Thanks for the props. 
It may not add HP, but it does make a statement. 
It may not add HP, but it does make a statement. CK5
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The Story Of A Cummins Suburban (Lots Of Pics)
- Thread starter mosesburb
- Start date
(Hi-Jack) I am gonna HAVE to get me a few of those stickers!
Better not do a mpg average for the weekend
It is funny that you mention this as I was going to state something to the same effect about mileage. I did not beat it like it owed me money, but I definitely ran it harder than usual. Anybody who has ever gotten a sportier exhaust system knows the first few days/weeks with the new sound is not a time to measure efficiency. Now, with that being said, I did fill it up today and believe it or not, I got 19.35mpg!! I'm seeing it, but I'm not believing it!!
Yeah, I need to figure out how to do that--especially now. This thing sounds so friggin' badass getting on the freeway with a concrete barrier on the right (exhaust) side reflecting the sound back into the window. About the only time it sounds cooler is under an overpass while heavy on the throttle.
Vroom, whoosh, vroooom, whoosh, blaaaaaaaaaaaaaaag, whoosh, etc.
Thanks for the props.
Yes, yes it does. Thank you!!
Contact Scott. He does great work.
That's not gonna replace actual audio..........................
Yeah, but its all I've got right now. Vroom!!
Well, I guess it has been awhile since I've updated this thread. Not too much has occured since then though.
I pulled the injectors awhile back and had them tested as I thought I might have one that was leaking. When they were tested they were found to be popping at 222 bar instead of the required 245 bar. Among other things, this has the effect of advancing the timing an ever-so-slight bit. I changed them out with a set of injectors from Cummins. Upon starting it I immediately found the idle to be smoother. I thought the idle was smooth before, but after the injectors, it was just that much smoother. By injecting the fuel exactly when it was needed instead of popping a bit early, I lost a bit of raw power. It still runs very well, but I could tell a difference in power after the injector swap. The loss is not enough to make me want to adjust the pump to get it back. One nice side benefit is my mileage went from a repeatable average of 19.5 mpg in town to a repeatable 20.5 mpg in town. Now, I had been working an odd shift that put me on the road in non-rush hour times, but recently I have changed shifts and find myself in stop-and-go on a daily basis. I figured my in town mileage was skewed because of my odd travel times. The first tank after my shift change I figured was a fluke, but when I got 20.6 mpg on my next tank, I knew I was on to something. That is true stop-and-go, with the a/c and fan clutch on. Not too bad for 6600lbs and the aerodynamic properties of an 8-8-16.
I did have one problem recently. I had a crack develop in the power steering pressure line at the pump. It did not spray out, it just dripped--and not too much at that. It made it a real bitch to locate. It wasn't until I pulled the line off of the truck, cleaned it thoroughly and inspected it in the shop that I located the crack under the nut. Unfortunately, I had already tried a couple other things before I located the source of the fluid. Oh well. I made a different line for it and routed it differently, so hopefuly there will be no more issues with it.
In the middle of June I did a carpentry project on it. I built a structure that would be used in the near future.
Base structure:
Top sheeting:
Basement storage:
Now, other than the two bolts attaching the base to a couple seat bolt holes, the entire structure is keyed together--no tools required to remove/disassemble. The really cool thing is that it doesn't rattle or squeak. With the exception of the one 4' wide chunk of plywood, the whole deal stacks up into a space of about 16 x 16 x 60.
So, that takes care of sleeping arrangements for the Missus and me, but I had to come up with something for the boy. Roof-top dwelling momentarily crossed my mind, but I figured I'd lose that sale with two votes against me, one of which being female, so I set to work figuring out something for him. I decided he had to sleep somehow on the rear seat. The seat itself was too narrow, but with a platform of his own, it could be made to work. I took some measurements of him and ripped a chunk of plywood that should fit well, added a couple legs that are keyed in place (no tools needed) and came up with this:
It works great and it actually has some room for growth. I sanded everything so as not to find a splinter in the dark woods. I also added a couple tie-down points for the cooler at the very back of the rear platform. I put some of that floor cushion stuff with the diamond plate texture on the platform to keep loaded goods from rattling around while in transit.
