A truck appliance that isn't a truck - Suburban or Excursion?

i know you said you want an overgrown station wagon, but this is exactly the niche that $500 mid 80's pickups were invented for.. pick your favorite- Ford F150 or Chev/GMC 1500, but avoid the Dodges in that price range because they are rolling fire hazards and honestly aren't as good as the other two.. get a regular cab long box and you will be able to haul anything you'd ever need to haul.. if you stumble across an F250 or Chev/GMC 2500 for the same money, then bonus for you.. park it out of sight in the back yard when you don't need it and only drag it out when you need it.

I know everyone buys Suburbans, no one bought Excursions. I've heard the fix for the Ford front end problem was swap a front axle from a F350. I'd go Chevy.

Unkillable machine of awesome.

I can dig that^^^^^

I am actively looking for a 80's Suburban preferably a diesel as we speak. When I get one expect it to eventually be setup like the one in Dante's Peak, snorkel, little lift not much mostly larger tires, brush beater, winch and a basket on top. Then I am thinking strip out the back and rhinoline it.

DoctorBlade wrote: I know everyone buys Suburbans, no one bought Excursions. I've heard the fix for the Ford front end problem was swap a front axle from a F350. I'd go Chevy.

what the hell are you talking about? 1) WHAT front end problem? I'm not aware of one. 2) The excursion from the A pillar forward, including the axle, is a superduty (f250/350). All excursions had dana 50's. 2002 and new f250/350's had dana60's. They are externally damn near identical, only difference is the taper on the axle shaft and the ring gear diameter. The 60 is stronger but I don't personally know anyone that has broken a 50.

I went through the same thought process as the OP last year. I had a pathfinder, liked my SUV, it was worn out, was buying something new. I have a '78 f150 play truck I needed to haul around, and also had an old 20' deckover trailer I was restoring. I wanted something 3/4 or heavier to tow with but I liked the SUV, since I wanted this vehicle to keep for 10 years or so and am planning on starting a family (and have dogs). I had to have 4wd for the places I tow my trailer, its kept me from getting stuck a few dozen times. My choice was either buy something cheap that I didn't need to finance, or finance, which meant buying something newer and lower miles as the bank wouldn't finance anything older than '04 and with more than 75k. After looking at what fell into my price range for cheap, I immediately realized I would have to finance to get something reliable enough to replace my daily driver.

So I was mainly looking at 2000 and newer 3/4 suburbans and excursions and also crewcab trucks. The suburbans do have a smoother ride, however they have a more complicated suspension and many users report having to replace bushings and get them aligned frequently. The interiors do always seem busted, I don't know why. The smaller engines are a bit peaky to try and tow with, and the 454 is a towing beast and aparently pretty darn reliable, but I couldn't live with the 10 mpg mixed mpg that is daily driving one. I did find some amazing deals on suburbans though, especially since they were used extensively by governments so there are lots of surplus ones (beware, many of these have really weird options as well as holes in the roof and etc). If chevy had put a diesel in the newer suburbans there is a good chance I would have bought one, but I wasn't going to settle for a small block, I found them to be lacking in torque. The big block was just too bad on gas (I read thread after thread in the chevy forums about actual MPG, and 10 mpg is pretty accurate).

I'm a ford guy at heart, and I believe the super duties are great trucks, so I turned my attention back to the fords. I really wanted a diesel because of the weight that I tow (fully loaded, the trailer is close to 10k). The excursions I found locally that were diesel, 4wd, newer than 04, and less than 75k were going for $3k-5k over book value (mid twenties and up) I couldn't afford that. I really wanted a diesel excursion, but every time I would find one in my price range that wasn't marked up way over book, it would be gone by the time I called about it. so I started looking at trucks

The rub was that I really wanted 4 doors, and crewcab trucks weren't much cheaper. I shopped for months and months, not really finding exactly what I wanted. I finally found an 04 door 4wd truck for around $22,000, it had 70,000 miles and was in good shape. The thing is, it was a base model. Vinyl seats. vinyl floor mats. I could have lived with that. But it had 4 wind up windows, manual locks, an am/fm radio... I can't live with that in my daily driver. 4 doors with wind up windows in a truck 8' wide... pretty worthless. I was still contemplating buying it when a truck popped up at a dealer lot all the way down in arkansas. It was an 04 excursion limited, 50k, 4wd, diesel. every single option (rear seat dvd, chrome tube steps, leather, rear captains, etc). I didn't necessarily want a loaded truck, but the price was right ($23k, just believe kbb retail) so I put a deposit down sight unseen and drove down and bought it after checking it out.

