's but it does just that in getting us to work every day and me out wheeling and hunting, exploring and whatever. I built my own custom 3 link front, 4 link rear, 2" over stock height with 12" travel shocks at all 4 corners with even 50/50 split, 6" up and 6" down all around, all aluminum Savvy armor, aluminum overline fenders, Atlas, ARBs, my own cage and artwork to protect our baby, etc, etc. The Jeep has been great despite multiple engine rebuilds due to the dreaded OPDG issues of the '05 6 cyl but regardless, it worked well for my wife and I and our two big dogs but once our baby was born, there just wasn't enough room.

The decision was made that the truck had to go. It was a good truck, but just not big enough for dual purpose family use. After a long search, I finally traded the truck and a bed full of new and spare parts for our new rig-something we felt would suit our needs well, haul our family, dogs and our gear and do so in comfort, as well as get us out in the woods or at least pull a trailer to get the Jeep out in the woods.

Here she is soon after making the trade:





She is a 1997 Chev Suburban and unbeknownst at the time-the new base platform for Project - Suburban HD. She sits there in bone stock trim, equipped with Vortec 7.4 454, 4L80e, NP243, 9.25 open front and 14 bolt full float rear with gov-lock and 4.10 gears. Leather interior, 3rd row seating with full heat and AC throughout, power windows, seats, etc.

More to come...

Best of Luck,

Mike
 

'05TJLWBRUBY

Adventurer
The Suburban quickly made a good name for itself and became the new daily driver and preferred vehicle for our family and new baby girl. It proved to be quite comfortable on long trips and my wife prefers to take it over her own car any time we leave town as it has so much room and is easy on her hip and back for long trips. Unfortunately it had somewhat high mileage when we got it and in a few short years, we'd racked up a fair many more putting it at over 207,000 on the clock. The IFS wore out and was totally shot requiring full replacement so it was decision time to figure out where to find the money to fix and exactly how to fix at the same time. I began searching for parts here and there and gathering what I could.

At some point along the way, one of my customers in Australia sent me a gift as a "Thank You" for helping him out with some stuff. He asked that I put it on the Suburban to help keep my family safe. Much to my surprise a number of weeks later, this arrived in the mail:



I don't know the make but it's a 3 function bar roughly 45" wide. Dual row floods on the outsides, and single row spots in the center. It functions as flood only, spot only, or full on depending on switch position. This single part had a big roll in the decision for "how" to build the Suburban at that time. This was a gift and as he asked I put it on the Suburban to keep my family safe, I gave my word I would and fully intend to do so. I'm not sure exactly where or how it will end up, but it will be installed on the rig one way or another. It was at this time I decided it wasn't worth spending money on a new IFS setup that I'd likely destroy in short time anyway so the decision was made to do a solid axle swap for long term reliability and ease of maintenance.

I had a commuter car to save fuel but hated the thing so I traded it for this:





This was "Gus". Gus was a 1978 GMC 1 ton full of piss and vinegar. He had a 454 with RV cam, TH400, 203, D60 front and 70HD rear with 4.10s. Gus became my new donor project and start to the SAS for the Suburban.

I had talked with some very good friends of mine David and Chad of Hired Gun Offroad and Josh at Baertrax. They all agreed SAS was the way to go and a good decision to run with. As a kick in the pants to get started, David and Chad at Hired Gun Offroad delivered a 205 transfer case to me at King of the Hammers in 2014 all the way from Missouri. See the Suburban is a driver drop case and the D60 under Gus was a passenger drop which meant a new case was needed. Excited at the help of some good friends, I returned from KOH and immediately began stripping Gus down. Here I had yanked the rear 70HD, then began cutting up the rear:





The 60 was pulled, engine, trans, case- all of it. I laid Gus to rest and slowly parted him out which meant trade value to acquire some new parts for the Suburban.

More to come...

