Huck's daily - 2005 Z71 crewcab

[HotWheelsBurban]

Stopped back in that yard again today in between going to 2 others to look at that '06 hood. It was still there, it was straight as an arrow...

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But it was rusted BAADDDD

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A buddy of mine had told me you can use vent control buttons from a ~2014ish Chevy Equinox or GMC Terrain to dress up the GMT800 vents. There were several in the yard so I grabbed all of them lol. The side vents toward the doors can be used but the center vents, the little button is too fat cuz the bars inside the vents are much fatter, so they won't work. I think I ended up with 14 of those lol. Also grabbed 4 vent assemblies out of another 800 so I can practice before doing mine

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Also grabbed the AC knobs out of a Buick Rendevous cuz they're a direct swap for my plain black ones

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Yup ours was starting to dissolve that way too. So much for "black cars don't rust", one of Dad's favorite quotes....

 

[WFO]

The self service yards in Houston have been that way, since they were Pick Your Part, back in the mid 80s. It was $2 a head, and when you checked out, if they didn't have what you wanted at that yard, you could get a pass for one of the other Pick Your Part yards (4 in Houston eventually, 3 still open as LKQ's). Dad's idea of a good time was to hit all of them on a Saturday....we made some good scores back then.
Now the LKQ's are $5 a head, not sure if they still do the "pass". Went to the Northside one Saturday of Memorial Day weekend, and scored some NBS PY0 factory 8 lug alloys, for half price plus the core charge. They had a three day sale, but that was the only day, and yard, that I went to. Too damn hot, and the heat/humidity suck my energy more than in my younger days.....
The other yard I go to, the U Pull And Pay in SE Houston, only charges $3 a head, but if you join the VIP club you can get in for $2! It's not quite as fancy as the LKQ, but if they got stuff I can use, it's worth going across town for.
Best self service yards I've been to, is outside of Austin on Texas 71, called Wrench A Part. They have an air conditioned, covered lobby and checkouts, and the yard is arranged more orderly than the yards here. We drove by it on the way home from the Lone Star Roundup car show and swap meet last month, and the parking lot was packed! Was a nice day for hunting....

I guess I haven't been to Houston Junkyards since the mid 80s.
Usually on Jensen Dr.

None of the Junkyards here in Amarillo have a cover charge.

 

[TotalyHucked]

I never realized that the Suburban rear flares were a little different.

Ever so slightly. That little tail piece and holding it up against my truck, it looks like they might be slightly wider up top. Looks like the top "corners" are bigger by maybe 1/8" or so

 

[HotWheelsBurban]

I guess I haven't been to Houston Junkyards since the mid 80s.
Usually on Jensen Dr.

None of the Junkyards here in Amarillo have a cover charge.

There are still several regular yards on North Shepherd, and in other parts of town. Went to some of them a long time ago with Dad, when he was looking for different things.
I enjoy going to the self service yards and doing research, like last year when I had to get into the front passenger door on the Crew Cab, to see why the lock wasn't working. Went out and looked at several trucks, took pictures and made a short video with my phone, to see how the latch rods and links were supposed to work...so I could figure out why mine didn't. Of course it's more enjoyable when the weather is nice, not hot and humid like most of the year here in Houston. Hard to believe a few months ago, it snowed, and Costco didn't have power (like a large part of greater Houston) so I got two days off in a row!

 

[TotalyHucked]

Friday after work, I loaded up all my junkyard scores, a bunch of tools and paint to finally spend a weekend tinkering at home instead of driving an hour each way to the shop...

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Only to realize I forgot a couple very important tools for the jobs planned. So I ended up back at the shop Saturday. Which actually worked out much better than trying to do some of what I needed to do at home. I'll show ya why later


First off, I started disassembling my DL3 mirrors to paint the caps and to replace the driver's side mirror glass

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These are held on with double sided sticky tape and 4 tabs, so I used a plastic scraper to cut through the sticky tape and give some tension while I gently pried on each tab. I managed to split, but not break, 2 of the tabs on this mirror. The driver's mirror, I broke 2 tabs completely off. No big deal, the tape is mainly what holds them on, I think the tabs are just installation guides more than anything

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Here's a shot of why I had to replace the glass on this side. These were factory auto-dimming and when the auto-dimming "fluid" goes bad, they become a golden/amber color. I was trying my best to gently pry it off and then was going to attempt to separate the layers. Supposedly if you can do that, you can do away with the top "glass", clean out the goo and just reuse the lower mirror. Well, I got impatient after about 20min and broke the damn thing

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[TotalyHucked]

Here's the backside. You're supposed to be able to use a pick or awl and bend those tabs up enough to get it to release. All I kept doing was stabbing the bellows on the adjustment motor, I think I managed to move one tab and it broke right off. So I figured if this is how it's gonna go, I'll just pry till it releases...and it broke. Oh well

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So then I moved onto the caps. Sanded them with 400 first, then wet sanded with 800 grit. Didn't worry about filling little chips and whatnot, they'll match the truck lol

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Then sprayed 2 coats of filler primer

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Let it cure in the sun for an hour

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Brought them inside to cool off and then sprayed the first couple coats of red. It wasn't liking the humidity. It was 88* and 90% humidity Saturday

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[TotalyHucked]

Kept playing with my spraying, sometimes I can get away with super light coats when it's humid like this. Wasn't happening this time

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So that's like 4 coats there. For the last couple, I'd turned the AC on it's "dry" setting at like 74* in the office about an hour prior. So I did 2 final coats, sprayed them pretty heavy and immediately ran them into the office to sit in between. Worked like a charm!