Its got the 6.0, but aside from a leaking fuel pressure regulator (the fixing of which allowed me to install an updated revision) I haven't had any major maintinance issues. It tows anything I want to tow. The truck itself weighs in at about 8200 lbs, and I've rolled the scales fully loaded at 17,000 before. The rear springs are a bit soft for towing, and eventually I want to add air bags for towing. The front has sagged with the weight of the diesel and the brushguard, but I have f250 front leaves to swap on when i buy new tires.
the motor has more power than you can even really use. It will tow any load up any grade at any speed you want to travel at, but you have to keep an eye on your temperatures. I keep a scangauge II on mine to monitor the oil cooler.

The front brakes are small for the size of the truck, so if you two regularly you have to use napa premium rotors or they will warp. The 5r transmission is awesome, tow haul mode handles loads coming down hills and lets you keep your foot off the brake in stop and go traffic.
And the steering is pretty vague and sloppy if you are used to rack and pinion, but its just about like every other leaf sprung live axle truck. It rides like a truck, so rough.

The good parts about the truck, leaf springs and live axles front and rear. Dead simple, easy to maintenance, reliable. Tons and tons of space, you can haul 5 friends and all of their camping gear without putting anything on the roof or on the hitch. Fuel efficiency, for an 8000 lb brick shaped vehicle, I can get as high as 22 mph highway if I try (shift into neutral down hills and try to follow trucks), but I can get 18 mpg just by setting the cruise control to 65. I consistently get around 14 mpg towing.

so the diesel is nice.

The v10's, from what I've read on the forums will do about 12 mpg mixed driving, maybe 14 on a good highway tank, and single digits towing. There are tons and tons of guys on the excursion forum on ford truck enthusiasts that have 200k or more on their v10's with very little maintenance. The spark plugs can get stripped out on a few model years. newer trucks revised the heads, and there are fixes for the older ones. The real fix is to carefully torque them to the correct spec. I can't say I'd recommend the v8 in a vehicle this size, the v8 guys report as bad or worse mpg as the v10's as they have to floor it everywhere. I think it would be pretty worthless for towing.

If you have any specific questions about the excursion let me know. I am pretty happy with mine so far, I've put about 40k on it. I would trade my 6.0 for a 7.3 any day just for the simplicity and reliability, but for what its worth, mine is quieter, makes more power, and gets better mpg.

I have seen 200k 7.3 excursions in the $6-10k range, depending on condition. Of course there are always the really nice looking ones with 200k and the owners are still asking $12 or more, but I don't think those trucks are finding many buyers. Check the roof on any potential excursion, the factory roof rack was designed superlow so they fit into garages, and as a result it often rubs against the roof and wears the paint off, which can lead to rust. I pulled mine off and replaced them with yakima bars. The factory bars won't hold any weight anyway.

If I was doing it all over again, I'd definitely take a harder look at the suburbans. I lost the job I had when i bought the excursion, and the fact that I could have got a big block suburban in similar shape to my excursion for $6,000 less would be a chunk off my monthly payments.

I've lately been seeing some pretty nice looking 2000 ish suburbans popping up with bad transmissions for around $1000-1500, which seems like a steal, though you know what they say, if it sounds too good to be true...

I've also seem some good deals on excursions, both v10 and diesel. I am pretty familiar with the ford v10's, and I would give a slight advantage to the GM 454 big block as far as reliability goes, but I would have no qualms with owning either, as long as I had decided I could live with 10 mpg. If you go with a suburban, definitley go with the 2500. The 1500 is weaker in a number of ways and the transmissions are weak.

rebelgtp wrote: I am actively looking for a 80's Suburban preferably a diesel as we speak. When I get one expect it to eventually be setup like the one in Dante's Peak, snorkel, little lift not much mostly larger tires, brush beater, winch and a basket on top. Then I am thinking strip out the back and rhinoline it.

the 80's and early 90's diesels seem to fall into 2 categories: 1) they are cheap as hell and in average condition, have had little maintenance done (these dont' come by very often, or 2) they are immaculately maintained and have lots of upgrades and the owner thinks they are worth 10k. these also don't come by that often. lol Honestly the 6.2 is a pretty lousy motor... kills it for me. I do dig the 8th gen trucks, but I'd have to buy one with a bad motor and swap something else in, maybe a cummins.
Have you ever heard of the centurion? Ford F series crew cab truck with a bronco back grafted onto the cab. Pretty badass, and available with the 7.3. somewhat rare but different and cool. sadly the bodywork on them almost always needs redone by now they are prone to cracking and rusting where the bronco meets the f series. A small car dealer near here has 3 of them, one 96 diesel F360 and 2 80's motor gassers.