Then came the camping expedition.
I pulled the injectors awhile back and had them tested as I thought I might have one that was leaking. When they were tested they were found to be popping at 222 bar instead of the required 245 bar. Among other things, this has the effect of advancing the timing an ever-so-slight bit. I changed them out with a set of injectors from Cummins. Upon starting it I immediately found the idle to be smoother. I thought the idle was smooth before, but after the injectors, it was just that much smoother. By injecting the fuel exactly when it was needed instead of popping a bit early, I lost a bit of raw power. It still runs very well, but I could tell a difference in power after the injector swap. The loss is not enough to make me want to adjust the pump to get it back. One nice side benefit is my mileage went from a repeatable average of 19.5 mpg in town to a repeatable 20.5 mpg in town. Now, I had been working an odd shift that put me on the road in non-rush hour times, but recently I have changed shifts and find myself in stop-and-go on a daily basis. I figured my in town mileage was skewed because of my odd travel times. The first tank after my shift change I figured was a fluke, but when I got 20.6 mpg on my next tank, I knew I was on to something. That is true stop-and-go, with the a/c and fan clutch on. Not too bad for 6600lbs and the aerodynamic properties of an 8-8-16.
I did have one problem recently. I had a crack develop in the power steering pressure line at the pump. It did not spray out, it just dripped--and not too much at that. It made it a real bitch to locate. It wasn't until I pulled the line off of the truck, cleaned it thoroughly and inspected it in the shop that I located the crack under the nut. Unfortunately, I had already tried a couple other things before I located the source of the fluid. Oh well. I made a different line for it and routed it differently, so hopefuly there will be no more issues with it.
In the middle of June I did a carpentry project on it. I built a structure that would be used in the near future.
Base structure:
Top sheeting:
Basement storage:
Now, other than the two bolts attaching the base to a couple seat bolt holes, the entire structure is keyed together--no tools required to remove/disassemble. The really cool thing is that it doesn't rattle or squeak. With the exception of the one 4' wide chunk of plywood, the whole deal stacks up into a space of about 16 x 16 x 60.
So, that takes care of sleeping arrangements for the Missus and me, but I had to come up with something for the boy. Roof-top dwelling momentarily crossed my mind, but I figured I'd lose that sale with two votes against me, one of which being female, so I set to work figuring out something for him. I decided he had to sleep somehow on the rear seat. The seat itself was too narrow, but with a platform of his own, it could be made to work. I took some measurements of him and ripped a chunk of plywood that should fit well, added a couple legs that are keyed in place (no tools needed) and came up with this:
It works great and it actually has some room for growth. I sanded everything so as not to find a splinter in the dark woods. I also added a couple tie-down points for the cooler at the very back of the rear platform. I put some of that floor cushion stuff with the diamond plate texture on the platform to keep loaded goods from rattling around while in transit.
Then came the camping expedition.
MaxPF
1/2 ton status
I know, but how do I prove it without giving "it" away??? There is a place in Flagstaff that makes them.........
You guys are a couple of block-heads.
MaxPF
1/2 ton status
You guys are a couple of block-heads.
Nice pun
Hey, you could also say your truck has the aerodynamics of a 4-8-8-4. Do you know what a 4-8-8-4 is?
You guys are a couple of block-heads.
Nice pun
Hey, you could also say your truck has the aerodynamics of a 4-8-8-4. Do you know what a 4-8-8-4 is?
The only thing that I know of with that designation is a steam locomotive.
MaxPF
1/2 ton status
So I had some vacation time that I had to use before my service anniversary, so I plotted an idea that if sold, could be quite fun.
It worked. We loosely planned a camping/wandering trip and with that, set to loading the truck. Now, my boy has not been camping before and as a side note, he still sleeps with his light on in his room (I am opposed to this, but with my horrid work schedule for the past nine months or so, it left me on the phone at bedtime instead of there in person). Now, when I say sleeps with his light on, I don't mean a little bit, I mean we have planes circling asking for permission to land kind of light. So with that, we knew that we had some work cut out for us.
