Hey Guys, Here is a picture - journal I've collected over the last year of driving & working on my Grandma's '59 NAPCO suburban.
As mentioned in my initial intro: The burb was originally owned by a match stick factory in Grandma's town, Mancos C. They used it as a logging crew transport, and then sold it in the early '70s when Grammy picked it up at the used car lot. The family used it for hunting trips or other excursions to the mountains before retiring it to snow plow duty, and then eventually leaving it alone in the shed ~mid 90s. It's well dented, but has very little rust.
First problem was that front left wheel hub was bubba welded to 4x4 axle spline coupling. So i cut that off
Now with my ultra rare NAPCO wheel hub destroyed, I had to use Toyota truck wheel hubs making some wheel bearing adapter sleeves Toyota hubs are set up for disc brakes so I had to make some caliper mounts- First a plywood prototype, and then some plasma cut caliper brackets done by the guys at the steel yard in place.
I also added a power brake booster (mounted under the cab) and a brake fluid reservoir on the firewall, fashioned from a brake fluid bottle with a hose barb on the bottom, retained by a bean can. Perfect fit!
I added refurbished T100 calipers. This shot also highlights the original NAPCO,two piece closed knuckle design. Very nice for a non-power steering truck, since the knuckle turns on tapered roller bearings instead of ball joints. Less friction that way.
Though the knuckle bearings get hammered pretty bad over time, wearing unevenly since they only roll slightly back and forth for steering.
Then I needed to adapt the Toyota (AISIN) locking hubs to engage with original NAPCO 4X4 drive axles. Fortunately the original spline coupler was still intact inside the bubba weld pictured earlier, and after some excavation with the grinder & lathe. I was able to weld old spline coupler inside the AISIN locking hub gear in order to create this adapter pictured before welding[/url]).
Then rebuilt the differentials, replacing the original 3.9 gears with 3.38 gears for modern speed limits.
Then re-constructed the rear brake backing plate that had partially ground off when the wheel fell off sometime back in the day.
Then cleaned 40 years worth of mouse poop/ nests out of the doors. A couple trash bags worth + a trip to the carwash.
Wire brushed and painted the floor. Followed by carpet. Set up for painting.
Bought a new radiator, and made a new radiator mounting bracket. Image of both.
Re-packed the CV joints with grease. CV joints were a big deal back in 1959, when most other 4x4s used U joints to drive the front wheels
Cleaned underneath valve cover.
stitched some new seat covers.
Also re-built the gauge cluster, replaced wiring harness, & converted generator to alternator.
Last edited by Phak1; 04/24/202512:03 PM. Reason: Added photo
That all happened last winter, and I was fortunate to drive it around quite a bit this summer. Put ~2000 miles on it, mostly highway, but with a healthy amount of 4wd too! Despite it's 235 engine being very crusty, it had no problems maintaining 60-70 mph on the interstate with 3.38 gears and 32" tires, except for long steep hills where it slows down to 35mph. Big tires and NAPCO running gear are great offroad, putting my freinds new tacoma to shame on big rocks/tank traps. That 7:1 1st gear of the SM420 is sooo nice!
I don't feel so bad about not having AC since the wind noise is about the same with windows up or down!
Average fuel economy ~14mpg on the highway, and somewhere below 10 offroad.
Installed shoulder belts for passenger & myself prior to departure... had to cut & weld mounting spot for shoulder harnesses: first photo
The last time big yellow did any driving was in late july for a town parade with Grammy.
At this point I was fed up with constantly re-filling the radiator, and discovered that it was slowly leaking through cracks in two of the combustion chambers.
Deciding to rebuild ye ol 235 stovebolt was just the start of my fools errand... Since i couldn't bring myself to to buy stock 7:1 compression pistons with ultra fat rings, CP is now building some custom pop up pistons to bring the ratio up to ~9.5 and incorporate modern design features like narrower rings and piston skirt.
Since that's taking so long, I got distracted with more ridiculous things like, spare tire mount, rebuilding transmission, transfer-case, and frame notching the front to accommodate more suspension travel.
Adapted spare tire mount.
