Huck's daily - 2005 Z71 crewcab

[TotalyHucked]

I should have mentioned before you stabbed the motor back in. You want to replace those plastic heater hose connectors on the firewall. They are known to break and dump all your coolant out before you even notice something is wrong. Use genuine GM plastic connectors. Or Dorman now makes metal replacement fittings. But DON'T use the Dorman plastic ones. Just good prevenattive insurance. Would be alot easier with the motor out fo the way. There is also a dorman steel "wye" replacement for where the hose mounts to the water pump.

Here are some links for examples, make sure to match your vehicle info/hose diameters for the right ones:

https://www.napaonline.com/en/p/NOE800403HP?cid=paidsearch_shopping_dcoe_google&cid=paidsearch_conversions_pmax_napa_google_autoparts&gad_source=1&gbraid=0AAAAADzGEwy_ruIwAtd_DMRRzwgyyYeKL&gclid=Cj0KCQjw_JzABhC2ARIsAPe3ynr731uFPXUOKtAXDnRM7NTRjjbukVTqVHhUZ60NroJ7n8BZMsuU-AcaAmpsEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds

Dorman - HELP Radiator Coolant Hose Connector 47157

Shop for Dorman - HELP Radiator Coolant Hose Connector 47157 with confidence at AutoZone.com. Parts are just part of what we do. Get yours online today and pick up in store.

www.autozone.com

I thought about that, and then forgot about it, and then thought about it again after I got the motor in lol. I *think* they've been replaced before, they look newer and the hoses are definitely newer. I'm gonna pull my best ViceGrip and pretend I didn't think about it lol

 

[TotalyHucked]

Last night, I worked on all the little peripheral details. Installed the new knock sensor grommets in the valley plate and installed that with a fresh gasket

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Installed and torqued the knock sensors, installed the harness (with gasket maker on the rubbers) and made the dams around them with RTV. I don't do RTV on the wires so they can move/breath a bit

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Painted the water pump while I waited on the RTV to set up

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Installed the intake, water pump, routed the harness and started plugging things in

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Got 99% of the harness plugged in, the AC compressor fully bolted on, starter in, this is where we left off last night

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[TotalyHucked]

So then today at lunch, I double and triple checked my wiring at lunch and unplugged the coil harnesses. Hooked up the battery, listened for arcing and watched/smelled for smoke, saw nothing so I spun the motor over without the plugs in it to pump out any left over liquid WD40. It spun smooth!

So now I started getting nervous. Put antiseize on all the plugs and installed them, put the new plug wires on, put the intake box/tube on and plugged in the MAF. Plugged the coil packs back up and filled it up with VR1...

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Hit the key and we got 50psi of oil pressure within 3-4 seconds! Lots of valvetrain clatter but otherwise, it was pretty quiet, best I could tell. The lifters will take some more time to pump up, even though I soaked them, they've been in the motor and draining down for a week and half now? Not out of the woods yet but was able to breathe a big sigh of relief. Now I need to hook up the coolant hoses, gonna fill with water for now. Then move onto the level kit install

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[TotalyHucked]

So last night I decided I wanted to do something other than work on the engine, so I started stripping the front end to clean/paint/install the leveling keys and new UCAs/LCAs/shocks

This truck is so nasty underneath. Thankfully zero rust, just dirt everywhere

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I did the pass side first and it's been a little while since I've pulled a spindle off. My dumbass didn't pull the nuts all the way off before separating the BJs so then the shafts started to spin A little patience, my trick Gearwrench pass through ratchet set and an allen key got them of though

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My coworker had borrowed my impact so I was doing all this by hand. Had another blonde moment, I was under the LCA to get better leverage on the bolts and when I got the 2nd one loose, it swung down and got the side of my head. My ear was bleeding like a stuck pig and MAN that hurts getting hit there lol

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[TotalyHucked]

I've always cleaned and painted the frame on all my trucks, usually takes a weekend or two and I use a combo of wire brushes in a drill and hand brushes to clean every inch I can, then wipe down with laquer thinner or brake clean, tape up anything I don't want paint on, then prime and paint. I didn't care to do that this time. I will go back and do a better job later on but I really just wanted to get black paint around the control arm mounts and shock so I don't risk getting paint on them when I re-do it later. I literally just hand wire brushed as fast as I could, sorta blew everything off and started spraying lol. It's fine for this truck right now.

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After I painted the passenger side, I went over to the driver's side and got it stripped, wire brushed and painted. Then came back to the passenger side.

Threw on the LCA with some anti-seize in the pocket for the torsion bar and grease on either side of the bushing, installed the leveling key with more anti-seize, then the Spindle Source UCA with grease on it's bushings. Went to put the spindle on, it went on the lower BJ fine but the upper balljoint was too big to go in. Phoeey. So threw on the Bilstein 5100 to hold the LCA up and called it a night cuz it was 11:00 and I had an hour drive home

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Emailed Spindle Source this morning explaining what I'd run into. They emailed me back within 3-5min saying yes, they're aware of that. For some reason, there's a couple thou of variation in the upper BJ hole in these trucks, some are smaller than others. He said zip a 1/2" drill bit through from the top and it'll be good to go in 2 seconds. So I'll do that at lunch today so I can finish the pass side and then move onto the driver's side assembly.

