1985: FrankenBurban 3/4 ton 4x4 grassroots hauler

[fidelity101]

Well I still haven't done anything about the tires because right now I am closing on a house, or should I say I bought a garage with a detached house.

I will finally be able to store this indoors during the winter! So because I am moving and have a few small road trips planned with this beast it was time to fix the no radio issue. The bluetooth wireless speaker thing works great in winter when you don't have the windows down but now the wind noise grossly over powers the tiny speakers.

Luckily though the previous owner tried to install one and failed. So new rear speaker wiring was already run, and I'm not sure the stock size of the rear speakers but it looks like they cut out the mounting hole a bit to fit 6x9s. Bonus! They also cut out the stock radio mount to fit a modern radio size.

All I had to do was mount it up, wire it in and run new wires for the front speakers.

Whats left to do is source a front left speaker mount/attachment thing (hopefully with a speaker)

Oh yeah it has bluetooth The whole truck has nearly all mechnical inputs/controls but it has hands free calling and bluetooth capabilities. Price? 62 bucks at wal-mart.

 

[fidelity101]

Installed new front 4" speakers this weekend and decided it was time to finally replace the old tires.

BAM!

315/75/16 load range E, and I only needed MINOR modification of the front fenders for it to clear on full lock turns and give me room for wheel movement should it go off-road. Going from a 32.5" tire to 34.5" tire should lower my highway RPM to a bit more tolerable level, maybe improve mileage or at least be able to tow at 70 instead of 60-65.

The ride is SO MUCH NICER with newer tires, I wanted some BFG all-terrains but they were very expensive, it is a bit strange putting japanese tires on this beast but my fuel filter is for/from a nissan 300zx twin turbo sooooo oh well...

 

[fidelity101]

I did drive around a bit on our bumpy & broken Detroit roads and noticed that I needed to trim the front fenders a little more. They didn't rub at lock or inbetween LH&RH turning but if you hit a bump it would want to whack it.

Also, an added bonus of the larger tires... My spedometer is accurate now! It is within 1mph of the GPS speed so that is a nice feature

To celebrate the 4th we did a beach party camping trip which involved some minor off-roading to get to our spot. We ended towing up 3 kayaks and a sail boat, lots of gear & beer as well as a few hundred pounds of wood for the campfire.

The other truck is my friends cummins 6 speed resto mod.

I brought a tent, but it was 6000lbs so here was my view of lake Michigan every morning:

There was a few mile long trail that ran perpendicular along the beach that was pretty fun to traverse around, I was in 4Low for most of it but then I decided to get a bit excited with the bravery gravy and got it stuck in a pretty good mud pit, we were nearly out until this happened:

This is the front passenger side axle u-joint, rather whats left of it....

So a 'quick' tug and we were out, had I hit it with more speed it would not have been an issue or if the 4wd was functioning the front tires had plenty of hard ground it was just the rear ones stuck in a rut on some clay, could have dropped the tire pressure but the shrader valve was under water (too dark for photos)

Then we proceeded to head back to our camp site and basically got stuck again and we left it until morning to give it a quick yank out and we were on our way.

Its pretty embarassing how very little we were stuck but oh well, **** happens!

 

[jekquistk5]

I did drive around a bit on our bumpy & broken Detroit roads and noticed that I needed to trim the front fenders a little more. They didn't rub at lock or inbetween LH&RH turning but if you hit a bump it would want to whack it.

Also, an added bonus of the larger tires... My spedometer is accurate now! It is within 1mph of the GPS speed so that is a nice feature

To celebrate the 4th we did a beach party camping trip which involved some minor off-roading to get to our spot. We ended towing up 3 kayaks and a sail boat, lots of gear & beer as well as a few hundred pounds of wood for the campfire.

The other truck is my friends cummins 6 speed resto mod.

I brought a tent, but it was 6000lbs so here was my view of lake Michigan every morning:

There was a few mile long trail that ran perpendicular along the beach that was pretty fun to traverse around, I was in 4Low for most of it but then I decided to get a bit excited with the bravery gravy and got it stuck in a pretty good mud pit, we were nearly out until this happened:

This is the front passenger side axle u-joint, rather whats left of it....

