Suburban Improvements
As
anyone who hitches up knows, the selection of the right tow vehicle is just as
important to enjoyable Airstreaming as the Airstream itself. My favorite truck for towing the Overlander
is a 1984 Suburban C20 and it sometimes gets more attention at campgrounds than
the Airstream does! While a Suburban is
hard to beat for interior room, this particular workhorse, with its ¾-ton
suspension & 454 cid engine, excels at safely
getting us where we want to go. While
today’s trucks are powerful & certainly more comfortable, the ‘Burb,’ with
its lack of computer-controlled functions, has a certain allure to it and is
easy to work on when required. But
between servicing age & use issues, and modifications incorporated to make
long distance trips more comfortable, the Suburban has seen many improvements
since the first time it backed the Airstream into my driveway.
My
wife’s grandfather (“Mr. B.” to me) purchased the Suburban new to tow his 28’ Jayco travel trailer after his ½-ton Suburban did not live
up to his towing expectations. Opting
for a no-frills approach, he ordered a truck with every towing option available
but virtually no creature comforts. So,
while the truck was delivered with no trim, carpet, third seat or rear-seat
air-conditioning, it did have fold-out mirrors, an engine oil cooler, and a
drive train designed specifically for towing heavy loads. Of course the ‘Tan Truck’ exceeded his
expectations, and he & his wife enjoyed its use as both tow vehicle and
daily commuter.
When
I got the truck around 1995 it was in need of paint & general repair. I did all the mechanical stuff myself, my
father-in-law hammered out the dents, and a local auto paint shop sprayed a new
coat of tan on the exterior. Since a
boat was my only towed load at the time, I opted to replace the interior’s worn
rubber floor covering with the same thing.
The addition of trim & a paint stripe made the truck look less
“Government,” but to this day the low rumble from the factory dual-exhaust
pipes is enough to remind the casual observer that this truck means business.
Living close to a river, we never had to travel far
to launch the boat. But after our first
trip with the Airstream, I decided that the ability to play videos for the Boyz
in the back seat would enhance everyone’s vacation during travel time. Sizing up the interior layout, I decided that
adding a third seat appeared to be the ticket as the Boyz could sit there with
the television on top of the folded-down backseat in front of them.
While
it would have been nice to find a tan-colored seat, the color did not really
matter as the Master Plan had always included having the seats
reupholstered. EBay is an amazing place. In addition to finding the correct-year third
seat there, I also found a set of four, custom-made mounting brackets
manufactured just for people like me who want to add a third seat to a Suburban
that came from the factory without one.
I would not have thought the brackets’ market would have been that big.
The
third seat installation has been time & money well spent. Besides the planned benefit of on-the-road
videos, we find that it is easier to store & retrieve stuff via the back
doors as opposed to from the back of the truck.
About a year ago, I had the seats reupholstered in Corinthian Naugahyde 
. With the seats all one color now, one 
would never know the third seat had been added.
Our
long-distance trips usually occur around the schools’ Fall Break. Even with school out, crowds are generally
smaller and the weather usually cooler.
We made an exception this year to hit the beach at
Searching
the Internet after returning home, I was amazed to find that an add-on, rear
air-conditioner kit for an ’84 Suburban was still available. Even more amazing was that it had been
manufactured by the original supplier to General Motors and was identical in
appearance to what would have been installed on the Burb if it had had factory rear
air
Nice
kit. 
Not only was it complete, but it came with a
GM fan switch, bezel, and template to mark the front dash for
installation. Being OEM for all intents
& purposes, no special rigging was required to install the hardware, and
the effort, except for Freon charging, was accomplished on a Sunday
afternoon. The truck was taken to an
auto AC shop Monday afternoon, and I had working rear air by Tuesday.
One
frustration encountered while having the seats recovered was the lack of
locally available options for sprucing up the interior door panels. New replacements were not available, and the
ones in the junkyards looked worse than what the Burb already had. One buddy in a bigger city told me that body
shops there routinely spray door panels with a special paint. Around here, everyone said, “You can’t paint
plastic and expect it to last!” So I
lived with dingy panels for awhile.
But
with the shroud thrown into the equation, I was forced to do something. I
stopped by a professional auto paint supply store and shared my tale of what I
heard they do in the big city. He smiled
and said that an elastomeric paint was what I needed, and its application
required the use of a respirator. A
special prep spray was also needed for good adhesion.
So
returning home with two cans of “not to be sold to the general public”
chemicals and a gas mask, the boat bay was once again
converted into a paint booth, and spraying began. Everything went well until Number 1 son snuck
out of the house & proceeded to squirt me with a water pistol while the
last panel was being finished. Luckily,
no water landed on what was being coated, and funny-boy left after seeing my
head spin around.
The additional air conditioning made a remarkable
difference in comfort during our next long distance camping trip. We stayed nice & cool even with outside
temperatures in the mid-nineties. 
However, after looking at the gauges, it
appeared that the mighty Burb’s engine was not enjoying the same level of
comfort.
I
had seen the engine temperature run a little high during the last trip to the
beach but had chalked it up to towing 6,000 pounds during 100-degree weather at
65 mph. But the outside temperature was
lower this time, and I could recall the Burb, in the past, having no trouble
under similar conditions. Something was
obviously amiss.
The
problem was finally identified during a fuel stop – the radiator had developed
a pinhole leak. While glad to know what
the problem was, the issue itself annoyed me because the Burb had a new,
AC-Delco brand radiator---purchased in 1995. 
It just didn’t seem right that enough time
had passed that new, substantial parts installed by me were starting to wear
out. But that was in fact the case. While a local radiator shop was able to fix
the leak, The Man advised me to replace the radiator if I had more trouble with
it as it had been hard to repair.
While the leaking coolant issue came on rather
quickly, another problem appeared to be getting worse this year: the
ever-increasing size of an oil slick in the Burb’s parking space. I knew there were two oils involved: engine,
and power steering. The engine-oil leak
had now grown so bad that the Overlander was being misted with oil on long
trips. While the power
steering fluid was not leaking on that scale, the pump’s reservoir had to be
topped off every 400 miles or so.
While I could not make up my mind on the exact source
of the engine oil leak (other than that it was on the back on the engine), the
power-steering fluid was clearly leaking at a worn seal on the power-steering
gearbox’s input shaft. Since replacement
of the gearbox required a special tool, the Suburban went to a local auto shop
for both repairs.
The
Tan Truck is now in the best overall shape it has ever been in. I believe Mr. B. would be pleased if he could
see it now.