Best of Luck,

Mike
 

'05TJLWBRUBY

Adventurer
I've been wheeling for years and end up winching a lot depending on where I'm at. I've wanted one of these for a while, but never could justify actually buying one. At some point I stumbled upon the right deal and scored this Pul-Pal land anchor- used once for testing only:







Excited at the new score with this, I then realized I would need something for the Suburban to use this new Pul-Pal with. That meant a winch. Being poor broke bastard with no money to buy fancy new parts, that meant using what I had laying around to barter with. I ended up trading some parts off of Gus for a Warn M12000 which I felt would be a good fit for the Suburban. This one may look old, but has brand new roller fairlead, brand new solenoids, new remote and cable-it's ready to go. I'll eventually tear it down and clean it up with fresh paint but for now it's a start:



I then came across another deal and wound up with a set of these:



I started with a set of 5 12 bolt H1s with 37" MTs, and some how wound up with more than a dozen at one point before trimming back a bit.

More to come...

Best of Luck,

Mike
 

'05TJLWBRUBY

Adventurer
Even though the IFS was shot, we continued to run the rig as long as we could. This is the last trip she made up to the ranch- when we returned home from this trip, we barely made it. Front end wandering everywhere, engine with 207,000 miles struggling to make enough power to get up the hill to our house, pull into the driveway and she pukes. Last trip she made where she sat parked for months before finally deciding it was time...







We began to grow our family again and grew very excited at the chance to have another child. Unfortunately despite everything the doctors could do, we lost our new baby which was a devastating blow and nearly destroyed our family. At this point struggling to go on even, I decided enough with the idea of the project, sell off everything, including the Suburban and wind up where I may, let the chips fall where they will. Time went on and while we still struggle, I believe we are getting stronger. Once again, my good friends David and Chad at Hired Gun Offroad, and Josh at Baertrax talked some sense into me. They knew my family needed and depended on the rig, they knew it was a bad idea to sell everything off. At some point along the way the idea was mentioned to keep the rig, continue the build and do it up a bit better than originally planned. Rather than just tossing a leaf sprung 60 under like everyone does, why not do it up a bit better than that and make it a sort of "tribute" build for my family in memory of our baby girl. Our 6 year old daughter loves the Suburban and loved the idea so sales ads were pulled and onward I go with new plans once again.

At some point along the way, i stumbled onto a deal to trade for this- it was bone stock when I picked it up, here I've started working on it a bit:



This is a 14 bolt full float from a 2011 model GM 5500 (???) box van I'm told. This axle is a dually version, measuring 74" WMS-WMS, has 4" tubes 11/16" thick, removable pinion support, 10.5" ring gear same as prior FF14s, thick ribbed housing and big disc brakes. I knew immediately with my other gathered parts at this point, this would be a good fit for the Suburban. I wasn't happy with rear drums on my factory '97 14FF and wanted discs anyway. With the deep offset of the 12 bolt H1s, a dually rear meant no spacers needed and a direct bolt on fit for the most part. This seemed like a great idea to move forward on- swap out my existing rear factory 14 for the new 2011 big box van version for some added width and factory equipped discs.

Somewhere along the way I'd gathered a few parts from Ruffstuff as seen here:



Pinion guard, bridge, spring plates, etc. I had some 3/8" plate already and began to form a simple link bridge/truss to the big housing. I hate U-bolts with a passion so I incorporated a few things from Ruffstuff to fit the 70HD/D80 axles as I already had the 70HD from Gus, and they just so happened to be a perfect fit to the big tubes on the 14FF from the box van. I built my own version of a U-bolt delete kit and tied the link bridge/truss to the perches. The Ruffstuff bridge is designed to fit their truss which is too tall for my needs/liking so I cut and modified the bridge to suit a low profile bridge to keep everything tight to the housing. It's not finished yet but I drilled/tapped for ARB and fit a few supports. It will get tied backing plate to backing plate as well and at this point-undecided if I'll fully box it or leave it open. Regardless, here's a bit more progress on that:



Somewhere in between projects this happened:



My little girl wanted to help and as she's only 6, welding is a bit more than I'm comfortable with letting her do regardless of how much she wants to try. Instead, we tore into the 205 to see what needed done inside of it. I thoroughly enjoy the time I get to spend with my little girl, and very much enjoy her help out in the shop. Awesome times I cherish and hold on to that I'll never forget.