I got the truck loaded up on the Tuesday before the 4th of July weekend. We got out of town at about 0900 and we were on our way. We headed up to Poland Junction and took that across to where it meets up with FR261. A funny thing happened on the way to FR261 though. When you get past Poland the road gets rough and is basically one lane at that point. About 1/4mi in, we come around an uphill corner and are nose-to-nose with a Caterpillar D6R. Uh, this is not good. Where we sat, it was around 1/8mi worth of backing up to get to a point to turn around. I do not really like the sound of that, so I park it and walk up to talk with the operator. He says the road is open and give him a few to clear the area and we'll be able to pass. Sure enough, a few minutes pass and he runs it almost vertically up the side of the hill so we can pass. We finish Poland Road with no further excitement and meet up with FR261.
We take FR261 over to Seantor Highway and head North toward Prescott. Somewhere along the way, nature called and I found a nice scenic spot to take care of business:
We get into Prescott and find a place to eat lunch. We get out and find a museum that has a bunch of old mining equipment outside, so we wander around it and I explain to my boy what each piece is and how it worked and was used. We wander back to the truck and find some fuel then head north to AZ89A and take it toward Mingus Mountain/Jerome.
We turn off AZ89A about ten miles before Jerome and take FR104 over to FR413. Heading northeast on FR413 we start looking for a spot to camp. Not too far down the trail I saw a little two-track off the left side. We back up and head down the two-track. We get in a ways and find a tree fallen across the trail. It had been there awhile and a route around the tree was already present. I managed to get the Sub around it and we continued heading back into the sticks on this two-track. We got back in a ways and found a nice spot.
We started setting up our gear, but with burn restrictions there was no possibility of a campfire.
We stayed up for awhile then decided to retire to the truck. I put up the window coverings that I engineered and had my Mom manufacture. She used two layers of canvas (almost like denim in weight) and stitched magnets along the hems to make some really cool window coverings. This, and the fact we were in the middle of nowhere, made the inside of the truck very dark. We watched a John Deere show on the DVD player, then he laid down and I read him a couple stories. After those were done he got a little whiney when he realized the lights were going out. I told him a non-fiction story about an orange Suburban and how it came to be. He liked the story and was about out. When he woke up in the morning, I pointed out the fact that he slept with the light off and woke up alive!! (side note: he only uses a dim night light at home now--a positive effect of camping!!)
So I packed up the truck and we head out. We continue down FR413 in the same direction (toward Jerome) that we were headed when we found the two-track. Now I had run the road about ten years ago in another truck so I had an idea of what was coming, but I was in for a rude awakening once we got well into the switchbacks. It appears as though the road has not been maintained in many years. It was quite overgrown and very rough--mind you not too difficult, just rougher than hell, so no speed could be attained. We ran fourteen miles of this road in low range for speed control and several of those miles never saw the speedometer needle move off zero. It is a VERY NARROW shelf road. These pics do not do justice to the roughness or narrowness of the road.
In this one you can kind of see where the edge of the road is in relation to the center of the hood. (This is an extremely smooth part of the road, extremely smooth...)
