gstubbz's trucks

[HotWheelsBurban]

Hmmm,seems like "suburban-itis" has got hold of you LOL. It's hard to shake! My family is on Burb #8 I think, lost count! We discovered there's so much you can do with one. About all you can't do with a Burb is pass very many gas stations or maneuver well in a parking garage.
My 99 vortec 5.7 C1500 just rolled into 197,000 miles last week, needs some work on it to pass inspection and get new license sticker, but it still runs strong. If you get your foot into the throttle, he goes!

 

[gstubbz]

Weekend update that I posted on Wednesday night, tonight's update will be a following post.

Started out my weekend by bringing home the same trailer that I used to get the Gamburban to do some welding repairs. Unfortunately this trailer is just pretty beat. All the previous repairs done to it in it's life looked pretty shotty and unfortunately mine weren't spectacular. I'm having to use a generator to power my Lincoln AC welder and with 7014 at 120amps it trips the breaker almost every two seconds not making welding easy. The ramp also had angle iron broken off it so it never sat on the rear rail very well but I fixed that and now the ramp is proper and works. The trailer had two cracks in the frame that I patched up as well, although when I was come-alonging the red suburban on the trailer another crack formed so I have to patch that up in the AM before work at 7am. I can't wait to have a trailer of my own, also with a winch attachment!

Onto the Gamburban. I spent literally over $200 on decals so hopefully it'll turn out neat. I got the numbers #55 for the front doors too. I bought a few other things too that should make it neat for the rally and I'll post them as I install them. Time is ticking now with a month before the event! Sounds like I have time but really it's not a lot of time, and I'm hoping I can accomplish everything that I need to do in time.

So I successfully removed the engine and transmission. Honestly if I was just replacing the 350 I wouldn't have bothered removing the transmission and core support but since I'm trying to shoehorn in a big engine and I hate any sort of work that requires me to lay on the ground, I figured this would be the next thing.

Removing the transmission crossmember was not easy and actually sucked. It was held into the frame rails with 14 bolts and on the passenger side the top of the bolt was through the top of the frame rail and on a 2wd burb you have very little room to get a wrench on top to hold the bolt while breaking it loose. I used the tractor to yank it, and also used my fancy new M18 fuel hackzall to cut up the exhaust. I then proceeded to spend 2 hours pressure washing things between midnight and 2am to get the parts 350 (for the other engine build I have going on) and the Gamburban as clean as I could. This was all I did with the Gamburban this weekend. The new flywheel/clutch kit will be here on Tuesday so that's when I'll mess with that project again.

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93 Suburban!

Friday night when I had tools and parts arrive I decided to take it up to the mailbox, grabbed the mail, and then on my way back up the driveway it died yet again. I ran back to the house, grabbed the duramax, and came back down to the Suburban to try getting it running again.

I was stuck determining if it was a battery or fuel issue, and one of the tools I was picking up in the mail happened to be my new multimeter and of course I didn't have a phillips screwdriver in the suburban to install batteries to check if that was the issue.

Well tonight I pulled it into the shop, and pulled the codes. I had code 43 which is for a knock sensor (not sure what this issue is about, guess all I can do is swap another one off the Gamburban original 350 to see), and code 54 which indicates that the fuel pump is not receiving enough voltage. I know even with the old 350 it seemed like it had a fuel issue and not wanting to run really well, and I did some testing with my voltmeter and things seemed fine. So I stole the fuel pump relay from the Gamburban and it runs better now. Not perfect, so I'm hoping when I replace the knock sensor it'll run decent.

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99 Suburban!

I went to pick this up today, and honestly I have plans for this one but it is definitely a project I will have to come back to probably in July. I don't have the time to mess with it right now, but it needs quite a bit of interior pieces and a hood. Long term plan is to swap in the 5.3 I have, remove all the trim on the sides to make it cleaner looking, repair the interior, then give it a slight lift with black or chrome rims and keep it around for a minute. Looking around the thing, I believe it was used by a fire department for a while because it has this goofy puck antenna on the roof, two other weird things on the back, and a microphone attached to the visor.

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Other things:

James also wanted this beater 2002 Focus so we hauled that after the suburban today. He is planning on selling the S10 and using this focus as a beater run around car.

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I've been slowly working on the 350 for James, and here it is as of tonight. This is more of a fill in project that still needs to get done, and now the heads are on which for me is a huge step and I'll continue to reassemble when I have the time to do so.

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[gstubbz]

Well this go around I have may updates for the Gamburban!

Since the last post I have dropped in the engine and transmission and bolted them to the frame. I ran into an issue where I needed an adapter piece that goes from 1" to 13/16" to use a vertical oil filter and unfortunately this put me at a halt on Friday evening, so I spent time and installed decals instead to make it more race-like.

