Back in the saddle again!
In an interesting turn of events, Toyota has decided my 2005 Tacoma needs a new frame. With the growing list of maintenance and upgrade items needed on the Suburban, I am temporarily driving my tow vehicle (2001 2500HD 4x4 8.1L/Allison) which gets worse highway fuel economy (14MPGish highway) which in turn has turned up the heat on getting the Suburban completely fixed. Thus I have started and will continue working on it for the next few weeks as my priority project.
So far, I have replaced the failing alternator cs130 with a new unit intended for a Duramax, mainly to pick up more amps at idle to support the electric fans and other mods. Perhaps there is also a slight efficiency gain with this newer style unit, probably not measurable either way. I had to fabricate a new bracket, fairly simple aluminum bar with two bends. The main lower bracket lines up correctly. I now have to rewire the plug, as the newer alternator takes a different plug than the old one. Anyway some pictures are attached.
With a little luck, I hope to have a huge list of things finished over this weekend. My NV4500 main shaft spanner socket just came in the weekend, so hopefully on that list is a NV4500 gear swap and a transmission swap.
