camp4x4
Adventurer
WAY over 7'. I haven't measured, but I'm pretty sure it's around 10' or 11'
The Camp 4x4 Bus - 1973 Suburban 8.1 Swap & Build
- Thread starter camp4x4
- Start date
camp4x4
Adventurer
LOL... okay, yeah, I just took out a tape measure and figured out what 10' actually is... no, the truck isn't that tall. With the Tent on I'm gonna say 9'-ish. With just the rack just over 8'-ish.
camp4x4
Adventurer
Well, the Week of Wrenching is over. I had a terrific time getting things ticked off the list with my dad. We spent a solid 8-10hrs a day for 4 days hammering away at this thing. And boy does it show! The Bus is looking like a proper truck again! While we didn't get the truck fired up like we'd originally talked about, we did get all the doors finished and installed, which is actually a huge thing. We also got the rack modified (extended 10"), painted and installed. The new firewall jute is in so I can start mounting firewall items back on. The RTT is installed with some fancy isolator clamp mounts I found in the RTT mod thread. The core support is freshly painted and ready to go on. The last of the trim pieces got painted, the serpentine belt went on, and I finally stopped into the hydraulic shop down the road to see what they were all about. Really cool place that does custom hoses, so that'll be where I get all the oil cooler hoses done.
Gotta say my dad is a terrific guy. Definitely the root of my car-related fetishes.
Sadly I got a nasty case of food poisoning on Thursday, so we cut things a bit short and I've been recovering ever since. Feeling fine now so I'll be down there this afternoon again. Can't wait to fire this thing up!
The doors are all setup with speakers, power locks, power windows, freshly painted panels, seals, greased, arm pads, strikers, hinge pins and brash bushings.
The roof rack needed to be extended by 10" since the original length 1) put the front feet bolts right through a roof cross-support (oops) and 2) I didn't really like the extra roof space left over in front of the rack the way I originally thought I would. I plan to mount a couple NMO mounts for the CB and ham antennas to the front bar, but I can do that with it attached no problem. It also got a black paint job to match the sliders, wheels and eventually the bumpers. The white was kinda cool but it just wasn't gonna work here. Oh, and we put new cork pads between the feet and roof to help keep water out of the holes.
The RTT mounts I picked up from McMaster Carr. They're vibration damping routing clamps used for conduit. This is one of the up-sides of doing a custom rack with round tube: conduit related clamps come in every size imaginable. I got this idea from the RTT mod thread. Right now only 4 of the 6 I got are installed; I'm waiting for an additional set of hardware from CVT. I probably could have just mounted it on 2 crossbars and been fine, but since it is sitting over 3 I figured I might as well use them.
I did also get some of the fuel line run. I connected the tank to the external pump with the Russell twist-lok fittings and hose. For now its secured with insulated wire clamps, but I found these sweet nylon hose clamps on Summit and ordered them up. Since I'll have feed and return lines both running to the regulator I got the double clamps to keep them tidy.
So that's about where I'm at now. Next up for projects: seat brackets, wiring, finish the fuel line runs, cooling system, interior, brakes... etc. etc...
Gotta say my dad is a terrific guy. Definitely the root of my car-related fetishes.
Sadly I got a nasty case of food poisoning on Thursday, so we cut things a bit short and I've been recovering ever since. Feeling fine now so I'll be down there this afternoon again. Can't wait to fire this thing up!
The doors are all setup with speakers, power locks, power windows, freshly painted panels, seals, greased, arm pads, strikers, hinge pins and brash bushings.
The roof rack needed to be extended by 10" since the original length 1) put the front feet bolts right through a roof cross-support (oops) and 2) I didn't really like the extra roof space left over in front of the rack the way I originally thought I would. I plan to mount a couple NMO mounts for the CB and ham antennas to the front bar, but I can do that with it attached no problem. It also got a black paint job to match the sliders, wheels and eventually the bumpers. The white was kinda cool but it just wasn't gonna work here. Oh, and we put new cork pads between the feet and roof to help keep water out of the holes.
The RTT mounts I picked up from McMaster Carr. They're vibration damping routing clamps used for conduit. This is one of the up-sides of doing a custom rack with round tube: conduit related clamps come in every size imaginable. I got this idea from the RTT mod thread. Right now only 4 of the 6 I got are installed; I'm waiting for an additional set of hardware from CVT. I probably could have just mounted it on 2 crossbars and been fine, but since it is sitting over 3 I figured I might as well use them.
I did also get some of the fuel line run. I connected the tank to the external pump with the Russell twist-lok fittings and hose. For now its secured with insulated wire clamps, but I found these sweet nylon hose clamps on Summit and ordered them up. Since I'll have feed and return lines both running to the regulator I got the double clamps to keep them tidy.
So that's about where I'm at now. Next up for projects: seat brackets, wiring, finish the fuel line runs, cooling system, interior, brakes... etc. etc...
camp4x4
Adventurer
Probably would be a bit better, but they’re a PAIN to deal with getting a nut into... the headliner sits flush against the supports, so nuts have to be recessed into them, meaning you have to cut a pocket for the nut, not just drill the bolt hole. It sucks. I did it on the 87 and swore I wouldn’t again.
I’ve stood on the corner at the front, and while the roof does compress ever so slightly when I bounce up and down, it is no where near “bad”. And my weight walking around up there is probably the most it’ll every have to deal with. The rest of the feet are at the roof edge crease where it starts to turn downward, so they’re plenty strong thanks to that. I’ll snap some pics this afternoon.
camp4x4
Adventurer
Not terribly hard... just bash 'em out... A solid punch and a BFH. The one thing we did find was that the replacement pins seemed to be longer than the originals.. this caused issues in some places where the pin would push the lower plate and spread the whole thing instead of slide through... in some places we simply re-used the pin and put the brass bushings in since those are really the things that need replacing... Just keep an eye on this and, if needed, don't bother replacing the pin itself, just the bushings.
camp4x4
Adventurer
Holy cow it seems like I haven't been here in a while. Sorry for the radio silence guys and gals, but I've got some rather big news: we bought a house! Long story short, we decided to head for the hills and spent the majority of June/July moving aaaaaaalllllllll our junk out to Gold Country. Sutter Creek, CA to be exact. We're super excited to be just down the road from Tahoe, Rubicon, Slick Rock and everything else out in these beautiful hills.
As of right now the truck is still in my buddy's shop in Gilroy. But, the new place has a HUGE garage, so I'm having the truck moved up here over the Labor Day Weekend. Soon after I'll be able to get back after this project.