More to come...

Best of Luck,

Mike
 

'05TJLWBRUBY

Adventurer
As mentioned, plans changed 10,000 times along the way it seems. Here we have the 70HD and the D60 passenger drop that I'd pulled from Gus after KOH 2014.



I began tearing the 60 apart. With the H1's and dually rear, and Gus being a dually with the dually front hubs- it all seemed to fit together, just needed to figure out how this puzzle would work exactly.



I then got a wild hair and decided I needed to make the passenger drop 60 a driver drop 60 to retain the factory 243 for a while.



I had cut the 60 and planned to swap sides then sleeve it, truss it and get it back together to toss under the Suburban.

More to come...

Best of Luck,

Mike
 

'05TJLWBRUBY

Adventurer
As time went on and I collected more parts, I realized one problem the Suburban had in stock form that I absolutely hated and just couldn't deal with. Driving the Jeep off-road with the 4.3 Atlas, coming down out of the mountains in low range was an absolute pleasure. Just toss it in gear and let it go, no worry of touching the gas or the brakes, just let it idle along as it crawled down even the steepest descents. The Suburban however was a totally different story. Coming down out of our local mountains which have a decent grade to them after bear season left me standing on the brakes in low range and a tired leg when we finally hit bottom. Low range is awful at best in this thing under it's own weight with 33" tires and 4.10 gears. It's tired I know and worn out but I needed/wanted more gearing. Towing the Jeep on the trailer coming back from elk camp was scary at best, even with brake controller and trailer brakes on both axles. Not a fun pleasurable experience coming down out of the hills there. Something had to be done. An Atlas for the Suburban would be great, but way out of the budget. I began tossing ideas around and had talked with Kris at Northwest Fab up in Canada. Some time went on and they released their new product.

Enter the new Northwest Fab Eco box:



My decision was made, this was the solution to my gearing problems. Northwest Fab came out with their new "Eco" box. What you see here is the Eco box itself, along with full billet bearing retainer set and PTO cover, and NWF shifter knobs. The idea behind the Eco box is that it's a "budget" minded doubler similar to the 203/205 setup only that being aluminum it's significantly less weight. Also, the 203/205 setup leaves you with essentially a 3 speed box due to the 1.96:1 ratios in both boxes and basically a 3.8 low range. The NWF Eco box uses the planetary set from a 231/241 transfer case setup with the 241 preferred for the 6 pinion planetary set. 241's are readily available and found in many models of trucks and easy to get. I happened to have a spare at home already so it made for a perfect fit. The Eco box mated to a 205 using a 241 planetary set offers a 1:1 high, 1.96:1 high mid range, 2.72 low mid range and a 5.33 low low setup. This gives me the options I wanted for better control on the steep stuff.

Here we have my spare 241 torn apart and gutted. I retained the VSS sensor and tone ring as well as the necessary 6 pinion planetary set and range selector from the 241. A few cuts with the sawzall and couple smacks with the hammer and it was time to cleanup.



Here's all the parts waiting for prep and install:



I did fully rebuild my 205 using all new bearings, seals, gaskets, etc. I also modified the shift rails and twin sticked it at the same time. This now gives me ability to run regular 2wd high and 2wd low on the rear axle, 2wd high and 2wd low on the front axle with rear in neutral, 4wd high and low and a true 4 speed range box. Bases should be covered here. Here is the case itself:



And excellent machining of the two halves from the guys at Northwest Fab:



This was the scariest part of the whole thing- the planetary ring is ribbed on the outside to bite into the aluminum case for grip to hold secure. You only get one shot to press the ring into the aluminum case so there's no room for error and it better be right. I used a press with heavy 1" thick arbor plate to start the ring then slowly work it into position, then when close, walked the edge all the way around a couple times to make sure it was fully seated flush and into position.



