'89 GMC Suburban restoration/build up project.

[Renntag]

Great vid. Thought the camera was in danger at one point.
Surprising how little usable suspension length there really is.

I also notice the rocker sliders are now bolted to the rockers but with a noise isolating bushing. Nice solution. (Surely this was addressed earlier in the thread).

Your build is progressing nicely.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G870A using Tapatalk

 

[dieselfuel]

Great vid. Thought the camera was in danger at one point.
Surprising how little usable suspension length there really is.

I also notice the rocker sliders are now bolted to the rockers but with a noise isolating bushing. Nice solution. (Surely this was addressed earlier in the thread).

Your build is progressing nicely.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G870A using Tapatalk

Yeah, if I had more up travel that would be nice. I've got tons of droop travel, those springs really kick *** on the rocks. Yeah before they were tied into the body they rattled against the rocker panels.

 

[dieselfuel]

I'm up in Minnesota for the weekend so this will have to wait til next weekend. Long road trips are about to get a lot more comfortable. It's a Magnaflow 12589, still a straight through glass pack design like my Borla but it's twice the size so it should cut down the volume quite a bit without sacrificing too much power.

I really need to finish my winch mount too. This is all I've gotten done so far.

 

[piratexpress1369a]

I like that

 

[chilliwak]

Thats one fine:drool:looking front bumper Mr. Diesel...

 

[justcuz]

This rig keeps getting better and better. Keep up the good work!

 

[Renntag]

The bumper project is looking good. Thanks for sharing the photos.

 

[norcal*PWRstroke]

Love that bumper! Very nice work. I have to get going on building mine!

 

[dieselfuel]

So I actually did something to the suburban yesterday...
Before.
https://youtu.be/y-rAJVizwkU
After.
https://youtu.be/wTzjelXyPFo

I've had the new Magnaflow in a box on the table for a couple weeks now so I grabbed a couple pieces of 3" pipe from O'Reilly and my father-in-law and I dug into it. I was able to move the muffler back some and still keep it tucked up into the frame. You can barely see it under there, which is what I wanted. We relocated one hanger, cut the whole system in half and added another set of flanges behind the muffler. Now I can drop half the exhaust system out if needed. Before, it was all one piece, about 12' long.
The volume level outside the truck didn't change as much as I expected but inside the cab is much more comfortable. Upon completion we took it for a little test drive, got up to 80mph on the highway and I'm pleased to report that I can comfortably drive 70mph again. It's got a deep tone, the raspiness of the smaller Borla muffler is gone and there's no drone on the highway. I'm happy!

 

[piratexpress1369a]

Sounds great

 

[myershorsepower]

I just read through your whole build, first great job!
who's engine cross member did you used?
I would like to redo my front suspension setup, and do one like yours.
If you don't mind do you have a parts list of the components that you used?
thanks

 

[dieselfuel]

I just read through your whole build, first great job!
who's engine cross member did you used?
I would like to redo my front suspension setup, and do one like yours.
If you don't mind do you have a parts list of the components that you used?
thanks

Thank you man!
The crossmember is made by TNA, totallynakedauto.com.

I'm running Diy4X (diy4x.com) B52 spring hangers, Offroad Design (offroaddesign.com) upper shackle hangers with 4.5" grease-able shackles and custom made leaf springs. The springs are a 3.5" lift with the axle placed 1" forward. I'm using Bilstein 5100 14" shocks but they don't have enough dampening for these springs. I'll end up with some 7100s in the same length. Upper and lower shock mounts, I designed and built. I'm set up as low as you can get with crossover steering and leaf springs. I'm running a flatter pitman arm from Offroad design to allow more up-travel and still only have 4.5-5" up from ride height. I've got a ton of droop though, you probably saw that in the Moab pics. I just about max out my 14" shocks.

If you need more specifics, PM me.

 

[dieselfuel]

Seems like it's that time again, time to update this thread. It's been a while, I haven't done much to the suburban lately because I've been too busy doing things with the suburban.

On New Year's day my wife and I loaded the dogs up in the suburban and headed out to do a little bit of exploring south of where we live. We drove Christmas tree pass on the way to Laughlin Nevada, headed out to telephone cove to let the dogs run around in the water and made a side trip over to Oatman Arizona. We ended up running Christmas tree pass both directions that day, I think that will be the norm for us anytime we head that direction now. Christmas tree is a wide, smooth, dirt road the entire way, there were minivans in there. The only slight challenges we found all day were a couple of small offshoot roads that ended rather abruptly. We plan to explore that area more extensively in the coming months, before it starts getting hot.

Our first stop was the dry lake bed in ElDorado Valley, somehow we forgot to let the dogs out to pee before we left town.

I love a challenging trail but sometimes a smooth dirt road is extremely therapeutic.

Stopped at one of the observation points along Christmas tree pass.

Hank was less than thrilled about being left in the truck, even for an entire five minutes.

My wife and a couple of the dogs at Telephone cove.

The only real four wheeling I did that day was a short spur road that ended about 200yds off the main road.

 

[dieselfuel]

The following weekend we drove to San Diego for a concert, we took the Volkswagen, I won't bore you with that one.
This past weekend we headed up to Hurricane Utah for the Winter 4x4 Jamboree. This was our first year at the jamboree and it certainly won't be our last. The event was very well-managed and the Sand Hollow State Park area has a lot to offer. We couldn't get time off of work so we had it up Friday afternoon, after dinner in St. George we rolled into the fairgrounds at about 10 PM. We quickly set up the air mattress in the back of the suburban and settled in for the night. Saturday morning we got up and got in line for the trail we were running. I signed us up for an easy one to use this as an opportunity to introduce my wife to driving off road. It's important that she knows how to handle the suburban off road in case were out somewhere and I'm unable to drive for whatever reason. The group we were with basically wandered around the sand hollow area stopping at different obstacles to watch the rock buggies and more heavily built rigs drive some of the more challenging obstacles. My wife thoroughly enjoyed it and handled it well. There were a couple panic stops at the top of sand dunes and "are you crazy? I'm not driving up that!" moments but overall we both had a blast. We grab dinner at the Pizza Factory in St. George and headed home Saturday evening. The entire trip was about 26 hours.

Our big two-person sleeping bag sure is nice on nights like this.

I must've heard the words "monster truck" two dozen times that day. Haha!

I didn't get many photos of the Suburban. I have the GoPro camera rolling all day, I'll try to get a short video put together.

There were some amazing rigs out there. everything from stock Suzuki sidekick's to ultra for racecars and Unimog based single seat rock buggies. Assuming you could actually see them through the sea of four-door jeeps out there.

 

[trbon8r]

Wow great work on the truck! I only hope my '91 can look that good one day. I wish I had the know how to do a lot of the things you have done on that truck. With a wrench in my hand I know just enough to get in trouble.