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One Piece at a Time: My 1985 Diesel Suburban

It’s been a minute. Let’s catch up.

Quick air filter change in advance of Baja. This is from a Banks duramax kit, and fits the 7” bellmouth and airbox perfectly
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Essentials
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Dallas to Tucson via Las Cruces, and then on to SoCal. I saw family in NM, picked up my friend, Kris, in AZ, and dropped the gear that is verboten in MX at my friend’s place in Ramona
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Wash up in San Felipe before getting the decals in place
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After two days of driving, settling in the beach and looking at the sea of Cortez
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First trail day, headed to Mike‘s sky ranch CE446611-DD2B-46BB-9A9A-725A70B21928.jpeg

I had to work hard to keep up with these raptors and other similar trucks. We were mid pack, and left the jeeps and Tacomas way behind.
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Second day headed for the rocks in matomi wash. Kris ram this trail, so the suburban was the lead truck - an old square leads a pack of modern overlanders on a section of the 1000, and rock crawls. Perfectly absurd.
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We found all the rocks
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Left MX and headed to Julian CA to hang with Ian and Brittany from Wheeleveryweekend. Cool folks, beautiful place, and a neat build going on. I changed my oil, did a nut and bolt, and we hit the dirt outside the salton sea.
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Moose is a sweet boy.
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Morning views. I wake up at 5 while on Texas time, so I caught all the morning views in CA.
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From here, I drove north to LA to pickup my wife and meet up with friends.

David
 
Used to drive out there from San Diego via Poway and Ramona. Great mountain roads and you could go from mountain 2 tracks to desert wheeling in less than an hour.
 
Bad ass! Truly a swiss army knife of a truck. Video should be awesome!
It was a good general test of a lot of different systems, and way different terrain than I’d run before.

Next up is the camping test, and Jason and Nate each have those videos already out. Mine is a catch-up piece from our perspective.
Julian is a very quaint town. Been there many times.
Charming AF. My wife would be all over it. We’re planning to get back out there together.
Pie Store still there?
Yessir. Apples were in season.
Used to drive out there from San Diego via Poway and Ramona. Great mountain roads and you could go from mountain 2 tracks to desert wheeling in less than an hour.
So true. I’m envious of their available terrain and access to public lands.
 
It was a good general test of a lot of different systems, and way different terrain than I’d run before.

Next up is the camping test, and Jason and Nate each have those videos already out. Mine is a catch-up piece from our perspective.

Charming AF. My wife would be all over it. We’re planning to get back out there together.

Yessir. Apples were in season.

So true. I’m envious of their available terrain and access to public lands.
I watched Jason's video this morning and Nate's last week. Both excellent. Glad your wife felt better to finish the trip. I missed out on Death Valley last year with Larry and the rest of the Desert Rats. I want to get out there. I should say I will get out there.
 
I want to get out there. I should say I will get out there
It’ll be worth it. The high speed blast we did from Trona to Ballerat and through Goler Wash to Striped Butte and out to the highway was a one of a kind experience, and that’s like 1% of the area.

That certainly got me hungry for more. I only wish it wasn’t a two day drive.

David
 
It’ll be worth it. The high speed blast we did from Trona to Ballerat and through Goler Wash to Striped Butte and out to the highway was a one of a kind experience, and that’s like 1% of the area.

That certainly got me hungry for more. I only wish it wasn’t a two day drive.

David
Given the current change in my circumstances I may have time in the first part of the year to go. I'd like to take some time off for myself and my buddy Bill is newly retired so he can go anytime. He's been before two different times so he's familiar.

We might do Big Bend or someplace else. But as long as it's desert and warm I'm good.
 
From Julian, I headed north to LA to pick up my wife at the Burbank airport. She came in at about the same time as Nate’s wife, and we met up at a Ralph’s to stock up on the trail essentials

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from there, we met up with Jason a bit farther north of town
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and headed still farther north to our Death Valley jumping off point at trona pinnacles
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And I got exactly zero photos in the park, because when we awoke at the pinnacles Saturday morning, Erika was super sick. She couldn’t keep anything down, and it didn’t take long before we made the call to head to the urgent care in ridgecrest.

She got the care she needed, and we laid up in a hotel that night while Nate and Jason headed on into the park. Erika felt well enough the following morning, and we lit out early. The road through ballerat and goler wash isn’t tough, until you try to cover the whole thing in one morning and drive them at 50 mph. We did fine, and found our friends just as they were pulling up to striped butte.

There’s video, here:

And here:

Eventually, we rolled into Vegas.
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And hit up Fremont for Halloween.
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Then, SEMA.
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And I got lucky to join the folks from McLeod and Silversport at the track to drive a retired infinity series car on their track. 150ish mph is a visceral experience, sure, but doing it on a 22* bank without lifting is puckeringly badass.

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That was a pretty good day.

David
 
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And a great adventure isn’t complete without a story about getting a bit stuck.

Four dudes head north out of Vegas for a quick rip at the Apex dunes and whoops. Stephen, Garrett, Philip, and I have a great time yucking it up. Philip finds a suburban-sized dune as the perfect place to stage a photo.

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Stephen sees things going south, quickly.
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Buried to the skid plate, we get to digging. By hand. Running around in Vegas, I had emptied all my gear at the AirBnB, and this was supposed to be a quick romp among friends, new and old.

Stephen stacked rocks, I dug to clear the transfer case, but we had @mosesburb on call to come drag abrother out. Three tries and we made it back to town on our own, and in time for go karts and cold snacks.

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Then, the long drive home. That’s gear for three weeks, three different adventures, and 4200 miles of great memories.
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As much fun as I had, it was good to be home.
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Now, for a good bit of maintenance.

David
 
And a great adventure isn’t complete without a story about getting a bit stuck.

Four dudes head north out of Vegas for a quick rip at the Apex dunes and whoops. Stephen, Garrett, Philip, and I have a great time yucking it up. Philip finds a suburban-sized dune as the perfect place to stage a photo.

View attachment 396293

Stephen sees things going south, quickly.
View attachment 396294

Buried to the skid plate, we get to digging. By hand. Running around in Vegas, I had emptied all my gear at the AirBnB, and this was supposed to be a quick romp among friends, new and old.

Stephen stacked rocks, I dug to clear the transfer case, but we had @mosesburb on call to come drag abrother out. Three tries and we made it back to town on our own, and in time for go karts and cold snacks.

View attachment 396295

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Then, the long drive home. That’s gear for three weeks, three different adventures, and 4200 miles of great memories.
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As much fun as I had, it was good to be home.
View attachment 396298

Now, for a good bit of maintenance.

David
I don't know if you tried but last time I was stuck like that after 2 hours of trying everything, I aired down to 10lbs and drove out.
Sand is funny that way.
 
I don't know if you tried but last time I was stuck like that after 2 hours of trying everything, I aired down to 10lbs and drove out.
Sand is funny that way.
Yeah, did the same. I dropped from 16ish to 10, and along with the rocks, drove out. Sand hates me.

David
 

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