M1007 - CUCV Suburban Clone Build Thread

[Barrman]

I finally went for a drive longer than 20 miles with the outside temperature below 90°. I have never done that in this truck. Sunday was actually below 80°. AC on, cruise set at 75 mph and lots of hills. Never got over 203°. Just confirmed my suspicions posted about above. I got it real close to where I want, but not there yet for full on summer drive anywhere at any speed pulling anything I want duty.

Today I actually drove it for the first time anywhere without the AC on. Jennifer wasn't with me and it was 55° out. 3-5% drop in throttle position numbers to hold the same speeds as with the AC on. Temperature kept going up to the 195° thermostat temp and then dropping down during my 5 mile commute. Never done that before. Normally, with the AC on. It will hit 195°, drop a little once and then stay at 195° or higher. I kept the heater off just to see what would happen without changing more than just the AC not on.

 

[gimpyrobb]

I concur. No louvers on the Cowdog.

Thats a shame, I have just what you need!

 

[Barrman]

Those would almost fit at the rear of the fenders. Kind just the other side of the hood hinge mounts. NO!

 

[gimpyrobb]

They are aluminium, so you could strip it down and polish it up.


I know how you like the BLING








Bwaaaahahaha

 

[Barrman]

I have just been driving and driving the thing trying to make it as dependable as possible for long cross country trips. Yesterday I got the warning.

I teach in a juvenile corrections facility. We have a 20 foot fence around the campus and a sally port gate system to get access. (Historical trivia: A sally port which is a gate of some kind, enough room now days for a tractor trailer rig and then another gate. With only one of the gates ever being opened at a time. Has developed from European castles that wanted to be able to let people in or out without compromising the security of the castle. So the double gate system was developed to allow patrols to sally forth and return.) Once in the sally port, I have to turn the vehicle off, open all the doors, hood, have someone check inside and underneath for contraband. Then start it back up and drive to my class. Yesterday I trailered in a vehicle that didn't run to get worked on.

So, the 6.5 was started cold at my house, started hot in the sally port 5 miles later, started hot next to my class after 10 minutes of unloading the vehicle from the trailer, started hot after clearing the sally port 5 minutes later. Not that demanding. Except, it barely turned over leaving the sally port for a second or so. Then it caught.

My experience with any diesel engine is that you normally get a warning start that is just a bit off compared to normal. You might not get another good start without servicing batteries, starter or wiring. I couldn't leave work, just park the truck and trailer in the parking lot and get back to my students. So, all day yesterday I was worried about getting home at the end of the day. It started like normal, I got home and unhooked the trailer then parked the Cowdog where it won't be in the way in case there are no more starts but in a spot I can pull the starter from.

I won't have a chance to actually look at it again until Thursday evening so it is going to sit until then. I don't want to get stranded somewhere. I immediately thought starter motor because it is a used 12 volt redux that Warthog had sitting around for who knows how long before I got it 2 years ago. It has always spun slower than the 24 volt CUCV direct or redux units. I actually have been trying to figure out a way to keep the serpentine belt and go to a 24 volt starter because this one just turns slower. Yesterday it turned even slower than normal.

But of course, we all know that any 6.? starting problem diagnosis always starts where the TM says to. Make sure the batteries are fully charged and then load test them. Just a little over a year old, but that doesn't mean they are right.

 

[The FLU farm]

But of course, we all know that any 6.? starting problem diagnosis always starts where the TM says to. Make sure the batteries are fully charged and then load test them. Just a little over a year old, but that doesn't mean they are right.

So true. Two days ago I solved a starting issue by finally admitting defeat and replacing a battery that load tested just fine. Last spring, three out of four load tested fine in another vehicle, but it wasn't until replacing them with two new batteries that it fired right up.

Neither one was a CUCV, and the batteries were older, but that's really beside the point. From now on I will not trust my cheap load tester.

 

[Horsepowerparts]

Great Project. Good Luck

This was a "M1007" we built before one year.
Ex Army Sub built with CUCv Optic





Regards
Steve

 

[Barrman]

Nice looking truck. That hood ornament has to go though. Just kidding. I had a perfect hood that had the holes for the ornament and just could not bring myself to use it on my project.

 

[Horsepowerparts]

Thanks.

It was a customer whish.
The Army Sub has it.
It was a Civilian Version used by the Army with Army Sticker.
But the CUCV has it not.
But the customer want it.

