1985 Frankenburban Grassroots hauler!

fidelity101 wrote: In reply to Adrian_Thompson: Its gonna take 3 coats to go from black bed liner to white oil based paint.

Justice

To be fair you could not tell it was bedliner :)

I think it came out pretty good. Great in pictures but absolutely a 10-20 feet paintjob.

I replaced one of the headlamp bezels and some chrome on the front end then re-sprayed it to a matching green.

I think I am going to clear over the stickers. I don't think the glue or stickers appreciate morning dew so I can't imagine they are going to like snow either.

However now I need to adjust my rear tailgate the passenger side latch wont latch...

Wheels are next then put a coat of black on underneath before winter.

I did notice some bump steer issue earlier, did a quick bleed of the power steering and it seems fine? I might be looking into frame reinforcement for the steering box, but further diag is required.

Man this thing is cool. Looks like a proper De-troit ZAV!

paint the truck? Paint the wheels! Gunmetal gold is back! One of my cars needed that in its life.

Before:

During:

Post cleaning:

1st coat after primer:

now add gold:

then a little bitch of witchcraft and blending the 2 spray paints and viola!

I have new (black) lug nuts that go on as well and the underside has a fresh coat of black underneath.

So in final order of winter prep I needed to fix the broken u-joint. Which meant axle shaft replacement too since when it grenaded itself it took out that sucker too. The opposite u-joint was bad too, so seized up it had lost upward/downward movement entirely making steering VERY scary. And quite the nervous 17 mile commute home from work the other day.

That took forever and a day. then we go to test it by spinning the one shaft, the other was not. Then we spin the front driveshaft and it spins too easy. So its time to open the diff cover...

and that's when we found this. R&P look fine, side gears look good too but I will need a new diff pin and pinion gears :(

but on the plus side, people gave me more stickers recently:

Frankenburban photo-bombing me in Ohio Looks a bit meaner than my tow rig, lol.

and someone's beer gut, lol

Period race car with period race car parts with a period race hauler :)

People always look at me funny when I say my 85 tows my 86.

I drove frankenburban into work today (needed to pick up a couch and shake down the maintenance stuff) and parked it next to the answer to help demonstrate size and poke fun at my co-worker (who is a good sport)

Also the daylight is easier to see the truck with the painted wheels and new lug nuts.

observe:

bumpdates!

Did some recent maintenance and 4wd now works! (replaced spider/side gears) and the diff is now leak free!

Also had to replace the power steering pump and both high pressure lines.

T-case output yoke was leaking through the yoke/nut threads, some removal and cleaning + rtv fixed that.

Washer fluid tank had a leak, that has been corrected (JB weld)

Fuel gauge stopped working so I replaced it because the stock wiring is such a mess. I also decided to replace the voltmeter since that was the only gauge left and when testing it I accidently nuked it so 30 dollars later two new gauges! FULL GAUGES YO!

Anyways, everything is all squared away! Inspected/repacked wheel bearings for the trailer to tow up an eagle rally car to snow*drift so expect to see us bombing around the areas in-between the stages!

Nice there is a similar year Suburban that had been sitting at a lot here in town for about three years I have thought about going and offering them and absurdly low amount of money for. I have always liked those old big rigs and would love one for the mountains.

Well no real updates, did some more maintenance over the years, brakes/wheel bearings and installed hood pins since the cable latch broke but I'm thinking of selling it in the near future, if anyone is interested let me know. I'm asking GRM price of 4500.

It's been great to follow (even before I got one of my own, but especially so since), thanks!

I was just thinking about your "Food Mechanic" this past week as we drove across Kansas. I found myself thinking about doing it in the Suburban and wouldn't it be nice to have some food warming up under the hood for our next rest stop. Did you ever improve on yours? (IIRC, the original iteration wasn't heating sufficiently.)

I never improved it but I should have, Ideally you want a smaller cooler with plumbed lines to some sort of heater core with a fan to act as an insulated convection oven. right now it works as a great seat when you need to adjust the timing or carb.

I love this truck but my other hobbies are suffering and I want to focus on rally and considering I do "off-roading" about 3 times a year it is time for a newer truck that I can invest in and not worry about fixing little things all the time.

this thread is a bit old too, it has new u-joints/axle shafts/front & rear brakes/fluids/balljoints/wheel bearings and probably a few other things. If I didn't have the rx7 this would be my toy. add a few inch lift and big block with overdrive and just do trail mod stuff or diesel it. There are just too many ways you can customize this and I physically don't want to do any of them.

aaaaand its on ebay now!

never sold a vehicle on Ebay before so this should be fun.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/-/252788957157?

reserve price of 3500 FYI :)