1997 chevy suburban

Well to start with, you know the saying that if you polish a turd it will still be one?, well I managed to buy the worst lemon and turn it into a daily driver thats cool!

I bought this truck with 260k miles on it when my lod trucks motor spun a bearing. I was in school and had no chance or dream of affording a motor job.
So i bought this truck outside it was the uglist thing , the clearcoat and paint had been burned away by the sun, and was surface rust everywhere. It was riding on tires that werent event safe for a demo car. The only things nice where the interior, ac was cold and its my first vehcile to have power options that work, and ahhh the leather seats.

Well I started off by repairing the rusted through exaust, with a custom cat back exaust, two straight pipes through cherry bombs turned down right before the rear axel.

Next I broke out the orbital sander and worked all the rust down to bare metal, then I primed with rustolium, and procede to put on a one of a kind army paint scheme with a clear coat. (note I did all this behind the nearby baseball stadium!)

truck did exccelent, until my forth 500 mile trip to jacson mississippi, on the way home overdrive began to slip, I made it to my drive way with 1st 3rd and reverse. I rode around town like that for a month or so till the truck wouldnt move.. I priced haveing the tranny rebuil, rebuilding it my self, and replaceing it… all way too expensive!
A freind told me about a local junkyard (pull-a-part you should look it up!) it was a life saver, only, I thought looking at a pickup with he same wheelbase, and a stick on the floor, could it work?
I didnt want to have to replace another auto tranny, so I started reshearching on many forums and chevy websites on people who have done the swap. I learned what tranny and clutch to choose, and how much ot would cost, and what i could look foward to.

So I went ahead and found a crashed 93 truck with a nv3500 transmission… mileage 34k I bought the almost new tranny for 200 bucks. The next weekend a freind and I tore my old dead automatic out in three hours. Threw that thing to the curb and started switching out hardware flywheel clutch, and hydro pedal assembly.

next day with code inforcement breathing down my back, we installed the new transmission in aroud 5 hours, had to re align the clutch many times!

took the truck on a test drive, and loved it. the gears are slightly lower, and close ranged. the truck can spin the tires with just the motor in second while moving.

with the new transmission , according to a stop watch and a quick shifter I can get my 9000 lb suburban 0-60 in 13 seconds in third gear.

My next projects are to rebuild the front end, my steering has so much play I could find a boat that handles better. Ive already tightend the box , I just need to replace everything.

I just as of a month ago, had a superchip installed, now I get around 12mpg and an estimated 312 hp
Im planning on putting on shorty headers this summer.

This truck is my every other day driver, I bought a ford tempo drive it most of the time now because it is way cheaper..

I still drive the truck on nice evenings and in foul weather, and of course in the local mud pit!

UPDATE!

Just replaced some very sloppy upper balljoints on the truck this weekend youtube link soon…

and yes it does stay dirty