Noob with a suburban.

[Rocfrog]

Thought I would introduce my self and my suburban....

here is my post from another forum....didn't want to retype it all out. 

Thought since I was going to try and get my Suburban back on the road I would start a thread for it and share with you guys.

This is my 1980 Chevy Suburban that my dad bought brand new in Germany when we were stationed over there. It has been in the family ever since and I became the new ower of it about 11 years ago when he passed away. I drove it for a few years and then between the gas cost and not really needing it (I also think I developed a knock of some sort, don't really remember) I decided to park it. The tags have an '03 registration so it's been sitting since at least then. Well long story short I've had very bad luck with cars lately and decided that it would be cool to get "The Beast" back on the road!

So after some creative winching and towing on Saturday I got it up in the driveway...


Here is how dirty the engine is....


After that is was the wife's birthday this weekend so we went out, and I got back to it on Sunday....

I had it sitting on the battery charger all night and it wouldn't start, well the starter solinoid would click rapidly but that's about it. So I figured that the engine had some surface rust in it and needed to be freed, so I put my oldest son to work (passing on the tradition. :chevy: ) and he got it to rotate a few times but when I turned the key it still just clicked. So I figure I need to drop the starter and bench test it. So I decided to break out the pressure washer and give it a good rinseing off!

Here's some more pics of it cleaned off....










Here are some interior shots....over the years it became extra seats storage..






and here is a pic of the boys working on it....



So hopefully here soon I'll have it back on the road and I can start fixing it up!

This is what I would like it to look like when I have the time and money! Obviously with the stock Maroon and white paint theme instead of the blue here...


My dad never wanted to change or modify anything on the truck as much as I asked him to so I think a completely stock looking truck with my touch to it would be a cool tribute.

Nick

Nick

[Rocfrog]

So fast forward to today and I have been working on it for the past two weeks trying to get it to just crank. We have tried three starters, two batteries, no plugs, oil in the cylinders, mystery oil in the cylinders.....it cranks by hand with a breaker bar on the crank pulley but its a lot of work with a regular ratchet. When I try with the key it seems like its trying but it just sounds like there is not enough "power/torque" to turn it over....

Here's a couple of pics from this past weekend...





Nick

[81_Chevy]

since it was sitting so long you might have corroded cables going to your starter from the battery, thats a usual problem for slow/no turning over.

-Nic

[Rocfrog]

since it was sitting so long you might have corroded cables going to your starter from the battery, thats a usual problem for slow/no turning over.

-Nic

I went thru all the cables and cleaned them up, I also hooked my battery charger directly up to the starter and "bench tested" it in the motor, with out the truck wires hooked up....and it did the same thing....

Nick

[Rocfrog]

Well last night we had MAJOR progress! The truck RAN!!! not under it's own power and it does have a bad knock but it ran!!

I had a buddy come over and help me double check everything and after we rechecked everything with no change, we took the "inspection cover" off the bell housing to see what the starter was do (or rather not doing) and we noticed that it was engaging the fly wheel but not turning the motor, and at this point we had ruled out any issues with the motor because now it could freely move when we turned it by hand at the flywheel. So after trying two different starters with lots of different shims and such with no change, he decided we should check the voltage at the starter while I was turning the key to start it, and it dropped below 3volts! So the battery and my little battery charger were not putting out enough "cranking amps" to turn over that big motor, and we determined that the battery out of my Daily Driver was for a V6 and not a V8 so it also didn't have enough Cranking Amps to turn it over. So my buddy had driven down his big rock crawler so we pulled the battery out of it and gave it a try, and sure enough the motor cranked!!!! Well at that point I was super excited and decided to throw the plugs back in and see if it would start/run. Well after a few trys it really wanted to! We dumped some fresh gas down the carb and it kept trying, so I got a can of starting fluid and we could keep it running while he sprayed that down the carb and I keep the key cranked. It smoked out the neighborhood but it was running, sort of.

So now I'm going to disconnect the fuel lines at the carb and pressurize the tank to see if I can get the fuel up to the pump and once that is cleaned out I'll check the fuel lines at the carb and then check the carb it's self. Then once I find a good used battery I'll try it all again. Once I have it running on it's own I'll drain the oil and figure out where the "knock" is coming from.

Nick

[Tx_Phil]

Congrats on getting the motor spinning.
Since you will be doing a lot of work on this truck I would recommend spending just a little more and changing out the lead from the battery to the starter.  My 87 suburban gave me fits at first.  It would start and run and then nothing, not power to the headlights or anything.  The next time I tried it it would try to spin the motor once and then nothing again.  Ended up being corrosion way down inside the battery cable.

It's kind of a long read but here's my post on the issue
http://forum.73-87chevytrucks.com/smforum/index.php/topic,24599.msg205363.html#msg205363

[Rocfrog]

I have not been able to get back to this project lately, between bad weather and my sons band competitions there just hasn't been time. But I will add battery cables to the list of things to replace.

Nick