I didn't expect such an immediate response, but since you asked for it, here's a little more:
My dad was a transmission mechanic for more than 25 years and owned his own shop for at least 15 of them. He helped prod along my interest in this vehicle as well as cars in general. Having grown up in Southern California he first got his vehicular fix as a child, riding and repairing motorcycles with his father, then transitioned into a full blown Volkswagen enthusiast before he moved into the transmission industry.
Me on the other hand? For instance, my dad completely overhauled and painted a 1969 Honda Z50a and gave it to me for my 5th birthday and I was never all that excited about the little 49cc motorcycle (I finally fired it up in 2010 after letting it sit for 7-8 years and it is undergoing some restoration, but that's another story for another time). I had had my own interests in High School (whew, glad I finally got that SWCCG monkey off my back), so at first my old man did most of the mechanical work himself.
He removed the engine and handed it off to a local machine shop for a going over. The block was bored 0.030” over and the stock heads were rebuilt. In went some new pistons, an RV cam, Edelbrock aluminum intake on top, high flow oil pump below, HEI ignition to help make controlled explosions, a nice set of Doug's headers paired with 2.5” exhaust tubes and dual 40” Blue Flame glasspacks rounded out the back end. I kept the receipt for the machine work, but it went missing somewhere. My dad threw in a larger 4 core radiator, some brand new GM motor mounts and had the Q-jet looked over by the local carb expert.
Being a transmission mechanic who had plied his trade at specialty shops like Art Carr and Hydramatic Performance (shortly before they became Jet Performance), he removed the original 3 speed Turbo 350 and put in one of his built TH700-R4 trannies. The original NP205 t-case was rebuilt and mated to the 700 via an Advance Adapters short shaft. The axles and brakes were left stock but he did barter and/or buy me some matching chrome rims and new 31-10-R15 tires.
Everything had been coming together smoothly and it was close to running, so he had me come down to the shop to start on the interior. I'd laid out an overall plan for the Suburban by this time. I wanted a white and light gray interior with a two-tone white / blue exterior.
Hooray for MS paint and Windows 98 Second Edition!
I had never painted anything larger than plastic model cars in the past, but he turned me loose to remove the interior, scuff up the original paint and mask everything off. He had a local paint shop mix up some white enamel, stirred in hardener and then sprayed over my prep work. To this day it actually doesn't look half bad but I have since learned much, much more about paint and proper prep work. At least my dad had plenty of experience painting and laid down nice, even coats that hid some of the imperfections.
Before the interior reached completion, I remember my dad was very excited to get the engine fired up for the first time. He drove it down the street with me in the passenger “seat” We were in fact sitting on top of inverted 5 gallon buckets, both grinning like wildmen and bracing for gear changes.
I cut and installed that carpet myself. It was just a remnant of some industrial loop pile that I held together with carpet tape. The previous owner had already cut those speaker holes in the doors so I re-used them. Being big into stereo equipment at the time I had to have some thumpin' tunes. Too bad I didn't develop my current taste in music until some years later (I'll miss you Vertical Horizon and all your pop rockish ways, wait, no I won't).
Do you see a theme forming yet? I do. The things you like when you are young may not be what you want when you age, mature a bit and gain experience. More on that later.
Even though the plastic for the overhead A/C unit turned out to be brittle as eggshells I still wish I hadn't thrown the motor / evaporator assembly away around this time.
With the plastic and vinyl pieces that remained, I Krylon'd over their original hues to cover those seventies shades in a light gray. We disassembled the seatbelts and boiled them in some dye which made each one come out black (not our original intention). After a quick pass over the buckle's plastic covers with Krylon the belts went back together. This was many years before I learned about vinyl dye.
Luckily for us there was another Suburban at a junkyard in our town (with a population of 25,000) and we bought the shorter 2nd row seat from it (3rd row was already gone). My mom was gracious enough to cut apart the original seat fabric at the seams and make new patterns by tracing the pieces then sewing them together. I got to experience the joys of cutting foam with an electric carving knife to repair missing chunks then learn how to properly run wire and use hog ring pliers to secure seat fabric.
My dad drilled new holes in the rear area to mount the second seat, and welded large nuts to the underside brace so that it could be properly secured. He also strengthened the cracked front seat brackets by welding in a couple of angle iron reinforcements.
The door panels I covered myself with some ¼” foam, 3M adhesive and new fabric.
Like I said, I had to have my tunes:
This is what I had as my daily driver from 2000-2002.
I'll explain the abundance of gas cans later.