1996 Chevrolet K1500 Suburban

[Curt]

Man I love stories like this. Family owned trucks are the best! Im also in the process of fixing up my dad's old truck. There's a thread of it in here.

Thanks man! I just read your build thread and it sounds like you're going to have one hell of a truck when you're finished! Definitely followed your thread. Looking forward to seeing the progress!
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After I picked up the seats, I had to get the suburban to the shop to get a bunch of things fixed. Where I live I'm limited to what I can and can't do due to where I live (my parents don't like it when I work on my truck for some reason), also the garage is occupied with other toys. So, we brought it to our friends at California Concepts in Redwood City (I highly recommend them for performing any work). They were the ones who originally worked on the truck before my dad bought it in '97 and that is also where my dad bought the Hummer. The PO of the Hummer was the owner of California Concepts. Anyways, the bill came out to about 5k all-in-all for a rebuilt front suspension, custom fabrication for the lift (fixing the geometry), engine tune-up, rear-end service, etc (there's a LONG list). Here's how she looked after the repairs were done:

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The main difference you can see are the red Rancho RS9000 shocks. The old shocks haven't been replaced since the truck was originally lifted!

 

[Curt]

Once I got the truck back I had to get those seats in. The bill from the shop took a hit on how fast the leather interior swap was going to progress, so I had to sacrifice somehow...

Spoiler

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Once I got something to make the interior look half decent with the leather 2nd and 3rd row, I went ahead with the install. Before installing the seats, I cleaned the carpet and vacuumed everything as best as I could.

Removal of the cloth seats

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Installed Leather Seats

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[Curt]

The chrome tips which we had put on when the truck got painted were starting to fail, so we replaced them with stainless steel Magnaflow tips. It's a 2.5" in 4" out rolled edge tip.

Old

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New

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[Curt]

After the tips were installed, I had to replace the aftermarket side mirrors. The mirrors rattled when the truck was running and they developed some weird scratches in the mirror, I have no clue how they got there.

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The scratches were all over the mirror and created a double image of everything. I ordered brand new OEM side mirrors (15764757 and 15764758) from GMPartsDirect.co (yes .co and not .com).

Replacing the Passenger Side Mirror

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Old

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New

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Replacing the Driver Side Mirror

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Old

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EDIT: Post #600!

 

[Curt]

If you take a look at the process of removing the passenger side mirror, you'll notice how much time passed before I actually got the new one installed. As I was installing the mirror, I dropped the connector down the door and had to take off the door panel. Good thing I did, the passenger side speaker has a massive hole in it and it had to be replaced. I quickly called the nearest audio store and for an aftermarket replacement and luckily they had the KSC65 in stock.

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And in they went... I didn't take any pictures of the passenger side because it was getting way too late and I just wanted to get it done, but I did take pictures of the drivers side the next day.

Spoiler

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[Curt]

After the fronts were replaced, I had to get the rears replaced ASAP.

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Again, special thanks to @df2x4 for telling me to get 6.75" rears instead of 6.5". He said the 6.75" will fit with the original fasteners, and he wasn't kidding! The fitment was flawless.

Old

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New

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​

 

[Curt]

In November of 2016, I removed the front chairs to get them sent out to get reupholstered.

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I sent them to California Concepts to get reupholsted in gray leather, and boy did they do an outstanding job. They went above and beyond of what I asked, in a timely manner as well. As I said before, I HIGHLY recommend going to them for any work you need if you're in the Bay Area.

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[Curt]

Now that the interior of the truck was pretty much sorted, I started to work on the exterior. Everytime I took a photo of the truck, I hated how the black on the grill looked gray in the sun. It gave the truck an outdated look at it needed to be fixed.

Before

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After

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[Curt]

My suburban had the classic sagging sun visor problem that many GMT400s have, so I found a brand new OE pair of sun visors w/o the map bands on eBay, which were made by the company which made the visors way back when this truck was new!

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Before

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After

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[Curt]

In March of 2016, we bought a 2005 Yamaha WR450F, we didn't have a trailer to haul the bike from Half Moon Bay back to San Ramon so we had to rent a trailer from U-Haul. Once we got the bike back home, we went to U-Haul to return the trailer. As we returned the trailer, my dad closed the driver door and I heard something inside the door fall... awesome. Then, the exterior door handle of the drive door didn't work. So, once we got home we had to fix it. So off came the door panel.

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While we were in there, we couldn't get the lock rod to line up with the handle no matter what we did. I pulled it out and turns out it was bent and I bent it back into place.

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Then I put the door handle back in, and everything fell into place. It worked better than it ever did before. The actuation of the door handle feels great.