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1993 3/4 Ton Suburban Build (Solid Axle Swap)

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I buttoned up quite a few things today and finally actually took it for a drive. Drove it about 30 min, and got up to 55 mph and everything was real good. No death wobble (i dont have a steering stabalizer yet either, I’ll put one on when I redo the tie rod), it runs real nice and straight down the road. Exhaust sounds real good, and even the rear shaft doesn’t even vibrate (which suprises me a bit). So really I just need to swap the rear gears to 4.10 and get a front shaft on it and its ready for daily driver status :pimp:

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I used a superduty driveshaft on mine, had to use a combo ujoint on the axle end. My K3500 had a Borg Warner Tcase so I bought a flange yoke from High Angle. I believe the flange yoke was from a Ford but it had no numbers to prove it.
 
House the relocated shifter working out? I still can’t bring myself to do that to mine if/when I swap.
 
How's the turning radius with the wider perch D60? I saw ORD mention there can be rubbing problem on the leafs with larger tires but didn't see anywhere if that meant 35's, 37's, or what before it became an issue...
 
NorCalAnthony said:
How's the turning radius with the wider perch D60? I saw ORD mention there can be rubbing problem on the leafs with larger tires but didn't see anywhere if that meant 35's, 37's, or what before it became an issue...
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So far I’ve had no issues whatsoever. Mine are 35x12.5x17 on 17x9 with 4.25 backspacing. I could see with a larger wider tire/rim combo there could be problems, but at least with my tire/rim combo I can say there’s no issues
 
Kay86K5 said:
Then this is when it got interesting. I learned, apparently there is a difference in the tranny shifter designs for the automatics of the earlier GMT400’s vs the later years of GMT400’s. Mine has a standard mechanical linkage setup (very similar to the square body auto shift linkages) that has a rod coming down off the column, then it has a “pivot” mount off the frame, then a rod that goes over to the tranny. Apparently later GMT400’s have a factory cable shifter setup. Its obvious ORD designed these brackets around later years cause as you can see from the pic below, there was a clearance issue with the rear driver side bracket and that shifter mount. In that picture the bracket still needed to slide back almost 2” to be where the instructions said it needed to locate.

After being a little pissed for a while, and talking it through with my brother, I decided it wasn’t worth my time dealing with trying to make something work to keep the factory shifter, or try and adapt a later factory cable shifter to my earlier version column. So I said screw it and just removed the factory linkage and will get an aftermarket cable shifter (probably the same one I have on my blazer) and install it on this burb. I think i was more annoyed I hadnt heard of this issue on the interweb before. I wasnt planning on redoing the tranny shifter, but this issue has forced me to do it. Oh well i guess.

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Just backing reading your build now. They switched to a cable shifter in 96. For what's it's worth. Odd to see you had a problem with it, but good that you got figured out.
 
beags86 said:
Just backing reading your build now. They switched to a cable shifter in 96. For what's it's worth. Odd to see you had a problem with it, but good that you got figured out.
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Yeah, after a little while I ended up figuring out that 96 was the year of the shifter change. Like I mentioned earlier, in the end it really wasn't that big of a deal, but I think I was just more annoyed that I hadn't heard of that issue before during my research. I guess most people are either SAS'ing 96+ trucks (maybe to get the vortec motors) or manual trucks. It just seemed weird that nobody had mentioned it on the 88-95 year trucks.

That's why I figured it was worth putting the info on this thread to possibly help someone else out in the future.

But I will say, it's kinda fun having a gate shifter on this big biotch :saweet:
 
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Kay86K5 said:
Yeah, after a little while I ended up figuring out that 96 was the year of the shifter change. Like I mentioned earlier, in the end it really wasn't that big of a deal, but I think I was just more annoyed that I hadn't heard of that issue before during my research. I guess most people are either SAS'ing 96+ trucks (maybe to get the vortec motors) or manual trucks. It just seemed weird that nobody had mentioned it on the 88-95 year trucks.

That's why I figured it was worth putting the info on this thread to possibly help someone else out in the future.

But I will say, it's kinda fun having a ratchet shifter on this big biotch :saweet:
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I like the Art Carr/Winters shifter a lot, but ratchet shifters are fun too.
 
mrk5 said:
I like the Art Carr/Winters shifter a lot, but ratchet shifters are fun too.
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I actually misspoke earlier, it is a Winters shifter...same as what I have in my blazer too. Sorry for the confusion ;)
 
mrk5 said:
I think the generic term for a Winters shifter would be "gate" shifter instead of ratchet shifter. FWIW
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Agreed...sorry for the confusion...just edited the post
 
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Used the burban to tow my new-to-me boat and take it out for the first time of the year over the weekend (didn't get in the water cause it's still really cold, just wanted to make sure the boat was all good to go for the summer season to have some fun in the sun with the kiddo's).

Burb tows it just fine, and that's still with 3.73's in the rear :D. There is something about a built burb towing a boat that just seems right. Plus it looks bad ass rolling up to the boat ramp like this :pimp:

I haven't really done anything to this thing for a while as I've been busy with other things like work and other house projects. But I do need to get a few things finished up in the near future. Still need to swap the 4.10 gears I have in the rear-end, then get a new front shaft built for it so it's 4wd again, then I want to do sliders, then after that build at least a front bumper. But it's nice it's still a usable tool for me even in it's current state.

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Kay86K5 said:
Used the burban to tow my new-to-me boat and take it out for the first time of the year over the weekend (didn't get in the water cause it's still really cold, just wanted to make sure the boat was all good to go for the summer season to have some fun in the sun with the kiddo's).

Burb tows it just fine, and that's still with 3.73's in the rear :D. There is something about a built burb towing a boat that just seems right. Plus it looks bad ass rolling up to the boat ramp like this :pimp:

I haven't really done anything to this thing for a while as I've been busy with other things like work and other house projects. But I do need to get a few things finished up in the near future. Still need to swap the 4.10 gears I have in the rear-end, then get a new front shaft built for it so it's 4wd again, then I want to do sliders, then after that build at least a front bumper. But it's nice it's still a usable tool for me even in it's current state.

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First off, the Burb is looking damn good.

But, it sure is tough making the 4x4 work when the truck is totally useable without it huh? Lol
 
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