So a 'quick' tug and we were out, had I hit it with more speed it would not have been an issue or if the 4wd was functioning the front tires had plenty of hard ground it was just the rear ones stuck in a rut on some clay, could have dropped the tire pressure but the shrader valve was under water (too dark for photos)

Then we proceeded to head back to our camp site and basically got stuck again and we left it until morning to give it a quick yank out and we were on our way.

Its pretty embarassing how very little we were stuck but oh well, **** happens!

Air down more next time

 

[fidelity101]

Yeah I didn't air down at all initially, most of the surfaces were hard packed but our campsite was on the outer edge of the trails which looked most like that kind of sand. Now today I need to powerwash everything to prevent the rust gods from taking vengence on the truck...

for all you michiganers I highly recommend this place, it is virtually vacant and camping is free.

So here is a map:

and a bit zoomed in, the beach camping/trail highlighted in red.

 

[fidelity101]

I got a new axle shaft in but have yet to replace the u-joints... however, it was properly the correct time to do this...

aaaand some more progress, this time I removed the chrome trim pieces instead of painting over them, I also have better shape piece to replace it with too.

26 dollars for a gallon of rustoleum and 15 dollars towards beer made a fun Saturday afternoon. After painting a bunch of random rooms in the new house I have plenty of roller supplies hanging around.
The wheels are next, paint is already picked up but I won't get to them until maybe a week or two, new lug nuts will be in store as well. I'm taking this vehicle back to my roots. White on gunmetal gold, pics to come

I don't know why its sideways so just try and tilt your head or look at prior pics for wheels and their condition.

However I might catch flack for this but love or hate it, I enjoy a good sticker bomb.

Most people just do a small lip, but anything worth doing is worth overdoing. Go big or go home, I laugh at your silly little lip with only a few stickers on it. I just need about a dozen more stickers to cover up all the paint on the tailgate.

 

[shady]

Love the tail gate I used to have an 80 something ford Taurus that I painted the inside of the back window of and Covered the outside of the window with bumper stickers of all kinds, Mainly stupid sayings Burb looks awesome

 

[fidelity101]

Rules of the sticker bomb is that the sticker must contain these themes:

1. Cool location
2. Car/automotive/racing oriented
3. Good bands
4. Beer/food

 

[fidelity101]

I originally wanted aluminum wheels but it would be another 400-700 dollars each and that would buy alot of gas. The tires were expensive enough new. That being said steel wheels are tough as nails. Time to clean up and paint the wheels then pick up some matching lug nuts (black or chrome).

I'm going back to my roots, 90% of my past vehicles were white vehicle on "gunmetal gold" as the color that I 'created', observe past vehicles:

The rx7 did used to look nice. Now it kind of looks like a pile...

 

[fidelity101]

I think it came out pretty good. Great in pictures but absolutely a 10-20 feet paintjob.

I replaced one of the headlamp bezels and some chrome on the front end then re-sprayed it to a matching green.

I think I am going to clear over the stickers. I don't think the glue or stickers appreciate morning dew so I can't imagine they are going to like snow either.
However now I need to adjust my rear tailgate the passenger side latch wont latch...

Wheels are next then put a coat of black on underneath before winter.
I did notice some bump steer issue earlier, did a quick bleed of the power steering and it seems fine? I might be looking into frame reinforcement for the steering box, but further diag is required.

 

[fidelity101]

paint the truck? Paint the wheels! Gunmetal gold is back! One of my cars needed that in its life.
Before:

During:

Post cleaning:

1st coat after primer:

now add gold:

then a little bitch of witchcraft and blending the 2 spray paints and viola!

I have new (black) lug nuts that go on as well and the underside has a fresh coat of black underneath.


So in final order of winter prep I needed to fix the broken u-joint. Which meant axle shaft replacement too since when it grenaded itself it took out that sucker too. The opposite u-joint was bad too, so seized up it had lost upward/downward movement entirely making steering VERY scary. And quite the nervous 17 mile commute home from work the other day.
That took forever and a day. then we go to test it by spinning the one shaft, the other was not. Then we spin the front driveshaft and it spins too easy. So its time to open the diff cover...
and that's when we found this.

