Re: One Ton Suburban
Great History Ed and those back seats still look fantastic!
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Re: One Ton Suburban
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Doug -- although Dad was not a welder or a body & fender man, he did as much of the work as he could on the conversion. I helped him with a lot of it. He cut out the openings for the windows with a saber saw and installed the windows. He gave me the two special hand tools for slipping the windows into the rubber extrusions and inserting the locking bead into the rubber. He installed the supports between the windows after having flat plates welded to the tops and bottoms of those square tubes.
Since the half ton panel and regular Suburban share the same body shell, they're both equipped for installation of either the "barn doors" or the liftgate/tailgate. However, the one ton panel was equipped only for the doors. Since Dad wanted the liftgate/tailgate combo, he had to do a lot of modifications like creating the hinge pockets for the tailgate hinges. Darryl Starbird did the welding on that part of the project. For anyone unfamiliar with Darryl, check out http://www.darrylstarbird.com/starbird.htm. He got his start as a body shop owner in Wichita. I found Darryl's quote from 1968 when Dad took the Suburban back to him for enlarging the rear wheel openings -- $300 -- what a bargain! Henry -- I was pretty surprised at the condition of those three rear seats. What helped was that Dad stored them in the basement one by one as us kids grew up and moved away. I think the last one went down in the basement about 30 years ago. Two of my brothers helped me carry them up the steps, clean them, and reinstall them the day before the Wichita Mini-Meet. Here's a photo of my parents. Dad will be 90 on Pearl Harbor Day and Mom will be 87 on New Years Day. Their daily drivers are a 2005 turbocharged Subaru Outback that Dad calls his "closet WRX" and a 2012 Fiat 500, both with 5 speed manual transmissions. Great role models for us kids! |
Re: One Ton Suburban
How did I miss this thread for TWO pages? Ed these are great pictures and a really fantastic story. Five star thread! :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup:
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Re: One Ton Suburban
Thanks for the "thumbs-up", Fetch. Too bad you couldn't make it to the Wichita mini-meet to see it. I'm afraid you're going to have to travel to Oregon to see it in person now!
If anybody out there wants to see photos of anything in particular on this truck, let me know. I might try scanning some of the documentation on it and posting it here. The print may be too small to read for those with small screens though. |
Re: One Ton Suburban
It might be asking much but maybe run her out to some old historic houses or buildings and take some pics like Jolly does from time to time. I'd like to see that :giggity:
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Re: One Ton Suburban
Me too, pics of GMCs in by old historic houses or buildings are fun to take, Most of the time I do it on the way to ro from a show, but some times I just go out for a drive to take photos.
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Re: One Ton Suburban
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Re: One Ton Suburban
I'm pretty sure the GMC dealer in Wichita (Sauder-Lygrisse) had those valve covers and air cleaner chrome plated at a local shop.
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Re: One Ton Suburban
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Re: One Ton Suburban
Dad spent lots of time doing things to his Suburban that aren't readily apparent. The 3-way valve in the floor to the left of the driver's seat (like a lot of trucks with auxiliary fuel tanks have) besides switching fuel supply from one tank to the other, also simultaneously switches electrically from the sender in one tank to the sender in the other tank. And when you pull out the big knob on the dash to shift the Watson box into overdrive, it also switches a little box in the speedometer cable so that the speedometer is still accurate. Dad also installed a transistorized ignition unit which he hid behind one of the triangular "wings" in front of the top of the core support.
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