Hello everyone!
Some time ago I surfed straight into a nasty trap cleverly disguised as a Ryoken build thread; 450ish pages and a few nights later I just had to create an account and leave a few nice words. Apparently the words were a little too well chosen, and now I'm afraid of not living up to expectations :P
I've been on the lookout for a late model square body Suburban for roughly half a year, but excessive rust (road salting is very common in coastal Norway... and pretty much the entire country IS coastal), or too high GVWR's (I'm limited to ~7716lbs without a truck drivers licence) meant that viable vehicles were few and far apart. Just before hitting the bed at 3AM one night I did a final search result refresh on one of many automotive sites.. and there she was! Short story long, I couldn't sleep that night, I was at the bank before it opened, I borrowed a friend and her Toyota IQ ("the world's first car to measure less than three metres long but with four seats inside!") and headed 50 miles into the country before breakfast.
(It's a Chevy according to the VIN, a previous owner probably decided that the GMC covers look better and I do agree)
I probably paid far too much ($7600, my entire savings account AND a credit card, quite a bit under asking price), and I'm assuming it's in a worse shape than it actually is. Still, I'm in love with her and I have enough nice memories behind the wheel already to make it seem like a bargain.
So far I've only done minor fixes, like hidden wiring for a smartphone and a PND in the windshield, mounting a CB radio & antenna (quite a bit of work taking down the inner roof... or rather, trying to get it all back up again singlehandedly - and then figuring out how to open the barn doors from the inside afterwards), and adding a new car stereo.
The most labor-intensive job was redoing half the wires going into the drivers door as they had broken inside the rubber shielding between the door and frame. As I don't have any 'inch'-tools yet I was unable to take the door off, and it got a 'little' tight at times. My fingers now have two more joints.
My dad had a few days off from work last week and we bought a travel trailer and headed north with the truck. It was a pretty short trip of around a thousand miles as I had to be back for a big family party and my kid brother had plans early next week. Still, it served as a nice test for the 'new' truck and apart from mediocre driving lights it seems to be in good condition.
We crossed the Dovrefjell mountain range (if anyone knows the Grieg piece 'Dovregubbens Hall'/'In the Hall of the Mountain King'...). Parked at ~3100 feet above sea level, happy that the heating system in the trailer worked.
After deciding that driving all the way up to the Lofoten area, my fathers birthplace, would be too much stress/too little vacation, we headed east into Sweden and followed the back roads home again.
And a treat for the English speaking crowd:
(It does freeze over quite often..)
Now, for future plans...
Stuff I have to do:
* change front brake lines (starting to crack)
* replace current Sealed Beam headlights with H4 bulb units
* redo much of the electrical stuff; it's a rats nest after several owners have redone it... seemingly at random. Trying to operate the window wipers (rotary switch where it's supposed to be) and the washer fluid pump (on-off-on button NOT! where it's supposed to be, down low on the center console?!) at the same time is done at great risk. The left side running lights come on when they feel like it; usually not at night.
* kill the relatively little surface rust before it gets worse
* generally going through all the mechanicals, making sure everything is good or fix as necessary. Seem to have a couple of minor oil leaks I'd really like to sort.
* adding useful reverse lights.. the current, stamp-sized outlets seem pointless even in informing those behind me that I'm about to roll over them. Probably getting LED worklights that I can override when needed.
Stuff I want to do:
* add a snorkel (Toyota 80 series), for looks and dust protection now and water fording capability down the road when everything else is up to par.
* replace the front-mounted auxiliary lights with roof-mounted ones of better quality. For looks, protection and increased radiator airflow.
* install an auxiliary battery (200Ah ish) to run all the creature comforts off of, so I'll never worry about draining the starter batteries
* replace the current Grant steering wheel. It looks really neat, but even my sisters go-kart has a larger diameter wheel. Gets tiresome trying to keep the 'burb in line at high(
) speeds along sraight roads. 
Stuff that I'm planning on doing some time in the future:
* adding a Banks Sidewinder turbo kit
* redoing the interior; currently thinking four seats, big, full-length center console and roof console, solid wall behind rear seats for smaller interior to heat/cool and to protect from stuff in cargo area, replacing the long windows with access hatches and doing a partitioned cargo compartment with drawers and shelves and nice things and stuff
* roof tent!
