The Story Of A Cummins Suburban (Lots Of Pics)

[mosesburb]

Yeah, I guess re-doing stuff does constitute progress.

Since I am in the re-doing mood, I figured I replace my turbo oil feed line. I made it out of regular braided steel line with aluminum fittings when I built it a couple years ago. I have had no problems with it, but it has a temp rating of around 275*F (IIRC) and a very finite service life (especially when it is used way beyond its rated temperature or pressure ratings). I decided that since it sits mere inches away from a component that can best its highest temperature rating by 1000*F it would probably be a good idea to remake it in the Teflon braided line that I should have used from the get-go (also the same material Cummins uses from the factory)

Here is what I had made originally:

I made a new line with the Teflon lined braided line. I used steel ends instead of aluminum as they are stronger and have a higher temperature rating than the aluminum fittings. I do miss the contrast and/or bling of the red and blue aluminum AN fittings though.

Here it is installed. Boring in comparison to the snazzy, super-pimp colored fittings, but more suited to the longevity I hope to acheive from this thing. I need to get back to the fitting store and see if they have gotten the steel adapters in to replace the red aluminum ones.

Hopefully soon I will be able to get back to the regularly scheduled programming of boring travel photos. Backcountry travel > service work.

 

[folkenheath]

That was a step in the right direction, good thinking. To be honest, I like the simplicity of the silver braided, the red/blue kind of looked out of place.

 

[mosesburb]

Well, I had to let the smoke out of my old computer so my escapades have gone un-documented lately. I have gotten out but through wrestling with my computer and dealing with the newfound heat, I had not posted anything.

So, on a Saturday about a month ago I headed over to my machinist's house to kidnap him and take him out wheelin. All my plans were set, weapons were loaded, ordinace stowed and secured. Then it happened. My wife informed me that my boy was going with her to some something and not going with me out on the trail. Uh, what am I going to do without my door gunner?? Immediate adjustments were necessary. Oof.

So I headout at the crack of dawn and slink over to my buddy Russ's place (it was actually about 0900). Now, not having a door gunner created an issue for me. I had to lay down my own cover fire. I rolled up and in a hail of gunfire (I casually parked in the driveway and rang the door bell), I managed to get Russ loaded in the truck and took off in a barrage of bullets (It was probably just gravel bouncing into the wheel wells from the tires). I think I heard his wife yelling something about not bringing him back (might have actually happened), but I could be mistaken on that one--she was throwing a bunch of lead our way (wishing us a good time and come home safely).

So, we are on the road. I come to the realization that this is his first ride in the truck that his machine work helped finish to my specs. We were heading up to an area north of Lake Pleasant. The trail past the turnoff for the boat ramp was practically paved now, but further north it did go back to the typical gravel road that it had been.

It surprised me that the Saguaro cactus were still preparing to bloom this late in the year:

Gratuitous truck shot: I stopped here because most every rock around this area was sparkling like they were full of mica or bright quartz or something. It was kind of strange. Sedimentary, metamorphic all of them sparkled. It was just right here though, not other areas.

So I thought I knew where we were, but come to find out I thought we were about seven miles south of where we actually were. This is cool because I know where we actually were and we were on a trail that I thought was locked up by a private land owner. I was looking at a map and knew where I was on the map, but my brain was telling me that we were somewhere else. I listened to what the map said and we rolled through Walker Canyon:

After a while of driving and a few intersections of other minor trails, you come around a corner (still in the middle of nowhere) and you are greeted with this:

It is an old resort that was built back in the 1800's. It was famous for its hot springs. A fire started in the hotel and it burned down in 1976. It is so far out that bythe time fire crews could get on site it was too late.

This is a shot of the foundation of the old hotel.

There is a caretaker who lives in the old activites building now (yellow building in the first pic). He keeps everybody away. It can be viewed from the trail, but from what I have heard, the place is not too friendly to strangers.