 

[Barrman]

The cheapest starter O’Reilly’s has makes the engine turn over faster than it ever has. It sure is easy to change starter motors out when the differential bump stop and bracket has been removed. I pulled it during the build because with the one inch add a leaf I figured it would never be needed. Now I am very glad it isn’t there. 15 minutes from unbolting the battery cable, the starter was off. I didn’t even have to hug the front axle. Very nice.

So I get the engine firing up almost as fast as a 24 volt starter and drove it to a gathering last night. I fire it up to go home and no head lights. The hi beam indicator was on when I turned the lights on. I always put my lights on low beam before I turn them off on every vehicle. A carryover from learning to drive in a manual shift with a floor button hi beam switch I guess. Anyway, I have a hi beam indicator and no head lights.

I was confused by the indicator and flicked it. Indicator still on, but low beam lights on. Hmmm. I flicked it again. Indicator still on but no lights. I was in the middle of a field miles from town at night. I flicked it back to have lights with the indicator and figured to worry about it once home. Just as I was leaving the field, the indicator went out. I tried the switch and I had hi beams with the indicator. Low beams without. Must be the switch on the column I thought and drove on home.

I didnt check anything today. I just pulled a switch off a spare column, dropped my column down and then once I unplugged but not unbolted my old switch. I tried the new one. Same as last night. I plugged back in the original and same thing. I unplugged it again and used jumper wires and a volt meter to bypass a switch. Same thing. The switch wasn’t the issue.

I checked the firewall wall plug with the switch plugged back in and voltage seemed correct. I pulled the drivers head light and voltage for hi and low beams were correct. I pulled the ground wire bolted to the valence and cleaned all the contacts on both the light and the plug. Once back together, that light worked correct. However, the hi beam indicator was still on for both settings and the passenger side light wasn’t correct. I pulled it, cleaned contacts and ground on that side too. That fixed it.

I just cant figure out how both lights would get corroded contacts or grounds at the same time. At least it was a free fix.

 

[Barrman]

More driving and driving. I should hit 4,000 miles on the way home tonight. Yesterday was a 175 mile day. 40° outside temp with rain and strong wind. I set the cruise at 75 and just let it eat up the miles. Very stable at that speed in wet, nasty conditions. The transmission temperature stabilized at 128° and the oil temp was at 165°. Even better was the coolant temperature which was just below 200° and bouncing off the thermostat if I was off the power for more than 30 seconds.

I actually hit 9 pounds of boost too! Big deal for me since I haven't seen the needle above 5 psi except for just moments a few times. Driving the same route in the summer, I always have taken that particular long grade at the speed limit before the grade of 65. The speed limit changes to 75 at the bottom of the hill. Yesterday, I did 10 clicks of the ACCEL switch just to see what would happen. It got mean is what happened. It went from 65-75 without dropping out of OD or unlocking. Which meant it was on the power right as the hill got steeper. The boost went up to 9 psi and stabilized, EGT was around 950° and it was at 54% throttle. I was giggling.

Then my cruise control broke. A mile or two after that hill, the cruise just turned off and wouldn't catch again. After one of our stops, I tried it and all was well for about 10 miles until it just turned off again. 45 miles later I tried it and it worked. It isn't bump related and I have gone over those connections inside the truck enough to know they are secure. I will do a pin out test of all the wires, but I think it is going to be once again a case of the 25 year old part that I didn't get new being the problem.

Hitting 9 pounds of boost has me a bit confused though. I have a light coating of oil on the little shelf between the cylinder heads and the engine valley. I am very sure it is not the valve covers leaking. I am convinced it is blow by oil getting sucked in the air intake system and leaking out of the intake manifold. I just haven't taken it back off and done new gaskets yet. However, with 9 psi of boost. It must not be too much of a leak because every bit of research I have done claims if there is a leak 1-3 psi is all you will ever see on the boost.

I found a 6.5 turbo CDR valve that I will swap in to replace the 6.2 NA CDR and hopefully, that will stop the oil "wetting" of the intake and the oil on that shelf.

Basically, the truck likes the winter time and I am still messing with a bunch of stuff to get it just right.

 

[Chevybrit]

Just in in case anyone is curious. A complete square body Suburban interior will fit inside another square body suburban. Seats and all.

