'98 Busurban Storm Chase Vehicle Build

[Supercharged111]

I generally drive like an old man (I even tend to leave my signal on). So I don't need much power to get me where I need to go.

Everyone told me to drop a smallbock into this truck. My excuse used to be that the straight 6 is the soul of the truck and I didn't want to ruin it. My new excuse is gas prices, but the real reason is that I can get a nice running straight 6 for a fraction of the cost of a decent smallblock (even a 307). I paid $650 for the motor, and its got less than 5000 miles on the rebuild. The guy just pulled it out of his '64 C10 to drop in a crate 383.

You know as well as I do that the pull and pay has loads of willing V8s for less than $650.

 

[jjester6000]

I had a weirdly realistic and vivid dream last night.

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I dreamed that I picked up a '92 Suburban C2500 with a 350 and an NV4500 on Craigslist. It has no brakes, so I trailered it behind the '98.

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Then the trans went out in the '98, and Derek from Vice Grip Garage came and helped me rebuild it at the side of the road (I watched his latest episode before going to sleep last night)

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Then the '98 tow vehicle changed into my yellow 1974 GMC. And I was towing the '98 instead of the '92.

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I was then Utah, driving up poison spider trail in a 4wd version of my yellow truck with a freshly reupholstered seat (I'm redoing to bottom half of the seat on my '74).

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Then I woke up, and started looking on FB Marketplace for used NV4500's. I guess my takeaway from this dream is that I should definitely manual swap the Busurban, also I want to swap the pre '95 dash into it.

 

[Supercharged111]

Could probably save a buck by having less vivid dreams.

 

[jjester6000]

So I might be taking to Burb to Denver after all.

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It seems my engine is grinding its own cam profile (who knows what it'll come up with).

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It doesn't look too bad at this point, but I don't like it. I got a few things to address before driving the Burb back, things like the upper ball joint on the passenger side, leaky oil cooler lines, and leaky axle seals (I probably need to do the rear wheel bearings).

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It's an original riveted in unit, so I'm wondering if I could remove it without taking off the upper control arm since I don't want to mess up the alignment.

 

[HotWheelsBurban]

Yes, on those you drill the rivets out. The new ball joint should come with attaching bolts and nuts, hopefully lock nuts of some type, and all the hardware should be Grade 8, or 10.9 is the metric equivalent. Metric 8.8 is only equivalent to SAE Grade 5.
I got lucky when I changed the UBJs on my Burb as they were bolted in from the factory. Some trucks were. They had to be original equipment because they were so worn out I could see obvious slop. Nineteen years of Houston roads.....

 

[Supercharged111]

Yes, on those you drill the rivets out. The new ball joint should come with attaching bolts and nuts, hopefully lock nuts of some type, and all the hardware should be Grade 8, or 10.9 is the metric equivalent. Metric 8.8 is only equivalent to SAE Grade 5.
I got lucky when I changed the UBJs on my Burb as they were bolted in from the factory. Some trucks were. They had to be original equipment because they were so worn out I could see obvious slop. Nineteen years of Houston roads.....

I'm more inclined to thinking yours had already been changed and the aftermarket stuff just didn't last.

 

[HotWheelsBurban]

Could be, but from other stuff I've seen on the Burb, I figured the PO didn't do/have done any more than absolutely necessary. The original shocks were still on it till May of last year....

 

[jjester6000]

So I'm doing the upper balljoints right now and I noticed that my sway bar is rusted/cracked.

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Given the fact that I drove for like 4 months without it even connected to anything, I'm not too worried, but do you guys thing I could just clean up the surface and zap it with the MIG?

 

[kennythewelder]

Short answer, NO. If you try to just weld it, without removing all of the crack, it will just crack again. Your best bet, is to go find one at the junk yard, that is in good shape, and replace yours.

 

[jjester6000]

Short answer, NO. If you try to just weld it, without removing all of the crack, it will just crack again. Your best bet, is to go find one at the junk yard, that is in good shape, and replace yours.

Okay, then I'm probably going to just ignore it for a while.