[silentbravo]

Floor mats
Nothing too special here...

Husky Front floor mat Drivers

• silentbravo
• Feb 10, 2016

Husky Front floor mat Passengers

• silentbravo
• Feb 10, 2016

Rugged Ridge Rear Floor mat

• silentbravo
• Feb 10, 2016

Husky looked tough, and had a lot of space for collection plus good price. Fitment is decent, I like them.
Rugged Ridge for the rear had looked to have the best capacity to hold stuff and cover most of the floor. Fits alright

I did the 4 Hi / 4 High / All on / All lights on mod tags: silverado, sierra, tahoe, yukon, 2000, 2001, 2002, 00, 01, 02, NBS, New Body Style
I used this guide, which was very good.

Here is the driver's side light removed, high beam plug on left, low on right

P1020803

• silentbravo
• Feb 10, 2016

4 high 4 hi all on light headlight lamp mod

Some tools I used and hardware. Also used some electrical tape, power drill and some sandpaper not shown.

P1020805

• silentbravo
• Feb 10, 2016

4 high 4 hi all on light headlight lamp mod

Self tapping screw, electrical washer (terminology?), and the bit of wire to splice in

P1020806

• silentbravo
• Feb 10, 2016

4 high 4 hi all on light headlight lamp mod

Ground spot sanded clean of paint

P1020807

• silentbravo
• Feb 10, 2016

4 high 4 hi all on light headlight lamp mod

Ground attached here

P1020808

• silentbravo
• Feb 10, 2016

4 high 4 hi all on light headlight lamp mod

Taped up the wires a bit, and then tucked them away.

P1020809

• silentbravo
• Feb 10, 2016

4 high 4 hi all on light headlight lamp mod

Love it so far, lights up much better.

 

[silentbravo]

Going to post up maintenance as well, probably boring but will be a nice way to keep track of everything done for future reference.

March 10th~

Cleaned the throttle body, no telling when it was last cleaned. Discovered the truck has one of those amazing +4mpg +20hp/tq throttle body spacers* (see disclaimer below)

Seems to run a bit better now Used nearly a whole can of the cleaner on it.

Before

After

*complete lies

 

[silentbravo]

Installed the Airaid Modular Intake Tube (part# 200-912) over the weekend. At least it looks way cleaner than elephant nose factory one

Factory under hood (+ extra Dirt)

Factory intake tube uninstalled

Airaid Box

Instructions were good + stickers

Here it be with clamps and rubber fittings installed, ready to plug in.

Installed

 

[silentbravo]

April 2016
Installed a pocket in place of the cassette player. Was about $10 shipped from ebay, surprisingly made in USA.

Added a Bass Bobble head that I have had for a long time, never wanted to add it to my previous vehicles since they were all interim :lol:

Also replaced cabin air filters. They weren't OEM at least but they were clogged pretty well with dirt and other junk. No pics for that.

May 6, 2016 - Cleaned Engine today
Before

After

Tomorrow or soon will be new intake gaskets and possibly knock sensors/harness if they are totaled out.

 

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I was actually thinking about how it needed a bit of rubber mat or something in the bottom to keep stuff from slipping about. If I ever find something appropriate I may toss it in there.

I've got some more pics to add for my intake gasket replacement, maybe today or tomorrow. Nothing to amazing (well increased MPG is), but catching up on maintenance on this at least.

 

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Intake Gasket Replacement 5-7-2016

Determined that intake gaskets were likely shot with my 2 bank lean codes, so I replaced them along with PCV valve and made the water dams for knock sensors. I don't think this motor was ever cleaned (before me), beneath the intake wasn't really that bad looking considering, and both the knock sensor hole were fairly clean. The back one was full of water because I just washed the engine a few days before, but once I sucked the water out and pulled the sensor it looked perfectly fine. I opted not to replace them since it doesn't look like they were subjected to water and the harness looked fine. We'll see if that was a poor decision later on... lol

Good news is that it no longer has the stumble when I first start it up, feels like it runs a bit stronger and better MPG ! (TBD how much exactly)

Not bad looking considering 111k+ miles and the amount of grime I cleaned off the outside of the heads

The ports looked horrible though, and some reason a bunch of oil dumped from the intake after I removed it... Catch can may be needed here.

Old gaskets, I think these are OEM. The gasket was compressed completely flat with the plastic shells around them, definitely bad.