R&P look fine, side gears look good too but I will need a new diff pin and pinion gears

but on the plus side, people gave me more stickers recently:

Anyone got any pinion gears for a 10 bolt 4.10 for sale/avail?

 

[jekquistk5]

paint the truck? Paint the wheels! Gunmetal gold is back! One of my cars needed that in its life.
Before:

During:

Post cleaning:

1st coat after primer:

now add gold:

then a little bitch of witchcraft and blending the 2 spray paints and viola!

I have new (black) lug nuts that go on as well and the underside has a fresh coat of black underneath.


So in final order of winter prep I needed to fix the broken u-joint. Which meant axle shaft replacement too since when it grenaded itself it took out that sucker too. The opposite u-joint was bad too, so seized up it had lost upward/downward movement entirely making steering VERY scary. And quite the nervous 17 mile commute home from work the other day.
That took forever and a day. then we go to test it by spinning the one shaft, the other was not. Then we spin the front driveshaft and it spins too easy. So its time to open the diff cover...
and that's when we found this.

R&P look fine, side gears look good too but I will need a new diff pin and pinion gears

but on the plus side, people gave me more stickers recently:

Anyone got any pinion gears for a 10 bolt 4.10 for sale/avail?

I have two ten bolts, one complete the other just housing. I think the non complete one is 4.10. I can check for you tomorrow. Your ring looked decent, just bad spiders. Think Deuling has a few sets of spiders for ten bolts since he put in a locker up front.

 

[fidelity101]

I was about to post in the classifieds but i have not renewed my subscription yet. Yeah let me know. I have at least 1 month before winter hits

 

[fidelity101]

I drove frankenburban into work today (needed to pick up a couch and shake down the maintenance stuff) and parked it next to a Miata to help demonstrate size and poke fun at my co-worker (who is a good sport)

Also the daylight is easier to see the truck with the painted wheels and new lug nuts.

observe:

 

[fidelity101]

Long time no updates but not much accomplished other than general maintenance, I have been working the past year on the rally car which is about 95% done so I can get back to building this thing to something more fun. I found myself a roof basket but its only 55" or so inches long so I picked up some round tubing and will extend it the length of the roof ~100" like a safari basket. Onboard air system I keep towing with either using a compressor or just just buying a proper electric pump.

but the real question is..
5.3 with my existing SM465
OR
6.0 with existing SM465

ORRRRR
6.0 and 4l80E?

Ideally I am thinking of buying a donor truck and working the swap out then selling the SBC to a local hotroder.

 

[fidelity101]

This is my true dilemma...

With everyone is swapping LS's into everything else and with that is good and bad, good being that there is a lot of information out there, bad being there is too much information out there. The driveability of a carb towing sucks and all of the various weather I do I am constantly dicking with the timing or tweaking the idle jet adjustments. I get about 8-10 mpg towing and 11-13mpg unloaded on a good day. I should expect about ~14 unloaded and ~12 towing with an efi swap so not a huge difference but major driveability increase. I am also tired of the SBC because it was designed before computers and even a crate engine has bullshit gasket leaks that makes it quite frustrating.


1. easiest - 5.3 swap keep existing SM465 manual transmission.
buy engine mounts adapters, perform simple harness modifications and exhaust done

2. easier - Lq4 6.0 swap keeping the manual transmission, do everything outlined above

3. hard as f**** - Lq4 with 4L80E - basically require a donor truck swap everything over, trans crossmember? NP208 compatibility? increased wiring complexity.

4. just drop the suburban body on a similar wheelbase LS powered chevy truck? ( seems a bit more than I am willing to commit to, have to use modern insurance/registration etc)

at this point its tempting just to go buy a newer truck or van but I like the space in the k5 burban and with historic plates/insurance it is CHEAP to keep on the road considering I have only driven it about 20k miles since I've owned it the past 4 years or so.