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On Saturday I tried to hunt down the adapter piece I needed locally to no avail, and fortunately I came across a kid on FB Marketplace with a blown 454 and he did some digging and managed to find the adapter piece I needed (of course after I order two, both will be shelf items at this point). So on Sunday morning I go grab it, and I offered him $20 because it saved me 4-7 days of waiting, and ultimately I ended up trading a Wendy's Baconator hamburger for this part. He also had a neat 85' K5 blazer that he was removing the 6.2 diesel from to replace with a vortec 350, so I offered to buy the 6.2 so I'll have to pick that up at some point. Not sure what I'll use it for but I will find something!

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With this oil adapter installed, I was able to jump the fuse block and provide the appropriate power for the fuel pump, ignition (and relays), and the starter so the engine runs entirely on it's own at this point. I spent a lot of time tonight thinning out the original 89 Suburban harness to remove all of the TBI stuff so that I can wire in what I need with the 95 harness to make things work.

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That's it for now, a short and sweet quick update. Also attached are some Gamburban pictures from over the weekend, I feel that I accomplished a lot!

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I also purchased a one year old Snap-on toolbox on Friday for a lot of money. I love it too!

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[gstubbz]

Gosh it's been a while. I have a lot to update on here and had a sudden urge at 5am to update! Multiple posts incoming!

The Gamburban:

I managed to get it together in time for the trip, and the only test drive it had was a 5 minute drive that other Gavin took it on while I was in the shower getting ready to leave for the trip. We made it to Oregon okay and had a blast! The Gamburban with the 454 did not like idling on all of the small trails though, but I managed to burn through an entire tank of fuel and on the way to the gravel pit where we were camping for the night, we were 3 miles away and I was already doing 80mph and downshifted into 3rd to pass a buddy and immediately blew the 454 up, all of the coolant immediately went into the engine, and I still to this day don't know what happened. I was flat towed by Tyler in his Lexus sedan up to the pit, and the next morning we road tripped down to Klamath Falls to go pick up my truck and trailer to go retrieve it.

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Because I was so close to being to my hometown, I decided to make a trip down with the Gamburban to drop it off at Tyler's in Doyle and pick up the 91 K1500 ECSB 4.3/5spd truck. This was an ordeal to load but we got it and headed home (I was in California for less than 10 hours). In the middle of Nevada on the highway, my truck started making noise and come to find out, I absolutely smoked my transfer case due to leaking all of the fluid in the transfer case but we kept trucking!

In Oregon, we were there during all of the record temp highs and the highest I saw was 118*F and my poor duramax wasn't liking it all that much so there were a few occasions where we would pull over and let the transmission cool back down under 210*F before continuing. We made it back okay and I had to start the rebuild on the NP263xhd transfer case in the duramax shortly after.

I sold the red suburban for $500 to help have some extra funds for this trip and I was glad that I did, and for the meantime while the duramax was down I was daily driving the 93 suburban which I later traded to other Gavin for a 350 tbi / nv4500 / np241c combo which I'll get to in a following post. I actually did buy a gooseneck for $2000 and put new tires on it just for this trip as well and you'll see that trailer get a lot of use in the future!

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[gstubbz]

The 91:

I actually had bright plans for this truck, but at first it was a headache. I swapped in a 350 / nv4500 and come to find out when I installed the nv4500 I managed to bust up the clutch disc so ultimately I ended up putting the original 5LM60 back in it with a new clutch and it was fine after that. I went through and fixed a lot of the things wrong, and even tinted the windows. I sold it and it just recently left the property at the beginning of this month.

It was fun for a bit but I didn't have much of a drive to do anything crazy with it. I did have to daily drive it for a bit back in October / November when the duramax was down due to a water pump leak.

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[gstubbz]

Next up, the crew cab HD!

So this one is exciting. Back in October my buddy Gavin sent me a link to a copart auction for a 1999 GMC 3500HD crew cab with a 6.5/4L80e and ... of course I had to buy it! Ended up after fees spending $2033 on the truck. I had to make a super long trip to Billings, and when it came time to load, it just barely fit on the gooseneck and I even had to sawzall my hitch mount off to have enough room for it to fit. I had to have them help me load it on the truck with a loader because the DPF (yes, it has a retrofit!) kept getting hung up on the end of the trailer.

I also got a screw in my trailer tire in their parking lot and that was a headache. We swapped my spare on at a gas station and it turned out that one leaked air due to a cracked rim, so I ended up filling up an air compressor and putting air in the tire for every 20 minutes until we made it to Bozeman where I had a tire shop swap my good tire onto the rim from the one that had a screw in it. We tried plugging it but they just didn't hold.

I have tried to get it started, but whoever messed with it last just made it a bigger headache for me. The fuel lines under the intake leaked super bad, so I replaced those, new intake gaskets, and as of right now a new flexplate. The idiots before didn't install the support brace properly so the starter was not lined up straight and ate the flex plate up. I just got done putting everything back in to try to start it yesterday in fact, but was sidetracked to when a few friends needed help moving asap (which leads me to another truck)!

Not sure if this thing is going to stay with a 6.5 or what, but may be getting a fancy diesel powertrain from another truck I'll post about shortly. I did already register and insure the HD and have plates, I just need the thing to run and drive!!