Frame notching, increases suspension up-travel from ~1" to 2.5". Hoping to take those washboard roads at a speed >15mph now.
Also had the steel yard plasma cut some better leaf spring top-plates. Now with rubber bumpers instead of steel as original.
I also decided to rust-proof everything with SPI epoxy primer and have removed frame from body.
Body is supported by telephone pole stumps and a steel tube screwed onto door hinge mounts.
That's a very nice Suburban, and to have it in the family for so long is amazing. I remember that there was a red one in my neighborhood when I was a teenager (back in the 70's). It always looked mean as heck.
The work your doing is really impressive. So, what is your ultimate goal, or is it just an ongoing hobby?
At this point I would consider the hobby ongoing! However, I am looking forward to finishing the the truck. With my goal to have a cross country adventure wagon. I'm considering various options for the interior... maybe replace rear seat with a folding one and have a mattress platform with some storage underneath.
Originally Posted by J Lucas
That's a very nice Suburban, and to have it in the family for so long is amazing. I remember that there was a red one in my neighborhood when I was a teenager (back in the 70's). It always looked mean as heck.
The work your doing is really impressive. So, what is your ultimate goal, or is it just an ongoing hobby?
John
I checked out your flickr and can see why you went for the red '59! Fierce looking truck!
way col! Looking at your pictures makes me miss mine a bunch! Dropping your tire pressure to ~15-20 psi sure helps smooth out the washboard on roads! I would drop my 33" swampers down to 8psi on my Willys wagon when off road and it made all the difference in the world! Just try to get them pumped up soon after getting back on the road!
way col! Looking at your pictures makes me miss mine a bunch! Dropping your tire pressure to ~15-20 psi sure helps smooth out the washboard on roads! I would drop my 33" swampers down to 8psi on my Willys wagon when off road and it made all the difference in the world! Just try to get them pumped up soon after getting back on the road!
I'll be very happy if big yellow puts on the miles like yours did! Not sure if i can tow stuff with the 235 though (maybe in 3rd gear with my 3.38 rear). And I'm with you on the tire pressure and am hoping to set up an onboard air pump for that!
It's also equipped with some vintage 'pleasurizer' shock absorbers... :can't look: so I'm expecting maximum ride smoothness. Seriously though, someone needs to reproduce those stickers to put on new shocks!
Here's some progress pictures from xmas & new years.
Frame after pressure washing, but before sandblasting: It's in really good shape, quite a bit of original paint on it still. Little rust, but a few fatigue cracks near the bumpers & transfer case mounts.
Under-body prep & epoxy crack filler for the plywood: I used some 'clear penetrating epoxy sealer' CPES before the filler, and then topped it all off with SPI epoxy primer. The CPES and filler supposedly works great for wood boats... but it's really nasty, a rash showed up on my arms a few days after all this. I'm more suspicious of the smiths filler since it started where some of it was stuck to my skin. It took a full week for it to get better.
Frame after applying SPI epoxy primer: All the prep & paint application was A LOT of work for me... hoping never to do this again... maybe if i got one of those vacuum sand blasters. A 220v space heater and a propane bottle burner was enough to keep the garage ~75F for a couple days while it cured.
Custom trailer hitch that I made this weekend! This one is a 3 x 3/16 square tube with a 2" receiver and 3/16 end plates. I think it could take 7500lbf before starting to bend... not sure if that makes it a class III or IV hitch? Either way, it's probably overkill for a truck this old. Here's how I estimated the yield strength: https://www.amesweb.info/StructuralBeamDeflection/SimpleBeamConcentratedLoadAtAnyPoint.aspx
I would be interested to hear how other people have set up suburban hitches as I have not found any pictures yet.
It will cost me about 1.5 degrees of departure angle... but that seems acceptable, with the napco kit and 32" tires, Burb should have 21.5* departure and 35* approach angle.
I'm really excited now that I have a solid recovery point and something to mount a bike rack on! .
yipee! The air pump is mounted & chain drive installed. It's starting to look like a real machine now. It will be interesting see how it compares with aftermarket onboard air pumps. Right now I'm thinking it will pump double CFM of the high end ARB twin electric compressor!
