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Meet Tatanka, my 99 Suburban K1500

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  • Got a little excited when putting the first one in place, just look at all the shininess!

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    • I had started repeatedly dousing everything with PB Blaster the day before. The first 3 went easy as pie, if not very quickly. Just took my time and no problems.

      The last one... Oh that little #$%! just had to screw up. The rear shock is held to the frame by 2 bolts going through C-clamps. Well, one of the C-clamps broke. It was bedtime and I had to be at work in the morning. OK, put that one back together and just deal with it for the moment. Man that makes for a weird ride...

      Finally got back to it and ended up cutting the head of the bolt off. There was just no room to move and a Dremel barely fit.

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      Drilled out the little bit of the head that was left and finally got the damn thing free. Took quite a bit longer than I expected and about 9 or 10 cutting discs from the Dremel. Which meant I was now late to meet my fiancee, grandkids, brother, sister, and brother in law for dinner. Luckily I got in touch with everyone, and they're used to me running behind.

      No shock it is.

      Now it REALLY handles weird. I feel like I'm in a 90's rap video with the 3 wheel motion going on.

      Got back to it the next day and got the accursed C-clips replaced.

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      Now I finally have all 4 brand new shocks!!!

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      My baby feels like a whole new buffalo now. A little stiff, but she is a truck well over 5000 pounds. I can deal with it. Feel sooooo much better and more civilized now.


      Last edited by tedly; July 31, 2020, 09:37 PM.
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      • Hit the hood latch, hinges, door latches and hinges with some Blaster to loosen them up. I'll hit them with lithium grease soon. Made a nice difference, everything is smoother. I'm trying to keep the momentum going by doing little things in between bigger projects. All the little things add up and give me more motivation.

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        Last edited by tedly; August 1, 2020, 08:25 PM.
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        • Almost forgot, with the $65 for the shocks total now comes to $2477.
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          • Originally posted by tedly View Post

            New U joints are on the menu soon, as well as mounts. Thinking about having the driveshaft balanced but that might be overkill.

            The vibrations seem to come from road feedback more than drivetrain, but it could be that I'm just used to the drivetrain vibrations. Road feed back is up because everything was like a wet dishrag before, the feedback either got lost or dissipated out. At least that's what I'm thinking. However, you should refer to my signature line...
            as with anything - what I tend to say is what I've had direct experience with.... if it helps, great, if not, full refunds for the advice are available :D
            Doing it all wrong since 1966

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            • Just got back from another 6 hour round trip. For the most part all is well and all the improvements are really paying off. Some things are becoming obvious:

              1. These shocks are stiff! I'm guessing they are meant for pickups/haulers as opposed to people carriers like the higher end Suburbans. Again, I will happily live with them, it is worlds better than the old ones. I can see replacing them with some better (and probably considerably more expensive) ones once I get her to a point I'm comfortable with the overall mechanical condition though.

              2. Something is definitely going on in that right front suspension. I need to take a real good look at it soon. There is a weird intermittent vibration coming from it, and the way that one tire was worn a lot more... There's a dead spot in the steering so I'm thinking idler arm, but might also be the wheel bearing. More to come on that soon.

              3. As things are getting repaired and tightened up, it not just that minor annoyances are becoming more noticeable because the overall condition has improved, some are actually being amplified to the point they are going to need attention soon or cause other problems. This is turning into a hell of an exercise of diagnostics and triaging. I'm liking it though, and really getting some pride from fixing her up and keeping her going, even if most of it is just basic neglected maintenance so far and not hot rodding. Every day I drive it I smile, and I've really missed the satisfaction this stuff brings. It's good to be able to do this again, I've been away far too long.

              There is definitely more to come soon.
              Last edited by tedly; August 2, 2020, 08:52 PM.
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              • Quick update. Tatanka made the 14 hour trip from Wisconsin to Virginia with only minor-ish problems. I did my best to get pictures of the roadside repair and will post soon, got to edit the pics first. Been insanely busy and crazy but things are calming down now and finally getting caught up with unpacking and organizing. Should be reporting back regularly soon.
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                • Ok, so maybe almost 2 years later isn't soon... Whatever.

                  So we're deep in the hills of Kentucky, the largely rural areas. It starts raining a little so I flip on the wipers. Shortly after that the drivers side wiper arm decides this has all been entirely to much to bear and does a dramatic flop onto the A pillar and stays there. Passenger wiper arm? No problem, it's trucking right along. Drivers? Nowhere to be found. Probably means the wiper transmission is screwed

                  Oh this is fun.

                  Pulled off the next exit that had a gas station sign by it to assess the damage.

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                  Luckily I left a basic toolkit handy. It wasn't much, but I could pop the arms off and get the cowling out of the way to see what was happening.

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                  I still couldn't see much and the sky was starting to clear up, so we waited to see what would happen as I put the cowl back and the passenger arm back.

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                  It cleared up not too long after I got it put back together, so we took the opportunity and made a break for it. If we hit more rain we'd deal with it then.

                  Somehow we made it the rest of the way to our new rental house with no more rain. Talk about luck.

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                  • First chance I got after unloading the stuff and locating my tools, I dug back in to figure out what the hell happened. Yanked the arms and the cowl cover back off. and found that the transmission had come off the motor. Interesting. Never seen this before. No bushings, just metal to metal. Each side has a separate connection point, which explains why only the drivers side came off.

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                    Time to pull everything out and get a better look. The ball attachment point on the motor seems to be intact and has wear expected of a 20 year old part, but no real damage.

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                    • The transmission side of the connection was a different story. It's held on by a clamshell/clamp type deal, and over the last 21 years the metal had deformed just enough to allow the ball to pop out.