I'm confused??

 

[Barrman]

I started with 3 pretty much complete Suburbans interior wise. 2 3/4 tons and a 1/2 ton. I built a 3/4 ton that had at least 200K miles on it and the interior was super nasty. Also, the wrong color. The other 3/4 ton had a blue interior that has good seats and carpet. That truck is my back up plan if I ever decide to build another one. Since I wasn't going to take parts from it, it became a storage unit for all the parts coming off the Cowdog.

The 1/2 ton had been wrecked in the front end but had less than 80K miles and a really, really nice interior. I couldn't store stuff in it while I was taking it all apart and I couldn't store stuff in the Cowdog while I was building it. So, the entire interior of the Cowdog got put into the other 3/4 ton. That means 2 sets of captains chairs, 2 middle row seats, door panels, head liners, quarter window metal trim, side panels, cargo door cards and window surrounds, all the exterior trim, dash, HVAC system and 3 3rd row seats since I had an extra. It all fit.

That make since?

 

[The FLU farm]

The storage capacity of a Suburban can be good and bad.
Someone may now buy mine (basically for the price of its Dynatrac Dana 60 rear axle) and if that happens I'll need to find space for quite a few parts.

 

[Barrman]

Chinese parts and I'm an idiot. I replaced the redux starter with a "new" O'Reilly's redux back in November. It spun very fast compared to the old worn out one. But, it still wasn't as fast as a 24 volt direct drive starter. About 2 weeks after installing it, it just clicked when I left a store one evening. 6 tries later and it fired up. Hmmm.

This started happening every 15-20 start attempts. Click, click, click, click, start. One of the incidents was in the O'Reilly's parking lot. I had them come out and witness it. Of course, it only failed to start once and then fired up.

I wanted the truck useable while they were waiting for a new replacement to get shipped. So, I took apart my original starter finally, cleaned it up, found glazed over brushes, broke the glaze and installed it. It worked, but it was noticeably slower spinning. I put the replacement for the replacement on a few days later and it was like the first replacement. Fast spinning, but not 24 volt fast. I think the first replacement unit had a defective solenoid. Full warranty so I just swapped them out.

We used the truck to do all our holiday travels and it worked great for long distance travel with several people in really nice comfort. Except, the oil drip on the front. I still can't see any oil around the front main seal but it is dripping from that area. Onto the axle which spreads it out to make a line of drips where I park after driving a few hundred miles at speed.

Oh, after the cruise stopped working back in December, I unplugged the harness under the hood and plugged it back in. Flawless ever since. I don't know.

21° was the coldest morning we had during our "winter." Kind of slow turning, but fired up and ran perfect. Then this week it was in the 50's and I noticed slower than normal starting Tuesday morning. Tuesday afternoon I watched the volt meter during the glow plug cycle. Normally, it will go down to 11.4 on the TCM display for the glow plugs before starting. I was at 9.1 volts. Uh oh, bad battery. I didn't have time to stop and have O'Reilly's load test them so they could exchange the still under warranty batteries that day. 9.1 volts again yesterday morning and really slow crank. Same thing leaving work yesterday going to O'Reilly's.

I got them to come out with their tester and he told me I had to separate them. They can only test the batteries by themselves. I didn't like that because of my radio, gauge and TCM memory. I have the passenger battery big lead going to the starter. A 4 gauge wire from the passenger battery to the alternator and the passenger battery ground to the frame. The drivers battery big lead goes to the passenger battery with a 2 gauge wire going to my auxiliary fuse panel which is constant and switched power to all my stuff. The drivers ground goes to the engine block.

When doing the starter replacements, I only undid the passenger side battery. The big lead from the drivers side battery I put inside a glove to keep it from sparking, but never messed with the drivers battery terminals on the battery. Yesterday while thinking what to unhook so they could test each battery, I just happened to grab the drivers battery negative terminal and it was loose. Like finger tight about to fall off the side post loose. I told them to hold on, I am just an idiot, got a 5/16 wrench and tightened it down. I tried the starter and it might be as fast as a 24 volt now.

I can't remember the last time I even looked at that terminal, much less had a wrench on it. Probably back in May when I still had the truck in my class before the first test drive. So, it really does all come back to what we all tell new people trying to get a truck running right. Check your grounds! Don't be an idiot also helps.