Applied SPI epoxy to the frame accessories (hitches gas tank & air compressor)
This truck has lots of fatigue cracks... including the radiator support panel. Lower radiator support brackets must have broke off, so I made new ones!
Setting up fuel lines for my auxiliary gas tank was an expensive learning process: I made some stainless hard lines & put AN teflon hoses at all the transitions. In hindsight, I should have just done normal CPE (rubber) hoses onto barbs... would have been way cheaper.
installed a fuel selector valve from a Cessna near the stick shift.
Modified the gas sender to accommodate inter-tank vent-line & return line.
I'm enjoying this thread immensely. I might incorporate some of your ideas into my (last) project. I like the idea of having an bit more fuel storage, since the V8 gets thirsty!
Another quality post. Real Trucks Rattle HELP! The Paranoids are after me!
woohoo! Body is back on frame. It was entertaining to observe the different rake angles as it lowered into position.
aggressive bat truck, ready to pounce, raised posterier:
and then, cool bro, butt dragging, automotive saggy pants.
I'm very pleased with my autozone floor jack. It was the only helper needed for moving body up & down.
I did not initially think (as some have) about where to support the body so to avoid distortion under it's own weight... however it seems to be ok still (final judgment reserved for future door installation)
The front end was lifted & lowered by a beam & blocks under the doorsteps. In order to slide frame out I bolted a beam across the lower door hinge attach points (& removed the other beam from under the doorsteps), it sat on that for a few months while I worked on it.
Rear end was lifted/lowered as shown in jack picture above, pressing on a frame cross member, & then supported long term by a beam across the rear wheel wells/floor
Other than body install, here are some other progress pics:
Installed plastic slip pads (uhmw) on the leaf spring tips and painted the leaves with leftover SPI epoxy (except in the middlw)
had to bend open the retainers on the front springs to install the slip pads. The retainers were closed them back up by drilling bolt holes and using 5/16 bolt through the middle of some 3/8 fuel line.
The build seems to be slowing down... a lot of my spare time gets eaten up by planning and debating what to do next.
I decided to get some sound deadening stuff for the floor. It's tough to narrow down all the options, but for now I'm planning to do partial coverage with CLD mat, and then cover with 1lb mass loaded vinyl. In the back I'll glue some actual flooring vinyl on top of the mass loaded stuff to make it more durable/truck like.
engine progress: pistons installed, oil pan sealed on, cam gear installed (with heat), cam installed... I'll put the short block in the truck before installing head; mainly because I'm using head bolt holes as lifting points with eye-bolts.
starter rebuild: It had a 1968 reman tag and was working ok... but since I've never re-built one, I thought it would be a fun endeavor. re-surfaced the commutator- Surprisingly, the stack teeth had ~0 runout during initial measurement, but the commutator had ~8thou. This allowed me to use the core-stack as a reference to align the 4 jaw. The commutator end was held in the 4 jaw and the other end supported by a bushing in tailstock chuck. It cleaned up after removing ~.01" all around, milk cutting fluid & small round tip HSS cutter, ~850rpm. Setting it back in V-blocks, the runout measurement is now down to ~2 thou. Good enough. Then I knocked edges off the grooves with a triangle file and polished 400, 600, 1500 sandpaper, then 5000 emery.
For starter motors, some say the mica should be flush with the commutator... but unfortunately in the process of getting all the copper gunk from between the commutator bars, I ended up with a healthy sized undercut and it seemed like a bad idea to turn it down that much, which would result in more copper needing to be cleaned from the grooves. My oem toyota starter is undercut, so I figured it can't hurt.
Thanks for sharing....your project may be slowing down but hey, nice work and small accomplishments keeps the blood pumping. I've always said, its amazing what just 15 minutes a day will get done. Keep up the good work.
Replaced bushings in steering box. Cleaned out old steering grease and replaced it with Delo EP 00 grease from drdoug in the swap meet section.
Attached transmission. I was pleased with the engine crane thru door method... much easier than my usual balancing it on the floor jack.
