One Piece at a Time: My 1985 Diesel Suburban

[AgDieseler]

Rebuilt the brakes over lunch. Everything stops, parking brake holds, and gear oil is staying where it belongs.

I have my interviews Tuesday and Wednesday next week, and my hands and fingernails are loaded with black diesel oil, brake soot, and metal dust. Not sure these ivory tower types will understand, but I've rocked a lot of meetings with grit still on my hands and in my fingerprints. Might get to keep that streak going.

David

 

[Abusfullofnuns]

I know the fingernail self conscious feeling very well. Almost all of my meetings are with C-Suite’s of hospitals. Not many grease monkeys at that level. I spend many a meeting with my hands lightly clenched to hide my fingernails and knuckles.

 

[78K30]

Rebuilt the brakes over lunch. Everything stops, parking brake holds, and gear oil is staying where it belongs.

I have my interviews Tuesday and Wednesday next week, and my hands and fingernails are loaded with black diesel oil, brake soot, and metal dust. Not sure these ivory tower types will understand, but I've rocked a lot of meetings with grit still on my hands and in my fingerprints. Might get to keep that streak going.

David

One wedding I was in I got told to keep my hands as clean as possible the week proceeding. Yeah that went well....

 

[campfire]

One wedding I was in I got told to keep my hands as clean as possible the week proceeding. Yeah that went well....

 

[AgDieseler]

Slider mounting plates - designed for two 1.75” outriggers and 1/2” hardware. I drew these up a couple of weeks ago and a friend cut them on his plasma table.



I settled on the locations, and put the transfer punch to use. There are 3 main plates per frame with plans for two additional bracing mounts. The batwing thingy is a planned overlay brace for between the tubing landing points on the plate.





There’s not much interference with fuel lines, and I’ll just need to loosen and remount some of the points where the battery cables mount inside the driver rail. I transfer punched all the mounting holes, but will need to run up to my local supply shop for some shorty drill bits.

The winch and bedslide get ordered tomorrow.

David

 

[AgDieseler]

In line with @NorCal69 ’s comment about small stuff taking lots of time, I offer a quote from my late grandfather.

“Can’t nothing be easy.”

I plugged the hours, and have six mount plates, and a winch with power, sans fairlead, to show for it. Granted, there are power cables, fuel lines, and a brake line to avoid. I’m big on process.













My dad stopped by to wire up the ZEON 12 winch. I just need to call Stephen tomorrow to get the ORD fairlead mount. Whoever had my bumper first, cut the original one off.



It bothers me that the winch covers the bowtie. If I have time, I’ll relocate the solenoid pack.



Busy week ahead in the office.

David

 

[obijuank5]

Bolt that bowtie right to the winch.

Cover up that dubya.

 

[AgDieseler]

Back in Dallas and in the shop; starting work on slider landing plates.



David

 

[4door99]

Hate to temporarily derail your thread, but without reading back, did you say you were changing your set of tires for this trip?

 

[AgDieseler]

Hate to temporarily derail your thread, but without reading back, did you say you were changing your set of tires for this trip?

You’re not derailing.

Maxxis is the tire sponsor, so I snagged a set of their 40” Razr radials. It was either that or their 37s, and I don't want to run those on the highway with my 4.88s. We’ll see how they do, but I’ll hang onto the 38” MTRs until I have plenty of miles on the new set.

David

 

[AgDieseler]

Lots of small tasks, and a decent payoff.

Body side landing plates in primer and zinc. I tacked them all just before the rain showed up.



6x2 trimmed to 75”, mocked up and leveled to match the frame. It’s fun building structures that are as long as I am tall.





Lower mid and front outriggers in place. The rears are slightly different, and my next immediate step.





I hard mounted the sliders for mock-up purposes - just didn’t want these floating in space while I design the bushed tube interface.



My dad is pitching in a few hours each Sunday, and he wrapped up the fairlead mount, making use of some plates from ORD. I did some regular hot MIG welds on the front, and ran what had to be about 1.25” of stick out on my tungsten to get the back side welded. Not much you can’t get done with 35cfh of argon.



Bed slide arrives in a week. I have another jam-packed week of day-job stuff, but will get out to the shop as I can.

David

 

[campfire]

How have I never seen the Detroit Diesel emblem on the door?

 

[AgDieseler]

How have I never seen the Detroit Diesel emblem on the door?

Understandable. The full and honest emblem didn’t fit as well - “designed by Detroit Diesel, cheapened and assembled by General Motors, rebuilt and modified in Texas.”

It’s a bit wordy.

David

 

[AgDieseler]

Quick morning to setup the 1.75” DOM bushing locations, and start making drawings for the clevis sets.





I’ll transcribe all this to bendtech while I’m on the airplane.

David

 

[skunked]

I assume you're adding some sort of triangulation from these legs back to the frame plates? I like how your tie-ins will be bushed, should add plenty of rigidity while limiting cab vibrations.

 

[blazinzuk]

I assume you're adding some sort of triangulation from these legs back to the frame plates? I like how your tie-ins will be bushed, should add plenty of rigidity while limiting cab vibrations.

View attachment 278545

I agree add some bracing there even with the extra body support.

 

[AgDieseler]

I assume you're adding some sort of triangulation from these legs back to the frame plates? I like how your tie-ins will be bushed, should add plenty of rigidity while limiting cab vibrations.

Yessir. That’s actually the immediate next step once I get back to Dallas and out in the shop.

Each lower mount has an upper “truss” that ties either directly to the tube, or a bit farther and lands at the joint between the tube and the 6x2. You can see the space available on the frame plate. There will also be intermediate lateral trussing so there’s rigidity fore and aft.

I agree add some bracing there even with the extra body support.

More is coming. I still have (7) 8’ sticks of 1.75 waiting.

David

 

[skunked]

Figured as much with the extra real estate on those frame plates. Carry on....

 

[AgDieseler]

Figured as much with the extra real estate on those frame plates. Carry on....

Roger. 32 days until 21 road.

David

 

[campfire]

Roger. 32 days until 21 road.

David

How did the dirty-fingernail interview go?