My 99 K2500 Suburban

[GrimsterGMC]

Appreciate the words!

As far as buying the Hobart, I have used Millers my whole career. When I was in the market for a welder I wanted a Miller, but the tags were high. I “settled” on the Hobart from Tractor Supply. It was around Black Friday and they had a sale for $499 without the cart. I took the chance, and I will say that it is the most consistent welder I have ever used, once you get it dialed in. Of course, later on I found the Hobart is the parent company of Miller welders. I’ve welded up to 1/4” with this thing. Depending on the orientation of the metal you might need 2 passes if your welding something that thick, but I welded some framing on a dovetail for my buddy, he got rear ended by some lady in a mini van on the highway (all parties were healthy afterwards) he just had to replace his tail lights. Nothing else moved..

In a nutshell, I would buy it again and have became attached to it, so plan to use this welder until I can no longer use a welder lol. The next art I want to learn is gas welding with a filler rod and torch. The old timers at work tell me that is the sauce for body work. I don’t want to do anymore body work though lol

Just throwing another option out there is a TIG welder. It is just like gas welding with a filler rod but the ability to control the heat is unbeatable. Because it uses an arc that you can make as small as you need you will have very little heat buildup. I got an AC/DC model when I wanted to start working in Ali but now I use it for everything. As long as you have a pedal to control the amps then you can go straight from building up a bead on the edge of a piece of 1/32" to welding 2 pieces of 1/4" together simply by changing to a bigger tungsten and increasing the amps. I started with a cheaper Chinese machine, not knowing how much work I would get for it, then I would upgrade it once it had paid for itself, but I ran that machine hard for 4 years before it faulted, some days welding for 8 hours straight.

 

[Jman95]

Awesome, I will keep that in mind.. I have seen TIG in some race shops, never had the chance to try it myself.. I am all for learning new tricks though..

 

[Erik the Awful]

If you're planning on doing roll cages or frame work, a 110v welder might do it, but it's really not the right tool for the job. But if you're going to be welding in friends' garages or at the track, you'll want a 110v welder because you're not as likely to find a 220v plug. The best of both worlds is a welder that can switch between 110v and 220v. The Handler 210 is a serious jump in price, but I'd hold out for it. I think $1200 is a pretty good deal on it.

I made the conscious decision to get a 110v/220v welder - a Miller 211. I got mine several years ago when they were still pretty large in size, and now they're half the size and twice the price at $1900!

 

[Orpedcrow]

What an awesome build! Thanks for sharing it with us

 

[SUBURBAN5]

What body mount bolts did you use?

 

[Jwelar]

Man every time I go through my “to do on the Burb” list I have to come back to this thread. Makes my list look pretty easy. lol you’ve done an awesome job on all that body work. I may be tackling something of the sort in the future so I’ll be studying what you used and how you used it. Love the blue earlier in the thread as well.

 

[RanchWelder]

Say it again... "Awesome".
Glad you have the dosh...

 

[Jman95]

What body mount bolts did you use?

There is a ma and pa bolt shop down the street from the garage, I will have to look for the receipt to get you the actual bolt sizes.. I replaced them with grade 8 bolts.

 

[Jman95]

Sorry guys, I have been out of it for a minute.. I never did share my other passion project that I had. (I know it doesnt fit the forum.)

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I custom ordered this bad boy in April of 2022, Hellraisin Scat Pack Widebody with a 6spd manual transmission. I worked really hard to save up for this thing for a long time, my salesman told me back in the end of '21 that '22 would be the last year for them. (Not sure if he was lying at the time or if that is what they told him at the time. No matter they ended production this year.) I enjoyed every second I had spent in this car. It was highly overpriced at $63,000, but to me it was worth every penny. I stored it in the winter of 2022-2023 and was planning to store it again this winter. So in the entirety of the 12 months it had spent on the road I had accrued about 28,000 miles on it. I drove this thing everywhere, every chance I got lol. I installed a short throw shift kit, mid muffler delete, and some trim pieces on the rockers to protect from rocks with the widebody kit, and just installed a new set of tires. I had a plan to pull the engine and build it into a 426 stroker, was waiting for the warranty to run out.

Unfortunately I was on my way to work, and at about 55-60mph I shifted into 3rd gear and the rear tires locked up. I was going to ride it out but didn't have the space, it was either under a semi trailer or hit the median on the highway. I opted for the median..

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Bounced it off the median, the side airbags as well as the seat airbags deployed. The car did its job, there wasn't any damage done to me.. Well, at least not physically.. I was on a ramp when it happened after a tunnel, troopers pulled the video from the camera in the tunnel to make sure I wasn't "hot rodding". Which i wasn't at that particular moment. The issue with the car is under investigation at this point and I don't have much information from anyone other than State Farm who deemed it a total loss. Could have been worse. I still want to know what happened as it could have been much worse. Of course, with it under investigation I am expected to continue making the payment, yet no one can give me any information. Long story short, my attorney is busy..

I have some updates coming on the burb "Green Machine" shortly as well.

Bear with me!

 

[Jman95]

Back to the "Green Machine".. I already changed my mind from the original blue I was going with, to a darker blue. I have since changed my mind again to "Eruption Green Pearlcoat" it is a Ford color. Growing up this thing was always called the "Green Machine". I have decided that I didn't want to lose that piece of nostalgia I guess.

I have finished repairing the sheet metal on the floor. (Little holes that were left over after removing the OEM exhaust heat shield.) Apparently I didn't get pictures of me welding those up.. 2 were relatively small, I had a helper hold a piece of copper on the under side while I welded them shut, and ground them down to look pretty. 1 of them was a bit larger, and required a patch.

I recleaned the interior and sanded some spots I had missed, after I had my window guy remove my quarter glass. Mixed up and shot the primer.

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After the Primer set up for about an hour, I re-applied all the seam sealer I removed during sanding.

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After the seam sealer set up for about 30 mins. (Per the instructions on the tube, I used 3M Urethane seam sealer, was about $22/tube on Amazon, I used about 5 tubes.) I shot 2 more coats of the primer with 1hr flash times in between coats. (Per instructions on the data sheet, I used Raptor 2k epoxy primer.) I also replaced the sheet metal plugs that are missing in these pics. I used some plastic/nylon plugs I found on amazon, with a bit of the seam sealer on them to make sure they were water tight. They will also be resprayed with more Raptor liner on the bottom side.. (More on that in a bit.)

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I am going to have about 3" of the interior edges painted along with the exterior of the truck. Most likely it will never be seen, but I dont want to see any gray if the truck is Green lol.

I have 3/4" dynamat extreme in the rafters, not sure what order I am going to do it in yet, but the interior will be covered in dynamat before I reinstall the carpet. I am looking into a spray sound deadener for inside of the doors, as I don't want any issues with water running through the doors. Obviously, I will leave the drains open and probably about 2" above the drains undisturbed. I don't want any mildew or absorbtion of water going on and am not sure if the dynamat I have is waterproof. Once I get it out of the rafters I will do some research on it.