Kurt's 96 Z71 Build

I was raised around this truck and never realized until recently that its pretty rare around these parts. We originally ordered it with this color because it matched our boat at the time.

Bought a brand new aftermarket grille on craigslist, ordered new bowtie and corner lenses to go on it. Should I stick with my black led parking lights or go to a clear parking light with a traditional bulb?

Yesterday on my way to work I ran over something that gave me a big ole hole in my tire and worse a big dent in the bottom of the fender
Lets just say I'm not too happy about the dent and could care less about the tires, they're junk. but the truck was 100% dent free except one tiny one on the tailgate. But I made an impulse buy and decided that there was no better time than the present to upgrade to 285's which I've always wanted to do. I was a little nervous that they might not fit and would rub, but gladly they don't rub on the stock suspension. Im totally happy with my decision and even if it wasn't the most financially smart thing I could have done, considering I'm going to college this fall, I think they look fantastic.

Kurtz71 said:

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Yesterday on my way to work I ran over something that gave me a big ole hole in my tire and worse a big dent in the bottom of the fender

You must be registered for see images attach

Lets just say I'm not too happy about the dent and could care less about the tires, they're junk. but the truck was 100% dent free except one tiny one on the tailgate. But I made an impulse buy and decided that there was no better time than the present to upgrade to 285's which I've always wanted to do. I was a little nervous that they might not fit and would rub, but gladly they don't rub on the stock suspension.

You must be registered for see images attach

You must be registered for see images attach

You must be registered for see images attach

Im totally happy with my decision and even if it wasn't the most financially smart thing I could have done, considering I'm going to college this fall, I think they look fantastic.

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Good looking tire on a good looking truck. Perfect

Got around to fixing my air conditioning today, after having my license for 3 hot summers and no a/c I figured it was time to fix the issue. Kinda.... I charged my system today with a product called A/C Pro. It really worked well. The system was bone dry before I charged it so it took the whole can. But we've done this before many years ago and it only lasted a couple months because there's a leak in the system. So it's only a temporary fix. But I'll redo it again next year, it's not big deal to me. As long as I'm not sweating my ass off all day long. I also got some LED 194 lights from Walmart too. I put them under the dash and one in the license plate illumination too.

Uuuugghh. I want this truck sooo bad. It's how every OBS K1500 ought to be; simple and tasteful. And cleaaaan.
Not typically a fan of Dick Cepeks, but they look amazing on your truck!

BowtieBrody said:

Uuuugghh. I want this truck sooo bad. It's how every OBS K1500 ought to be; simple and tasteful. And cleaaaan.
Not typically a fan of Dick Cepeks, but they look amazing on your truck!

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Thanks bro I appreciate all the likes I get from people here. I try really hard to think my modifications through before doing them. Lots of research, seeing what others are doing and what I like. Everything has to look clean in my book. I try my best to not hack or take any short cuts.

I finally got my corner lights in the mail and got everything mounted onto the truck. Doesn't look too bad with the black LED parking lights. I just need amber LEDs for the corners. I got out to take some pictures today and these are them.

Ive recently just started at the local community college in a General Motors ASEP technical program, and also a job at a local Chevrolet dealer, so I've been learning a lot about cars and trucks, specifically GM's. A couple changes good and bad, have come to my truck recently. The first thing that happened was that the recirculating air door motor inside the cabin went bad and made an awful clicking noise anytime the ignition was on, it took me a day to diagnose because the motor is in such a tight spot up under the dash but i finally got the old one out and a new one in. Napa charges a premium for that piece too.
I opened up the unit to see what was wrong, just out of curiosity and i found that one, only one tooth was stripped from one of the gears, and that another gear was cracked.
The next thing that happened was probably pure stupidity on my part. I broke one of the arms on my backrack. I strapped some pallets to it one night and I guess they bounced around a lot because the arm was bent out at a 90 degree angle when I got to the spot. It broke the metal on the square tubing, but not the welds themselves.
I also seemed to have broken my inside door handle clean off because last week it just stopped working and then it started flopping around. So once again I head off to napa and get a replacement part. Which actually seemed to be an upgrade, because the aftermarket piece feels much better than the OEM part ever did. The removal and install was easy, the only tough part being drilling the rivet that held the original part in, it wanted to spin rather than be drilled out.
Something i learned in school was that on the top of the steering box is a nut with an allen key inside it and if I loosened the nut and turned the allen head just slightly it may tighten up my steering some, so thats just what I did. It made a slightly noticeable difference. To fully correct the steering i would have to take the steering column apart, and thats just not worthy of the time or effort right now in my book.
The final thing i did was to install an Auxbeam 20" CREE LED light bar under the bumper right in between the tow hooks. This is a totally practical addition to my truck because I could compare my headlights to holding a flashlight out the window, and I live out in the country so visibility is a must. I now use the light bar as a high beam instead of the 4hi I installed.
I will post more pics of installations and other stuff once it stops raining

Took some comparison photos between the headlights last night and theres an obvious night and day difference. The first photo is just my headlights on high beam, but with the 4hi mod:
And the second photo is of my headlights on low beam with the 20" LED bar on:

Huge difference and makes it so much more drivable at night too. I never use my high beams anymore,just the light bar in place of it.