The road just grates on and on and on and on. I have to put the left side of the truck into the bushes/trees/manzanita/genereal vegetation to keep the right side tires (the wife's side BTW) on the trail. There were points where I was scraping the left side, right side and top simultaneously. It got to a point where we were taking on so much vegetation through the open windows on the left side that we rolled up the windows and cruised in A/C comfort for the rest of the trail. This is a long, painful trail, but it has some spectacular scenery. There is a point where you can see sixty miles in a 180* radius from one point. My favorite view of Jerome is also had from this trail:
The trail ends in Jerome, so at this point relief is felt because the end is near. Well, not quite. There is still over an hour of this lovely road to run yet. Somewhere along after this view, I am putting the left side of the truck into a bush and all of a sudden the steering wheel spins left and the truck stops. Uh, that can't be good. I back up, move right ever so slightly and head on down the trail looking for somewhere I can get out and inspect the damage. I find a spot and check it out. The chrome ring on the locking hub hit a rock. It appears as though there was no harm done. Driving down this trail is a constant sawing at the wheel, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.... Well, somewhere along that run I get the feeling that something with the steering is not right. It still works and we FINALLY get off that trail. It took so long that it is past lunch time so we head down the hill toward Cottonwood. Now that we are on pavement, I realize what is up. The steering wheel is at 11:00/5:00--not good. We stop to get some grub and when we get out, my boy looks at the excessively pinstriped/scratched truck and exclaims "The truck looks cool!! It looks like it has flames on it!!" I call a buddy of mine that we visited in January and he is around so we decide to head that way. We stop to pick up some food and I stay with the truck and start working on the drag link. I get it re-centered and we head up the hill.
We get to the forest road that my buddy lives on and I tell my boy to come up front. I have him sit on my lap and let him steer us along the FR to my friends place. He loved it!! We hang out there for the night and the next day we go out wandering around. We stop off at Blue Ridge Reservoir.
We head down by the dam and check out it and the spillway. We brought a fishing pole and tackle box for my boy, but the walls surrounding the lake are so steep that we couldn't find a trail down to the water.
We decide to spend another night up there. I brought a rifle with so I could teach my boy how to shoot. He did pretty good and actually put a few rounds into what he was aiming at. Not bad for a first time. We roasted some marshmallows over a grille and sacked out. We got up the next morning and putzed around trying to delay the inevitable departure. While we were doing that my buddy's wife said we need to stop at the Baker Butte fire lookout station. Sounds good. So we load up and head out. We stop off and check out the tower.
It is very neat up there. The map for spotting fires is extrememly cool in its simplicity. The lady has a very cool labrador and she answers all kinds of strange questions that I/we have. I have some pics off of the tower is anybody is interested in seeing them. We climb down from the tower and unfortuantely are on our way home. We get home without issue and unload the essential goods leaving the others for later when it cools off.
All in all it was a great trip. We had a load of fun. My boy got his first camping trip, first rifle use, first opeartion of a UTV, first roasted marshmallows and first driving of the Suburban. The truck ran great and other than the adjusting of the draglink had no issues at all.
This was the intended use of the Suburban from the time I bought it. It took a bunch of years, but it can finally be used for what it was built for--back country travel. Yay!!
It worked. We loosely planned a camping/wandering trip and with that, set to loading the truck. Now, my boy has not been camping before and as a side note, he still sleeps with his light on in his room (I am opposed to this, but with my horrid work schedule for the past nine months or so, it left me on the phone at bedtime instead of there in person). Now, when I say sleeps with his light on, I don't mean a little bit, I mean we have planes circling asking for permission to land kind of light. So with that, we knew that we had some work cut out for us.
I got the truck loaded up on the Tuesday before the 4th of July weekend. We got out of town at about 0900 and we were on our way. We headed up to Poland Junction and took that across to where it meets up with FR261. A funny thing happened on the way to FR261 though. When you get past Poland the road gets rough and is basically one lane at that point. About 1/4mi in, we come around an uphill corner and are nose-to-nose with a Caterpillar D6R. Uh, this is not good. Where we sat, it was around 1/8mi worth of backing up to get to a point to turn around. I do not really like the sound of that, so I park it and walk up to talk with the operator. He says the road is open and give him a few to clear the area and we'll be able to pass. Sure enough, a few minutes pass and he runs it almost vertically up the side of the hill so we can pass. We finish Poland Road with no further excitement and meet up with FR261.
We take FR261 over to Seantor Highway and head North toward Prescott. Somewhere along the way, nature called and I found a nice scenic spot to take care of business:
We get into Prescott and find a place to eat lunch. We get out and find a museum that has a bunch of old mining equipment outside, so we wander around it and I explain to my boy what each piece is and how it worked and was used. We wander back to the truck and find some fuel then head north to AZ89A and take it toward Mingus Mountain/Jerome.
