Kyle Kelso
Adventurer
Hey gang
I got my Suburban a while back and have some trips and modifications planned for it and have been thinking about it a lot lately, but mostly because I'm on night shift for two weeks I've decided to start my "build thread". It's a 2004 2500 Suburban LT with the 6.0, 3.73s, G80 govlock, second row captains seats, leather and a sunroof. I won't get into too much detail as to the purchase of it, I had a thread here if you are interested http://forum.expeditionportal.com/threads/168920-Burb-buying-advice. I got the truck for quite cheap, I think, partially because it had some clunking from the front end and bad wear on the tires so I assumed it needed front end work. An intermediate steering shaft and lower steering column bearing from Rockauto.com and a cheap set of used tires later and problem solved. I had planned on changing all the fluids just to be safe but I took it in for an oil change (because I had a coupon for a free one) and they said all the fluids looked fine and it wasn't necessary. It does need new shocks sooner or later and the front diff actuator is stuck but it is engaged so at least I have 4 wheel drive still. That's probably what was causing the bad outer wear on the old tires I would suspect. The fuel gauge is a bit questionable so I'll probably want to get a new fuel pump put in this winter and I'm undecided if I should fix the bit of rust or not as I tend not to keep my vehicles very long and it might be money better spent elsewhere especially if it ends up with a bunch of pinstriping anyways. I want it to get my family out into the wilderness and away from the campgrounds we've been getting more accustomed to and I'm looking to find a comfortable middle ground of being safe and prepared with the essentials but not go overboard with the spendy bits which is difficult because I'm both a cheap ***** and a kid in a candy store with a credit card! This is a pseudo DD as I do not have a daily commute but when I am home this is my run-about vehicle in addition to my wife's car.
This truck will be driven off road. Lots of gravel roads but also some double tracks and designated (albeit easier) 4x4 trails. I know it's a big pig but I plan to see just where this big pig can go, within reason. I used to go wheeling with my 2nd gen Hilux Surf, 1st gen 4runner and an Xterra that were all bone stock except for 31" all terrain tires and I wheeled with buddies running 35"-37" tires with lifts, lockers etc. I couldn't tackle all the obstacles they could and the trails weren't as easy for me but I always seemed to get to the end of the trails with them
I've been driving full size trucks for several years now and muscled my Superduty down trails it had no business being on, so I'm not too worried about the size of the suburban.
My wife gave in to the idea of a roof top tent a while back so after a week long camping trip with my folks last week I sold our pop up tent trailer and picked up a Smittybilt Overlander XL RTT I had been waiting for along with an 8' awning. (I know it's a cheaper tent, looked at a few much more expensive ones and that's the one I bought) It's still sitting in the box in the truck, I'll put it together when I get back home. I'm going to order a couple pairs of Thule 65" square bar roof racks, my plan is to put 3 under the tent and 1 up front. I'll probably offset the crossbars to the side opposite from the tent hinge slightly so I have a bit more room to mount stuff between the tent and the awning. We have a paddleboard and I've been rattling around a couple ideas on how to mount it with the RTT but I'll probably have to play around once it's up there. I'd also like to have space to mount some recovery boards.
The truck is currently on 285/75R16 Bridgestone Dueller Revo tires that I picked up used. They've been great so far on pavement and gravel roads but they won't cut it in the long run for me. I don't know if I'll pull them and sell them or just burn them off before I upgrade. We have a trip planned for 6 days of backroad and offroad exploring in the Rocky Mountain foothills at the beginning of August so I'll see how they do then and that will probably make the decision for me. Side note, my buddy and his family might be joining us with their Excursion so that would be neat to compare them on the trails. My thoughts are, after driving it for a couple months on the 285s with the 3.73 gears, that I will probably go with a 255/85R16 in something like a Cooper ST Maxx for year round use. I thought about going bigger but part of the reason I sought out the 3/4 ton was that it sits higher that the 1/2 ton and I really don't want to lift it. I'm hoping that with the slightly shorter and 1" narrower tires and maybe just a slight crank on the torsion bars that I will have room to get chains on the front wheels.
All I plan to do on the suspension is replace the missing bump stops and install new shocks. I might down the road decide to replace the UCAs so I can get a better ride and a bit more height out of the front end but I really don't want to start down that trail! The Bilstein 5100s didn't last a year on my Superduty but that truck weighed over 9000# and lived a very abused life so I think I'll give them a try again on the 'burb. I'm going to pick up a tire deflator and I have a portable 5.5cfm compressor so between being able to air down and having the RTT on the roof it should ride quite a bit better.