* painting it. Semi flat "Desert Sand"'ey with flat black Chevy grille, hood(?), details and lower panels. No chrome. Inspiration: http://mightymichaelis.com/suburban/ (lots of pictures)
* adding a twin spare wheel tire carrier and a gasoline 220V generator to the rear fender/barn doors somehow
* a Ryoken-style hidden winch setup - the reason I found CK5 in the first place!! - behind the front bumper. Due to Norwegian/EU regulations it's impossible to mount anything that adds increased frontal protection, so a winch bumper won't happen.. but I like the clean looks of a hidden setup anyway, and I rarely actually need a winch. Just always dreamed of having one
Stuff I'd like to do, come time and money:
1 ton axles, maybe a 2" lift, ARB lockers, slightly bigger wheels, under-body armor plates, auxiliary fuel tanks for extended range... Once I have my light commercial truck drivers licence I can increase its GVWR back up to the original rating if I have to, to accommodate above modifications... would mean twice the cost for passing toll stations (there are a LOT of them along the main roads) and vehicle inspection every year instead of every two years.
And then, stuff I'd like to do with the truck:
In general I'd like to build a relatively capable and dependable overland truck. I have no plans on doing any excessive offroading, but I do plan on seeing a lot of bad roads. The obvious alternatives were 80 series Land Cruisers and various Land Rovers. However, as I'm mostly planning on sticking to roads and I'd prefer something slightly more comfortable, I decided to go back to Suburban. Thing is, there are "roads" going pretty much everywhere, at least if you can cross a river or two... depending on all sorts of things, my dad and I are, pretty seriously, planning a road trip into Mongolia, down through China to India and then back to Europe. Obviously, I'll want to have the truck in above-perfect condition before that.. but it's not an impossible drive; lesser vehicles have done it many times and I believe there will be other things along such a journey that will be much more challenging than the driving itself. Before that, I'm semiplanning a shorter shakedown trip somewhat along the lines of Norway - Ukraine - Morocco - Norway trying to catch as many countries as possible along the route. Maybe even as soon as this winter if I can get the truck (and myself) in good shape?
Clickying the pictures should get you to high-resolution versions stored over at Flickr, unless I fudged the BB-code or did something else weird... Feel free to make nasty comments whenever I've messed up the whole language/techtalk thingy and I'll get it sorted out and learn something new!
Oh, and as for the name... well, it's a working title.
Some time ago I surfed straight into a nasty trap cleverly disguised as a Ryoken build thread; 450ish pages and a few nights later I just had to create an account and leave a few nice words. Apparently the words were a little too well chosen, and now I'm afraid of not living up to expectations :P
I've been on the lookout for a late model square body Suburban for roughly half a year, but excessive rust (road salting is very common in coastal Norway... and pretty much the entire country IS coastal), or too high GVWR's (I'm limited to ~7716lbs without a truck drivers licence) meant that viable vehicles were few and far apart. Just before hitting the bed at 3AM one night I did a final search result refresh on one of many automotive sites.. and there she was! Short story long, I couldn't sleep that night, I was at the bank before it opened, I borrowed a friend and her Toyota IQ ("the world's first car to measure less than three metres long but with four seats inside!") and headed 50 miles into the country before breakfast.
(It's a Chevy according to the VIN, a previous owner probably decided that the GMC covers look better and I do agree)
I probably paid far too much ($7600, my entire savings account AND a credit card, quite a bit under asking price), and I'm assuming it's in a worse shape than it actually is. Still, I'm in love with her and I have enough nice memories behind the wheel already to make it seem like a bargain.
So far I've only done minor fixes, like hidden wiring for a smartphone and a PND in the windshield, mounting a CB radio & antenna (quite a bit of work taking down the inner roof... or rather, trying to get it all back up again singlehandedly - and then figuring out how to open the barn doors from the inside afterwards), and adding a new car stereo.
The most labor-intensive job was redoing half the wires going into the drivers door as they had broken inside the rubber shielding between the door and frame. As I don't have any 'inch'-tools yet I was unable to take the door off, and it got a 'little' tight at times. My fingers now have two more joints.
My dad had a few days off from work last week and we bought a travel trailer and headed north with the truck. It was a pretty short trip of around a thousand miles as I had to be back for a big family party and my kid brother had plans early next week. Still, it served as a nice test for the 'new' truck and apart from mediocre driving lights it seems to be in good condition.
We crossed the Dovrefjell mountain range (if anyone knows the Grieg piece 'Dovregubbens Hall'/'In the Hall of the Mountain King'...). Parked at ~3100 feet above sea level, happy that the heating system in the trailer worked.
