gstubbz's trucks

[Silverado1994]

Dude.....this thread is just off the charts. Love all the stuff I see going on here.

Out of all the pictures I think this one takes the cake.....wow!!

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[drewcrew]

So that concludes my major truck updates since June. There has been a lot and even littler stuff I didn't post about (1994 GMC Sierra that was in my shop for a bit for a dash harness replacement that was an utter nightmare was one). Even everything going on in my life since about October has been haywire and I cannot wait for winter to be over. This cabin fever thing is not enjoyable and I'm ready for the warmer temps and more motivation to work on things. There's been a ton of good and bad lately too but some of my life choices I question, and someday I'll be able to read this thread from the beginning and laugh about all that I've done or the things I've talked about.

Something else I just wanted to throw in here while I'm on my soapbox. There was a facebook post the other day asking people about their first truck and looking back, when I was getting my licence in 2014 a decent enough GMT800 started at $5,000 for a 99 and that seemed so expensive to me at the time so I ended up with a $2600 GMT400 instead, which in turn started my love for them for years to come as they were the cheap trucks that you could pick up for a few hundred dollars. At this point in time now the GMT800s are the cheap trucks that you can get all day and the gmt400s are fading out in availability a bit. It's just crazy to me seeing things evolve with time!

... but I am most excited about owning a LBZ now!

(more motivation to work on things ?). Are you kidding ? I'm exhausted just reading about all you did. Your busier than a one armed paper hanger with an itch.

 

[gstubbz]

I've got a few more updates from the last month! I've been slacking on posting lol

The HD:

I finished getting this truck back together and it is now drivable and I put 115 miles on it last weekend just driving it around, and honestly it did great! It rides so extremely rough without any weight though - the suspension is literally your seat!

I made some temporary mud flaps and rigged up some trailer lights for brake lights in the interim, but I need to do some more with the mud flaps so the bottom stays straight across rather than curling up, in addition my crappy tail light brackets are actually Simpson hangers that I bent which kind of works, but they are flimsy and I need to do something about it as the wind and weight/drag of the licence plate bends the one side down pretty easily.

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In addition, I picked up a plate with a gooseneck ball off craigslist (guy had it listed for $110, I tried to bargain which got me nowhere, I didn't even have the full $110 so I ended up giving him like $107 lol) so at some point I need to clean it up and get it attached to the frame.

In one of the pictures below I drove up to the Canada border and it's literally 20 feet behind the truck in the photo, all the border fence is up here is just double barb wire fences lol

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The 99 2500:

I've been doing a lot more with this truck recently, and currently I have the fenders and hood from a 05 2500hd mounted up, and started reassembly of the engine bay. There are a fair amount of wires that were cut in the harness so I've been slowly piecing those back together with some spare parts harnesses I have laying around. I do like having a cateye to look at again!

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I also managed to get the third door to open today, and the latch on the bottom of the door was broken so it was a bit of a pain to get it open, in addition the window was barely hanging on but luckily I have the third door still from the parts cab truck that I will be stealing the door latch innards and window from to fix mine.

I am going to spend a few more days on the truck switching from a brake booster to hydroboost, new steering column, strip the interior, replace the carpet, yada yada I still have a ton to do!

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I picked up a parts 2002 Yukon that is pretty stripped outside of the interior, which is mainly all I wanted. It has a fairly clean interior so I am taking the door panels, seats, dash, and center console for the 99. I have already started taking parts off this thing such as some wiring, fender brackets, and bolts which it's been a bit of a saving grace for some of that stuff. I kinda wanted to piece this one back together with the 6.0/nv4500 to have a fun unique build but honestly the 99 2500 will be so much more useful!

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Other News:

Not much really, I've been busy with spring cleanup around the shop and in the shop so I have less of a mess everywhere and it's been going well. I cut up the parts 99 cab I had and loaded up a bunch of scrap yesterday, I still have more on the property but the guy who bought the 91 k1500 from me wanted it so he's running out of time before I get rid of it myself. In addition he wanted the 99 1500 frame I had and he also needs to get the 82 k10 off my property so I can stop looking at it (I would have already junked it but he actually paid me for it back in December lol)

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I still have yet to decide on my LBZ duramax route, about swapping the HD or finding a frame and swapping everything over. I'm super wishy-washy and at the moment I'm leaning towards finding a frame so it could be a summer project for me. We will see!

Then I also need to get this 03 VW Golf TDI in the shop, a buddy dropped it off last fall and I was waiting on a RossTech VCDS tool so I could check the timing, buddy did a timing belt on it and the timing has been off ever since. Now that I have the tool I can get it timed properly and hopefully this can leave my shop here soon!

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After all that I'll be down to 5 trucks and the parts Yukon, really that should be 3 at most but that's just not me!

 

[gstubbz]

I'm trying to improve on posting some more a little more often than I have been!

I really do have a focus on the 1999 2500 more than anything though. I've needed a beater truck ever since I sold the 05 Duramax back in January. So with that said, since the last post I stripped just about all of the interior and my goodness what a mess the carpet and everything below it was. To my amusement for the cab having 448k, there was zero rust in the floorboards (the rockers have a bit though). Tomorrow I plan on pressure washing the inside of the cab so it's as clean as can be. I did replace the 1500 door badge with the 2500 one I pulled off a junk door. I need to pull the 2500hd one off the old 05 door in my scrap pile and put it on and take the "HD" part off.