Little bit of grease here

Eww

Tools, New throttle body gasket, pcv valve, misc

Scrubbed my intake, at least the outside is really clean now

Clean enough to eat off of!

 

[silentbravo]

Changed plugs and coolant 7/16/2016 - 7/17/2016
Did a coolant flush, quite a lot of water/coolant left over to dispose of...
Ended up flushing it clear with hose then put a few gallons of distilled water through it and flushed out that, topped off with Dexcool/distilled. It wasn't super dirty after all but still used some Flush anyway.

Do these look bad? :roll:

Check out the gap lol

New AC Delco Iridium plug vs Original (suspected) AC Delco plug with about 115k miles

BTW after plug change, truck runs like a beast now. Same (or better) power comes in 200-300 RPM faster now = less pedal goes faster

Got my Opt7 C2 22" LED Light bar from Amazon 7/19/2016
Cost $58.49
Install pics to come. Discussion thread/unboxing/first impressions here > OPT7 C2 Series: 22" LED Light Bar Unbox/Impressions

Teaser

 

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Light bar above probably being sold to my bro, have changed plans there.

Next project... can anyone guess?

Can of PB Blaster not shown....

 

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Luckily it looks like they all just sheared off the bolt heads and have shank sticking out, so as long as I can get the rest of them off without breaking I'm hoping it won't be to bad. Worst part is probably the disassembly and working in a really tight and awkward space.

 

[silentbravo]

Time to catch up on some updates/fixes.

Fixed Passenger side, broken exhaust manifold bolt 10/12/2016

This was a major pain, ended up taking 3 days in driveway.

Everything started out OK until I used a fancy locking tool to clamp on the stud and sheared it right off.
Broke down below the face of the head, and that's where it went downhill.

So I spent about 4hrs welding onto that broken stud inside, various ways, with, w/o washers, and nuts but couldn't get the welds to stick.

Dad had to rescue me, spent the next day drilling out the bolt larger and larger, slow work to get an EZ out in it. Luckily that worked out great, didn't even mess up the threads in the head.

I put it back together the next day with the GM studs and some locking nuts. Hopefully they will come out easy for a future long tube upgrade.

I haven't even bothered with the driver's side, it has 2 broken. Sounds like a spring/summer job lol

 

[silentbravo]

Mounting Auxiliary Switches into Overhead Roof Console

May as well update on this, WIP mod. I am using https://otrattw.net for the switches and hardware

My first order from them included:
SKU Product Item price Quantity Total
12015869 Packard 630 Series Terminal 18 to 20 gauge x10 = $1.80
12015870 Packard 630 Series Terminal 14 to 16 gauge x28 = $5.04
VM6-01 Six Position V-Series Switch Holder = $9.50
VHP-CAR V-Series Panel Plug x3 = $4.05
12084224 Packard 630 Series Terminal 12 gauge x8 = $2.32
VRT-CAR Actuator Tool = $2.65
VCH-01 Eight Terminal Rear Connector Housing Black x6 = $4.20

I will get some fancy LED switches for the panel as I get the money to add new mods.

The V-series switch holder is nearly a perfect fit for my console.

So my first thought was to build a small backing plate out of Kydex to fill in the edges. I hadn't worked with Kydex before so I bought a couple sheets from ebay for around $10

Spent about 20-30hrs to get the piece molded into its final form. Lots of trial and error working with the Kydex. It's cool stuff and I got a perfect matching color.
Here is what the final piece ended up as, and how it would have fit.

Finally after so many attempts to remold it and not being quite the right size one of the legs broke. I basically have determined that the angles are just to extreme and this thing is way to complicated lol. So at the moment the project is in limbo but I believe I will get some black silicone and glue in the plate from the sides since it is a really tiny gap there. If that turns out then maybe I will layer the top and bottom and glue it in completely. I was trying to create a removable piece in case I wanted to go back to factory but for the amount of time to get a Kydex piece to fit and look good it won't be worth it. It was a good learning experiment and fun to play with Kydex though.

 

[silentbravo]

This is the route I'm going for switches in the small overhead console.

Mines on hold as well, to cold and rainy and windy and rainy and cold to do my soldering under the hood to wire it up to my AUX fuse box.

