70 C-20 4x4 Suburban Father/Son project

[1leglance]

I hear ya on the injection pump & injectors.
I am super lucky that my wife has worked as an office manager for a diesel welder/machine shop for over 15yrs and knows the good guys here in Phoenix to deal with. And they all love her
The good news for me is that I can squeeze that affection into some serious cost savings

I hear ya on the nickle & dime thing as I am terrible about upgrading each little thing to the point of excess. But in my reading in this thread and all the tech info at the diesel page site there are things worth spending money on. The Felpro 6.5 gaskets, good head work (which will happen at my wifes shop), gear driven timing set and the head bolts/studs seem worth doing.

Best news of all is that this project got my wife to green light a new workshop space on the side of the yard. So after I tear the bits off this burb I want and send the engine/injection pump & injectors/trans to their various shops I will also be pouring a cement slab and building a workshop/shed...I wish I had the space for a full garage but this will be as close as I can get.

 

[1leglance]

Finally got the new bucket seats installed thanks to my new buddy Nick. Not enough that I have been hounding him for diesel install knowledge (sweet cummins setup in his 72 burb) but I also wanted some mentoring on welding and fab stuff.

So this last Sunday I took up most all his day and we had a good time.

Let's have the pics tell the story...

First we needed to get an idea of where to put the seat...oh and some of those wood blocks were what the previous owner had holding his seats in place!

Nick had his mad fabricator hat on and was all about the details. Which was a good lesson for me as I am often all about the "good enough"

Tacking the bits in place was an interesting thing to learn about. At least that is what Nick said he was doing to my seat

Old guy who owned the rig before either needed a few attempts to get the seat in the right spot or a few beers before getting the drill out.

Next phase was figuring out where the rear seats needed to be for my relocation of the AC stuff.

Yeah we worked into the dark. And still didn't finish, but that is ok as I learned a ton and got to share a couple of meals with Nicks very cool family.

 

[1leglance]

Monday was MLK Day and instead of working on the seat frames it was more fun to spend the day with my younger son and my nephew. While my kid is a gun/knife nut (to the point of forging his own knives), my nephew had never shot before. Well that is no longer true (oh and we did clean up all our brass & target debris)

Here is the rear seat frame after I got done with my welds and fab'ing..not as pretty as Nicks work but seems plenty strong. This will get enclosed in metal & wood to blow the cold air up the center console through vents to the driver & passengers.

Plenty of room under here to build some enclosed storage space...maybe a drawer, maybe just a locking box.

Front and rear done enough to test next weekend on a 2 day camping trip. If all works well then I will pull everything for paint.

Happy wife, happy life. She would not even sit in the nasty old man seats that were in there before.

No grouchy teenager here, plenty of leg room for him.

 

[redthies]

Looking great Lance! I know you mentioned it somewhere, but what are th seats out of? Honda van?? You probably don't need to ever paint the frames... Not like they are going to rust! Unlike where I live, where if you leave any bare metal untainted it will form rust in the first night

 

[Rot Box]

Looks good :bike_rider:

My dads 71 actually had a custom auxiliary fuel tank under the back seat. I don't remember how much fuel it held but it was quite large. Looking back I don't know if thats a good idea in this day and age though lol :snorkel:

 

[Larry]

Looks great Lance! Nick did a great job on those seat brackets. Cruising in comfort now! :sombrero: Odd how the aftermarket A/C system is mounted to the floor with 4 blower motors no less.

 

[1leglance]

Glad you guys are still following this..
The seats are Town & Country mini-van take outs...pretty much the same thing from a Honda Odyssey/Toyota Sienna and such. The are great and go for $40-$60 ea around Phoenix. Flat bottom slides so easy to put into anything.
As I continue to cruise the junkyards I will be watching for any Monteros or such that had the suspension bases as I think that would be a nice addition.

Funny comment Larry on my AC setup. I am looking forward to getting the center console built & ducted so I can see if my idea of moving the unit from the rear roof to the mid floor area is a bust.

Good info & pic on the clocking ring. I picked up a Dodge tcase off of craigs (thanks to Nick for the alert) for $120 and that should give us the parts to morph the donor setup to a fixed yoke.

On the axles I have a set I need to pick up from a local 67-72 chevy parts dude...funny thing is Nick built those and then sold them. Front & rear axles with disc brakes and every part rebuilt top notch. And the guy will take my 70 axles and left over parts from this build in trade for some cash off the deal...nice!

I hope to get started with the donor tear down tomorrow. That will make the wife happy to have that rig gone

 

[1leglance]

So I had some time over the last few days to start tearing down the donor rig...
And thanks once again to Nick my new diesel guru for tips on extra stuff to get from the donor!

This is what I started with. Lots more rust than I first thought which has made the tear down process harder as things don't want to come apart. We are so spoiled here in the desert to be pretty much rust free. Not sure where this rig spent most of it's life?

I am so not happy with the way the previous folks did the hose work. All I can think of is to print this pic and tape it to the 70 burb with a note "Don't do this!"

The old radiator tells a real horror story...clearly it was a leaker, and the oil coil or lines or something was also letting a bit go. It does have metal tanks which I like. I plan to take it by my fav rad shop and talk to them about repair vs replacement, I just don't want plastic tanks.
I am also debating getting the trannie & oil coolers out of the rad...thoughts? I don't do much cold weather stuff (hate the cold) so not too worried about that.

I was finally happy to get to this point which is much closer to pulling the engine. Don't worry I was taking plenty more pics of how all the tubing & wiring went.

A better view of the turbo setup. Nick thinks it is a Banks & ATS combo hack job. Maybe put together with craigs & fleabay parts?

