07Burb's 1990 Square Suburban

[07Burb]

Picked her up today. Drive her five hours home from Waterloo, Iowa to south of KC. Overall did well. Discovered a leaky radiator up in Des Moines. We did the right thing and closed the hood, pretended we didn’t see that and bombed our way home she did good! I now have a aluminum radiator, hose and tstat ordered to fix the issue.

Here are the details I know.

1990 Suburban R1500 350/700r4
112k on the clock
I’m the fourth owner
Rust free other than SUPER minor spots along the edge of the rockers and the driver front inner fender well has a hole in it and some scale on the frame from midwest winters. Nothing major.
Wheels are 20x8.5 Riddler on Falken rubber (245/45 front, 275/40 rear)

For those that aren't familiar with these this rig has rear heat and no roof rack from the factory. Both are very unusual for the time which adds to the cool factor a little bit more.

Plans (for the moment)
Fix/replace speedometer
Fresh set of headlights, parking lamps and tails
POR15 underside
Scoping out some winter wheels/tires
Tint
Replace body mounts
Replace helper bags

 

[07Burb]

 

[randeez]

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holy ****
that thing is clean

 

[89Suburban]

I vote white steelies for the winter rims like you have on your old '77. And that's what I had on my mirrored red Burby.


How are the inner rear wheel wells looking at the seams over the tires??

 

[07Burb]

I vote white steelies for the winter rims like you have on your old '77. And that's what I had on my mirrored red Burby.


How are the inner rear wheel wells looking at the seams over the tires??

Steelies for some reason hadn’t even thought about that. I’d tossed around rallies but not steelies. That might be a pretty decent idea

Inner wheel wells are good body mount rubbers should be replaced and underside undercoated with POR15 but otherwise the underside is solid

 

[bigdog9191999]

But why drive it in the winter!

 

[07Burb]

But why drive it in the winter!

Cuz I ain’t rich enough to have multiple “nice weather only” vehicles

 

[bigdog9191999]

When I get that far, I just have some that I swap the plate and is summer/winter only vehicle

 

[07Burb]

Ordered an Aluminum radiator and hoses off Rock Auto. That order should arrive either Wednesday or Thursday
About to order up some new gauges (Dakota Digital HDX) and some replacement helper bags. Hope to have that stuff ordered by the end of the day.


I guess there goes that idea of not needing to tinker with it much

 

[George B]

I am jelly as phuk!

 

[Joseph Garcia]

What a gorgeous find!! Congratulations.

 

[07Burb]

What a gorgeous find!! Congratulations.

Thank you, sir

 

[89Suburban]

How is the AC system?

 

[07Burb]

How is the AC system?

Works and is cool but it’s not as cold as it should be. Think it needs a recharge. Also, the rear fan is a bit noisy especially on high. I think it may need an adjustment. Sounds like the fins on the fan are contacting something.

 

[Sparksalot]

Works and is cool but it’s not as cold as it should be. Think it needs a recharge. Also, the rear fan is a bit noisy especially on high. I think it may need an adjustment. Sounds like the fins on the fan are contacting something.

Has it been converted to 134a?

 

[89Suburban]

Works and is cool but it’s not as cold as it should be. Think it needs a recharge. Also, the rear fan is a bit noisy especially on high. I think it may need an adjustment. Sounds like the fins on the fan are contacting something.

That's the only downer on these square Burby's. Hopefully you can go over it and make it well. Those rear A/C units ALWAYS made that noise for me as well. Need to pull the cowl and check things out. Clean it out in there.

 

[07Burb]

That's the only downer on these square Burby's. Hopefully you can go over it and make it well. Those rear A/C units ALWAYS made that noise for me as well. Need to pull the cowl and check things out. Clean it out in there.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure my 87 was the same. Sometime in the next few weeks I'll find some time to do some investigating.

Another weak point of squares is their power window system. I will need to check that out, too. I know that the motors are new according to the previous owner but it's still not great. I may switch this over to manual windows like I did with the dually depending on what I find when I get a chance to dig into it.

 

[07Burb]

Has it been converted to 134a?

I don't know yet. I would bet it has. It would blow my mind if it had made it 32 years, still work and never have been converted at this point. But I could be surprised. Haven't had a chance to dig into that either

 

[07Burb]

Ordered an Aluminum radiator and hoses off Rock Auto. That order should arrive either Wednesday or Thursday
About to order up some new gauges (Dakota Digital HDX) and some replacement helper bags. Hope to have that stuff ordered by the end of the day.


I guess there goes that idea of not needing to tinker with it much

Gauges and helper bags ordered tonight. I’m being told that the gauges may take a couple of months but that’s ok.

Also rear, has some Belltech nitro drop shocks. I’m going to throw those in the trash and replace them with some stock size Bilsteins with shock extenders when I replace the bags.

FedEx says radiator and hoses should show up Friday. Plan is to knock that out Friday so that I can get to driving it again this weekend.

Still scoping out winter tire/wheel setups

 

[07Burb]

13 yr old has asked to help with install so we’ll tackle that today or tomorrow