Thread: '51 suburban school bus to show burb

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We got rid of stock gas tank which filled on the pass side and put an alum tank under the frame in the back. The fill on it came out on the drivers side so a fill door had to be put in the fender. The bad thing about this is here in california with the big black rubber recover thing on the gas hose makes it a lot of fun putting gas in this girl... didn't know this until we made our first trip to the gas station...

Well as you see the front fender on the pass side did not line up with the hood as good as it did on the drivers side.. we went as far as buying a cherry fender and getting it sand blasted and it fit worse than the one that came on the burb. It looked like something crushed the peak of the fender and took some of sharp peak out of it.. so i just cut it close to the hood where i thought the new peak should be and welded it up.. in the end it came out nice.

Well when it come to trying to hide some of the wiring and radio along with the air ride brain and all the relays that go with it we had fun.. Lucky for us there is a hole under the drivers seat because it sits up on a raised part for some reason and gave us just enough room to cram and the stuff in there... under the dash was pretty much filled up with fuse block and a/c unit..

It seemed like the old factory lead was cracking and starting to lift so i talked to the guy who was going to do the paint and body work and he wanted all the lead removed and patch metal welded in so no bondo would be 1/2" thick, so that what we it. It was cracked and the water has gotten under it and started to rust and that was pushing the lead out.. would have been a bad deal if it would have pushed out that $$$$$$ paint job..

Well we're getting close, a trip to the muffler shop for some pipes and then the break down for a trip to the power coater for some parts and get the frame all welded up and cleaned up so it can get some power too...

Frame and parts back from the coater and starting to go back together so the body can get off to the painter.. wrapped up and packed for the trip south to get some paint of it..

While the body was in so. calif. for paint and body work the motor and trans got painted.. The car was gone for 6 months for paint and body work and the real fun begins when we get it back.. Will tell the story and lies told a little later...

Originally Posted by parkwood

Will tell the story and lies told a little later...

HMmmmmmm... can't wait!

Just read through the entire thread. Sounds familiar As I'm a lone wolf, so I'm not quite that far along. Nice to get a forecast of some of the issues (wiring) that I've yet to encounter

Nice work!!

Just a few pictures the owners took while it was in the body shop in So.Calif. My friend down there wood grained the dash and window moldings while it was getting painted and then it was all cleared over.. turned out great.. it also had about 6 gals. of Lizard skin sprayed in side..

This first picture of the suburban getting unloaded was taken on Oct. 11th 2010.. the lying and false hopes started almost a year early. Our little group of friends were sitting around at the Goodguys show in Del Mar Ca. at the end of the year '09 and i put out the idea that i would like to put the suburban in the Grand National Roadster Show in Jan of 2011, but i didn't want the owners to know anything about it.. At that time they kept asking how much longer it would take to get it done and i kept telling them that with a little luck they could drive it to the GG's show at Del Mar '11 around April.. So me and the guy who helps me got to work on the sub full time the first of '10 and got it to the paint shop in April of '10.. like i said it was at the paint shop for 6 months and we got it back in Oct. '10 which gave us 3 months to put it completely together.. from the day we unloaded it we worked 7 days a week 8 or more hours a day.. of all the time we had it was at the glass shop 2 weeks getting the glass installed, and at the interior shop for 3 weeks so that didn't leave us but about 2 months to get it running.. everything went good but for the transmission which the owner had built in So. Calif. and they put the wrong torque converter, when we got it running and put in gear it wanted to die because of the stall speed of the converter... it spent two days at the transmission shop getting that replaced.. tell you more as the pictures come out..

Like i said before the sub has air ride and this kit came with two tanks and two pumps. On the sub between the frame and the rockers is a lot of wasted space so that is were we mounted the tanks and pumps, one on each side and hooked them together so both pumps could fill the tanks together... we also but the metering block for the bags under the frame on a flip down panel just it case it need to be worked on.. while this was going on we shipped the seat frames off the the power coater for some color.. We installed power windows using the switch's that you can use a window handles on making it look like you have roll up windows.

It had to go to the interior shop for 3 days to have the head liner installed before we could put the glass in.. to round out the top Shawn screwed thin plywood to the roof and rounded the corners out with sheet metal, after that glued foam to it and sanded it all down to make it smooth and the corners flow nice... he called it a one piece head liner but the thing was so big it's seamed in the middle and comes all the way down to the bottoms of the side windows... lot of work in just head liner.. then it set 2 weeks at the glass shop getting the glass installed... mean while we were pacing the floor...

The first picture taken of the motor was taken on Dec 10th which left us about 5 weeks to get this thing done and it still need the interior installed... had to paint a few parts that didn't get painted by the body shop, steering wheel and the parts for the grill. also complete the wiring so it would run...

Getting the sun visor installed without screwing anything up... made it...