After deciding that driving all the way up to the Lofoten area, my fathers birthplace, would be too much stress/too little vacation, we headed east into Sweden and followed the back roads home again.
And a treat for the English speaking crowd:
(It does freeze over quite often..)
Now, for future plans...
Stuff I have to do:
* change front brake lines (starting to crack)
* replace current Sealed Beam headlights with H4 bulb units
* redo much of the electrical stuff; it's a rats nest after several owners have redone it... seemingly at random. Trying to operate the window wipers (rotary switch where it's supposed to be) and the washer fluid pump (on-off-on button NOT! where it's supposed to be, down low on the center console?!) at the same time is done at great risk. The left side running lights come on when they feel like it; usually not at night.
* kill the relatively little surface rust before it gets worse
* generally going through all the mechanicals, making sure everything is good or fix as necessary. Seem to have a couple of minor oil leaks I'd really like to sort.
* adding useful reverse lights.. the current, stamp-sized outlets seem pointless even in informing those behind me that I'm about to roll over them. Probably getting LED worklights that I can override when needed.
Stuff I want to do:
* add a snorkel (Toyota 80 series), for looks and dust protection now and water fording capability down the road when everything else is up to par.
* replace the front-mounted auxiliary lights with roof-mounted ones of better quality. For looks, protection and increased radiator airflow.
* install an auxiliary battery (200Ah ish) to run all the creature comforts off of, so I'll never worry about draining the starter batteries
* replace the current Grant steering wheel. It looks really neat, but even my sisters go-kart has a larger diameter wheel. Gets tiresome trying to keep the 'burb in line at high(
) speeds along sraight roads. Stuff that I'm planning on doing some time in the future:
* adding a Banks Sidewinder turbo kit
* redoing the interior; currently thinking four seats, big, full-length center console and roof console, solid wall behind rear seats for smaller interior to heat/cool and to protect from stuff in cargo area, replacing the long windows with access hatches and doing a partitioned cargo compartment with drawers and shelves and nice things and stuff
* roof tent!
* painting it. Semi flat "Desert Sand"'ey with flat black Chevy grille, hood(?), details and lower panels. No chrome. Inspiration: http://mightymichaelis.com/suburban/ (lots of pictures)
* adding a twin spare wheel tire carrier and a gasoline 220V generator to the rear fender/barn doors somehow
* a Ryoken-style hidden winch setup - the reason I found CK5 in the first place!! - behind the front bumper. Due to Norwegian/EU regulations it's impossible to mount anything that adds increased frontal protection, so a winch bumper won't happen.. but I like the clean looks of a hidden setup anyway, and I rarely actually need a winch. Just always dreamed of having one
Stuff I'd like to do, come time and money:
1 ton axles, maybe a 2" lift, ARB lockers, slightly bigger wheels, under-body armor plates, auxiliary fuel tanks for extended range... Once I have my light commercial truck drivers licence I can increase its GVWR back up to the original rating if I have to, to accommodate above modifications... would mean twice the cost for passing toll stations (there are a LOT of them along the main roads) and vehicle inspection every year instead of every two years.
And then, stuff I'd like to do with the truck:
In general I'd like to build a relatively capable and dependable overland truck. I have no plans on doing any excessive offroading, but I do plan on seeing a lot of bad roads. The obvious alternatives were 80 series Land Cruisers and various Land Rovers. However, as I'm mostly planning on sticking to roads and I'd prefer something slightly more comfortable, I decided to go back to Suburban. Thing is, there are "roads" going pretty much everywhere, at least if you can cross a river or two... depending on all sorts of things, my dad and I are, pretty seriously, planning a road trip into Mongolia, down through China to India and then back to Europe. Obviously, I'll want to have the truck in above-perfect condition before that.. but it's not an impossible drive; lesser vehicles have done it many times and I believe there will be other things along such a journey that will be much more challenging than the driving itself. Before that, I'm semiplanning a shorter shakedown trip somewhat along the lines of Norway - Ukraine - Morocco - Norway trying to catch as many countries as possible along the route. Maybe even as soon as this winter if I can get the truck (and myself) in good shape?
Clickying the pictures should get you to high-resolution versions stored over at Flickr, unless I fudged the BB-code or did something else weird... Feel free to make nasty comments whenever I've messed up the whole language/techtalk thingy and I'll get it sorted out and learn something new!
Oh, and as for the name... well, it's a working title.
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But it's too much fun making them to roll over and go all realistic and stuff 
