Wasted Wages: My 1998 Z71 build

[StedsonZ71]

So the truck was in amazing shape when I got it and needed no body work, but I've just been making it better starting small at first, then getting bigger and better. This was my 2nd truck and the first truck I bought on my own. Ive always loved GMT400s and thought itd be a great first build.
Here it is the day I got it. All it had on it was Dual exhaust and the American Racing wheels and some crappy HIDs.

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Side shot after the first bath

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Attempted to clean the headlights, looks way better.

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The 10,000k HIDs.

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First order of business, a system! 12" square Kicker L5 Solo Baric. I forgot to mention the truck did have aftermarket speakers in it.

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Me and my dad made the box and a friend helped me do the wiring so it wouldn't show. I ran the wires under the carpet and under the piece under the door.

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Fits nice and snug, i would have two but theres a jack kit under the seat on the other side so only room for one box.

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And a 1000w Sony Xplod amp mounted behind the back seat in the cab.

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I like things to match, so to match my headlights and radio I got blue LEDs from a buddy and replaced the old ones. Sorry I dont have good info on the radio, its the same one I had in my last truck so I thought Id keep the tradition going haha.

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Theyre super bright too!

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Decided on some camo touch around the door panel trim. What I did was remove the door panels and theres a bunch of plastic studs holding that trim piece in. I took the butt of a screw driver and popped them out. Be careful because if they break you cant replace them. Take a piece of fabric (I used a Camo T shirt haha) and wrap it tightly around it. And what I did was cut little slits in the fabric and secured those to the plastic studs. You could glue it but that didnt work for me. Once you do that pop the piece back in and put the door panel on. Make sure you have some door panel rivets on hand because you will break some.

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But why stop there!

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Just smoked turn signals looked kinda cheap, so i got these. As you can guess the projection isnt quite up to par but youll see how I fix that later.

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Also, these came with regular lights so I ditched the HIDs and finally had some real lighting

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The exhaust that the previous owner had was cheap and sounded bad, so i got the Flowmaster Super 10 series muffler. the loudest street legal one they make. I love the sound, I can only describe it as a tame straight pipe. Sounds like a straight but without all the obnoxious rasps and pops.

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A little muddy, but thats the setup, 3" into 2 2.5" H pipe

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I had a little accident and scraped the guard rail on a bridge... there was really not much damage and the little i had didnt show up on camera. I had some touch up paint done and I painted the fender trim black.

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I got an RBP like grille but it was a little too flashy for me so I returned it. On the right truck Itd look good but not mine. Also, the grill its self was the cheapest piece of crap I ever put on this truck. After several threats the company finally took it back.

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Like I said, I like things that match so I pulled these off and painted the chevy emblem black and chrome to match the others.

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Heres another touch of camo I did, more Is going on the plastic trim across the roof of the cab sometime

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And heres one of the most beneficial things Ive ever done to the truck, fog lights. Gotta say, Im very pleased, it looks awesome!

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Its some adjustable elbow brackets my dad had just laying around. We mounted those where the tow hooks were and it fit perfectly.

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We just ran the wires under the dash to a switch and back to the lights so I can turn them on whenever I want.
Heres the result.

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[StedsonZ71]

And heres the biggest step I took with the truck and my favorite part about it, the lift. Sorry its not some very detailed section where theres pics of me installing it all the way through because I didnt install it. I paid a shop to do it because I didnt have the time or experience. They ran into a few problems on the build, the exhaust needed rerouting and some cutting in the tcase area was needed. Also My steering pitman arm was shot (my dad told me this a few days prior) so they replaced it as well. I remember seeing this in the shop for the first time, I was so damn excited about it.
The lift I went with was the Rough Country 6" suspension kit. I also got the steering stabilizer with it too. And after extensive research on tires I finally just asked the guy at the shop (were good friends) what he could get me cheap. He ordered me a set of 35x12.5x16 Kelly Safari TSRs.

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And here she is after the lift was installed. Man it looked so much bigger then. My fender measurements from the ground up the middle of the tire to the fender is between 43"-44" on all 4 fenders. mostly closer to 44"

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Heres some detailed photos of the suspension and all

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Heres the steering stabilizer, it just mounts one end to the skid plate and the other to the steering link

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It stays right behind this RCX skid plate so you cant see it

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My exhaust needed rerouting

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Some shocks and suspension pics

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Theres not much rust under this thing, just a lot of dirt and mud from my offroad shenanigans

Heres some good before and afters.

