Projects A Budget built 52 Suburban for my girl

I thought I´d share some insight on why my 34 Ford project has been stalled for the last one and a half years. My girlfriend Dani always wanted an old van or bus but also loves old trucks. So she found herself a very cheap and therefore really worn out 52 Suburban here in southern Bavaria. It was so cheap that shipping it from the US must have been more than the seller´s asking price, which made me guess the person that bought and had it shipped was not happy with his purchase. Anyway, a 52 ´burban is a 52 burban and they don´t grow them anymore, at least not around here. So in June 2016 we went and got it.
Dani was in love on first sight and already knew which color this and that would be and what kind of curtains she will have. Sounds familiar? Just gotta love them girls I saw tons of bondo and rust, anywhere I looked. The front of the cab would sink down one inch or more when one of the doors were opened, because there were 4 layers of tin roofing brazed in as floors with no bodymounts or floor bracing left.
OK time to make a plan, we had a car, Dani´s budget was tending to zero, so I had to use what I had in my stash or try fixing what was there. Originalty was of no concern, that truck had to be solid, comfortable to drive for a not even 100 lbs girl, reliable and good on gas.

So since Dani´s budget had to recover from the purchase and my 34 was in paint prison I started to work the things that don´t cost much, mostly fixing rust. Before I could lift the body off the frame I had to fix the cowl and everything else that was strucurally important for holding the body somewhat together.

 

This went on and on and my dad come over and was extremely doubtful if this pile was ever going to move under it´s own power while staying in one piece. hahahaha.... Actually the only replacement sheet metal we used was the two outer A-pillar panels I gave Dani as a birthday present. This was perfect, because she really liked that present and it saved me from a making new ones. To get the door gaps somewhat even I tacked in the doors before I put the A-pillars on and used a jack to raise the front of the cowl to make things straighter.

 

The guy in the red shirt is ma Dad telling me that this is not going to work out ever. Hahaha

 

In some of the pics you can see that the camaro clip was kind of tacked in place. I adressed that later on. At least the clip job was pretty square ( no pun intended) with only 1/16 " difference from side to side, measurede diagonally.
After the floors and braces , the firewall and and bodymounts were done it was time to lift the body off the frame.
Didi I mention I don´t have a lift? I borrowed my Dad´s loader for that purpose. One of the straps slipped and ripped off the rear fender, that was rusty and bondoed anyways, so these things happen and everything could be fixed. But I had good access to the frame and the underside of the body .
To be continued!

 

Next thing was to cut most of the ugly off the frame and gusset and box it as good as possible. I figured that it doesn´t make a lot of sense to just attach a boxy and stiff Camaro frontclip to an open truck frame without boxing the frame at least back to where the rear leaf springs attach. I thought it would be better to spread the twisting moment to a larger frame area than just the joint where the open stock frame and the boxed Camaro frame meet. Maybe it would have worked as it was before, but with Dani driving the car I´m not keen on taking chances and TÜV wouldn´t have let it pass with the frame mods as they were before. So boxing was the way to go for me.

 

That Burb is lucky it found you, it most likely would have been picked apart here or just left for dead. Great job.....and I'm complaining about small stupid crap being work on my panel .

 

Nice save, and nice work!!!
Chappy

 

Ambitious project there with great progress. Look forward to seeing more of your gear work.

 

Man, does that look Great! Bought a 55 second series pick up with many of the same rust issues. The more I took it apart, the worse it got (and I had driven it home after buying it)! Learned a lot about making patch panels ( long before they made them) and oxy/ac welding (before I could afford a mig). My Dad never even commented on this project, but I'm pretty sure his were like your Dad's. Dani will Love this Burb, Great work.

 

All I can say is that Dani must be one hell of a girl! Excellent work. I can't wait to see more progress and the finished product.

 

I hope that Dani appreciates what you are doing for her. It must be a labor of love.

 

Great save.

 

Is Dani getting her hands dirty with dad?

 

Thank you guys, you are right, this is/ was a labor of love. Dani is one hell of a girl.
@pumpman , you bet she is getting her hands dirty. She did most of the parts cleaning, sanding and painting herself. And she even sewed her own curtains for Urban, hahahahaha

 

Awesome!!!!!

 

The first in car shot is Priceless! Happy Motoring, Dani and Urban.

 

With the frame being painted, I started to rebuild a large journal 327 and a TH400 for her. I got the drivetrain from a local airfield. It was a spare unit for a aircraft winch that had never been used and came out of a low mileage Opel Diplomat. I just did a little headwork, new bearings, new rings , and a mild cam .The TH400 only needed new seals and new O rings , other than that it was just like new inside. I used a 61 Buick gas tank I still had as a leftover from a parts car, 60 Ford Station wagon leaf spring in the rear, and the rearend is from an 80s Camaro or something I guess. Voilá, we had a rolling chassis

 

With the drivetrain done, we went back to fixing rust. The rear wheel wells and fenders were desperately in need of some TLC. I don´t have an english wheel nor a power hammer, so I used anything that looked like something I could use to bend the sheetmetal into shape.... if all that you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail, right? hahahaha
After I had most of the bondo stripped off the rear fenders, I tried to find better ones. But it seems rear fenders for trucks are pretty common while the ones for panels and suburbans are made of unobtainium. So I fixed what I had. Not perfect by any means but in the end we had something we could bolt to the truck.

 

More great work, love how you blended the front clip. I would be willing to bet that burb rear fenders are hard to find on this side of the pond.