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Tomorrow along with cleaning the cab I plan to start removing interior pieces and wiring from the Yukon I'll be using, and one of the things I am hoping I can use a good portion of will be the insulation under the carpet as the one in the 99 is fairly dirty around the front portion and also has a hole through it from where your heel sits when holding the gas pedal. I also pressure washed the black carpet from the parts 99 yesterday and it cleaned up pretty nice so I'm excited to see it installed! There was also a dent on the drivers side that was pretty bad, I pushed it out what I could so it still looks bad but was better than what it was.

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My other kind of side project is helping a friend of mine, she is planning on doing a lot of traveling so she bought a 07 Chevy Express 1500 (of course I wanted to make sure it was a GM not a Ford since I know GM full size trucks pretty well! The 5.3 in this hauls butt!) in February so I have been helping her since fixing the few mechanical and adding some things (PS pump, mushy brakes, wiper fluid not working, aftermarket radio, comp/temp mirror, etc) and she recently gutted the interior so I get to make use of my rusty finish carpentry skills to help her make it a livable camper van. So my next month will have a lot of time invested into that project as well. I'll be sure to try getting some pictures of the progress to share here.

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LBZ Duramax update real quick. I think for sake and ease I am going to find a frame. Junkyards on https://www.car-part.com/ have bare frames that run between $400-900 and clearly I'm not afraid of cab-off frame swaps anymore so I am keeping my eye out for a frame semi-close to me. The LBZ rebuild will probably be my summer project. Still not sure on plans for the HD though, at least once I get the 99 2500 together I am putting a gooseneck in that so I can at least continue to haul things for the meantime.

 

[gstubbz]

I have some updates to post!

My 2014 Silverado is finally at the body shop for the new tailgate and bumper, I'll be excited to have that truck back I haven't had it for the last few days and it sucks! I've been driving the work truck (05 Silverado 1500 4.8/4l60e/4x4/303k) but I think the transmission finally started to die today so that's great. Maybe when I sell the 99 2500 I can buy this thing from work and fix it up, there is a bunch I would do and have planned!

Some GMT800 galore at the shop:

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1999 Silverado 2500

I made a bit more headway with the 99 2500, interior is just about completed, and I am happy with it! I still have the door panels to do and a few other trim pieces, but every time I open the door I think I'm getting into a gmt800 SUV due to the two tone dash colors. I also almost have it running, I tried the last few days getting it to start, and it's almost there. I can get it to run for two seconds on starting fluid, but that's it. I tested the fuel pressure (58psi) and found out my injectors were not working. I was not sure if the injectors were trying to fire and they were clogged from old fuel and sitting in a box for almost two and a half years, or not firing at all.

So I took a 5.3 injector I had, cut a plug off a junk engine harness, and cleaned the injector up to make sure it was spraying brake cleaner when I applied power. I then disconnected one injector plug from the truck and plugged this injector in with brake clean in the bowl, and nothing. So what I am led to believe is there is something related to the transmission (4l80e) being non-existent and it's having a tough time figuring out I'm in park/neutral or some security system issue. I did jump the (what I thought was) neutral safety switch to no avail. When I get the 2014 back from the body shop I'll go to town with HPTuners (my MPVI2 is in the center console go figure) to make a manual truck tune and hope that will solve my fueling issue. I did build a quick harness to flash computers on a desk though so I am excited to try that out!

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2003 VW Golf TDI 1.9L ALH

This was a friend's commuter car that has been at my shop all winter long and I finally got around to it. He did a timing belt (the old one was getting bad) and messed up the injection pump timing so it has been at my shop since to diagnose. I messed with it all day Saturday and got the timing spot on, however it was having a boost issue, which at first it would have boost for 2 minutes then throw a underboost code, and so I came across some busted vacuum lines that I patched, and same issue. Come to find out when I was looking around, the boost tube into the intercooler wasn't attached all the way so air was leaking through. I fixed that and the car was all good to go! I am so happy to see it go, but it brought me home the next thing...

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2005 GMC Yukon Denali

So the buddy that had the VW Golf above, his son has had this Yukon for probably around 2 years now. I actually traded him some parts for his yukon for the C20 I had for a quick minute back in the height of COVID 2020. It didn't look that bad two years ago and I'll include a pic below (also including my old 07 ECLB that was an awesome work truck, my 99 2500 will end up as a similar clone). How I ended up with it was the transmission was rough with 1/2/R moving gears only so his son replaced it with the Chevy Uplander (actually also seen in the background of the 2020 photo). I paid $300 for this thing.

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And it's beat and no longer red and pretty like it once was! It was not really beat either. But I did tell him when he was done with it I would be first in line to buy it for parts! So I dropped off the Golf and drove this thing home, of course in the middle of a crazy snow storm in April but it did fine outside of the transmission being trashed. It runs awesome and has 203k. I did feel WT driving it though.