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                      Since it was only bent a little and not broken, I tried flattening it back and seeing if it would still hold.

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                      I think it worked.

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                      Greased up all the pivot points, threw it back together, and 2 years later not a single problem. They even function better now.

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                      Cost: An afternoon out in the sun but no money.
                      Last edited by tedly; June 20, 2022, 08:30 PM.
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                      • Originally posted by SuperBuickGuy View Post
                        vibrations tend to come from the driveshaft. If you put it in neutral (engine idling), do you still have the same vibration? on high-mile vehicles, especially 4x4s, bad motor mounts (trans too) can cause that issue.
                        So it appears SBG was right.

                        I almost forgot to include this next bit of fun, so this is a little out of order. This happened days before we were leaving for Virginia, so it was before the wiper took a swan dive. When I say days, I mean single digit numbers, less than a week and I think only 3 or so days before moving day. Something started making a hell of a racket and suddenly had massive driveline vibrations. I limped it back to the house and threw it up on jacks. Grabbed the driveshaft and I could turn it quite a bit back and forth before the diff yoke or trans yoke would turn.

                        U-joints.

                        Absolutely no way Tatanka is driving more than 12 hours straight unless I change them. No possible way, I doubt it would even make the drive into town. This is going to be all kinds of fun.

                        OK, to change the U joints you need to take off the strap retainers at the pinion yoke and slide the trans yoke out, removing the whole driveshaft. It is so much easier to do this on a bench than trying to do it under the truck. You'll need a drain pan under the trans tailshaft and you'll lose some fluid, but no biggie.

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                        Note to self: Do not try to rush a job on a 21 year old truck that's spent it's entire life in Wisconsin. Just don't. It never ends well. You know better, don't be that guy.

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                        Yep. I was that guy.

                        I sure hope I can get the rest of that bolt out of the pinion yoke or this is going to SUCK. The other 3 I took my time with and they came out no problem. Time to soak the caps for a minute.

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                        • One way to remove Ujoints is to support the driveshaft on a sturdy surface so it can't move, put an old socket that's just smaller than the cap on top of it, then whack the @#$! out of it with a BFH.

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                          If this fails, heat it with a torch, then beat it with the BFH again.

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                          Now lets see those bearings. It's been so long that I don't remember which was where, but that's not really that important. Here's the important part: Seeing exactly how bad these things were.

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                          I got very lucky Tatanka didn't leave me stranded on the interstate or a back country mountain highway in the middle of nowhere. VERY lucky.
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                          • Originally posted by tedly View Post
                            One way to remove Ujoints is to support the driveshaft on a sturdy surface so it can't move, put an old socket that's just smaller than the cap on top of it, then whack the @#$! out of it with a BFH.

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                            If this fails, heat it with a torch, then beat it with the BFH again.

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                            Now lets see those bearings. It's been so long that I don't remember which was where, but that's not really that important. Here's the important part: Seeing exactly how bad these things were.

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                            I got very lucky Tatanka didn't leave me stranded on the interstate or a back country mountain highway in the middle of nowhere. VERY lucky.
                            Powder coated at it’s finest!

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                            • Used tapping a socket with the hammer and a C-clamp to get the new u-joints in and centered. I was careful that all the needle bearings stayed put and weren't damaged during installation.

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                              Now to the broken bolt in the dif yoke. I tried something new. Since the broken bolt was down in a recessed area, I put painters tape around the drill bit, leaving enough of the bit exposed so that an easy out would be able to get a bite. My thinking was that the tape would help center the bit and keep it from drifting or cutting at an angle and chewing the threads to hell. Actually worked decently too.

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                              cleaned out the area of metal shards to keep the piece from jamming on them. No idea if it was necessary but I really wanted to get the damn thing out and not replace the yoke.

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                              Well that didn't @#$!ing work like I wanted.

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                              I am so screwed.

                              Luckily I could get a new yoke from Napa next day. You know, the day before we HAVE to leave for a 12 hour drive.

                              This is going to be fun.

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                              At this point I stopped taking pictures because I just needed to get the damn thing done ASAP. I yanked the old yoke and put in the new one. I think I even used the same crush sleeve because I just did not have the time to try and find my torque wrench and figure out a way to keep the pinion stationary while it's torqued down. I had to do it by feel. This is not a method I would recommend at all, but luckily when I was trained how to swap gears in an 8.8 dif I was taught to tighten the pinion nut by feel. I got pretty good at it too with as many as we did. I set the load to roughly what an 8.8 called for, but this is not an 8.8. Big damn risk.

                              It worked though. It felt a little loose but did just fine on the trip and straight up until October when I started bigger projects on the big girl and then life got in the way for awhile.
                              Last edited by tedly; June 24, 2022, 06:19 PM.
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                              • So we've made it to Virginia and have moved into our new temporary place. We get a little settled in and then it's back to tweaking Tatanka. One thing that has always bugged me but was not a priority was the fact that none of the power locks worked. None. Combine that with the drivers exterior door handle breaking to the point that the key cylinder was pushing inside the door... I never kept anything valuable in it, when I was at work the truck was always visible, and at home we were in the middle of nowhere. Not a huge problem but more of an annoyance. Finally had enough and yanked the doors apart. We'll start with the handle. It was a pain in the ass to get out of the hole and I did scratch around it pretty badly. I'm not terribly concerned with this but if you are it would be a good idea to protect your paint before doing this.

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                                Here's the trashed door handle, every time I opened the door I was expecting to rip it out if I wasn't careful.

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                                Comparing the new against the old before installation. There are differences, but no functional ones. Should be no problems putting it back together.

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                                ​​​​​​​It's not going back in quite yet though. Got a few other issues to address first.
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