We turn off AZ89A about ten miles before Jerome and take FR104 over to FR413. Heading northeast on FR413 we start looking for a spot to camp. Not too far down the trail I saw a little two-track off the left side. We back up and head down the two-track. We get in a ways and find a tree fallen across the trail. It had been there awhile and a route around the tree was already present. I managed to get the Sub around it and we continued heading back into the sticks on this two-track. We got back in a ways and found a nice spot.
We started setting up our gear, but with burn restrictions there was no possibility of a campfire.
We stayed up for awhile then decided to retire to the truck. I put up the window coverings that I engineered and had my Mom manufacture. She used two layers of canvas (almost like denim in weight) and stitched magnets along the hems to make some really cool window coverings. This, and the fact we were in the middle of nowhere, made the inside of the truck very dark. We watched a John Deere show on the DVD player, then he laid down and I read him a couple stories. After those were done he got a little whiney when he realized the lights were going out. I told him a non-fiction story about an orange Suburban and how it came to be. He liked the story and was about out. When he woke up in the morning, I pointed out the fact that he slept with the light off and woke up alive!! (side note: he only uses a dim night light at home now--a positive effect of camping!!)
So I packed up the truck and we head out. We continue down FR413 in the same direction (toward Jerome) that we were headed when we found the two-track. Now I had run the road about ten years ago in another truck so I had an idea of what was coming, but I was in for a rude awakening once we got well into the switchbacks. It appears as though the road has not been maintained in many years. It was quite overgrown and very rough--mind you not too difficult, just rougher than hell, so no speed could be attained. We ran fourteen miles of this road in low range for speed control and several of those miles never saw the speedometer needle move off zero. It is a VERY NARROW shelf road. These pics do not do justice to the roughness or narrowness of the road.
In this one you can kind of see where the edge of the road is in relation to the center of the hood. (This is an extremely smooth part of the road, extremely smooth...)
The road just grates on and on and on and on. I have to put the left side of the truck into the bushes/trees/manzanita/genereal vegetation to keep the right side tires (the wife's side BTW) on the trail. There were points where I was scraping the left side, right side and top simultaneously. It got to a point where we were taking on so much vegetation through the open windows on the left side that we rolled up the windows and cruised in A/C comfort for the rest of the trail. This is a long, painful trail, but it has some spectacular scenery. There is a point where you can see sixty miles in a 180* radius from one point. My favorite view of Jerome is also had from this trail:
The trail ends in Jerome, so at this point relief is felt because the end is near. Well, not quite. There is still over an hour of this lovely road to run yet. Somewhere along after this view, I am putting the left side of the truck into a bush and all of a sudden the steering wheel spins left and the truck stops. Uh, that can't be good. I back up, move right ever so slightly and head on down the trail looking for somewhere I can get out and inspect the damage. I find a spot and check it out. The chrome ring on the locking hub hit a rock. It appears as though there was no harm done. Driving down this trail is a constant sawing at the wheel, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.... Well, somewhere along that run I get the feeling that something with the steering is not right. It still works and we FINALLY get off that trail. It took so long that it is past lunch time so we head down the hill toward Cottonwood. Now that we are on pavement, I realize what is up. The steering wheel is at 11:00/5:00--not good. We stop to get some grub and when we get out, my boy looks at the excessively pinstriped/scratched truck and exclaims "The truck looks cool!! It looks like it has flames on it!!" I call a buddy of mine that we visited in January and he is around so we decide to head that way. We stop to pick up some food and I stay with the truck and start working on the drag link. I get it re-centered and we head up the hill.
We get to the forest road that my buddy lives on and I tell my boy to come up front. I have him sit on my lap and let him steer us along the FR to my friends place. He loved it!! We hang out there for the night and the next day we go out wandering around. We stop off at Blue Ridge Reservoir.
