My wife's new GLC300 is inbound - the dealer called yesterday and said it had been unloaded at the port. So I did what any man married almost 20 years would do - ordered her WeatherTech Floor Liners for Valentine's day. Not only that, I went all out and got the Cargo Liner as well.
I know, I'm a hopeless romantic.
TL;DR - I should be bringing home a square body Suburban later today.
I've been wanting a square body Suburban for a while now. I started off looking for a 6.2 Diesel, but those are really hard to find, so I widened my scope to include gas. (Many have been swapped to better diesels instead of the 6.2 / 6.5 as well.) I also wasn't looking for a show or even perfect truck, and cheap ones were, well, cheap.
Yesterday I was browsing FB marketplace (instead of working) and found a potential. 1988 Suburban Silverado in light blue, 350 with a turbo 400 (pretty sure). Far from perfect with the front fender a bit crunched, but the rest of the body and the interior was in really good shape.
My brother in law went with me to check it out, and in person it presents about like the pictures. Engine and transmission were working great, but on the first stop the brake pedal went nearly to the floor. We got out and checked, and the front pot of the reservoir was completely empty, while the larger pot to closer to the firewall was fine. Luckily we were near an auto parts store so we picked up some brake fluid and topped it all off. The brakes got a little better, but clearly will need to at least be bled.
(Short aside - does anyone know which part of the reservoir serves which brakes? The pot to the front of the car, which was a smaller reservoir, was the one that had no fluid. Does that serve the front or rear brakes?)
Anyway, even with limited braking the driving experience was pure nostalgia. My first car was a 1982 6.2 Diesel Suburban, and this pulled at all the right heartstrings. I negotiated (not well, he took my first counter offer) to $3300 and I'm pretty happy with it given what square body prices are doing right now. I didn't have the cash, so I left a $100 with him and will go by today to pick it up.
There are lots of little things to fix - brakes, front fender, front door, get the AC working, headliner, a couple of cracked windows, small rust spots around the doors, and on, but most parts are REALLY cheap and available. I can get a whole new fender locally for $113. Even if I spend a couple thousand fixing those things up and i lose interest I can probably turn it back around and come close to break even.
Just look at it though, in all it's (un)aerodynamic glory. Did I need another Suburban? No. Did I need another project car? Nope. But I'm excited.
How can you look at the old school Suburban font on the rear and not just smile?
Well, if you followed the story arc so far, my wife put a deposit down on a MB GLC300 in min-January that was already on the boat in transit to the US.
Well, we picked it up today. Most important part first - she is thrilled.
Here is the sticker. We paid MSRP plus the ADM (disguised as ceramic coating). Am I thrilled about that? No. Do I think I could have gotten a better deal elsewhere? Possibly. But the dealership service from the first time we walked in was great, so my wife decided we weren't looking anymore.
The Lunar Blue paint is really nice. It shows a deep blue in the light, and then very dark in the shade or at night.
Of course I had to mod it already....
First mod for every car in my family.
Now we just need to sell her Pathfinder. We got the process started at Carvana, waiting now for them to review the documents so we can schedule a drop off and get a check.
I haven't even been able to drive it yet, but I'll post a review in the next week when I get to put a few miles on it.
It has been a while coming, but I finally got the squarebody painted last night (technically early this morning when we ended). And my “I”, I mean my brother in law did the painting. I was the shop assistant: mixing paint, managing air hoses, moving the stool around for rood coverage, and cleaning.
The relatively short version – I bought the squaebody back in March last year. If it wasn’t for the driver’s front fender, I would have left the patina, fixed rust, and cleared over what was there. But it was crunched so bad that when I replaced it I knew it would need to be painted.
After doing some small work (and LOTS of brake work) on it through the summer and early fall, I decided that it was time to tackle the paint. My brother in law has painted 3-4 cars, so I decided we would do it instead of sending it to a shop. Initially I was hoping we would get it done over the holidays, but COVID took that opportunity away.
As you can imagine, sanding took a LONG time. It didn’t help that the roof had clearly been painted at least three times; getting through that was tough. We definitely didn’t get it perfect, there places where we got to bare metal, and places where we only got through two coats….but thankfully it is up high an almost no one will see it.
In addition, there were 3 rust spots that needed metal work (again, my BIL) along with the body work to fix the doors on the driver's side. Two rust spots were on the drip rails, and one on the rear quarter. When he got those fixed and body work done earlier this week, the race was on to get it painted before a cold front blew in either late Friday or early Saturday.
Friday afternoon I was able to get work done early so we could get to the paint store and get painting about 4. We wrapped up clear around 1am, and while it was starting to cool off we beat the front, and the humidity it was pushing in as well.
The one surprise was the gray – it went on with a heavy copper tone that I wasn’t expecting. In the natural light today it looks more like I expected, closer to a gunmetal.
