My 1990 GMC Suburban CUCV clone AKA: M1007 or M1029

[K9Vic]

Lookin good K9 and thx for the additional close ups. Looks like it touches up just fine also. Are you going to paint the wheel wells too? What color if you are?

Thanks and your welcome on the pictures.

Touch up is a breeze with flat vehicles like this, if you scuff it just sand it down and paint it with a$1 foam brush.

Yes, wheel wells will be painted black and will also try to paint as much of the under side I can get to. It is a long process to clean that out, so I was planning on doing that soon. Allot of stuff to do, so like the last M1009 I worked on it will be months to get it all done.

A few iPhone pictures of the dash cleaned up, should have used my real camera but I tend to forget to use it when working on projects. Last two pictures are before I cleaned it and added new speakers.
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[K9Vic]

Update 11-01-12

I added the CUCV antennas and painted the door jams black. I still have to paint the antenna brackets, but they are in and set. Thank you to Blueduce for the one CUCV bracket, I did not use it on this but will be adding it to my M1009. The antennas I bought from beltfed34 a while back, finally was able to use them. I also have the shields that I will add, thanks to maddawg308.

The door jams I decided to paint them black as the house paint would take too long to paint and the spay gun will not cover it well. I think it looks OK, allot better over the white. Before paint I scuffed the paint and sanded out some of the tar that was on the doors. I did get a few runs, but I can sand those and repaint.

It is going to be a busy weekend, I plan to strip the interior and clean that and will paint it black as well. That will probably take a few days to get that all done.

From there I should be able to start driving it and get a set of tires from Tread Wright as the ones on it are dry rotted.
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[K9Vic]

Well I had a shocking surprise when I removed the rear A/C cover panel, found out there was a fire back that at one point in the past. Does not look like it was from the A/C unit as there are no melted wires or any signs of damage inside the unit. There are also two scared marks in the front of the inside roof. I never saw anything on the outside like welding holes or something. All I can think of is that maybe they had something there before or put something in the back that caught on fire. Either way I am going to have to keep an eye on that unit and run back to the junk yard for the inside vent. The rear A/C works just fine and would have never know the fire was there if I did not remove the panels.

Anyone have any ideas from looking at these pictures?

The clean up continues, this is the worst part about working on these x-city vehicles as that are always so freaking dirty inside. I spend days just cleaning them, but when it is done they look and smell like new.

Second to last picture is the used panel I got from the junk yard that I painted satin black. Plan is to change over the interior to black as that is the general colour from LMC for replacement parts.

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[FireFighterHill]

Cant tell what started the fire, but if you can find a replacement at the junk yard id replace the housing and EVAP coil. its effeciency is going to go down from the melted plastic in the fins.

 

[rivcrazy2000]

I like your headlights, are they H.I.D. or just standard halogen? I got some Silverstars and want something brighter. How do they compare to sealed beam?

 

[K9Vic]

I like your headlights, are they H.I.D. or just standard halogen? I got some Silverstars and want something brighter. How do they compare to sealed beam?

No HID would be illegal to install.
They are just H4 headlights in glass housings from LMC truck with the headlight harness to take the load off the fuse panel. They are very bright over Silver Star lights that I have used in the past. So that will tell you they are allot better over stock sealed beams. You have to use the relay harness and the whole set is about $100 less shipping. I have these in all my trucks and well worth the money for the added safety.

 

[TBob]

If you end up needing a new rear AC unit, I pulled mine from the 91 Sub, and have it stored. I won't be reinstalling it, so it's available...shipping might be an issue. I still have the cover as well.
I also have the front AC compressor, I removed it and installed a delete pulley. Everything functioned when it was removed.

 

[K9Vic]

Allot going on with the Suburban since I last posted and put on about 100 miles driving it around town to just get a feel of it between projects. It drives and sounds great and tracks perfect with no sway to one side and is tight. Seems the city did take good care of it and only found one issue where they got lazy. I changed out the glow plugs and the passenger side 3 of them were slightly swollen and all looked original, but the driver side looked replaced (Picture, first 4 on left are pass side, next 4 are driver). I did not have to use my GP tool to get them out, but they took some extra care to remove. After that the truck started fine as it did have a slight problem on the last few cold days, but is all good now.

I also added the antenna brush guards and some 265/75R16 Treadwright Warden tires. These are the same tires I have on my M1031 and they are retreads that are just like the BF Goodrich TA off road tires, but only $110 each. They are great tires and smooth ride and fixed my issues with sloppy driving as the old tires are from 2005 and all dry rotted. In addition I put my 10K winch on the front that was on my M1031, but is not wired yet. It is the design that another SS member came up with using parts from Harbor Fright. I think it adds a meaner look to it and gives it more of the appearance of a 4X4 when it is just a 2500 2wd.

Saturday the inside gets Line-X (Edit 11-17-2012 It is Bullet Liner, I noted Line-X as this is the old product the shop used) from front to back and is about the same price as buying the rubber floor mats, but it 10x better where it will really cut down on road noise. I did this with the last M1009 I sold and looks great when it is done. As this is to be based on a military truck, no fancy carpet and easy to clean the floors. The rubber mats hold water under them and rust, I spent about 2 days just stripping down the surface rust that was there. No holes, but allot of small rust spots that had to be cleaned before it got lined. I will add those pictures after I get it back on Monday.

