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BeaterBurb Build

I would be on the fence on a 14 bolt SF swap in this rig. Your truck has the improved 30 spline axles but the factory diff is a turd. I have great success with the 10 bolt/30 splines rears by changing to an aftermarket carrier, the last two electric lockers. The last "cheap" 14 bolt SF swap I did in my Burb cost me almost $3k on a rear that cost $200 once I bought a carrier, axles, gear set, bearings, had the perches and shock tabs fixture welded and axle tubes trued, installed new brakes etc... :eek1:
 
Greg Ducato said:
I would be on the fence on a 14 bolt SF swap in this rig. Your truck has the improved 30 spline axles but the factory diff is a turd. I have great success with the 10 bolt/30 splines rears by changing to an aftermarket carrier, the last two electric lockers. The last "cheap" 14 bolt SF swap I did in my Burb cost me almost $3k on a rear that cost $200 once I bought a carrier, axles, gear set, bearings, had the perches and shock tabs fixture welded and axle tubes trued, installed new brakes etc... :eek1:
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I would love to swap in a 14-bolt. I also would love to have a nasty small block cranking out 400+ lbs torque at the rear wheel. However, I'm in the remove-and-upgrade-when-the-component-in-question-has-been-blown-up-in-place camp. Keep in mind, I live in one of the FLATTEST PLACES ON EARTH with little opportunity for real off-roading. The good country, just to the west of us, is 8-10 hours via highway I-40 and 550. Once I'm up in the San Juan Mountains (Durango, Silverton, Lake City, Ouray, Telluride), I hit the rough stuff with my Husqvarna TE 610, but most of the jeep trails up there could be navigated with a stock Cadillac Escalade. I plan to wheel Whitey off-road, but I will stay away from Poughkeepsie Gulch, Black Bear, and Engineer Road; those and all the other rough stuff is why I have a long-travel two-wheel EFI dirtbike.

Planning on staying with the 10-bolt for now. Certainly, at some point I will need an upgrade. Component failure and available funding will be the independent variables that drive the axle upgrade.

Let's look at it this way...for now, let's see how long, and through what tests, a 20+ year-old 10-bolt will last.
 
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62 fat guy said:
I strongly recommend swapping out the rear axle to at least a 14 bolt semi-floater. They're on the 3/4 ton rigs...

it's much stronger than the 10 bolt. No reason to drop any real $$$ in the rear 10 bolt. The 14 bsf came with 3.73 and 4.10's, and are pretty cheap $$$ wise...
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Quoting "Larry" with the Polar Bear build:
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Originally Posted by y5mgisi
I thought you already had a D60 in the k10? No?

Nope, been running a D44 with 4:56 gears & Detroit Trutrac in the K10 all these years. Actually it only let me down once playing in the snow with a broken u-joint due it being dry. I would have kept running the D44 for years to come but this D60 deal was too hard to pass up being it had the correct gear ratio and it was a single wheel hub and cost the same as a used D60 that would needed single wheel hubs and probably a regear. D44s, or even 10 bolts, aren’t that bad as long as you are ginger on the loud pedal and drive with finesse. People that complain about D44’s being weak are the same people that break D60’s too.
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So, Like I said, yes I want to upgrade and will someday. As for now, I will skip ever so gingerly through the tullies with the stock components intact. It has been my experience that many vehicles will do WAY more than we give them credit; I actually saw a young kid that had a Honda Civic with some homemade lift kit who would travel from Lake City to Silverton on a weekly basis, via Engineer or Cinnamon Pass, just to visit his girlfriend. Saved him 4 hours of driving the long way around through Gunnison (the love of a woman has changed the entire course of human history not just a few times. In this case, it changed a Honda Civic).

At any rate, we will see what the budget allows over the next year in the axle department.
 
Glass is out and gaskets are out. Final glazing, priming, and wet sand coming up. Tape and mask tomorrow, color on Sunday. Will be ringing in the New Year with all new GM White.:woot:

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Zane M said:
Looking great!
And you certainly don't mess around.
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Thanks for the votes of confidence guys. Yes Zane, you are correct, I do not mess around when it comes to a schedule. By the time we all are singing Robert Burns' "Auld Lang Syne", we will be looking at the 1991 OEM code white, with a little additional sparkle, with the clear buffed to mirror finish.

HOWEVER, this is the easy part. All new paint, new plastic trim, wheels, tires, powder coat this and that, chrome bumpers, new glass, etc, etc: these things are easy.

The HARD part (for me) is getting the mechanics correct. I have been reading extensively in this forum and there seems to be an incredible number of setups to pursue when considering engines, exhaust, intake, heads, fuel delivery, transmissions, axles, gear ratios, carriers, and suspensions. Most individual component upgrades, as a stand-alone item, are worthwhile. Yet they are not stand alone and they all must operate in concert; many upgrades are mutually exclusive. Further, not all components or combination of components will propel the truck toward the expressed purpose. My challenge is to create a plan for the truck from the extensive menu of items; the comprehensive whole must be much greater than the sum of parts.

I wish there was a "4x4 truck design" rubric out there to guide me through the decision process...hmmm maybe we ought to.... :whistle:
 
Behind schedule! :eek1:

Just taking the extra steps to make sure all bases are covered before the base coat gets shot; the money goes final with the color and clear coat. Once that is laid down, it is all over but the buffing.

Got the front door hinge pins/bushings replaced and then pulled the rear glass. There was a significant amount of surface rust under the quarter glass gasket which was sanded off and primed. I pulled the rear cargo door glass, expecting more rust, but there was not a stitch of corrosion at all; looked like it just left the factory. Strange: why would one part of the body, the window retainer lip, have corrosion and another window lip not?

Maybe because the rear doors are not part of the body and were catholically protected in some way? At any rate, it was an easy fix on the quarter glass lip with a disc sander.

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Both rear quarter glasses were cracked, so I found some nearly perfect quarter glass and gaskets, with the factory privacy black, in a '91 up at the bone yard. Took the gaskets to the carwash and blasted the tar out of them, literally. Dirty nasty job it was that left me soaking wet. I then razored-bladed the edges of the glass, inside and out, to remove 22 years of crystalized grime. Last up was to polish both sides of the glass with super fine steel wool soaked with Windex and then final terry cloth and Windex cleanup. Ready to go back in the truck.

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Greg Ducato said:
Beautiful! I never heard of the steel wool trick but the results speak for themselves, nice job!
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Yep, steel wool will cut it back to virgin glass. The glass I got from the bone yard was not chipped or scratched; it just had nearly a quarter century of west Texas dirt, car wash soap, road grime (oil and carbon black) all annealed in place by Texas heat/UV rays and acid rain (thanks Los Angeles).

The steel wool, wet or dry, will cut all that off, and with an application of a polish sealer like Rain X, the shine will last a while.
 
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My friend is the painter at the local Maaco here and he has a love/hate relationship with Suburbans and Ford Excursions. He loves that they take so long to paint because it makes the day go by so fast, but he hates how long they take to paint. :haha:
 
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