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Ive seen plenty of people paint their skids and side brackets the same color as their truck or maybe the trim theme of their truck. Well I dont think it would look good pewter and my trim themes are black and chrome and the skids are already black so I decided to screw a stainless plate behind the logo

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Heres one of the better things Ive put on this truck, a tool box. Great seating and gets the clutter from my cab. Bought it off a friend for a damn good price too.

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Heres how its mounted, just a bracket clamping it to the bed (so we didnt have to drill holes in the truck)

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Has a detachable rod holder! Itll get its use plenty.

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So I decided to do a little cleaning and painting, wish it stayed like this

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Finally, some tows! I dont settle for the cheap stuff so I got the power ones with LED turn signals. To wire the signals up I had to literally wire each mirror to the corresponding turn signal lamp.

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How could I possibly have lights on my truck that aren't smoked (excluding fogs)?? Did this today and made it look 10x better in my opinion.

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Heres another big step I took, changing the gear ratio to help spin the 35s. I went from 3.73 to 4.10. I dont notice a HUGE difference but I can tell some power is back, its not near as sluggish and it doesnt feel like Im pulling a boat behing me now. I dont have to get into the gas as much to get up to speed so I can see how it may get me a little mileage back. The RPMs arent much more and dont really become noticeable until you hit about 60+. I really wish I would have gone with 4.56 but it is what it is.

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So as of now this is where the truck sits. Stay tuned, I still have much planned for it.

 

[StedsonZ71]

And heres my new exhaust setup. 4" rolled and slanted tips dumped over the axle. Couldnt be happier with it. I used my old stuff, just chaged the routing. It sounds different too, a lot raspier but with a deeper tone. Pops a little when it shifts too.

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And Im pretty obsessed with this pic

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[StedsonZ71]

Heres a video of the Exhaust

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBx0-gFOkiM

 

[StedsonZ71]

Newest thing to the build. A 52" Digi Diodes LED Light bar. Hooked it up to a battery charger to test it, its BRIGHT!

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Spot and flood combo

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I actually bought this about 3 weeks ago. Since then Ive been running around to fab shops and all to get some mounts made. Finally my dad told me he could make some at work. Just got them last night. I took measurements of the roof and LED bar to find out how much they need to bend in or out. The bar with the factory brackets is 53-3/8" and my roof is around 53" from door jam to door jam. So my idea is to make mounts that screw inside the door jam instead of on top of the roof. Then I drew exactly what I wanted with the exact dimensions and he made one.

Here is the bar with the mounts on it. Next step is find out the placement in my door jams, trim the bottom to fit to the contour, powder coat them then finally the final mount and wire it up!

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Hers the mock-up. Got the holes drilled in the cab, bracket bent and trimmed to fit the door jam and everything needed to have it mounted. I gave them to my friend and he had them powder coated Sort of a semi gloss black.

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I rounded that front corner off so its a little smoother now

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We made some more bends to fill some of the gaps.

 

[StedsonZ71]

Hit a buzzard at about 60 mph and it busted my grill and broke my headlights and turn signals. Ill need a new grill since the screw holes where the turn signals screw into are busted and theres cracks all in it and it busted the signals and my headlight mounts.

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I ordered some chrome headlights And removed my tow mirrors and put my stock ones of for a while so I could take the mirrors and grill to be color matched. After some good time and money here she is!
Im super happy with the way it turned out and they did a great job on color matching the pewter. Its way cleaner, I will say that but the old look was way meaner and more aggressive IMO. But I want clean so im sticking with the all PTM, debadging and a smoothie front bumper in the future,

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Ditched the fogs and remembered why I have the front tag. Its about the only thing holding the trim on the front haha

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[StedsonZ71]

Wanted to clean it up a bit with some HIDs so I threw some 10,000K HI and LOW beams in it.

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Didnt really like the output of the 10,000K bulbs and I thought 5,000K would match the LED bar so Put them HI and LOW beams. Not sure why the lows look blue theyre white in person. But These are definitely my favorite.

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[StedsonZ71]

I finally got around to fixing my torn leather seat. Now the interior looks mint! Well except for my passenger seat but that wasnt as bad as my seat so it can wait.

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Rough Country sent me a bunch of stuff and a $50 gift card so I scored these bad boys for $40! LED pods really make it look better and the output is insane for such small lights. Not only do they put a good spot on the ground but they also flood out to the tops of trees and far out to each side

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Still not sure why my headlights look blue.. But here are the night output photos

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Just the 5,000K HID Low beams

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Just the LED pods

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Low beams and the Pods

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Everything (5,000K HID lows, LED pods and the 52" LED bar)

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