After you filter all the bullE36 M3 out of my 6.8L truck thread, it came down to the simple fact.....there was no issue with the v10 that was exclusive to them. Everything people bitched about the V10 were mainly similar problems to the 4.6 and 5.4. So, not as bad as some in this thread seem to claim. You don't want a 5.4L in an excursion.......that'll be outrun by an old man on a rascal.

Food for thought, some of the suburbans(well, gmc denali family), ended up with air leveling systems......which are horrifyingly expensive to replace. At some point, they started putting the 8.1L gas into their heavy trucks, but IDK if they made it into their SUV's......because the 454 was gone around when the 6.0L ls motor showed up.

In reply to andrave:

I had never heard of the Centurion before that thing is pretty freakin sweet! Idont think I have ever even seen one before.

yamaha wrote: Food for thought, some of the suburbans(well, gmc denali family), ended up with air leveling systems......which are horrifyingly expensive to replace. At some point, they started putting the 8.1L gas into their heavy trucks, but IDK if they made it into their SUV's......because the 454 was gone around when the 6.0L ls motor showed up.

Nothing really wrong with the Nivomat's from Sachs. Sure they aren't $50/each shocks, but they take the whole truckish ride out.

IF you can trust wiki, the 8.1, the BB LS1, was available for a few years in the 2500 series Sub's and Av's (04 2500 Av's that I know of).

If I was going diesel, I would be cheap and get a 1500 series and a 4BT and either rebuild the 4L60 or bolt on a rebuilt 4L80. Real easy to bolt on hydroboost too.

There was a late 80s diesel, 2500 2wd 'Burban on the local craigslist a while back for $1200. had 150k on it but the paint was shot and the interior was...well, in the pics it looked dirty but not torn up. If I'd felt a little better about the old 6.2L engines, I'd have gone and test driven it. It lingered on the CL for a couple months getting reposted every week.

In reply to ultraclyde:

Yeah everynow and then a 2wd one pops up here but I need a 4x4 one.

rebelgtp wrote: In reply to andrave: I had never heard of the Centurion before that thing is pretty freakin sweet! Idont think I have ever even seen one before.

They're pretty badass. Think suburban with a Ford front end. Got to drive one once.

I think they are badass, I found that diesel one, guy wanted $8k and I really wanted it, needed roof line replaced, feder rust replaced, and rear window regulator replaced, but only had like 50k miles. Then one sold on ebay for $11 or 12k that was in absolute show truck condition, fresh restoration, and all of a sudden the local guy wouldn't take less than 11 for his even though it needed a few grand in repairs.

Shame centurion couldn't pull off better quality bodywork, but still less work to start with theirs than to build your own, as some have done...

This is my dad's '90 or '91 (the last year of his body style in the 'Burb). It had a conversion package on it by Chattanooga Conversions, hence the stipes and some wood trim inside. I moved my girlfriend with it. It worked nice. I think he paid under $3k for it before he put the lift and tires on it. The PO had a service record book 3" thick.

andrave wrote:

DoctorBlade wrote: I know everyone buys Suburbans, no one bought Excursions. I've heard the fix for the Ford front end problem was swap a front axle from a F350. I'd go Chevy.

what the hell are you talking about?

Christ, just relax. I last did any serious browsing in that weight class a decade ago. So my .02 pesos probably don't apply.

I currently have two diesel Suburbans - an '87 1500 6.2 N/A and a '94 2500 6.5TD. They're both awesome. They're cheap, reliable, spacious and tow very nicely. I even like the way they look. My '87 is for sale actually. I posted a thread on here a week or two ago.

I've never looked into the Excursions because the prices for a 7.3 truck are ridiculous.

In reply to Powar:

I know that your '87 is for sale, however I'm not sure I want to find out how good it is at climbing passes that are 7500' high and higher.

Here is a '94 4x4 burban with a blown headgasket that looks surprisingly nice for $1000

http://martinsburg.craigslist.org/cto/3431250780.html

Tim, I didn't see 4x4 being a requirement? A couple of older ads still showing up locally for me around the upper end of your budget, not sure if they are still avail or if you're willing to travel (or use uship)

http://ventura.craigslist.org/cto/3418666824.html

http://santabarbara.craigslist.org/cto/3367054604.html

In reply to Powar:

Its because the 7.3L is actually looked for as a dead nuts reliable drivetrain.......the 6.0L excursions should be signifigantly cheaper(like the trucks are).

