86 suburban 2wd to 4wd

[cmichels83]

Looks like a very well preserved Burb, good luck with your project!
I'm partial to square body Burbs; we've had 5 of them. Two OBS Burbs as well; a '99 C1500 5.7 that was wrecked after eight years of ownership, and it's nearly identical replacement (which is actually a better one than the first one). I like squares and OBS's cause they are still reasonably simple to work on and parts are readily available and not too expensive. Newer trucks are nicer but in the long term, my experience says they are not worth the hassle and expenses.

I agree and this is exactly why I bought an older suburban. Sold my 2020 Yukon because maintenance and repairs on the thing were ridiculous. Using the money from selling that to work on this. Originally was looking for something 91-93, but couldn't find anything that didn't need a completely new paint job. This one here I originally didn't think I was going to buy it because it wasn't 4wd. But, it will be less money to convert to 4wd then completely redo paint and interior on any 4wd I could find.

Anyone that is confused on why mcarlo86 has a picture of my suburban, he is my totally awesome brother for helping out on this project. He is also partially responsible for encouraging me to buy a squarebody suburban instead of an OBS.

 

[cmichels83]

Been a while since I did an update. Even though I bought the 2wd to 4wd conversion kit, we decided to do a frame swap instead. The 2wd frame was more rusty than originally thought and the frame was turned into Swiss cheese with how many holes were drilled into it in the transmission cross member location. Got the body on the 4wd frame now and have clearance for the transmission and transfer case with the body lift. Just waiting on the engine to be completed. That will be a post of it's own at some point.

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[cmichels83]

Update on the suburban. Engine is finally back from the machine shop and installed.

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Oil cooler and transmission coolers installed.

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Repainted grill installed.

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[cmichels83]

Also to update the 2wd to 4wd conversion that this thread started with, and to provide information to anyone reading this to decide how they might handle a conversion. I ran into a complication on mounting the transfer case shift lever. Even with the 1" body lift that provides more than enough clearance for the 2wd tunnel, the shifter was too low for the linkage to operate properly. Also, the 2wd tunnel is round where the 4wd tunnel is flat. To figure out the correct height and get the shifter level, I used some longer bolts and some nuts that I adjusted to get it to work properly.

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Not the most elegant solution, but I needed to be able to shift into 4-hi to break-in the differentials.

My teenage daughter offered the solution of using air-dry modeling clay to fill in the gap between the homemade spacer plate and the tunnel. Will update on how that works out.

 

[PrairieDrifter]

Also to update the 2wd to 4wd conversion that this thread started with, and to provide information to anyone reading this to decide how they might handle a conversion. I ran into a complication on mounting the transfer case shift lever. Even with the 1" body lift that provides more than enough clearance for the 2wd tunnel, the shifter was too low for the linkage to operate properly. Also, the 2wd tunnel is round where the 4wd tunnel is flat. To figure out the correct height and get the shifter level, I used some longer bolts and some nuts that I adjusted to get it to work properly.

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Not the most elegant solution, but I needed to be able to shift into 4-hi to break-in the differentials.

My teenage daughter offered the solution of using air-dry modeling clay to fill in the gap between the homemade spacer plate and the tunnel. Will update on how that works out.

An np205 would be the best option to get shifter clearance and geometry for a 4wd swap. The np208's and np203's will definitely require some work.