Huck's daily - 2005 Z71 crewcab

[TotalyHucked]

Speaking of a hearse, our R&D director that I share an office with has owned 3 hearses over the years. He LOVES them cuz they're such great haulers, they all had the casket pullout table still in them so loading parts and stuff was a breeze. They were all big, rear drive, V8 Cadillacs. He's tried to convince me over the years but I keep telling him "If you ever buy one, I'm not getting near it. I will ride in a hearse 1 time, and 1 time only"

 

[JamesSam]

Speaking of a hearse, our R&D director that I share an office with has owned 3 hearses over the years. He LOVES them cuz they're such great haulers, they all had the casket pullout table still in them so loading parts and stuff was a breeze. They were all big, rear drive, V8 Cadillacs. He's tried to convince me over the years but I keep telling him "If you ever buy one, I'm not getting near it. I will ride in a hearse 1 time, and 1 time only"

I would never. I seen a few cool makeovers of hearses but I just would not feel confident having to drive it for anything besides what they make them for without serious transformation. There was a serial killer from SC named Pee Wee Gaskins that did horrible, horrible things to his victims and he drove a hearse. Hearing that from my family made me never want to go near one.

 

[TotalyHucked]

Made some more progress on the console yesterday, got it de-nastied. Sprayed it down real heavy with foaming glass cleaner

1st pass

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2nd pass...

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3rd pass. This round, I scrubbed down the carpet with a stiff bristle brush

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Used my mechanics cart with the rubber inserts for the pieces with woodgrain on them so I wouldn't hurt that and the aluminum step ladder for all the long stuff, so it all had to sit in the sun and dry

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But it actually cleaned up really nice!

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[TotalyHucked]

After washing, I discovered the woodgrain is not quite as nice as I originally thought. Guess I've gotta decide if I want to try to wrap it or just paint it

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Also discovered a fatal flaw...my big Rtic doesn't fit...

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So then I started trying to figure out how to modify this more modern GM cupholder to fit in there

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[TotalyHucked]

Did some more disassembly on my lunch break yesterday. It was actually surprisingly easy to get it all apart. 98% of the fasteners are all the same screw as well, that'll make getting it back together much easier

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This is the main base that picks up the seat mounts (the black part), the Bose amp mounts directly to it, then the rusty bracket is what holds the bucket insert for the big storage compartment under the arm rest

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The sub box is pretty cool, molded plastic in a few pieces that's completely sealed. Even has some blind holes in the back for other hardware

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She's dead Jim

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Good thing we have a blaster...

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[TotalyHucked]

All that's left now is to pull the doors out of the cup holder section and the upper storage section so I can paint everything and get all the edges.

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And figure out the cup holder debacle

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The newer insert (right) is 1/2" too wide, so I'm going to cut it up into 2 individual "cups" I think, take out the middle section. My original thought was to just cut the tops off down to the same height as the short Denali piece, but I think I want the extra height as well.

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BUT. I can't go up any at all or it will hit the door

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So my thought is, cut the bottom narrow part out of the original Denali cupholders, leaving the wider upper section (red line). Then section out them middle of the newer cup holers (yellow lines) and then slide the newer cupholder up from the bottom and glue it to the underside of the Denali cupholder (green lines) and around the edges of the round part. Actually, looking at it now, I might keep some of the center part and trim a little at a time so it'll join in the center still. Might help hold them from disforming?

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[TotalyHucked]

The only downside to that is, the newer insert is 3/4" taller and thanks to the lid, I have to go down. So that means cutting the bottom out of the cupholder receiver (yellow arrows). That's fine, but my concern is then there's no support under the rubber for the weight of the cups/sitting them in too hard/whatever...

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[TotalyHucked]

Did some more piddlin' today. Plugged the cup holder section back in the console to see what/if anything was underneath the cupholders directly and there is! It's not a fully enclosed area, but something I could probably build up to support the bottom of the cupholder. The taller cupholder is ~3/4" taller than the Denali OE one, this area is ~1" below, so I'd just have to build up/plastic weld about 1/4" underneath. I think that'll work

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Also ordered some paint. I've been going back and forth on running the wood as is and just repainting the center areas the Dark Shadow Gray like I did the dash bezel or painting over the wood. I've decided to paint over the wood, it's just too rough for me to live with, plus it doesn't really pop against my Very Dark Pewter interior like it does against the gray or tan. My original thought was either Piano Black or Ford Tuxedo Black (has lots of metallic in it) but started looking for something with some red metallic or red undertone in it too. Definitely didn't want straight red like the Victory Red is, that'd be too much in the interior, even just for the outer edges of the console.

After much time on the Google box, I landed on Ford Magma Red Metallic. I've seen this color in person a few times and it's really cool. Looks black in the shade/dark, but then has lots of red metallic in direct sun. I think that'll be cool, even though it'll just look black most of the time. I think the curves on the console will pick up the red nicely. So all the wood will be this Magma Red and it'll still be the Dark Shadow Gray in the center.

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Gonna also do the door control surround centers in the red (Denali's had them woodgrain to match). I'll use my stock ones and just sand the black smooth and paint over them so I don't have to dye the outer edges of these. I'll save these for if/when I find some nicer woodgrain pieces to leave woodgrain

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[TotalyHucked]

Got my Magma Red over the weekend. They included a spray out sheet with the invoice, so I did a quick spray out today. I think this is a pretty killer color.

Looks black not in the light

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Got a great sparkle to it in the light

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[GXPWeasel]

That's a cool looking color.