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So then I thought, well why don't I get a tarp down on the floor and just spray the clear in the office? So that's what I did This is why it worked out much better to come to the shop. I couldn't have done this at home

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[TotalyHucked]

There was still a bit of hazing after the last couple coats since they were sprayed out in the humidity, so I was worried about the clear. But it worked great! This is after the 2 coats and probably an hour of dry time. A good bit of orange peel but I ended up doing 5 coats of clear, so I can wet sand and buff them after a week or two

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So I was bouncing between projects with all of that since you've gotta wait for paint to flash. I also was working on my Denali dash bezel. If you'll recall, the inner silver portion was worn in a couple different spots. The factory material isn't paint, it's a weird, rubbery type thing. I sanded it best I could but it didn't sand very well at all. So I did what I could on the worst spots and just quickly scuffed everything else before taping it off and wiping it down

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This bezel also had a pretty good crack in it, so I tried my hand at plastic welding first

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Put it face down so it'd keep the crack closed up and taped over it for good measure

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[TotalyHucked]

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Plastic welding is much more difficult than I thought it would be. Especially in that small opening. I ended up melting the back edge of the bezel a bit without realizing it. And then it started to re-split on me, so I added some of the wire mesh the kit came with. Doing that, I accidently melted the bezel in 2 more spots where you can see it up top. I forgot to take pictures of the mesh cuz I was pissed off at that point. Then when I installed it, another crack appeared 1" over

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You can see the initial crack on the right, the new one on the left and the 3 high spots where I melted the edge a bit. I'm gonna find another bezel and try again

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So I let it cool and then taped it up. Sanded where I could, scuffed the whole thing and then shot the same filler primer on it

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I did 3 layers of primer on that, so while it flashed I pulled the front door panels off. Swapped the driver's window switch for a new DL3 one that has the power fold mirror option

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[TotalyHucked]

They're super easy to change, just release the 3 tabs on each side and it comes out the bottom

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Also swapped in my Esky interior handles while I was there

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And took some pictures for restoration reference in the future lol

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[TotalyHucked]

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Once the primer dried, I laid on some paint. I'd read that Ford Dark Shadow Gray is a pretty darn close match so I grabbed some of that on my way to the shop

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Unfortunately, once I sprayed it, the metallic showed me where the sand paper had gouged down in that rubberized coating. Good to know for next time

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The primer also didn't 100% fill in the low spots. But not bad for a first try

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[TotalyHucked]

Overall though, it came out looking great. I didn't clear the grey in case I didn't like it and wanted to redo it, so it's a little rough to the touch. I did also have 1 spot of the woodgrain delaminate on me when I un-taped it. I'm thinking this bezel will be a good candidate to work on figuring out plastic repair better and since the woodgrain is fubar'd, I think I'm gonna do a "custom" bezel by sanding down the wood grain and painting it all Ford Tuxedo Black that's got some metallic in it.

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I let it sit in the sun for a while to bake and then installed it and that reddish-brown fancier steering wheel a couple hours later

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I don't hate the mis-match of the wood, but I do think it'd look better matching the Denali woodgrain or painted black. I think I'll find another bezel to do better and paint this bezel Ford Tuxedo Black. Then either use that other wheel I bought or find another of this one and have it painted black to match. Then dip this one and I'll have 2 setups I can swap between the two whenever I want

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[TotalyHucked]

Then I moved onto the Buick Rendevous AC knobs. You can see my original knob on the left, it's shaft retainer hole is a good bit smaller than the Buick's. Easy enough, just pull the metal retainer out and insert it into the Buick one

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The other knob was a bit trickier. It had a much longer shaft, so I cut it off flush with the back of the knob and then had to dremel out the hole until it would accept my Silverado retainer

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[TotalyHucked]

I didn't realize it till I was cleaned up and about to leave, I also needed to cut the light saber thing down a bit too. I'll do that sometime this week, looks like it needs a solid 3/8" or so cut off so it'll sit flush like the other one

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I also discovered the PO had glued these lenses into the door panel when they broke off, so that looks like crap now. This is the new LED version installed

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Overall this is a nice little upgrade to these bland, all the same color interiors. I think I wanna paint the couple trim bezels on the console next and eventually find a Denali console to do as well

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Here's what I did to a truck years ago. I wouldn't do the console lid this time though

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[TotalyHucked]

The very last thing I did Saturday night was install the LED 3rd brake light my dad got me for Xmas. I don't like how it looks but it's bright as hell, even the cargo lights are bright as hell and it didn't make my cruise stop functioning. So I think I'll order up some red tinted clear so I can candy it to look more stock

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Checked my mirror caps this morning and they're definitely a bit brighter but I'm hoping that's mainly just cuz the truck is dirty as hell

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