On the way out, Lake Pleasant comes in to view:

The whole trip is mostly just a sight-seeing run, but it is so nice to get out and see some things that are not in town. The two best things that came out of the trip were figuring out that the trail that I thought was closed was actually open and the second was that I finally tried adjusting my shocks. I put Rancho RS9000's on and when I started driving it, I adjusted them up fairly stout and left them there. Well,somewhere during our trip I decided to try turning them down a couple clicks. WOW!! What a diffference. It didn't make it a Cadillac, but it softened the ride up noticably. It softened it enough that I could actually start driving it a bit aggressively on a few stretches of the low trail in the river bed. That was fun. It was the first time I had driven this thing beyond an "easy" drive. It was a blast. Not too soft, but soft enough to have some fun. I had not experienced the cresting of a hill and not being able to see which way the trail goes on the other side and having to prepare for either direction immediately. Fun, FUN!! That was cool. I do not know why I never adjusted the shocks, but I wish I had a couple years ago. It would have helped significantly on some of the trails we have run.

 

[lectric80]

Nice, sounds like a good time. Pretty cool seeing that old resort grounds, would be cool to get there one day.

 

[hogdoc]

That canyon is very cool. Quite the surprise the first time you come up on that bright yellow house and lush green grass after all that rock.

Seems that was the last time I got the wife to go 4 wheeling topless!

 

[max 02]

You seem to find the coolest spots to go for a tour.

To bad I can`t handle the heat, I would love to check out some of the places you go to.

Just have to say that I love the look of your sub!!!

 

[mosesburb]

Nice, sounds like a good time. Pretty cool seeing that old resort grounds, would be cool to get there one day.

Yeah, it is cool, but it kind of sucks that all you can do is look at them. I'd love to check out the hot tub pools they have there.

That canyon is very cool. Quite the surprise the first time you come up on that bright yellow house and lush green grass after all that rock.

Yeah, I remember the first time I rounded that corner and was greeted with that sight. Definitely not something you would expect after hours of tan dirt.

You seem to find the coolest spots to go for a tour.

To bad I can`t handle the heat, I would love to check out some of the places you go to.

Just have to say that I love the look of your sub!!!

Thanks!!

These spots are nothing too special in reality. I do tell people that the best scenery in AZ can not be viewed from pavement though. Come visit AZ in spring when the temps are lower. That is the best time to be here. There is so much fantastic scenery here it is easy to get spoiled with it I guess.

 

[mosesburb]

This last run kind of wet the whistle for some more trail time, so I decided some camping would be a good thing to do for the next run. I found that there was a car show south of Chino Valley on 28 May, so I figured that was a good excuse to get out of town. We were going to camp somewhere but one of my wife's co-workers just bought a cabin out west of Prescott and offered to let us stay in their pop-up trailer there. Well that sounds easier than truck camping, so that's what we did.

We lit out for Prescott at a decent hour of the morning. It is probably pretty evident by now that even if I am going somewhere easily accessible on the highway, I usually find some less traveled way to get there. This trip is no exception. We swung off of 69 and ran Poland Road.

I like Poland Road alot because you are in pine trees almost immediately. Instant altitude.

One cool feature of Poland Road is there are two train tunnels on it. One is full of water but the other is still accessible. This was used when the roadbed we are traveling on was a rail road and the tunnels were used to alleviate problems associated with switchbacks or just cut distance off by going through instead of around or over the mountains. If you do not know where to look, it is almost impossible to find--it is still difficult even when knowing where to look. This is what the entrance looks like:

The tunnel is not too long and the other end of it has been almost completely back-filled. A person can still climb up and out of it, but it is not a wide open end like the entrance is. It is cool, the roof of the tunnel is still black from the soot of the steam locomotives rolling through it. This is looking back at the entrance from inside the tunnel:

Gratuitous truck shot from the "textured" side (all dents were provided by the original owner):

The road heads up and out from there through five points and on towards Senator Highway. This was taken somewhere after five points: This pic doesn't seem too special, but it is one of my favorite pics from my Suburban travels.

Heading past an old mine up on the left here:

Down the road a bit, down the side of the mountain, there was a big mining operation on the side of the mountain. There isn't much left of it, but there is still a building skeleton here:

I think it was a warehouse of some sort. Not much left on the site besides that.