Kydex rocker switch panel

• Jasen
• Sep 22, 2016

IMG 20160921 193733848 HDR (1)

• Jasen
• Dec 31, 2016

What about making a flat cover panel and siliconing it in from the back side. It would be easy enough to cut it lose and scrape off the caulking to return to EO.
I don't like the idea of cutting my truck up either, although that tends to make these kinds of mods a bit more complicated.

The piece I made was sort of a cover panel with extra flanges for attachment. Unfortunately this switch plate is so exact fitting that the corners go almost all the way into the corners of the console opening so it wouldn't be much of a plate as it would be 4 separate pieces. That's why my original piece broke, the corners ended up being like 1/16" of material and finally after reheating and stretching to much one of them broke out. For your smaller switch a panel would definitely be the way to go.

If it was possible to still find the factory blanking plates for cheap I would have just cut up one of those.

 

[silentbravo]

No pickNpulls closeby, some day I'll have to go raid a big one for some various goodies lol. for now.... more mods to post!

Installed my Bilstein 5100s in the front 10/30/2016
Part number: Bilstein 24-186735 - These are the ones you use for a front end level, 0-2.5" lift

Installed the Bilstein 5100s in the rear 12/3/2016
Part number: Bilstein 24-186742 - These are the ones you use in the rear, 0-1" lift

Probably my favorite mod to date. Truck rode really horrible, and my road to town/work is really bad as well. Tons of potholes, woopty doos, a few new seams now that they "fixed" some spots...

My front driver side shock was completely shot and many times on the road the front suspension would bottom out and hit the metal stop, rough on everything including the back. I installed the fronts first since I found a good deal for them, and it was an amazing change. All but the very worst was tamed down incredibly. There was still one spot where they repaired half the road, seemed like a 2" dip across the road which I could feel pretty good but all the other bumps and jumps were toned down a lot.

After the fronts were installed, I did notice that while breaking the nose dipped a lot so that told me the rears were also likely to be trash. When I uninstalled the rears the top 4" of their compression was basically zero resistance, so they weren't doing much either with my stiff 3/4 ton suspension and nothing in the back. Installed the rears and noticed even more of a positive difference. Now I can go down my horrible road and not even notice it is horrible. That final seem that was still noticeable is basically an afterthought now at any speed.

Funny I had shocks pretty low on my mod list, but they shot to the top after a while... :lol: Now with the total package everything is firmed up, even heavy breaking the nose dips very little and control is better all around. These will be a top mod for a while to come, may be unseated by my custom tune but I love them for sure.

Installed new AC Delco battery 11/10/2016
Part number: 78DTPS - AC Delco Professional Dual post battery

Mine was getting a little weak. I was fighting some strange startup issues which I believe were actually a bad ground, but once the cold weather hit I was getting some slow cranking as well. Figured it was time to not get stranded and upgrade. About a month before this, I added a new ground cable to the block. It's not in it's permanent home, I actually plan to just eliminate the factory ground and use the new one. It is a 2 AWG wire, connected to the side of the block in an empty hole and to the battery with I believe it is a torque converter stud ground down a bit shorter to fit the terminal on the battery I had made this addition before I had the new battery so it had to go on the same bolt as the factory ground. The extra ground did seem to help with the crazy electrical issues too.

I have another mod to post, but will have to be another day.

 

[silentbravo]

Disabled Automatic Headlights 12/31/2016
Last mod of the year. I like my auto headlights about 90% of the time, but its a pain that I didn't have full control over them. Also the override (push cargo lamp button 4 times) doesn't work on my truck so I was really at the mercy of them. I followed a tutorial from another site, here DIY: Automatic Headlight Switch Install. Rather than just wire the 1.5k Ohm .5watt resistor in permanent I also decided to install a switch so I can retain the auto functions or change to manual at any time. So far its working great. This time of year it's dark when I leave work so starting up the truck the headlights would come on. It doesn't matter so much that I have a new battery but that extra few amps of draw from the lights when starting in the dark/cold later on could be the difference between a start or no-start. I'll describe my pictures as well so this should be like a tutorial if anyone else wants to do it.

Materials:
Simple on/off switch
Bit of wiring
1x 1.5k Ohm .5watt resistor

Tools
Electrical tape, utility knife, wire strippers, butt connectors/solder/soldering iron, heatshrink, flash light

Here is the pack of resistors I got at local Radio Shack

Here is a picture of the BCM from below the steering column under the dash. We will be working with the Purple connector, so you need to remove it. First you remove the blue keeper, and then the purple connector will come out. The blue keeper is already removed on this picture, but you can see them on the next 2 connectors to the right.

