Hi folks, I am in the planning stage of a chassis swap with a '64-66 long bed onto a 4x4 Suburban chassis. I would expect to be using the 700R4 transmission common in most of the Suburban's I find available. Now, I really want the truck to appear pretty much stock when done and one of my concerns is the speedometer drive. Can someone tell me what year of Suburban I should look for to have a transmission with a speedometer cable rather than an all-electric version that would likely require swapping the instrument cluster to a digital version? Or, should I try to find an older Suburban with a TH350/400? Thanks!
87 and older truck 700R4s were cable speedo from what I can find. Cars changed to electronic speedo earlier and at different times, but those won't be 4x4 versions.
~ Dan 1951 Chevy 3 window 3100 Follow this story in the DITY Gallery "My Grandpa Carl's Truck and How it Became Mine" 1966 Chevelle (Wife's Hot Rod) | 2013 Chevy Silverado (Current daily driver) US Army MSG Retired (1977-1998) | Com Fac Maint Lead Tech Retired (1998-2021)
When it comes to speedometer or VSS, the area of the tail housing where the speedometer or VSS mounts, is the same. If you buy a VSS 700R4, you'll just need to find the old cable mount connector for the housing. On mine, I added a VSS so the computer could have a reading. Which I found out the ECM doesn't care about in my setup. I've since gone away from the cable speedometer and added a GPS speedometer.
If you want the most dependable, simple and accurate approach and if you're able to do instrument conversions (which isn't all that difficult, really), you might consider adapting one of the GPS speedometer units to your speedometer. In the "interiors" section you can see how I've done this for a 1952 pickup. You won't get an analog odometer, but there are digital workarounds...as you can see I've done. Good luck!
~ Jon 1952 1/2 ton with 1959 235 | T5 with 3.07 rear end