Well here are a few pictures, still have to get that door replaced but hopefully my parts run Saturday will take care of that. Have a lead on a base suburban with blue interior and cargo doors that I will strip as much as I can. It is really hard to find a base suburban, as in one that has manual windows and not ratted out.

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[K9Vic]

Pictures of the floor from dirty to clean. The rear cargo area was stripped down, but did not get a picture of it before it got dark, but you can see what I was dealing with on the small rust spots. This thing was really dirty, but it is all clean now. I have to scuff a few more spots before I take it to the Liner guy in the morning, but should only take about an hour. He said bare metal is better for the liner, so there is no need to put any primer down.

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[Awol]

I love the idea of a CUCV Burb. Im gonna steal your house painting technique for my rig

 

[jbingvtx]

I love the old school AeroDynic light bar on the pickup.

 

[wallew]

G,

I suggest two pair of buckets. Talk to Mike Oliver. I just picked up two pair of brand new HEMMT seats for a great price. Drop by and see what I'm talking about as I'm going to put them in mine.

Love what you've done so far. Keep it up.

j

 

[forest522]

AWOL has a good point, that paint job does look good! I bet touch up and scratch filling is easier too!

 

[K9Vic]

wallew,
I do know about the seats, but not sure if I want to go wit them. I would have to see how they would look before I would go that route. I just got a nice cloth bench seat to replace the really dirty one it came with, so right now I am good with a bench seat.

I love the old school AeroDynic light bar on the pickup.

I have about 10 of them all the old school ones with the synchronized gears from 44" to 52" models. The AeroDynic is my favorite old school lightbar. I will likely be putting my all light 52" amber on this Suburban.

AWOL has a good point, that paint job does look good! I bet touch up and scratch filling is easier too!

It is, but when you get a new gallon the colour mix is not always perfect match due to the limitations of the mixing machine. I go to the same Home Depot, but my second gallon was just a little darker. You can slightly see the difference, but yes touch up is simple and easy. It may also be that over time it will fade slightly, so it may equal out over a few weeks as it drys more. This is not my idea on the house paint, but I have painted many vehicles in the past with a roller and high foam brush with Rustoleum paint, the pickup I posted on the first page.

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I have it back from the Bullet Liner shop (Like Line-X) and it looks great and they again did a perfect job like the M1009 I had done before. I will post pictures tomorrow as it was dark when I picked it up and night pictures just do not work well. The price is well worth it, a complete floor mat from LMC is $400 and you still have to clean everything before you put it down. If I am going through the time and expense of sanding down and repainting for a floor mat at $400 plus paint & primer cost in the area of $50-$100. I might as well spend just a little more for a rubberized liner that will last forever with no rusting issues due to moisture between the floor mat and metal. Plus it adds a higher resale value because it is so durable and easy to clean.

 

[K9Vic]

Started today at 9am and ended my day at about 5pm working on putting the burb back together, so I am pretty tired now. Only have to get the rear headliner installed after I clean up the roof from the fire issue that I mentioned was there before I bought it. Everything else is back together and looks really good with the replacement interior I got on Saturday. Still blue, but it does not look all that bad and kind of has that Air Force look being blue. I am still on the hunt for a better dash and if I can not find a good one I will just end up buying a new one I need to replace the speakers with some good quality ones, as the front ones I got are just junk. If this is going to be a daily driver I need a good sounding speakers as the radio is already a high end Alpine with MP3 playback.

Yes I finally painted the damaged door green as right now I am just going to use that one as it works and looks OK. Plus I used that money for the interior parts and will have to wait to budget one, so I painted it. I had to mess with the doors to get them to close right, but I finally got it.

Well here are the pictures.
1. Headliner, it sags slightly but I will deal with that later *
2. Tools & parts everywhere
3, 4, 5. Door panels *
6. Seat, blue cloth a few rips. Needs a cleaning still *
7. Tie up the wires for speakers, dome light and seat belt.
8, 9. Doors painted gloss black.
10. Liner was spayed even with the windows.
* Parts from Burb I stripped out on Saturday.

 

[K9Vic]

Pretty much these are just pictures from multiple angles showing the bullet liner. I will paint the white black over the next weekend, I just ran out of time before it got dark.

I will also clean and touch up the exterior paint as there are spots that have been scratched up due to all the work being done.

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[K9Vic]

Here are some more pictures from today after some more work. I added stencil ID numbers matching the GANG 278MP on my M1031 and gave it unit number HQ69 as from what I read the HQxx number would be the vehicle ID. I found Georgia National Guard Military Police 278, so that is likely where my M1031 came from. I was going for a support unit for the M1031 so this is why I matched the GANG 278MP. I still plant to put on another coat of paint on the outside when it warms up again. You can see in some of the pictures the paint is messed up some from moisture from a cold morning after painting.

I also painted the inside cab areas that are still white that will not be covered by trim and repainted the rear bumper as it got some overs pray from other work. I still have to clean the inside roof from the smoke residue and fix the rear A/C cover, but that will be tomorrow. From that I will add the rear headliner and it will be pretty much done.

I added a before and after picture to see what I started with. Amazing the difference and hard to tell they are the same truck.

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[bikeman]

Great looking conversion!

With the back being open, yet with the divider up front, reminds me of a Border Patrol/transport truck where they might just load up a bunch of drunk Infantrymen from the bar and shuttle them back to the stockade or something. great job on it!

 

[jbingvtx]

You have that rig looking GREAT!! It's cool to see another Federal Signal fan.

 

[combatmech]

Looks great Jerry!!