Other than a number of runs in the clear it looks really great. Definitely better than I would have expected from a base Maaco job, but not perfect. What I like about it is that for any imperfection I see I have one person to hold accountable – me.
After sleeping in until 10, I was back over today and we started to put the squarebody back together. Door handles, mirrors, grill, and all the other parts that we took off now have to go back on. In addition I have a bunch of new stuff – paint stripes, lower belt trim, taillight lenses, barn door weatherstripping, felt around all the windows, door handle gaskets, rear quarter windows, and the list goes on.
I’m hoping to get it buttoned up enough tomorrow that I can get it back home, since it has been taking up space in my BIL’s garage since early December.
Once I get the exterior done, then I can start in on the interior. The good news on that front is I can do it in pieces and drive it in between.
Drove the squarebody to work today. While there is still a lot to do, the progress so far is amazing.
Unfortunately I can't find any "before" pictures of the interior door panels, but here is the after. I agonized for a while about what to do with the panels. I could spend $300-$600 per pair of panels to replace them, but in the end I decided to stick with the ones I have for now.
Below is one panel after I think the first coat of paint, and the velour inserts before they were painted as well. And yes, I hot glued the fabric back on.
The top surfaces of the front door panels were so ravaged by the sun that the plastic was turning to powder. The velour inserts and the lower carpeting were dirty and faded. So I bought 3 cans of OEM color blue vinyl paint, grabbed a Scotch Brite Pad and some 320 grit sandpaper, and went to work.
I had to actually sand down the top portion of the front door panels to get a solid surface to clean and paint. That means the texture is no longer consistent across the panel, but it wasn't to begin with. Lots of elbow grease and about 6 coats of paint later, and the panels look great. I also cleaned and painted the velour inserts and lower carpet trim.
Putting it back together I bought two new door lock switches - and the power locks actually work! (Well, 3/4 work 95% of the time, the driver rear works about 25% of the time.) With all new window motors and felt / channels, I'm living in luxury with full power windows and locks. Silverado trim level FTW.
Certainly not new, but probably 70% as good for $70 total (so far).
I still need to figure out new Silverado trim for the upper parts. My BIL has some stainless laying around, so we may try that first. This weekend I'm hoping to get the wheels painted, then it will get some meaty AT tires.
Got the belt trim on the squarebody tonight, along with the drip rails and side emblems.
It is really coming together. If everything holds to plan I'll finally vacate my BIL's garage and bring it back home. There is still a LOT to do, starting with cleaning. There are layers of dust from sanding on the inside.
Then clean an paint the door panels, replace the two front window motors, then paint the wheels, then some chonky tires.
I'll pull together a longer post later, but excited right now to have the squarebody home.
It is a disaster on the interior, covered with dust, filled with door panels and other parts. And I need to check to make sure the barn door weatherstripping is good before I park it uncovered.
(And the bard doors still need to be repainted, and there is a light spot on the bottom of the driver's door, and....the list goes on.)
But it is home, looking great.
Continued progress on the squarebody, all the windows are now in.
The barn doors are probably going to have to be repainted, but not now. Major things left are the paint stripe, molding, and rear door window rubber.
Got the paint stripes installed last night. The immediate list of things to complete is getting shorter. The entire list could go on forever, and probably will as long as I own it, but the rate at which new things are done will slow dramatically.
I was able to install the stripes with OEM precision. Meaning on the passenger rear panel the stripe is as perfectly straight as the body line. I can definitely tell it isn't "perfect", but you have to be looking directly down the body to see it.
As with everything else on this project, I'm good with that. I can look back at all the imperfections and know I had one person to hold responsible - me.
@ForSweden Nutella and strawberry, Nutella banana and strawberry, Nutella and coconut, and Nutella raspberry and strawberry.
Walking down to get evening crepes with the family and walked by a meetup of some sort at the corner of Columbus and Green. Mostly low riders.
They were slightly annoying when they blocked traffic for a couple of minutes, but they cleared pretty quick after that.
Edit: Oh yeah, Mustang tried to do Mustang things, but thankfully the driver limited it to very minor tire squeal.
@Just-Jeepin Used ironically or not?
@bison78 Thanks for the tip on Muir Woods. We had seen tours but didn’t know that was the only way to go.
We are at one of the big Marriotts downtown.
@bison78 @ash78 @415s30 I’m thinking of getting a Turo to drive up to Muir Woods. We are going without a car on this trip, partly to teach my kids how to use public transportation, and not in small part due to rental car prices and the $80/ day parking at our hotel.
@415s30 Awesome, we are doing a Chinatown walking tour this morning, I’ll keep my eye out.
@beefchips Thanks, I generally dislike beaches but love hikes.
@bison78 No, just an evening trip out and back, not sleeping the cells.
@Roadkilled Yep. Pretty sure one of my 12 year old boys called the sea lions “fish”……