You will have to remove some electrical tape from around the wires, to give room to work with them. Here I have already spliced in the resistor and switch, soldered the connections.

Here are the wires we are connecting. First wire (White wire), skip the 2nd wire (Grey wire), and connect to 3rd wire (Grey wire).

I put the resistor inline with the Grey wire. Doesn't matter which direction resistor goes.

Here is the switch panel I made from some kydex, put a simple rocker switch I stole from a computer PSU. White and Grey wire (with inline resistor) go to the switch.

Liquid taped around the soldered connections.

Taped everything back up like it originally was.

Here is the switch plate installed.

Plugged the connector in and seems to be working great. This mod should apply to 99-02 trucks, maybe tahoe/yukon as well. Going to leave some search engine tags below here.

Tags: NBS, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 99, 00, 01, 02, silverado, sierra, chevy, chevrolet, gmc, headlight, head light, switch, disable, remove, off, automatic, auto, ambient, light sensor

 

[silentbravo]

Bought a cheap ($20) ebay catch can and will mod the internals to actually work. Just a few pics of the can itself, you've seen them before nothing special.

I will say the tubing smells horrible. I was trying to figure out what smelled so bad downstairs where I had it the stuff laid out, and I knew the tubing smelled bad from the package but didn't realize at first it would stink up a whole room like that. I tossed it outside and the smell left pretty soon after that...

The can itself is fairly heavy duty, took the cap off to see what was going on inside. The bottom lid is glued on with a simple hole tapped in it with a stop. The top lid has the allen bolts around the rim that hold it and the lid actually has a rubber o-ring gasket on it that seals pretty tightly. I'll have more pics when I get around to modding it, so far I have a general shopping list made up but need to go to some stores to browse for some materials.

 

[silentbravo]

Catch can is about 80% complete, need to find a pipe tap to rethread the drain hole and get a drain valve for it. Was trying to keep this thing pretty cheap, not really wanting to spend a lot on a pipe tap that I'll only ever use once... so that project is on hold for a bit til I decide where to buy or borrow one.

Got rained out on Sunday when I was going to install speakers so I did them this morning..

Replaced front speakers with Polk DB+ 652 coaxial speakers 6/5/2017
Since I have owned the truck only the passenger speaker/tweeter worked, and driver side only the tweeter worked. I will put matching Polk DB+ 6.5" components in the front later but for now I have bought 6.5" coax speakers which I was going to put in the back doors anyway. I bought these from Crutchfield, they came with a Metra wiring harness that plugged straight into factory wiring so that was nice.

Polk DB+ 652 6.5" coaxial speakers box

Polk DB+ 652 6.5" coaxial speakers unboxed

Metra harness model 72-4568, for connecting from speakers (spade connector) to NBS front door factory speaker wire connector

Speaker close ups

On to the Install
Here is what factory passenger speaker looks like. Has a nifty plastic clip built into the speaker, just pops right in or out in this case.

Driver's door, removed the door panel and the speaker

I disassembled the factory speaker from the plastic ring and the fake mounting holes in the factory ring matched the Polk adapter/holes perfectly so I used it as template and drilled holes

Plugged everything together, ready to mount

Mounted.

If someone were doing this same thing, they should probably orient the adapter plate opposite of what I have. If you notice there are 3 large ears on the plate that stick out, one is vertical and the other 2 are pointing down to left/right. You might want to orient it with the long tab facing toward bottom of door instead. I didn't have any problems with the door panel on the driver's side but I think the passenger side was hanging up on that little ear pointing up. Either that or it just wasn't wanting to play along...

They sound pretty good, maybe a bit weak but that's to be expected as they are severely underpowered from stock HU. Have only listened to scratchy FM radio, which is all I listen to anyway but I may try a CD and see how they really sound. Amp and dynamat (or similar) treatment will hopefully be in the future, there is a long list of mods before that though. At least I will have more than 1 speaker to listen to until then

 

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I replaced one of the rear door checks (need to do the other still) with a Dorman replacement (model 924-145). Not really impressed with the design, and almost tempted to see if I could refurbish the factory ones. I'll have to keep them around and see how these end up. It was actually worse than the factory one when I first installed it, some liberal use of lithium grease got it to work much smoother.