Benefits of my truck having being diesel, then tbi and now a carb with various engines is that I have a late model gas tank with TBI fuel pump sending unit assembly so swapping the fuel pump from a low pressure to higher pressure is easy, the lines are already run to the front of the engine. Right now with 35" tires and an estimated 260hp/350tq it struggles on uphill with a 6000lb truck towing an additional ~5000lbs luckily the 4.10s help but I have 1:1 in my tallest gear which means at 3100 RPM I am towing at 70mph however I don't really want to be towing with a 30 year old truck at 80mph...
Since it used to be an auto in its 1st life, it has an auto trans steering shaft, I just removed the shiftier lever.

Do I go with the electronic overdrive but I don't really want to tow much faster than 70 but a lower rpm would be a bit nicer in the cab and with a 6.0 the fuel consumption would be better. Or do I stick with SM465 for the sake of making the swap easier and that they are quite strong and mine isn't showing any signs of blowing up or failing me soon. The 4L80E is massive and stout and a truck that size manual really doesn't matter. plus with the bench seat the GF is much cozier when I don't have to grab gears through town.

Everyone says the 5.3 can make 6.0 power and I believe it to be true but I don't want a smaller engine (keep going down 6.2 > 5.7 and now 5.3??? whats next 3800 turbo?) but that engine has to rev higher to make the power and when towing I just want to roll into the power and turbo charger would be cool but its a bit much for my needs/goals/complexity.

Lucky for me I live near Detroit so finding one of these trucks beat up or an engine with a warranty is not difficult.


whats the hive's thoughts and opinions? I am leaning towards the dirty dingo engine mounts since they are adjustable which makes it easier to install whatever engine/trans combo I choose. A lot of the resources I see are very generalized. any recommendations? I am not doing a lot off-roading so I'm not going to go into the "you'll break your front axle, get a dana 60" because I agree but that's just not in the cards at the moment (or possibly ever)

 

[jekquistk5]

Do you have EFI live or HPtuners? You will need to have the ECM flashed to get rid of VATS, and some other things. Granted you can mail order tune from some places for about 100 bucks. 5.3's seem to come up every 2-3 days, 6.0's are every month. You will be happier with the 6.0 for towing, but having the 465 it may be a mute point. I know to run an older trans(350/400) you have to buy the adapters for the flex plate. Not sure what you would have to do for a clutch setup.

 

[fidelity101]

Do you have EFI live or HPtuners? You will need to have the ECM flashed to get rid of VATS, and some other things. Granted you can mail order tune from some places for about 100 bucks. 5.3's seem to come up every 2-3 days, 6.0's are every month. You will be happier with the 6.0 for towing, but having the 465 it may be a mute point. I know to run an older trans(350/400) you have to buy the adapters for the flex plate. Not sure what you would have to do for a clutch setup.

I do not have EFI live or HPtuners but I have a friend with HPtuners.... I figure the tune or re-cal would be regardless of what engine I choose.

I looked into this and since the engine is are internally balanced all I need to do is use the metric bolts for the LSX crank and I use my existing clutch/flywheel setup and all but one bellhousing bolt lines up.

 

[sreidmx]

I don't see how a swap is less complicated with a manual or auto, trying to get a vss working in a manual that never had one or a tcase like that can be just as big of a pita as wiring a new trans up. But most of the transmissions and engines have the wiring of you buy it with the harness.

 

[fidelity101]

I don't see how a swap is less complicated with a manual or auto, trying to get a vss working in a manual that never had one or a tcase like that can be just as big of a pita as wiring a new trans up. But most of the transmissions and engines have the wiring of you buy it with the harness.

If I keep my existing setup I have no problem retaining the spedo cable, I have aftermarket gauges already for fuel level, water temp, oil pressure - the only original gauge that works is the spedo and when I put the 35s on it actually became accurate... (GPS tested!)

I mean physically taking the engine/trans combo out and in will be tough, and I would have to remove the front clip. with the engine swap alone I don't need to remove the core support or hood. You are saying I would need a VSS for a DBW setup because good luck using a DBC on a LQ4 since it never existed? otherwise I am running all 5.3 accessories on a 6.0 to use a DBC need a re-tune of the PCM.