Next was the input seal and retainer- the retainer is pulled from the donor 241 as well.



Here we have the planetary seated



And finally all bolted together with addition of 3/8" quick connect breather fitting



And here we have the Northwest Fab Eco box loaded with 6 pinion planetary bolted to a fully rebuilt and twin sticked NP205



More to come...

Best of Luck,

Mike
 

'05TJLWBRUBY

Adventurer
I am not a fan of straps or U-bolts at all, and prefer solid connections and flanges. Also worried with size and weight of the big Suburban when it's all said and done and together and feared the small 1310 joints just weren't going to cut it. I made a call to the guys at Advanced Adapters and ordered up a pair of Rockwell flanges for the 205. These nicely machined pieces were originally made to run the 205 to Rockwell axles using the Rockwell shafts, but as luck would have it- they use the same bolt pattern and pilot as the the necessary companion flange I wanted to run which will allow for more meaty 1480 joints to match what was on the factory 2011 14FF. Should be a fair bit stronger than the little 1310 stuff.



Preferring to keep everything the same at the axle and the case, I went with two of them- one for each output on the 205



For comparison what they are replacing



More to come...

best of Luck,

Mike
 

'05TJLWBRUBY

Adventurer
And finally after enough talk and enough gathering parts, I decided it was time to **** or get off the pot. We intended to make a trip with my boy when he was in town but needed the Suburban and couldn't go as it wasn't running. Had to cancel the trip and do something else instead so enough was enough. Put the damn thing in the shop and start tearing it down, then see where it leads. Here's when I finally got it moved from the driveway back positioning to get it into the shop:



It's tight, but she fit!



Yes! the door even closes!



And now the fun begins- yank out the pig from under the back end.



'97 used the 6 prong socket



and the gov bomb 4.10 package



More to come...

Best of Luck,

Mike
 

'05TJLWBRUBY

Adventurer
And then we move to the front and trim some fat



which some how wound up with a bunch of stuff here



Then last week my little girl asked if we could work on the Suburban. I asked what she meant, she said Daddy, we need to get that Suburban fixed, can I help you tear it apart so we can fix it? I said sure! lets go baby girl! So to my surprise, she was determined and even though it took us 3 hours together (me loving every second of it!) we pulled the crossmember and got the factory 243 out



With the case out, she said Daddy I think we did a good job today, lets go watch Rapunzle so off we went to watch princess movies for the afternoon. Perfectly fine by me, I was just thrilled she wanted to help and was dedicated and determined to get that darned transfer case out. These days won't last forever so I take every second I can get!

More to come...

Best of Luck,

Mike
 

'05TJLWBRUBY

Adventurer
With the case out, and the ginormous factory OE muffler and cats, there seems to be a great deal of room to work with under here now



and a shot of the front



And it seems big brother 14 got a little upset when little pig returned from market with twinkles and ho-hos. Plans changed once again and big brother 14 put the fat bastard on a diet and this happened



And after some major weight loss with Jillian Michaels, here he is trimming the fat





Next stop is hitting the gym to bulk up a bit and become a bit more respectable.

With the idea of a tribute to our baby or remembering her, I want this to be different than the norm. I'm not sure exactly how to do that, but it seemed that everyone and their brother does an SAS using a 60. I have to be different and while it isn't necessarily any "better", it will be different and something you don't see every day. This rig is for my family and will see dual purpose use on and off road. It's gotta be tough, and dependable. If you hadn't gathered by now, Project - Suburban HD will be running 14s at both ends.

More to come...

Best of Luck,

Mike
 

1leglance

2007 Expedition Trophy Champion, Overland Certifie
wow that t-case is a neat setup and I wished I had known about it when building my burb....low low is very nice to have.
 