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I will ultimately yank the powertrain (6.0 345hp LQ9) out and scrap the rest. I'll save the e-fans, and maybe the seats to redo them for the LBZ project or the 3500HD, but that's about it. The rest is garbage so I'll probably get my fun in with some trees on the property. I'm hoping this has the NP149 AWD transfer case so I can save that for a future AWD build (shhh I want to build a ECSB SS clone someday) and crossing my fingers it's not the Borg Warner transfer case they also used during these years for AWD. I will be taking the exhaust and y-pipe from this for the 99 2500 since I didn't have anything else laying around.

--

So there are my current updates! I am hoping at some point during the weekend I'll have the 99 2500 running and close to drivable. I think after that I'll do some more with the 3500HD and yank the denali apart. Also I need to fix my gooseneck trailer badly so I can start using it again too. I have some stuff to haul!

 

[Wiscoburban]

I have some updates to post!

My 2014 Silverado is finally at the body shop for the new tailgate and bumper, I'll be excited to have that truck back I haven't had it for the last few days and it sucks! I've been driving the work truck (05 Silverado 1500 4.8/4l60e/4x4/303k) but I think the transmission finally started to die today so that's great. Maybe when I sell the 99 2500 I can buy this thing from work and fix it up, there is a bunch I would do and have planned!

Some GMT800 galore at the shop:

You must be registered for see images attach

1999 Silverado 2500

I made a bit more headway with the 99 2500, interior is just about completed, and I am happy with it! I still have the door panels to do and a few other trim pieces, but every time I open the door I think I'm getting into a gmt800 SUV due to the two tone dash colors. I also almost have it running, I tried the last few days getting it to start, and it's almost there. I can get it to run for two seconds on starting fluid, but that's it. I tested the fuel pressure (58psi) and found out my injectors were not working. I was not sure if the injectors were trying to fire and they were clogged from old fuel and sitting in a box for almost two and a half years, or not firing at all.

So I took a 5.3 injector I had, cut a plug off a junk engine harness, and cleaned the injector up to make sure it was spraying brake cleaner when I applied power. I then disconnected one injector plug from the truck and plugged this injector in with brake clean in the bowl, and nothing. So what I am led to believe is there is something related to the transmission (4l80e) being non-existent and it's having a tough time figuring out I'm in park/neutral or some security system issue. I did jump the (what I thought was) neutral safety switch to no avail. When I get the 2014 back from the body shop I'll go to town with HPTuners (my MPVI2 is in the center console go figure) to make a manual truck tune and hope that will solve my fueling issue. I did build a quick harness to flash computers on a desk though so I am excited to try that out!

You must be registered for see images attach

--

2003 VW Golf TDI 1.9L ALH

This was a friend's commuter car that has been at my shop all winter long and I finally got around to it. He did a timing belt (the old one was getting bad) and messed up the injection pump timing so it has been at my shop since to diagnose. I messed with it all day Saturday and got the timing spot on, however it was having a boost issue, which at first it would have boost for 2 minutes then throw a underboost code, and so I came across some busted vacuum lines that I patched, and same issue. Come to find out when I was looking around, the boost tube into the intercooler wasn't attached all the way so air was leaking through. I fixed that and the car was all good to go! I am so happy to see it go, but it brought me home the next thing...

You must be registered for see images attach

--

2005 GMC Yukon Denali

So the buddy that had the VW Golf above, his son has had this Yukon for probably around 2 years now. I actually traded him some parts for his yukon for the C20 I had for a quick minute back in the height of COVID 2020. It didn't look that bad two years ago and I'll include a pic below (also including my old 07 ECLB that was an awesome work truck, my 99 2500 will end up as a similar clone). How I ended up with it was the transmission was rough with 1/2/R moving gears only so his son replaced it with the Chevy Uplander (actually also seen in the background of the 2020 photo). I paid $300 for this thing.

You must be registered for see images attach

And it's beat and no longer red and pretty like it once was! It was not really beat either. But I did tell him when he was done with it I would be first in line to buy it for parts! So I dropped off the Golf and drove this thing home, of course in the middle of a crazy snow storm in April but it did fine outside of the transmission being trashed. It runs awesome and has 203k. I did feel WT driving it though.

You must be registered for see images attach

You must be registered for see images attach

I will ultimately yank the powertrain (6.0 345hp LQ9) out and scrap the rest. I'll save the e-fans, and maybe the seats to redo them for the LBZ project or the 3500HD, but that's about it. The rest is garbage so I'll probably get my fun in with some trees on the property. I'm hoping this has the NP149 AWD transfer case so I can save that for a future AWD build (shhh I want to build a ECSB SS clone someday) and crossing my fingers it's not the Borg Warner transfer case they also used during these years for AWD. I will be taking the exhaust and y-pipe from this for the 99 2500 since I didn't have anything else laying around.

--

So there are my current updates! I am hoping at some point during the weekend I'll have the 99 2500 running and close to drivable. I think after that I'll do some more with the 3500HD and yank the denali apart. Also I need to fix my gooseneck trailer badly so I can start using it again too. I have some stuff to haul!

We need some more updates! Your thread provides endless entertainment with all the projects