njsteve
05-11-2025, 06:54 PM
1995 GMC Suburban K2500 6.5 Diesel. Ordered her in March of 1995 and took delivery in May 1995. 6.5 turbo-diesel. 3/4 ton, 8600 GVW. Brought all my kids home from the hospital when they were born in it. All the family vacations over the years in this truck. Both kids brought to and from college (all 4 years) in this thing and even used it as the bridal limo at my daughter's wedding a couple years ago. Towed a lot of musclecars too, along the way. Back in 2013 some of you may recall when I was halfway to MCACN and blew the headgaskets on this engine and had to limp it almost all the way back to NJ. Made it to within 70 miles when it pooped out. A great friend then loaned me his Dodge to bring the SD455 to MCACN and made it just in time! After replacing the headgaskets in 2013, I replaced the entire engine in 2017 with a brand new, higher-output version from the suppler for the military HUMVEE retrofitting contract in Ohio.
In Feb of 2024 in a driving rainstorm I accidentally sideswiped the driver's side doors at 3 MPH, when I wasn't able to notice a frikken handicapped parking sign in a concrete-filled, cast-iron pipe jutting out of the ground in a parking lot. Of course my son was in the passenger seat and says: "Why'd you hit that?" I then nicely asked him why he didn't tell me I was about to drive into it. (My vision of it was blocked by the A-pillar and the rain). He says: "I thought you'd eventually notice it." Sigh. Thankfully he has my wife's good looks, intelligence, and athleticism. Sadly, all he got from me was my sarcastic wit.
Anyway, I had been thinking about getting the truck painted for many years now and I can’t say enough about Tamra and MK Insurance (a major sponsor here). The truck was on our collector car policy for several years now and they covered the repair no problem with zero deductible. Even the adjuster said: while you're getting the entire left side of the truck painted, why don't you just have them do the other half, too? Great Idea! So I did. The hardest part was finding all the good sheet metal for an Old Body Style (OBS) Suburban. They make repro front doors but no one makes the rear side doors. (I didn't want any repro stuff anyway) So I spent several months hunting down rust-free parts on facebook marketplace. I found the left front door from a California Suburban, the right front door from a Georgia pickup truck, the left rear door from a wrecked NJ paramedic Suburban and the tailgate from a Washington State Suburban that some guy bought just to use the frame for a resto mod truck.
Unbelievably, the body shop is a local CarStar franchise in Flemington, NJ that is an approved body shop by a lot of insurance companies here, took on the job. I had had experience with them doing normal collision stuff for our daily drivers. They were absolutely amazing. Turns out the body man who was assigned the truck, restores OBS pickups as a hobby and knows these trucks inside and out. He even had a perfect hood for the truck since mine had 30 years of dings in it that he said would take 16 hours just to smooth out. So he sold me a perfect hood for $150 out of his supply.
It took 11-1/2 months to complete and that was with constant work being done on it. No body shop prison episode here! It was weekly progress all along. They even pulled all the glass out. I had removed the rear interior just to save them some labor since the three hidden, rear fender flare nuts require every interior panel to be removed to get to them. And I didn't want to be charged for that 8 hours of labor. And they had to straighten the B-pillar that got pushed in from the concrete pole. Tons of labor involved in this project.
When it came time to paint, they couldn't locate the correct formula for a matching color in their records so they called in the factory rep from their paint supplier. They cut a portion of the original-paint, door skin off and gave it to the rep who brought it to their headquarters and then had the company's special projects people match it and reverse engineer the correct matching Atlantic Blue, which was a 2-year only color for these things in '94 and '95.
Once I got her back I spent a few weeks installing all the stuff I had been stockpiling for the past year that I was going to install all last year if I hadn’t had the fender-bender: new carpet, new injectors, glow plugs, 2-gauge battery cable kit...and then got some historic/classic car license plates for it. You know you're old when the truck you bought new is now eligible for historic plates!
Enjoy!
In Feb of 2024 in a driving rainstorm I accidentally sideswiped the driver's side doors at 3 MPH, when I wasn't able to notice a frikken handicapped parking sign in a concrete-filled, cast-iron pipe jutting out of the ground in a parking lot. Of course my son was in the passenger seat and says: "Why'd you hit that?" I then nicely asked him why he didn't tell me I was about to drive into it. (My vision of it was blocked by the A-pillar and the rain). He says: "I thought you'd eventually notice it." Sigh. Thankfully he has my wife's good looks, intelligence, and athleticism. Sadly, all he got from me was my sarcastic wit.
Anyway, I had been thinking about getting the truck painted for many years now and I can’t say enough about Tamra and MK Insurance (a major sponsor here). The truck was on our collector car policy for several years now and they covered the repair no problem with zero deductible. Even the adjuster said: while you're getting the entire left side of the truck painted, why don't you just have them do the other half, too? Great Idea! So I did. The hardest part was finding all the good sheet metal for an Old Body Style (OBS) Suburban. They make repro front doors but no one makes the rear side doors. (I didn't want any repro stuff anyway) So I spent several months hunting down rust-free parts on facebook marketplace. I found the left front door from a California Suburban, the right front door from a Georgia pickup truck, the left rear door from a wrecked NJ paramedic Suburban and the tailgate from a Washington State Suburban that some guy bought just to use the frame for a resto mod truck.
Unbelievably, the body shop is a local CarStar franchise in Flemington, NJ that is an approved body shop by a lot of insurance companies here, took on the job. I had had experience with them doing normal collision stuff for our daily drivers. They were absolutely amazing. Turns out the body man who was assigned the truck, restores OBS pickups as a hobby and knows these trucks inside and out. He even had a perfect hood for the truck since mine had 30 years of dings in it that he said would take 16 hours just to smooth out. So he sold me a perfect hood for $150 out of his supply.
It took 11-1/2 months to complete and that was with constant work being done on it. No body shop prison episode here! It was weekly progress all along. They even pulled all the glass out. I had removed the rear interior just to save them some labor since the three hidden, rear fender flare nuts require every interior panel to be removed to get to them. And I didn't want to be charged for that 8 hours of labor. And they had to straighten the B-pillar that got pushed in from the concrete pole. Tons of labor involved in this project.
When it came time to paint, they couldn't locate the correct formula for a matching color in their records so they called in the factory rep from their paint supplier. They cut a portion of the original-paint, door skin off and gave it to the rep who brought it to their headquarters and then had the company's special projects people match it and reverse engineer the correct matching Atlantic Blue, which was a 2-year only color for these things in '94 and '95.
Once I got her back I spent a few weeks installing all the stuff I had been stockpiling for the past year that I was going to install all last year if I hadn’t had the fender-bender: new carpet, new injectors, glow plugs, 2-gauge battery cable kit...and then got some historic/classic car license plates for it. You know you're old when the truck you bought new is now eligible for historic plates!
Enjoy!