George’s Car Blog

Hi all,

I haven’t posted for quite a while because I’ve just been quite busy and occupied on different areas, including my cars :) I have many news for you, though!

First of all, I have a new car! There are good and bad news about this – I got myself a huge Chevrolet Suburban which I’ve always dreamed of and I’ve been looking after these on the streets since I was a kid. The bad news is that I had to trade my Jeep for it, so I no longer have it. I’ve got over it anyway and the Jeep also needed several jobs to be done which would have costed me at least about 700-800 bucks. I actually didn’t plan on doing such a trade and I was mainly looking at Chevy Express conversion vans from years 2000 and upwards. However, I always kept myself updated about the pick-up truck and large SUV ads, too. Then one morning I found a selling ad for a 1997 Chevy Suburban and in the photos it looked very cool, not just stock. Even more interesting was that he offered a trade-in for a V8 Grand Cherokee. Then I got so excited that I just had to call the seller. He was a nice guy and also a fan of American cars, so we met the same evening at his place and looked at the cars. The Suburban was ofcourse very big compared to the Jeep which I’m used to looking at and we then took it for a test-drive. I was very impressed how it drove because it was smooth, braked well and the wheel was nicely easy to turn, but very precise at the same time. So, I liked what I saw and felt and when we took the Jeep for a test-run, he liked it, too.

The next day we had both trucks inspected by mechanics and we found small flaws on both, although my Jeep needed more drive-train components to be replaced, mainly rubber bushings, but also a transfer case bearing. We then discussed about the approximate prices of both vehicles considering their actual conditions and finally agreed on the extra amount I had to pay – the Suburban is ofcourse more expensive, being one of the best value keeping vehicles in the United States.

Now I’m a proud owner of a 1997 Chevy Suburban LT C-1500. Perhaps a bad thing is that it’s just 2WD (rear-wheel drive) compared to the Jeep which was 4WD, but I must say that I don’t like mudding and getting dirty and I didn’t use the Jeep’s features. 2WD is almost perfect for me because it’s more economical and the drive-train is more comfortable to ride compared to the K-series based trucks. Problems with 2WD only occur when we have a thin layer of snow covering slippery ice on the road and I need to get the Suburban up a hill on such surface. Then it’s very easy to add to much throttle and get a wheel slipping, which in turn will “clean” the ground of snow and leaves just the ice where there is no chance of going forward. The Suburban is relatively light on the rear end when you don’t have any rear passengers or luggage and don’t have much fuel on board. In such case there are two solutions – use the automatically locking rear-differential installed on the vehicle which engages when one wheel begins slipping a lot, but in this case I need to add quite a bit of gas. The second solution is better in my opinion – put the transmission in “2″ which means that you will also take off in second gear. This way the wheels don’t get so much momentum and will roll on the snow layer instead of wiping it away. There is also ofcourse a third solution – take the shovel and add some gravel near the wheels :)

The Suburban is black in color, has brand new wheels + Cooper Discoverer M+S tires, beige interior, grille guard in the front with two Hella high-beams, hood air deflector, windshield air deflector, moonvisor with yellow lights (just the way I like it!!), steps under the doors and much more. It’s also equipped with a FM CB-radio transceiver. Engine is the traditional gasoline GM Vortec 5.7 (350 cid) V8 and the transmission is a 4-speed automatic. The exhaust is upgraded so it makes some awesome rumble when driving around, while being relatively quiet on idle and low RPM.

Here are some photos for you:

The light covers from the moonvisor were taken off at that time, but are now installed. However, the lights need to be re-done because the LEDs are getting bad. I will do it as soon as the weather gets a bit warmer.

I also took a video of it with a friend:

Now, back to the Corvette!

The Vette has been somewhat unchanged in my garage for 2 months or so with the interior partly taken out. I decided to restore the floor pans under both seats since those were the places where I found some more remarkable surface rust and then I also decided to just take all the old carpet out and replace it. I ordered the new carpet set + complete sound insulation set from Willcox Corvette and it’s now ready at my home to be installed. However, firstly I need to apply POR-15 onto the floorpans which I have cleaned up. I can’t do any of these jobs as long as there are temperatures around 0 degrees Celsius, so I’m just waiting right now for the climate to get a bit better.