This crossover pipe will be done differently no matter what it takes. I can't stand the way it runs along the oil pan, way too close to the belts and looks like it must cook the harmonic balancer.

Always fun to find cooked wires that the previous owner just did hack jobs to get around.

But on a note of joy I will say that having a wife who is an office manager of a diesel machine shop is nice when you need a part cleaned. This is the junkyard J code manifold that is ready for install.

Oh joy, power door locks will be in my future. I like the looks of the old iron but some modern stuff is nice

The previous owner already hacked past the glow plug controller, which is fine by me as I plan a full manual setup anyway. I would rather a stealthy glow button as a theft prevention measure.

And there are still a few bits I want like the 40gal tank & skid plate. I also got the rear aux heater, rear AC, receiver hitch, a bunch of wire, connectors and I need to try to get out the front shoulder belts since they are blue!

Monday should be "pull the engine day" and then I can get the donor carcus out of the way and pour some concrete for a new workshop to be ready for the transplant surgery.

My plan with the engine/trans/tcase goes like this:
Take heads & block to my wifes shop, have them look for cracks and tell me if it all is any good.
If all is well then I will ring/bearing/gasket it and reassemble.

Take the turbo to a company we know very well and have them check it out.

Take the IP in for a rebuild with top parts so I can run junk fuel in Baja and maybe some bio. New injectors of course.

Take the trans into a shop for a look over and make sure it is ready to continue life behind a oil burner

Combine my tcase with a Dodge one off of craigs to get one that has fixed yokes.
Check into the clocking rig and see if I can make that work.

Any and all thoughts welcome!

 

[Rot Box]

Yahoo! You're not wasting any time :bike_rider:

If it were me I would run the engine oil cooler in the radiator along with an air to oil cooler like the 6.5TD truck/Suburbans had for added insurance. Water to oil coolers are a good thing imo they are very efficient at cooling and these motors love to build heat.

Just a thought, you may want to look into a CUCV military injector pump if you're going to replace your pump anyway. They are said to have hardened internals for the likelihood of running poor fuel. I think Boyce sells them for a good price but its been many years since I looked into that..

Can't wait to see more.

 

[arveetek]

Nice build! As a newbie to this forum, I spent some time reading through all the posts.

I'm a big 6.2L/6.5L fan myself. I've done two diesel swaps. First one was a '77 K5 Blazer that I swapped a 5.7L Olds diesel into, and then later swapped that out for a 6.2L.

My other swap was a long-term project (over 14 years!). I took an '81 C20 pickup and swapped out the 305 and TH350 tranny for a 6.2L and 700R4. That 6.2L went through several changes over the year, and finally ended up being bored .040 over, with custom ceramic-coated lower-compression pistons, high-flow injection pump, Garrett turbocharger pushing 18 psi, 4" exhaust, gear-drive timing, etc. It was a real fun ride. The body finally gave out, and I didn't have the heart to start all over again, so I ended up selling her. I still miss that truck.

Regarding the engine oil cooler, I would forget trying to run the engine oil through the radiator. GM ditched that design with the 6.5L's and went with a stand-alone cooler in front of the radiator. On my '81, I purchased a large tranny cooler that had 1/2" MPT fittings, and used standard tractor hydraulic hoses for the oil lines. Simple and effective.

Casey

 

[1leglance]

howdy Casey & welcome...
good info on the tractor lines

Pulled the engine apart and it is off to the machine shop today along with the trans, turbo, IP & injectors....I will try to post pics tonight but I work a 12 hr night shift and still have alot to pull off the donor rig

 

[1leglance]

So I got the engine out & torn down last night and all the bits off to their shops today.
Figured I better post some pics and get some thoughts from everyone...

Some of these lines are pretty bent up...I think I will look into either a new set or a partial to replace the bent ones.

Here is the passenger side head...nothing scary to my naked eye. The gasket looked good and although I am no expert I didn't see anything that jumped out at me.

Drivers side head...also nothing bad to the naked, untrained eye of mine. Also the block deck looked good.

This was stamped on the pistons....no idea what it means. But I am sure I will hear from my wifes shop if things are way out of wack.

This turbo oil return will get redone with a welded bung. The leaking must have been a real pain.

No idea what all this means but I didn't see any cracked bits and all looked good.

Well almost all...the timing chain had some slack in it. I plan to run a gear drive setup so I won't have to worry about chains any more.

 

[1leglance]

This looked a little strange but the more I looked at the seal the more I figured it might be ok. Of course the machine shop will be happy to tell me if all isn't well.

I think this means the crank & rods have not been messed with before. Or at least not ground down.

This was a bit weird...when I went to pull the fuel pump pushrod only 1/2 came out. Who knows if it had been run like this. The cam looked ok and the fuel pump also so I don't think it was run for long, if at all.

A little more turbo info for anyone in the know...I don't know and thus why I post the pics

 

[shortbus4x4]

How hard is it to get to the mechanical fuel pump with all the turbo stuff? I have worked on the Banks kits on a 80's Sub and there was no way to change the fuel pump without pulling alot of other turbo stuff off for access.

 

[arveetek]

I'm sure you know this, but make sure and use new head bolts. The 6.2L uses TTY bolts, and they should not be reused once installed.

Where are you going to get a gear drive set? I was under the impression they weren't being manufactured anymore.

I used a gear drive in my last 6.2L build. It did seem to make the engine more crisp, but I could hear a lot of extra noise as well. I think from now on I will stick with a good quality chain.

Casey

On edit: Nevermind...I just saw that DSG is making Gear Drive sets again.