Picked up a 4x4!
 

Hey folks!

I just picked up this 1988 V10 GMC Suburban today. All original for the most part, 133k miles. Drove it home from two hours away with almost no problems. The front driveshaft slip yoke was wobbling around and created a bad vibration, but other than that ran great!

This is going to be my new winter rig. It has a little rust in the rear quarters and rockers already so I won't feel bad about driving it around in the salt up here. But it is still a fairly clean truck.

Plans are just to make the paint shine again, fix the clear coat issues on the hood, repaint the grill back to factory, and then clean up the whole interior.

That's about it for now. More pics to follow!

Re: Picked up a 4x4!
 

Turns out she is pretty heavily optioned:

3:42 gears, HD brakes, 40 gal fuel tank, tilt wheel, cruise, a/c, rally wheels, towing package, HD radiator, auto-lock hubs (although they are manual now..?), power locks and windows....and then I found some weird ones:

39U supposedly is dk adriatic blue paint, but I see no indication that the truck was ever painted a different color.
60D is light driftwood for interior?
60I is medium cognac for interior color?

Those last three have to be wrong. Maybe the site I used to decode is for newer vehicles?

Any help with those last three codes is appreciated!

Re: Picked up a 4x4!
 

At the bottom of the SPID it says WA - L9221 which is paint code for dark mesa brown metallic. That is the color the truck is for sure.

Re: Picked up a 4x4!
 

Sweet truck Cort, congrats on the purchase.

Re: Picked up a 4x4!
 

Thanks John!

Re: Picked up a 4x4!
 

I spent a bit of time cleaning the interior out today. She is cleaning up pretty nice! I really have to remove those homemade door panel inserts and get the original stuff back in there!

Also, after a good pressure washing and a little scrubbing, the crappy pinstripes came off and she is looking a lot better I think.

Re: Picked up a 4x4!
 

I am going to see if SMS fabric has the upholstery for the front seats and I am going to get the bottoms re-upholstered. I can't stand the tears and I also hate seat covers. Haha.

Re: Picked up a 4x4!
 

Nice Suburban and it looks like it's cleaning up really well!

Re: Picked up a 4x4!
 

Cort I trust your judgement, but winter rig doesn't compute! Maybe it's a little rougher than the pics convey, but it looks great from here. Nice score.

Re: Picked up a 4x4!
 

Haha thanks John. It is a pretty clean rig. But she’s got work to do. :lol:

Re: Picked up a 4x4!
 

Missed this one. Very nice looking ride!

Re: Picked up a 4x4!
 

Hi Cort, boy I love that Chocolate Brown color/tan interior combo and dig the Roof Rack, Barn doors and the Visor too. Such a nice score, congratulations!

Re: Picked up a 4x4!
 

Thanks Bill!

Re: Picked up a 4x4!
 

Thanks buddy! It's growing on me. Reminds me of my little brown truck that I miss so much.

I've got a bunch of goodies showing up this week: new carpet, door panel inserts, pedal pads, shift boot, new tail lights, vinyl dye to fix up some of the faded parts, and I also ordered some pre-mixed aerosol cans of the original dark mesa brown metallic. I want to see if I can touch up all the rockers and little places the previous owner sprayed black rust converter.

Re: Picked up a 4x4!
 

Got a few things done this weekend. Got rid of those out the back pipes that were half rotten and went back to factory out the side look with new 3" muffler and pipe.

Also got the grill back to the way factory style. Need to paint the GMC letters yet.

Re: Picked up a 4x4!
 

The grill looks much better. Are you leaving the wheels black?

Re: Picked up a 4x4!
 

Thanks! No, I don't think I'll leave them black. I just need to wait until after we move into our new place and have all my tools to take one off at a time and dress them up. I kind of thought about going with body color, but will probably just go with the factory silver.

Re: Picked up a 4x4!
 

Got the vinyl paint finally and started cleaning up the front door panels. Carpet should arrive today. Not sure if I’ll get it installed this weekend though

Re: Picked up a 4x4!
 

Nice Suburban. Is it a MI truck?

Re: Picked up a 4x4!
 

Thanks! I picked it up in Illinois, but I feel it spent most of its life in the south. The dash is fried, carpet bleached from the sun and clear coat is fried too so I feel like it was somewhere hot. It’s too clean to have been up here it’s whole life. I’m guessing it was brought up here in the last 5-10 years judging by the amount of rust it has.

Re: Picked up a 4x4!
 

Got the new carpet in! I couldn't find the original Medium Cognac color, so I went with Caramel which matches the velour door inserts and seat upholstery pretty good. After I got the old carpet out I was blown away by the rust free floor!

Re: Picked up a 4x4!
 

Photo corrected. Not even surface rust here!

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More! I'm really happy with it. Not perfect, but much better than the old stained and trashed carpet.

Re: Picked up a 4x4!
 

Came out nice. I am so afraid of light colored carpets and interriors. I am a magnet for grease and the light interior would look like doo-doo very quick.

Re: Picked up a 4x4!
 

Looks great, and your second seat is immaculate!