 

[TotalyHucked]

So I got both sides mostly assembled at lunch. I still need to do the pitman/idler arms, center link and inner/outer tie rods. But I think I'm gonna wait to do those until I put the front diff back in since the center link has to come down. My steering was pretty good, so I'm not concerned about it. It'll just look bad for a while longer.

I'll also do new wheel bearings, ABS wires, braided hoses and paint the calipers at that point.

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[Chevrolado]

Lookin great! Love the progress and documentation. Way to go.

 

[TotalyHucked]

Lookin great! Love the progress and documentation. Way to go.

Thanks! It's been frustrating and fun all at the same time. I'm ready for it to be back on the road for sure

 

[TotalyHucked]

Came up to the shop Sunday afternoon to work on this some more. Decided to knock out the bodylift since it's pretty simple and I only had a few hours. First, I measured where I was starting out, height-wise. 38" up front, 37 5/8" in the back (don't jump on me for Carolina squat, the front will settle after I drive it some lol).

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Then removed the front bumper, super easy, it's just 6 bolts. Remove the grille, 2 bolts on the top of each frame rail and then one underneath on either side for the little side support bars

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Took all the driver's side body and core support bolts out, loosened the other side. Took the bolt out of the steering shaft so it could slide, popped the brake lines out of their holders and some of the wiring to make sure it had slack and then started to lift the driver's side.

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Found the e-brake cable was gonna be too tight so I trimmed the tab off the mount (Idk what the purpose is for the tab anyway, I've always knocked it flat for tire clearance in the past).

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[TotalyHucked]

Got the pucks installed on that side and went to throw in the bolts, found that 6 of the 8 cab mount bolts are too big. WTF Come to find out, GM changed the bolt size in the middle of these trucks. I'd horse traded for this kit years ago from my buddy, he'd bought it for his '06 Sierra. The instructions covered both Sierra and Silverado so I thought I was good. What I didn't realize is, '03-05 use 12mm cab bolts, '06-07 use 14mm. So now I have to find hardware or call the bodylift company and see if they'll sell me just some hardware

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Decided to keep going though. Got the other side done, this sucker is tall now lol

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It's only 1.5" though, just wanted a small lift for a bit more tire clearance

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[TotalyHucked]

So then I moved onto the bed. This was a tad sketchy, but not too bad. Same thing, the hardware changed here too. So I just set it down on the pucks for now

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Then moved onto the front bumper. Had to trim off the lower edge of the brackets and then bolt on their new bracket to reach down to the frame rails. Unfortunately, yet again the hardware was wrong. I didn't have enough to do this either. I was losing daylight, so that's where we called it a night and cleaned up

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I also painted these little trim pieces while I had them off. I'm going to shim the bumper up a bit to close up the gap at the bottom of the grille/lights but you'll still be able to see these

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[TotalyHucked]

Continued on this Monday. Got the the wheels/tires pulled off, loaded them and the 35x11.50 Nitto Ridge Grapplers I'd bought in the truck and took them to the tire shop at lunch. Idk if I posted about this, I bought these a little at a time off marketplace lol. The first one was from a buddy off his Duramax, had less than 5k miles on it and he sold it to me for $150. Found a pair with 7-8k on them for $300 and then found 1 brand new one at a small tire shop for $250. So I'm in a $2k set of tires for $700 with minimal wear on them! One of them is kinda chopped, so I'm still looking for a good 5th and this will become the spare

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Then I stopped at the hardware store to see about the proper bolts. I found some that will work, but they're still 20mm short, which is about 4 threads of engagement. I'm going to use them for now but I've reached out to the Zone Offroad to see if I can buy just the hardware. Worst case, I'll buy the whole bodylift kit for an '03-05 and just put the '06/07 hardware in it and sell it when I'm done. It's only $160, that's not worth a safety risk over

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I also got some big fender washers to use for shims. The cab bushings are starting to sag just a tiny bit but this project has spiraled so far so I'm not doing them now. I just shimmed this rear corner for the time being.

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1 fat fender washer did the trick

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I've always run 12.50s or 305/55/20s (13 wide) in the past but I'm loving how these 11.50s look on these wheels

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[TotalyHucked]

So then I finished up the bumper mods and got it hung on there. Ended up adding a couple washers on top of the puck to tighten the gap at the bottom of the fenders/grille

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This was the reason for cutting the front bumper brackets. Had to cut the angle off the stock bracket, use one existing hole, drill another and bolt this 1.5" drop plate on. This bolts on the bottom of the frame rail where the second frame rail bolt was

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This sucker is TALL

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[TotalyHucked]

This sucker is FREAKING TALL and I love it!

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It sure has come a long way in less than a year lol

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