The GM/OEM branded replacements look the same as these, using the same type of mechanism at least so I don't know how much better they may be, if at all.

 

[silentbravo]

6/26/2017 Replaced Driver's Side Front Window Sweep/Scraper/Outer Belt (and rust repair).

This ended up quite the job with rust discovery. The driver's side scraper was 90% deteriorated on the outside, and the window would actually rattle when it was down, super annoying. I ordered the wrong Fairchild kit first on ebay, it ended up being the OBS style replacement. Luckily it was a good seller, returned no problem. Then I found the correct replacements which were cheaper anyway. Model is Fairchild KG2089 for the NBS front door outer window scraper/sweep/belt. The inner scraper/sweep/belt is actually built into the molding around the door.

So I figured this would be a nice and easy repair, pop off old, pop on new. I can whip off the door panels in no time now lol

When I finally got the driver's side off I found this.

So... without ever doing rust repair before, I did a little research, found some paint that looked like it would work and went to town.

Used these 2 paints, the Grey one as a primer/base and the White as top coat/finish.

Some of the tools used. Missing from here, is painters tape, some plastic sheet used as masking, various other hand tools

I started off with the air sander, it was taking a long time to take off material, probably spent about 1 and a half hours with it. Ended up with this

The air sander wasn't getting deep enough so I busted out the dremel which I had originally wanted to use but this is such a technical area to sand I didn't start with it. I put a die grinder on the dremel which let me work into the tight spots a lot better and came up with this.

Basically 95% of visible rust was knocked off, I think I went over a few more spots a little more after those pics but it was getting way to hot outside so I had to give up after 3-4 hrs of grinding/sanding.

On to paint, laid a base coat with the Epoxy Rust-Mate, 2-3 light coats of that which dried almost instantly, then let it sit for an hour and put 2-3 coats of the Rust-Oleum Stops Rust Gloss Protective Enamel. These are just what were in the garage.... and looked decent enough lol

Door masked off *

And finished painted product

Everything put back together here

* 2 small bits of grey overspray you can see but the paint has a million chips and missing spots, plus its dirty all the time... those are my excuses. Plus I don't know a safe way to remove it and not hurt the white :lol: There was actually some overspray on the window itself, since I had only covered it about halfway down into the door panel, but that cleaned off easy with mineral spirits. So if you do this, mask the whole window off.

Here is factory passenger side door belt for comparison. The scraper is quite a bit taller on the outside, almost all of that ripped off on my driver's side.

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE (still reading this?)

Comparison between the factory trim piece and Fairchild KG2089 weather belt. This is driver's side only.

Review:
The Fairchild replacement is a lot lighter piece and has a matte colored plastic texture. The factory piece is definitely bulkier and the outer visible trim is more shiny. So if you are really OCD you will probably want to replace in pairs or all 4 if needed. I tried to take a comparison shot (front/rear doors) that day but it was to dark.

Both installed the same way, it just seems to be a simple clamp fit. I couldn't see any special lip or anything holding on the factory one, but it was really stuck on there, possibly because the rust had bulged out the metal. The replacement fits real snug and seems perfectly fine so far, and no more window rattling.

Now I have to decide if I dare replace the passenger side and discover another rust heaven. So far I'm thinking not since that one is in decent shape still...

Disclaimer: This was my first rust repair, and I'm sure something is wrong with it, but it has to be better than what was in there so go research your own methods I did notice some of the paint was trying to scrape off when installing it, hopefully it didn't take off to much if any paint. That's about my only concern with my job done.

 

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Replaced rear brake pads 7/22/2017

I just used AC DELCO 17D785CH Professional Ceramic pads, OEM. Supposedly these pads last a really long time, and the truck has strong stopping power so I see no reason to upgrade at the moment.

The fluid is nasty and definitely needs to be changed though, that in itself would probably help a lot. Now I'm considering some speed bleeders, to go with the fluid change. Actually going to refocus on changing the rest of the fluids to get a good baseline. Front/Rear diffs, brakes and power steering should be about it, maybe transfer case too.

I do have my catch can ready to be assembled, and installed, whenever I get around to it... Probably the last mod for a while. Then one other maintenance item, broken manifold bolts on driver side need to be fixed.... when it gets cooler out lol.