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[gstubbz]

2014 Silverado 5.3

The only reason I even have this truck was due to my now ex-girlfriend (Darya, if you're reading this ever in the future - I still love you and your girls). I actually was super super hesitant to buy this thing but she wanted me to have something nice that wasn't beat and would be good for traveling with the family. I picked this up the weekend before thanksgiving with almost 93k (as of today I am at 98-something) and literally within the first two weeks the truck was rear ended while I was waiting at a light to turn. I am still waiting on my tailgate to get here months later.

Honestly as much as I didn't want to buy this truck, I am really happy I did and that she pushed me to do so. It's super nice (not leather nice but pretty well equipped) and I look forward to traveling a lot this year in the truck, it's been great so far!

The first things I did was remove the running boards, tint the front windows with 20%, install a tasteful amount of chrome (I used to be so anti-chrome but I've grown to like it at least on black trucks) and that has been it so far. I want to find some newer OEM 20s and put a leveling kit on it and probably call it done. I don't really want to mess with it because I like the fact it all just works and I don't want to work on this truck a whole lot.

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[gstubbz]

My GMT800 silverado cobble together project

So this started with a 4L60e transmission that I sold for $400, which in turn I went down with a buddy to Missoula to pick up this absolute unit! It was a 1999 1500 ECSB 5.3/4L60e with 448k! The truck was thrashed, had a miss on one cylinder, transmission only had reverse, and someone stole the cats so the exhaust was cut right under the floorboard. I managed to drive it the 3.5 hours home (2 hours one day, the rest two days later - it stayed at a friend's house in Kalispell). The drive home was rough mainly because it was just so loud and I had no real good way to plug my ears. The truck managed to still reach the speed limiter multiple times though!



So I wasn't sure what I was bound to do with this thing, so I started parting some stuff out with the plan to swap in a 6.0 / nv4500 that I didn't use in the 91, and when I was installing the clutch pedal in the cab I had to remove the entire dash and busted up some stuff so I was on the hunt for a new one... this turned into buying a wrecked 99 2500 ECSB that was just a roller with 4.10 axles, so I stripped it and set my 6.0/nv4500 in it. I am still in progress with the transfer case though.

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Earlier this week we set the new cab on the 2500 frame, now keep in mind this cab is far far far from perfect, and would be fine for a woods beater / farm / mud truck but not much more.

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I had plans to make a fun mud truck with this but honestly after the truck I picked up yesterday, I think I am just going to cut my losses with this entire project and sell parts. It just requires a lot of time, attention, and money which sucks, but this one is pushed away entirely after I did a bunch of work.

 

[gstubbz]

Duramax Trucks!!

Even more exciting news. So I ended up selling my now former coworker James my LLY Duramax in January mainly because I was in a very serious relationship and I wanted to start selling off some stuff as I no longer had much time for shop stuff. I was pretty bummed about selling the duramax in the first place but I got over it fairly quick.

The biggest bummer is not having anything at the moment to haul my gooseneck trailer with! So I am still having James tow stuff for me at least until I get the HD, the 99 2500 (if I pursue that), or this new LBZ together.

So yesterday while I was working on the HD trying to get it going while I waited to go watch the super bowl with some friends, I get a call from my friend other Gavin asking for help because they needed to move everything they had at his wife's parents property so I went and helped them do that instead. He just picked up this 07 Sierra 2500HD CCSB LBZ from a copart auction a few weeks prior but because they are moving back to California I decided to buy it from him.

It has some front end damage and some frame damage so I want to look at it in more detail this week, but here is where I'm torn. Fix the LBZ (and a lot of the cosmetics, it's ugly right now!) and run it as my replacement duramax thrasher, or go through the effort of swapping the powertrain into the crew cab HD (and maybe even the cab, not sure yet I prefer the interior of a gmt800 far more).

I kind of need an operable second truck now, and realistically that is more than likely going to be the HD with the 6.5 if I can manage to get it running.

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[gstubbz]

So that concludes my major truck updates since June. There has been a lot and even littler stuff I didn't post about (1994 GMC Sierra that was in my shop for a bit for a dash harness replacement that was an utter nightmare was one). Even everything going on in my life since about October has been haywire and I cannot wait for winter to be over. This cabin fever thing is not enjoyable and I'm ready for the warmer temps and more motivation to work on things. There's been a ton of good and bad lately too but some of my life choices I question, and someday I'll be able to read this thread from the beginning and laugh about all that I've done or the things I've talked about.

Something else I just wanted to throw in here while I'm on my soapbox. There was a facebook post the other day asking people about their first truck and looking back, when I was getting my licence in 2014 a decent enough GMT800 started at $5,000 for a 99 and that seemed so expensive to me at the time so I ended up with a $2600 GMT400 instead, which in turn started my love for them for years to come as they were the cheap trucks that you could pick up for a few hundred dollars. At this point in time now the GMT800s are the cheap trucks that you can get all day and the gmt400s are fading out in availability a bit. It's just crazy to me seeing things evolve with time!

... but I am most excited about owning a LBZ now!