'05TJLWBRUBY

Adventurer
So no real progress this weekend. Had to visit my sister and attend her baby shower with family and some of her close friends. Think it was good we went, but ended up to be more difficult than we imagined. Started hacking the Suburban a bit today then decided sweeping the floor up was of greater priority. Got the CA mounts knocked off quick and dirty like on both sides then after burning a hole through my jeans and into my leg decided I wasn't dressed well enough to press my luck much more with the plasma.



I also stumbled across a box I'd forgotten I'd picked up a while back. They say imitation is the best form of flattery and that may be true, but after messing with a bunch of different joints over the years, I've learned there is only one tried and true Currie Johnny Joint. In my opinion, these are hands down no questions asked the best long lasting, lowest maintenance best performing joint out there. The original set I first put on my Jeep many years ago was sold to a guy up in Canada who is still beating them to this day. I used the 2.5" 1.25" shank Currie JJs when I built my 3 link front/4 link rear on the Jeep, which have been great for several years now with nothing more than a shot of grease now and then. Consequently, I picked these up some time back for the Suburban. 5 RH and 1 LH 2.5" 1.25" shank Currie Johnny Joints for this project mean the Suburban's front 14 will be hung with a 3 link of some sort. Also found some Stage 8 spindle nut kits I'd forgot about. Never used them before, but have heard good things. Figure they'll go well with the front 14. We'll see.



More to come...

Best of Luck,

Mike
 

'05TJLWBRUBY

Adventurer
Minor update- Thanks to Speedy Metals, 4' of 3.5" .5" wall DOM showed up. Unfortunately our small lathe at work didn't have a big enough support rest to hold it, ended up finding a local guy to turn it down slightly. Minor setback there, but no biggie, I cut it, they turned it started out with this:



After freezing for a few days, then coating inner housing tube areas with some RTV for good measure to avoid seepage, ended up filling all plugs and securing tube to housing then wrapped up tight in several heavy moving blankets. This seemed to work well as it was still warm to the touch the next day, hopefully it works OK.



Not too bad for my first one ever, shouldn't be too tough to dial in with alignment bar:



Lot more to go, but it's a start:



More to come...

Best of Luck,

Mike
 

'05TJLWBRUBY

Adventurer
So ran into a bit of a snag with crossmember and fitting bigger case/eco doubler box and wound up doing a bit of other random stuff in the process. Nothing pic worthy really but I was curious on difference in axle shaft lengths so took them apart. Here's the '97 Suburban 14 shafts next to the '11 DRW box van 14 shafts:







And here's the exciting part- since I've been collecting parts and horse trading stuff for so long now for this build, I've been able to save up a few bucks to put it into some quality parts that I felt were needed in certain areas. When I decided to do the front 14 instead of the 60, I figured I'd just repurpose the 60 parts with a quick sleeve job on the 14 center and call it good. Well, that plan got tossed in short order which meant all new tubes, and of course one thing leads to another- I figured a front 14 better have some nice shiny new fancy orange parts to do it up right. These showed up from REID Racing today- gotta say the customer service and support at REID is pretty Awesome- super helpful on the phones, very knowledgeable and eager to make sure I understood everything I was getting into and that I knew proper method for install to make it go smooth and right the first time. As much as these guys support our sport and with the cool new big boy parts coming out soon, I knew this was an area I'd feel better about putting quality parts in, instead of reusing the old stuff. 3.5" bore inner C's and Chevy knuckles showed up today- I guess I screwed up not getting the sticker in the pic but hey, didn't want to get it dirty!







Super excited to get these. Plan now is to get the doubler mounted and figure approximate pinion angle so that I can determine correct caster for the C's to burn them in. Hoping to tackle that this weekend if all goes well, then move on to rest of link mounts and truss design/orientation. We'll see how it goes...

More to come...

Best of Luck,

Mike
 

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