I still need to put on the Heath water pump that has basically been ported to flow even to both sides and their spin on fan clutch. I think a new balancer and balancer pulley along with a new front main seal will all be part of that repair so I need to save a bit more money up to buy those expensive Delco parts. Probably next month.

That will also eliminate just about all the parts that were not replaced with new during the initial build. That is about all the problems I have had with the truck except for the normal for 1980's GM power lock and power window units not being fast or always working. I am experimenting with different kinds of lubricant to help them out. Might be a direct power relay install for the slow windows in my future. But, I don't feel like pulling the door panels off yet again right now.

 

[peglegwillie]

All the luck in the working on this great build. Still slowly edging my way on T3 1986 M1009 surprising things you find after being told otherwise keep showing the work be a great vehicle once built !!!

 

[Barrman]

Thank you.

This morning was 30°. I drove a M1009 to go workout and then the Cowdog to work. If I didn't know the Cowdog was 12 volt, I would not notice the difference in cranking speed. It is now that slight. I am finally gaining confidence in going anywhere with it.

I actually cancelled reservations for my Trail Life group for this weekend at Guadalupe Mountains National Park Tuesday. We have to have 10 people for the group site and whatever bug going around the schools has knocked out most of the kids. I wasn't really bothered by not going because with the starter not right, I was not going to drive the truck 10 hours out into the middle of nowhere with a strong winter storm coming. Now that the starter is what I consider good. I am wanting to go. Besides the sick kids. Only a few of us have the gear for 0° camping though which was really the other reason we put the trip off. Maybe later.

 

[Barrman]

The GEP engine was sold according to the tag on the can as an "overheat" engine. I pulled the heads, did new head gaskets and new heads. I also pulled the oil pan to check the bearings. The rear main seal and the front main seal were not replaced. There was no evidence of oil leakage at either end. That was 2 years ago.

I had no leaks of any kind from the engine while it was run in my class. It wasn't until about 1,500 miles into driving it that I saw a drip. It was under the front of the engine. I went looking for the source and found the 2" long hose between the Banks Turbo oil return metal line and the Banks fuel pump mount plate oil return metal tubing. I replaced that hose with a silicone turbo oil return hose made for some Tuner type turbo application. The balancer and the area around it all looked dry.

4,000 miles later and I still have oil dripping. I actually had it dripping from points all across the front axle after driving 130 miles at 75 mph on Christmas to see family. Very little oil was used though, it just looked like a lot coming out. I can't find evidence of the front main seal leaking, but that really is the only other source of oil up front besides the fuel pump mount itself.

Another thought I kept having was the CDR. It was a new CUCV 6.2 non turbo CDR. Lots of frustration searching for differences in the CDR over the 6.? production run finally lead me to believe the turbo CDR has a different spring inside. I finally got around to installing a valve cover mount turbo CDR last week. Since I don't have the CDR valve cover, I had to get creative with how it was installed, but it is now on.

I did 250 miles Tuesday in the truck. About 50 of those miles were below 40 mph because of the ice. The rest of the time was at 65 or above. Some of it into an extreme head wind. Normally, I have 1.5 pounds of boost to run 70-75 mph on flat ground. I was pushing 5 psi of boost to hold 65 against the wind. I could have gone faster, but didn't want to push the truck that hard. EGT was 600° to 700°. Engine coolant was right at the thermostat. 24° outside air does make it run happy.

I had done the CDR change and reroute the day before. I also topped off the oil. I saw two little bitty drops under the differential cover once the entire day. I didn't clean the under side of the truck when I swapped CRD valves, so it might just be left over from before. No oil was used according to the dip stick when I checked it yesterday.

I have to do 130 miles tomorrow and I will keep looking and checking. I just can't believe I waited this long to swap the CDR in or that nobody else seems to have had this same issue. Maybe my front main seal is the cause and the cold weather just is masking it. I will try and find out.

Getting closer and closer to a leak free, every day dependable go anywhere with confidence and not a bed full of gear truck.

 

[M813rc]

I did 250 miles Tuesday in the truck. About 50 of those miles were below 40 mph because of the ice.

Knowing why you drove those miles on Tuesday, I thank you. It meant a lot to me to see you there. And to the others you visited.

Cheers

 

[Barrman]

I’m just sorry I couldn’t make it Sunday as well Rory.