Also, all the diesel excursions in my area moved back to texas with the migrant workers......most were 4x4 too....

6.0's aren't much cheaper generally... they are cheaper in the sense that you can get an 04 6.0 for the same price as, say an 01 7.3, even though the 6.0 is newer. The 6.0's issues are all just about as 'cracked' as all the 7.3's, and none of them are that hard to fix. Most people that don't run tuners and all the boy racer diesel E36 M3 on them are just fine (like mine). When mine has problems, I'll probably know what they are and how to fix them pretty quickly. Its just that the 7.3 has been around forever and they were all very similar, so there was a decade of experience and knowledge on it when the 6.0 came out. the 6.0 was the first modern emissions era diesel, with EGR and all that. It does have a few weak spots, but some of them are realted to the EGR cooler, and honestly, thats still a big issue with all modern egr diesels.
I would still prefer the 7.3 over the 6.0 for a few reasons, but it doesn't mean the 6.0 shouldn't be considered, especially if you find a good deal on one. Just spend a few days reading every 6.0 faq you can get your hands on before you pull the trigger.
the main issues for the 6.0: you have to have a volt meter. if voltage drops below 12, the fuel injector control module drops below 48 volts, which can damage it. Causes rough starting and as it gets worse, won't start, will smoke at start, will run rough, and etc. to rebuild your stock one is around $500 with 2nd day service.
You have to have accurate coolant and oil temperature gauges. The oil cooler tends to get plugged, either due to ford's low grade motorcraft gold extended life coolant having dropout, or due to excess sand being left in the passages of the block. the coolant flows from oil cooler to EGR cooler. So when the oil cooler plugs up, oil temps spike (oil gets very hot in a powerstroke as its used to fire the injectors at thousands of psi), AND on top of that the EGR cooler is no longer cooled by coolant, it overheats and cracks, so then what coolant does drip through leaks, leading to a loss of coolant... on top of an engine with superhot oil. Leads to overheating which leads to... The factory headbolts are known to stretch, especially at very hot temps and high boost levels. Many trucks will never suffer from this issue at stock boost levels. Hard to diagnose because once the engine is cool it may not present itself again until hot and under boost. If headgasket isn't blown, you can change bolts to studs by threading them in one at a time, but its best to pull the heads and change gaskets before the factory headgaskets blow (and possibly warp the heads), especially if you want to up the boost. I haven't done this, I'm fairly easy on the truck, so far so good, knock on wood).
The alternator is an issue, I don't think they fail any more than any other alternators, but finding quality replacements is tough. Most people recommend buying a used alternator off a known good truck being parted out.
The other things people talk about, water pump, stand pipes, etc, they usually aren't issues unless the above items have been neglected and the truck is overheating and going to die anyway.

If you look at any of the emissions era diesels, even the cummins and duramax, and the newer 6.4 and even the 6.7 fords, all have small issues. the 6.0 was the first, and dealers didn't know how to fix it. dealers didn't know the heads could lift under boost and reseat and compression test ok. Dealers didn't know when the EGR cooler ruptured that the oil cooler was a mandatory replacement. So things weren't always repaired correctly which gave them a much worse reputation than they deserved, IMO.

Its a more complicated ownership than the "piss in the tank and the oil filler every 50,0000 miles" 7.3, but if you find a good deal on a 6.0, it might be just that, a good deal.

BoxheadTim wrote: In reply to Powar: I know that your '87 is for sale, however I'm not sure I want to find out how good it is at climbing passes that are 7500' high and higher.

To be honest, me either. It's slow as E36 M3 driving around here. Add the turbo bits from a later 6.5 truck, and maybe, but not stock.

whoa, 300k on this $1000 burban.... http://martinsburg.craigslist.org/cto/3387712435.html

My choice: this beast! 87 3/4 4wd for $1000. You can work that title E36 M3 out. lol http://martinsburg.craigslist.org/cto/3404529883.html sad its a 350 not a 454, but for $1k? besides you can rebuild the 350 using paperclips and spare change.

In reply to Powar:

apparently banks still sells a turbo kit for that motor as well. I saw an install on a military truck in an issue of diesel power, probaly (one of the heavy truck mags)