We head down by the dam and check out it and the spillway. We brought a fishing pole and tackle box for my boy, but the walls surrounding the lake are so steep that we couldn't find a trail down to the water.
We decide to spend another night up there. I brought a rifle with so I could teach my boy how to shoot. He did pretty good and actually put a few rounds into what he was aiming at. Not bad for a first time. We roasted some marshmallows over a grille and sacked out. We got up the next morning and putzed around trying to delay the inevitable departure. While we were doing that my buddy's wife said we need to stop at the Baker Butte fire lookout station. Sounds good. So we load up and head out. We stop off and check out the tower.
It is very neat up there. The map for spotting fires is extrememly cool in its simplicity. The lady has a very cool labrador and she answers all kinds of strange questions that I/we have. I have some pics off of the tower is anybody is interested in seeing them. We climb down from the tower and unfortuantely are on our way home. We get home without issue and unload the essential goods leaving the others for later when it cools off.
All in all it was a great trip. We had a load of fun. My boy got his first camping trip, first rifle use, first opeartion of a UTV, first roasted marshmallows and first driving of the Suburban. The truck ran great and other than the adjusting of the draglink had no issues at all.
This was the intended use of the Suburban from the time I bought it. It took a bunch of years, but it can finally be used for what it was built for--back country travel. Yay!!
MaxPF
1/2 ton status
Did the drag link just come loose, or did it get bent?
Looks like a fun outing! That rig turned out sweet man, a perfect family hauler camper.
Have you looked into one of those roof-top tents? With one of those on top you could haul a ton of gear inside and be able to sleep on the roof.
Have you looked into one of those roof-top tents? With one of those on top you could haul a ton of gear inside and be able to sleep on the roof.
Looks like a fun outing! That rig turned out sweet man, a perfect family hauler camper.
Have you looked into one of those roof-top tents? With one of those on top you could haul a ton of gear inside and be able to sleep on the roof.
It was fun--and long overdue!!
I actually have thought about devices such as that, but for now I like the "sleeping indoors" thing that I have going on.
Neither.
A couple days after we got back, I was backing out of the driveway and the steering wheel readjusted itself to be about 10:00/4:00 instead of 9:00/6:00. WTH?!? I figured the draglink was jacked up, so I got the three pieces in Moog figuring if I took it apart and found any issues I would have the goods to change it out. The draglink was a hold over from a 3/4T that donated most of its guts to this truck back in the day. The joints were tight, but upon disassembly, I found that the PO of the 3/4T has sawn the end of one of the ends off--about one inch of it. I have no idea why, but he didn't even cut it straight. This was enough for me to change it out. I assembled the Moog parts and installed them. I centered the box and all was well--for a few days. Upon returning from the Glendale Swap Meet, I noticed the steering wheel is at 8:00/2:00 (the OTHER direction!!) WTH now?!? I decided that nothing could be going on in the tie rod, steering arm, drag link (now), steering box, rag joint, or steering column. I rechecked that all the fasteners were tight--steering box to frame, linkages, joints etc. The only part I could think of is the lower shaft that connects the steering column to rag joint. I sourced one from my 67-72 parts guy and tore it apart, cleaned and re-lubed it. I noticed the splines that connect to the steering column were very sharp in the "new" one and the splines in my old one were very smooth--not sharp at all. I measured the splines on the column and they were within .001 of another column that i had here, so I put the "new" lower shaft in and all has been well for about a week and a half now.
I also took care of one of my biggest automotive pet peeves while I was in there--an automatic steering column in a manual transmission equipped vehicle. I figured since I had everything else strewn about, why not do a column while I'm at it. So it officially has a manual transmission column in it now!!
great build great story very envious
Great build, great pics and awesome story 
!!!! How old is your son?
I can't wait to get my Blazer done (which has a Cummins also) and be able to do the same things with my son, he'll be 4 in september.
!!!! How old is your son?I can't wait to get my Blazer done (which has a Cummins also) and be able to do the same things with my son, he'll be 4 in september.
Yukon Jack
1/2 ton status
Great pics, sounds like a fun time!