I have not tried this before, but my wife stuck the camera out of the window and tried to take some video of what we were seeing. It didn't turn out so well, it is 90* off and I can't figure out how to turn it and it is pretty shaky because there is not stabilization in the digi cam, but I thought it was kind of cool because it caught some exhaust music in the process, so I thought I'd post it to show what this thing sounds like in the wilderness.

Click on the pic:

 

[mtnman]

Don't know if I have said so, I love your truck and the fact that you USE it!!

 

[mosesburb]

Don't know if I have said so, I love your truck and the fact that you USE it!!

Thanks man!! Yeah, what a novel idea--use the truck like a truck .

 

[folkenheath]

Nice pics, looks like a lot of fun.

 

[mosesburb]

Nice pics, looks like a lot of fun.

Yeah, it really was.

I opened this thread last Thursday and was looking through some of the pics and realized that the Watson Lake car show was almost exactly one year ago. I did some searching and found that it was the following Saturday this year. Some quick planning was in order. Luckily the Suburban remains roadworthy, so no major operations are necessary to get it ready to go. I think I forgot to service the fuel filter on the last oil change. I try to do it every other oil change, but I think I missed the last one. I changed it Thursday night and holy cow--what a difference in power!! It had been running a little weak lately, but I had wrongfully attributed it to the high temps we have and running the a/c and having the fan clutch engaged almost constantly (for a/c pressures, not engine temp).

So Saturday arrives and we head out. We went around the north side of town which bypasses Prescott Vally and Prescott. Much quicker, but I think it is a bit longer distance wise. It is high desert up there which is kind of strange as only a few miles to the south are pine trees and big mountains.

This is the scenery on the road around Prescott:

Nice views and nice road. So we got to the venue and the guy collecting the money seemed rather surprised that I was going to put the Sub into the show. On Sunday it costs the same to show as it does to park, but on Saturday it is twenty bucks more to enter it. I figured it was a small price to pay for premium parking, two free t-shirts, a bag full of free stuff and to see the look on the attendants faces when I pull my non-pretty truck into the show lane.

I pay my money and get around to where I am told to park. I pull up into the next available spot and notice that the guy parked next to me is an old customer of mine from a previous lifetime. I yell at him and we have a nice chat catching up on old times. The rig he brought is a '59 Napco. No body or sheetmetal so far. The frame is licensed and insured and he drives it as such (wouldn't expect anything less from him).

Ironically, there was a complete '58 or '59 Napco at the show also:

This was parked behind us. Exceptionally clean.

We were wandering around the swap area and found this thing. It is a '48 Spartan.

If I was into campground camping and on-road driving, I probably would have brought this thing home with me. It was super-cool inside, but I couldn't get a very good pic of it.

That is the center of the interior and what looks like a view straight through to the back window is actually a mirror reflecting the front view back at the camera. To the left of the mirror is an original looking GM Frigidaire refrigerator--so cool. The unit has no center hallway like most travel trailers have today. The center hallway goes side to side instead of fore and aft like modern units. This side of the center side to side hallway/kitchen is a large "living room" area. The color was really cool, but once again, it was difficult getting a pic.

The bedroom was in the back. There was a little damage to the right rear corner area where it looks like they found a low hanging tree limb, but other that that, this thing was cool.

Saw this thing here and at the last show we went to earlier this summer. It is an interesting homologation of an early/mid 80's F-700ish frame and other equipment into a crew cab with a bed that would make a Longhorn bed look positively short:

They used everything except the body from the Ford. Gauges, HVAC, steering column, everything. Kind of interesting how they put everything together.

We wandered down by the lake and found that the water level was higher this year. We were walking around the banks and saw a plethora of little critters in the water:

So, that covers the show. I have some pics of the return trip (minimal pavement!!) that I will post up if anybody is intersted in seeing them.

 

[ashman]

cool pics, thanks for sharing!
I love the idea of entering the car show just for the parking! lol

 

[y5mgisi]

If were interested... Your so funny. Bring on the pics!

 

[TREA18]

X2

 

[chalet2506]

Love the truck, love the pics. Keep them coming.