 

After a long winter of welding, grinding and swearing it was spring again and time to put some sealer to the firewall and floors and set the body back on the frame. I think that was in March or April. And that´s when I made a big mistake: Big mouth me mentioned that now urban was almost done and Dani would certainly be able to drive it by August or September. Dani took my word and said " Great, I´ll gonna drive Urban up to Berlin for the Hindenberg car show and dirt track races, that way we don´t have to sleep in a tent." OK , now I was really in charge.

 

Thank you! Yes, it seems like there is as good as no aftermarket for Suburban related parts. That is also we Dani´s truck doesn´t have sliding side windows. They were not there so we had to use what we could get our hands on.
Regarding the front clip... We have pretty strict rules for what can be done to a frame and what not. Cutting a frame down in the middle and welding a frontclip to it is actually a big no-no . But TÜV will accept a "corrosion or collision repair " if it is done in a certain way. Anyways, framework ought to better look good, otherwise the vehicle won´t pass and cannot be registered. I was still sweating bullets at the inspection.

 

Looks like you are doing an outstanding job.
r


Sent from my iPhone using H.A.M.B.

 

The frontclip was fitted by the end of May and by early June the upper side of the body had been stripped down to bare metal , primered, filled, sanded , filled, sanded, filled, sanded, filled, sanded,..... and eventually sealed, sanded again and painted. Literally, painted with a roll. Dani could not afford a real paint job and wanted a dark brown hue. So I had a gallon of epoxy primer tinted and mixed to her specs.... girls and colors, another long story, hahahaha. But she had made a great choice I think. Sorry, I think I don´t have a photo of Dani after hours of sanding, but you could tell that she was wearing glasses and a mask, everything bare was covered in thick layers of dust.

 

Thank you Raven! But you know, everything is looking better from a distance, and I am very far from you, hahaha

 

Please compliment Dani on her work helping you. She obviously is a great helper and daughter.

 

The grill was very thin and rusty. I brushed on a few coats of linseed oil based coating, it´s called Owatrol here, I don´t know if it´s availible in the US, maybe something similar. All bumper brakets were missing, so I made new ones. The back doors were extremely bad and due to my bi mouth promise I ran out of time to fix them properly. I guess 50 hours each will be necessary to do it right, but with the deadline getting closer I had to put a bucket of bondo on the right rear door to hide some of the ugliness underneath. Of course it cracked after a few days and I decided that was the right spot of the license plate, hahahahaha. I´m gonna address this , ummmm, maybe... ohhh ,.. next Winter or so.

With the frontclip on the truck I started wiring the car. And by the end of July I was pretty positive we could be ready for safety inspection ( TÜV) by mid August.

 

Way to go. Kudos to you both.

 

After working a few hours on Dani´s truck each night it was time to get ready for inspection and break in the freshly rebuilt 327 mid August. We ran it at 2000 rpm for 20 minutes, after that we made a 10 mile test drive. Then I drained the oil, which was pitch black and had a slight shimmer, like moly lube. Hmmmmm, I had built and rebuilt quite a few engines and none of them have ever had that fine shimmery stuff in the oil after the break in procedure. OK , let´s just change the oil and see what happens. After another 10 mile test ride #1 exhaust lifter started ticking.
OK, we gotta bite the bullet. The engine was still warm when I had it out of the truck and back on the engine stand. You guessed it, one lifter lost it´s hardened surface and ate a lobe while dying. I had used a new camshaft and new lifters, all std type stuff, just to be safe. I was running out of time, to buy a another new cam from the US was not in my cards, and my safety inspection date was only 5 days away. I decided to disassemble and clean the engine, every gallery , crank, oil pump and every pushrod to get rid of all that black gunk that used to be a lifter.

 

Once again, it was time to make a plan.
We had a bad camshaft, but pistons, bearings, oilpump and crank journals were like new. OK, not all that bad. I still had that 327 camshaft that was in the engine when I started the rebuild and I had kept the lifters in their specific order. Hmmmm, that question was, should I take the chance and reuse and old cam from back in the 60s? I put both cams side by side on my bench and checked them out . I had a new lifter in the one hand and an old GM one in the other. The GM one felt more solid, maybe a even bit heavier. I hit both with a 9/16" wrench. The new lifter clunked, the GM one pinged. Ok, that was not what I had expected. I did the same to the camshafts. Again, the new cam clunked, the old one pinged. After a beer or two I decided to put the old GM camshaft and lifter back in the 327 and see what happens. I wasn´t too confident during the test drive and that´s why I had left the hood off. I was pretty sure I had to pull the engine again soon. But nothing happened. Not a tick. Perfect oil pressure. Temp @180°.

time to put the hood on and see the safety inspector!

Urban passed flawlessly on Thursday, we got the paperwork on Monday, registered the truck on Tuesday and left for Berlin early Friday morning....

How´s that for a tight squeeze? hahaha I gotta admit, a lot of shortcuts have been made to make this happen. We still need the runningboards painted and mounted, windshield wipers would be great. Danis needs a cushion to sit on to see out of the windshizld, hahahaha and the to do list goes on and on. But we had a great trip to the Hindenberg dirt track races and back and Dani´s loves driving her "Urban".
And to me, she is all worth it.

PS: had to change the v belt on our way back ...( the old one started to squeal ,, because I had cheaped out and pulled an old one from my stash, hahahaha)I couldn´t take that kind of sound after two days of bench racing, watching races and drinking beer, hahahahaha

 

Happy wife, happy life