Made bushing for the lower front shock absorber mounts. Nominally 1/2" holes were wallowed out almost to 3/4" ! I used pieces of the original valve rocker shaft.
Laid soundproofing in the rear. It started with chiseling up the old linoleum and hand planing off the tar paper. Then applied polyurethane to the plywood. Finished the job by laying down 3/8 batting, followed by mass loaded vinyl, topped off with regular vinyl floor mat.
Replaced a couple shock absorber logos that had peeled off. Clearly an important aesthetic.
It sure beats the original scrap of inner tube with a ragged hole flat on the floor! Something similar would work for the main shifter, but would have to be a bit taller (ie narrower cone angle)
Here's the boot template and design file. I put the stitch 1/8" from both edges.
The floor is almost done. I used a molded vinyl sheet from LMC truck. Over the top of mass loaded vinyl and thin batting on the bottom. I got lazy and left the original firewall insulation... hopefully it's good enough for blocking engine noise. The door step is a separate vinyl piece cut from leftover rear floor mat. Held down with hardware store aluminum trim.
It also became apparent that my shock absorber travel is insufficient to utilize my 1.5" frame notches, so I welded extensions on the upper shock mounts. Got wild and painted the driveshaft too.
More pictures. 1, 2) Fixing the zinc cap on the fuel filter bowl using the heat trick from Jon G. Clamp it to a flat surface, heat to 400F in oven, increase clamp pressure until it's flat.
3) Proud of my stainless lines! Though I'm already starting to use copper seals under the flare so I don't have to tighten so much.
4) Last photo before first rebuilt engine start
5) I had high hopes for the 1/16" viton gasket in my model B, however I trimmed the center just a bit too much. Since the rubber squishes sideways fairly easy, it caused float bowl to leak into engine. Though it was good enough for a 4th of july road trip! I've since replaced it with 1/16" cork-rubber which seems to work so far.
Also, I tried out my home made PTO with air compressor for the first time yesterday. Build picture on page 2 of this thread. It actually works! Although I'm afraid to run it at full speed because it shakes the transfer case quite a bit, especially after charging above ~80psi. I should have reckoned that running a chain drive sideways from the t-case onto a big reciprocating load would make it shake! I'll have to try it out on a tire to see how fast it goes!
Things mostly work, but there's still plenty of room for improvement.
The new 3.38 ring and pinion gears are pretty tall. This is primarily annoying for town driving as the clutch is quite sensitive at stop lights. Starting off is a slow process. On the highway and offroad it's pretty happy. It can cruise 60mph at 2200 rpm and keeps up with 75mph freeway traffic no problem. Steep hills can be slow if approached before building up speed. But that's just charm of an old stovebolt.
The 'crawl ratio' offroad is 44 (1st gear X transfer case X differential) 7.05x1.83x3.38=44. Not quite as good as 51 if it had the 3.9 ring/pinion. But still plenty for all but the most extreme rock crawling where you'd probably need lockers and bigger tires anyway.
So far it's has one episode of frantic roadside troubleshooting: Halfway between Albuquerque and Socorro the engine lost considerable power with occasional misfires. Top speed reduced from 70 down to 45mph. After limping into town I checked the points, condenser, and installed new plugs + coil. AFR looked fine though. None of the parts helped but I noticed the spark plugs were really white as the ceramic was slightly eroded and one was missing an electrode. Finally after retarding the distributor (in the dark with no timing light) it seemed back to normal. Perhaps descending from my garage at 7200' down below 5000' may have induced some pre-ignition? Or maybe it took a while for that broken electrode to bounce out the exhaust valve?
I think it started with 10 degrees advance while idling. Not bothering to check for several months i finally measured the ignition timing ~8 degrees retarded after top center!? So i put it right at 0 where it is now.
I'm assuming the flywheel BB is at 0 degrees...
Anyhow... it's put on a couple thousand miles since the incident without issue.
Hey Guys,
Toyota hubs are set up for disc brakes so I had to make some caliper mounts- First a plywood prototype, and then some plasma cut caliper brackets done by the guys at the steel yard in place.