 

[mosesburb]

I love the idea of entering the car show just for the parking! lol

It's all about the parking.

Love the truck, love the pics. Keep them coming.

Thanks!!

 

[mosesburb]

So we bailed out of the show around 1230 and headed over to the west end of town. I wanted to take a different way out of town, but I couldn't figure out what road I was looking for because nothing was marked on my map!! I bought a new DeLorme map because my old one had some mold growing in it (its been around for awhile). Well, the new one has all these pretty and colorful maps with half of the roads shown and hardly any of the ones left were marked. Friggin' POS. Wait, it is actually a friggin' expensive POS. Grrrr. So I pulled into a parking lot, cranked up the rear A/C crawled in back and got my 4" PVC tube out that has all of my 7.5' quadrangle maps in it.

I figured out about where the road I was looking for was, but I did not want to waste time with a possible missed road, so I decided I would research it further and run it another day. We headed back into town and went down Senator Highway instead. It is kind of a run-of-the-mill deal anymore, but hey, it gets me out of town and on dirt to boot!! Anyways, the street that becomes Senator Highway is lined with old restored Victorian Era houses. Some really neat ones. Many of these were housing for mine executives for mines south of town.

So we get to the dirt. We head down Senator and come to the old Senator Mine. I asked my boy if he wanted to wander around and he did. I actually let him choose the order of events for the whole day. Now, I did reserve my veto power, but he made all the right choices so I did not have to use it. I have some pics of the mine area, but I think I am going to do something different with them so none of them for now. We took a little different route than ususal though. We turned on Walker Road. Now I had not been this far south on Walker Road (at least during the day) and we came across a little dam with a little lake behind it. I don't recall ever seeing that before. This area was pretty populated with cabins, so there is not too much to get out and see. Well, come to find out I missed a turn that I wanted to take and we ended up back in civilization. D'oh!! We pulled into another parking lot, cranked up the rear A/C and I went in back for some more quality time with my 7.5' quadrangle maps. I figured out that I missed a turn about six miles back. I offered two choices to my boy and he opted to go back (good choice).

So we head back down, find the road, turn on it and continue on. Around in there we found a trail (cough/cowpath/cough) that I had seen and wanted to check out. He thought that was a good idea. So we got some nice wheeling in on this two-track:

We were in there a ways and I decided we should turn around as the cowpath was getting narower--scraping both sides of the truck simultaneously--and it was getting later. Any problem at this time of day had the ability to turn into a situation before we knew it so I asked if we should head back to a more traveled trail. He thought that was a good idea.

So we are going down the trail and stop somewhere and while wandering around I found this guy:

Generic scenery:

Mines etc:

So this gets us back out to the highway. I get out and do a quick walk-around. Everything is cool so we boogie. We get down to Mayer and I ask him if he wants to run some more dirt. A resounding yes with a big smile (he thought we were on pavement for the rest of the ride home). I guess a little history is in order now. Once upon a time, many years ago, before I-17 connected Phoenix and Flagstaff, and before Hwy 69 met Hwy 79 (predacessor to I-17) in Cordes Junction, the Black Canyon Highway (dirt) ran through a town called Cordes. Well, when the realignment was approved and the highway moved, Cordes decided they needed to move also as they sold gas and food to travelers. So they pulled up stakes and moved to what is now Cordes Junction where I-17 meets Hwy 69. Well, the old road still exists--and what a great road it is. There are places where a raggety old Suburban can get up to highway speeds. Before long, we came into old Cordes:

That is the original gas station/store from the way-back. Pretty neat. The rest of the run was a high speed burn down through the Bumble Bee (an old stage coach stop) valley and around and over to I-17 where dirt is bid farewell and pavement is your future.

So we got back into town and stopped and got something to eat. While we were eating, I asked him what he wanted to do tonight. Car show?? I said sure and we ended up going to a local car show to finish the day. We had a blast.

 

[mtnman]

Man, I love reading your stories! And I really dig the fact that you use your Burb! I wish I had time to do as much back road exploring as you do.....

 

[folkenheath]

Cool pictures. That lizard looks like he's got eyes in the back of his head. He must have darn near 360 degree vision.