On to comms. I have a CB radio that has been kicking around unused for a while and a cell phone booster I had for my trucks. I've also been leaning heavily towards getting a 2m ham radio (and my license of course). Range on the CB sucks, but I don't know anyone with a ham radio so I'm thinking of installing both. My truck had a cheap aftermarket radio installed so my plan was to replace it with a single din head unit and install the ham beneath it and then install the cb in the cubbie between the 12v outlets in the console between the dash and floor consoles. I ended up installing a new double din radio in an attempt to re-gain the factory Bose amplifier and get the rear seat audio working, thinking it allowed the second row to listen to a different station with headphones. Well, my Bose amplifier is either dead or was cut out and bypassed by someone before me and the rear seat audio controls just override the main radio controls and play the same music source. Crap. At least I have a backup camera that I can wire into the head unit... Anyways I'll likely install the cb still in that cubby so when (not if) a drink spills in the dumb oversized cup holders it just kills my cheap cb and not my new ham radio! I'll probably just mount the ham on the panel beneath the steering column as I have lots of leg room there and the brake controller that is there now doesn't work and won't be needed anyways.
Finally, recovery gear. This is where I could spend all my money if not careful, so I'm hoping to get some advise. As we will be doing lots of remote travel and frequently by ourselves I feel a winch is a wise investment. It's been something I've wanted for years and never was able to justify. The problem now is the limited availability of a mount for this truck. I hate the big, droopy, underbite look of most of the winch bumpers on the market, especially when the vehicle is not lifted. And, I'm cheap. I haven't been able to find a hidden winch mount for this truck and the Warn Trans4mer priced out over $1000 just for the essential componenets! Fab Fours new winch mount looks decent and is cheaper but they confirmed they have fitment for the 2500 pickup and 1500 suburban but said nothing to fit a 2500 suburban. I also don't trust a regular front hitch mount for such a heavy vehicle. One thing I can think of would be to fabricate or modify an existing front hitch with 2 or 3 receiver tubes and fabricate a carrier mount to fit it. A fabricator I am not so this would mean soliciting a professional although I suspect it could be done cheaper than buying one of the mounts that won't fit my truck anyways.
The other option is to skip the winch and pack around a set of 4 recovery boards and possibly even invest in a kinetic recovery rope to supplement my tow strap. The strap/rope are obviously only useful if there is another vehicle around and I've never used recovery boards but they seem to work pretty darn slick so I have a hard time imagining getting into a situation while out on our own that I would be stuck beyond being able to recover with them. I've never gotten myself stuck while out alone yet, I'm probably not going to be more risky with my wife and kid on board. I feel like the usefulness of 4 recovery boards would outweigh the winch on average, it's just that looming fear of the one time you might need it.
Anyways I'll post up some photos as things start to happen. I'll have the RTT and awning on as soon as I get home and then we take off for 6 days as long as the forest fires don't mess up our plans.
I got my Suburban a while back and have some trips and modifications planned for it and have been thinking about it a lot lately, but mostly because I'm on night shift for two weeks I've decided to start my "build thread". It's a 2004 2500 Suburban LT with the 6.0, 3.73s, G80 govlock, second row captains seats, leather and a sunroof. I won't get into too much detail as to the purchase of it, I had a thread here if you are interested http://forum.expeditionportal.com/threads/168920-Burb-buying-advice. I got the truck for quite cheap, I think, partially because it had some clunking from the front end and bad wear on the tires so I assumed it needed front end work. An intermediate steering shaft and lower steering column bearing from Rockauto.com and a cheap set of used tires later and problem solved. I had planned on changing all the fluids just to be safe but I took it in for an oil change (because I had a coupon for a free one) and they said all the fluids looked fine and it wasn't necessary. It does need new shocks sooner or later and the front diff actuator is stuck but it is engaged so at least I have 4 wheel drive still. That's probably what was causing the bad outer wear on the old tires I would suspect. The fuel gauge is a bit questionable so I'll probably want to get a new fuel pump put in this winter and I'm undecided if I should fix the bit of rust or not as I tend not to keep my vehicles very long and it might be money better spent elsewhere especially if it ends up with a bunch of pinstriping anyways. I want it to get my family out into the wilderness and away from the campgrounds we've been getting more accustomed to and I'm looking to find a comfortable middle ground of being safe and prepared with the essentials but not go overboard with the spendy bits which is difficult because I'm both a cheap ***** and a kid in a candy store with a credit card! This is a pseudo DD as I do not have a daily commute but when I am home this is my run-about vehicle in addition to my wife's car.
This truck will be driven off road. Lots of gravel roads but also some double tracks and designated (albeit easier) 4x4 trails. I know it's a big pig but I plan to see just where this big pig can go, within reason. I used to go wheeling with my 2nd gen Hilux Surf, 1st gen 4runner and an Xterra that were all bone stock except for 31" all terrain tires and I wheeled with buddies running 35"-37" tires with lifts, lockers etc. I couldn't tackle all the obstacles they could and the trails weren't as easy for me but I always seemed to get to the end of the trails with them
I've been driving full size trucks for several years now and muscled my Superduty down trails it had no business being on, so I'm not too worried about the size of the suburban. My wife gave in to the idea of a roof top tent a while back so after a week long camping trip with my folks last week I sold our pop up tent trailer and picked up a Smittybilt Overlander XL RTT I had been waiting for along with an 8' awning. (I know it's a cheaper tent, looked at a few much more expensive ones and that's the one I bought) It's still sitting in the box in the truck, I'll put it together when I get back home. I'm going to order a couple pairs of Thule 65" square bar roof racks, my plan is to put 3 under the tent and 1 up front. I'll probably offset the crossbars to the side opposite from the tent hinge slightly so I have a bit more room to mount stuff between the tent and the awning. We have a paddleboard and I've been rattling around a couple ideas on how to mount it with the RTT but I'll probably have to play around once it's up there. I'd also like to have space to mount some recovery boards.
The truck is currently on 285/75R16 Bridgestone Dueller Revo tires that I picked up used. They've been great so far on pavement and gravel roads but they won't cut it in the long run for me. I don't know if I'll pull them and sell them or just burn them off before I upgrade. We have a trip planned for 6 days of backroad and offroad exploring in the Rocky Mountain foothills at the beginning of August so I'll see how they do then and that will probably make the decision for me. Side note, my buddy and his family might be joining us with their Excursion so that would be neat to compare them on the trails. My thoughts are, after driving it for a couple months on the 285s with the 3.73 gears, that I will probably go with a 255/85R16 in something like a Cooper ST Maxx for year round use. I thought about going bigger but part of the reason I sought out the 3/4 ton was that it sits higher that the 1/2 ton and I really don't want to lift it. I'm hoping that with the slightly shorter and 1" narrower tires and maybe just a slight crank on the torsion bars that I will have room to get chains on the front wheels.
All I plan to do on the suspension is replace the missing bump stops and install new shocks. I might down the road decide to replace the UCAs so I can get a better ride and a bit more height out of the front end but I really don't want to start down that trail! The Bilstein 5100s didn't last a year on my Superduty but that truck weighed over 9000# and lived a very abused life so I think I'll give them a try again on the 'burb. I'm going to pick up a tire deflator and I have a portable 5.5cfm compressor so between being able to air down and having the RTT on the roof it should ride quite a bit better.
On to comms. I have a CB radio that has been kicking around unused for a while and a cell phone booster I had for my trucks. I've also been leaning heavily towards getting a 2m ham radio (and my license of course). Range on the CB sucks, but I don't know anyone with a ham radio so I'm thinking of installing both. My truck had a cheap aftermarket radio installed so my plan was to replace it with a single din head unit and install the ham beneath it and then install the cb in the cubbie between the 12v outlets in the console between the dash and floor consoles. I ended up installing a new double din radio in an attempt to re-gain the factory Bose amplifier and get the rear seat audio working, thinking it allowed the second row to listen to a different station with headphones. Well, my Bose amplifier is either dead or was cut out and bypassed by someone before me and the rear seat audio controls just override the main radio controls and play the same music source. Crap. At least I have a backup camera that I can wire into the head unit... Anyways I'll likely install the cb still in that cubby so when (not if) a drink spills in the dumb oversized cup holders it just kills my cheap cb and not my new ham radio! I'll probably just mount the ham on the panel beneath the steering column as I have lots of leg room there and the brake controller that is there now doesn't work and won't be needed anyways.
Finally, recovery gear. This is where I could spend all my money if not careful, so I'm hoping to get some advise. As we will be doing lots of remote travel and frequently by ourselves I feel a winch is a wise investment. It's been something I've wanted for years and never was able to justify. The problem now is the limited availability of a mount for this truck. I hate the big, droopy, underbite look of most of the winch bumpers on the market, especially when the vehicle is not lifted. And, I'm cheap. I haven't been able to find a hidden winch mount for this truck and the Warn Trans4mer priced out over $1000 just for the essential componenets! Fab Fours new winch mount looks decent and is cheaper but they confirmed they have fitment for the 2500 pickup and 1500 suburban but said nothing to fit a 2500 suburban. I also don't trust a regular front hitch mount for such a heavy vehicle. One thing I can think of would be to fabricate or modify an existing front hitch with 2 or 3 receiver tubes and fabricate a carrier mount to fit it. A fabricator I am not so this would mean soliciting a professional although I suspect it could be done cheaper than buying one of the mounts that won't fit my truck anyways.
The other option is to skip the winch and pack around a set of 4 recovery boards and possibly even invest in a kinetic recovery rope to supplement my tow strap. The strap/rope are obviously only useful if there is another vehicle around and I've never used recovery boards but they seem to work pretty darn slick so I have a hard time imagining getting into a situation while out on our own that I would be stuck beyond being able to recover with them. I've never gotten myself stuck while out alone yet, I'm probably not going to be more risky with my wife and kid on board. I feel like the usefulness of 4 recovery boards would outweigh the winch on average, it's just that looming fear of the one time you might need it.
Anyways I'll post up some photos as things start to happen. I'll have the RTT and awning on as soon as I get home and then we take off for 6 days as long as the forest fires don't mess up our plans.
