1996 GMC Suburban "Kaye"

[Aarong23]

After that, took a break then installed the drop shackles. Now the top of the leaf touches the underside, don't think it is supposed to do that. I took her for a really slow spin and it rode fine so I don't know.

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When the wheels were off I made a discovery, the rear tires are shot too. Don't know how I missed that the other night but the inner sidewall on both rears are bulged out, hopefully I can get 4 used tires this weekend.

As she sits now Kaye is 4 inches lower than my other 400, her front fenders are 32 and 3/4ths and 32.5 in the rear. My other 400's front fenders are 36.5 and 37.5 in the rear

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That is interesting about the keys. I wonder why the fobs are different and I wonder how the hell they ended in the dash like that.

 

[Ehall8702]

Was messing around with the truck today and noticed she had an aftermarket alarm system in it that I had no remote for so I started to remove it. Started clipping some wires then I had to remove the lower dash panel, when I popped it off I **** you not 2 sets of keys fell out.

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A unspent 380 bullet, a thing of chap stick, a pen and a milk bone fell out as well, I had a WTF moment. Both keys start Kaye and the OEM fob works too. I've found some interesting stuff in vehicles before but I think this wins and brings more questions than answers.

Continued to remove the alarm system, lots of wire taps. One was on the hot for the floor lights oddly enough. Then I got to the column wiring, was not impressed with what was done here. The red wire has a crimp, and a cut beneath with a wire going into it that is poorly soldered. Lots of crimps. 9 or 10 total.

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I cut that mess out and had to reuse some wiring from the alarm system to hook the pink and yellow wires back together as I didn't have the correct gauge wire. Went and looked for my soldering iron to put it together the correct way, found my iron but no solder. I re-flowed the solder on the red wire and used wire nuts on the pink and yellow wires. It'll get soldered at some point.

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Much better

Here's the wires I pulled out and the rest of the stuff that fell out of the dash.

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I have 3 sets of key and the crotch vent works now, can't complain about that.

I have seen keys in the dash but usually they were strapped inside an alarm system to fool the pats or passkey system , sometimes they are in a box with a coil around em wired into alarm system and sometimes they are glued or taped to the passkey/passlock module. Never seen two whole sets of keys n the dash tho lol.

 

[Skeletal]

I pulled the wheels off Kaye, had jack stands in the front and the jack under the pumpkin. I was lowering the rear to be level with the front, I wasn't paying full attention and put the rear end on the floor. Lots of profanity and pulling the jack handle to the left until I eventually got the jack to a spot I could use it. I need to get more stands...

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Called the tire shop again today to make sure they had the correct size tire before I left, said they had 4. I get there and the guy says the tires were sold. I ended up ordering a set of Federal Couragia S/U for her, they're identical to the AZ800's I wanted to get and they'll be here this week. I wanted to use that extra money for brakes but those will have to wait a little longer.

Before I ordered the new tires I looked around to see if I could fit the 265/35's when she is lowered, found 2 lowered trucks with the same rims and tire size. It's pretty damn close but should work until I get the new wheels.
Truck from GMFS

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rojas84's truck

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[Skeletal]

She is now tagged and insured, hoping to drive her Friday or Saturday (whenever the tires show up). I started doing some exhaust work, she had codes for bad cats which was all the excuse I needed to gut them. The flange back section is now free of the stock muffler/tailpipe and the passenger catalytic is gutted. I don't really know how I'm going to gut the driver side catalytic without cutting it out, which I would prefer not to do.

I'm going to put some mufflers on and dump them before the axle, it'll work for the time being until I set aside some money for an all new exhaust and maybe some headers.

I keep forgetting to put these up, she has the under hood storage box and a crank light.

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[SUBURBAN5]

That's what I got under the hood too lol. Storage works awesome and I like have extra lighting lol

 

[OutlawDrifter]

That's pretty wild about the keys, milkbone, etc....

Can you cut the bottom of the cat off, gut it and weld it back on? I have "heard" of people doing that, haha.

 

[Skeletal]

I ended up having to cut the other catalytic off in order to gut it. I tried unbolting the pipe from the header so I would only have to make 1 cut but the nuts would not budge and I broke an extension.

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Waiting for a band clamp off Amazon so I can connect the catalytic back up, got the other end sealed, I need to move the clamps a little further apart.

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The exhaust should be in one piece tomorrow or mostly assembled.

Can you cut the bottom of the cat off, gut it and weld it back on? I have "heard" of people doing that, haha.

I didn't think of that but I don't have a welder, I need to make friends with someone who has one lol.

 

[Skeletal]

The exhaust is mostly finished, need to get 2 turn downs and install the new flange gasket when it shows up.

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Went with 2 Thrush turbo mufflers, I'm happy with the way it sounds, something different than what I normally go with. Exhaust leaks from the flange a little so that's what the clicking noise is, here's what she sounds like.

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[Skeletal]

The flange gasket showed up Thursday, came broken in half. Don't know why they sent it in a padded envelope instead of a small box, waiting on the replacement and hopefully it won't be busted. Thursday/Friday I rebuffed her, found a few spots I didn't get the oxidation entirely off so I did the whole truck again.

Got the tires mounted/balanced Saturday morning and took her for the first real drive since I brought her home, a 75 mile trip and she did pretty good.

When I went to leave and the battery was flat, no clue why. Despite my efforts (both O2's hanging off the transmission to get fresh air) the check engine came on shortly after I left the driveway. Both rear O2's show low voltage, P0137 & P0157, going to find a way around that. When I got it up to speed the steering wheel vibrated, I think it's from all the worn out and tired front end/steering parts (had the guy at the tire shop double check the wheels). The passenger mirror glass decided to give up the ghost while going down the interstate, it falls down and to the right. The old flange gasket blew as well, the way back home had lots of drone. Picked up stuff to do an oil change while I was out, going to do that this week.

It's nice to be behind the wheel of a 400 again, I'm enjoying it quite a bit.

I'm going to pull the mirrors off the other 400 since she isn't going anywhere for a while, I've been thinking of some ideas for what to do it after she's fixed, but that's a post for another time.

Kind of unrelated but I've been trying to get a set of chrome corners, having a hard time finding them for a GMC, plenty of Chevy ones everywhere.

 

[White96k2500]

The flange gasket showed up Thursday, came broken in half. Don't know why they sent it in a padded envelope instead of a small box, waiting on the replacement and hopefully it won't be busted. Thursday/Friday I rebuffed her, found a few spots I didn't get the oxidation entirely off so I did the whole truck again.

Got the tires mounted/balanced Saturday morning and took her for the first real drive since I brought her home, a 75 mile trip and she did pretty good.

When I went to leave and the battery was flat, no clue why. Despite my efforts (both O2's hanging off the transmission to get fresh air) the check engine came on shortly after I left the driveway. Both rear O2's show low voltage, P0137 & P0157, going to find a way around that. When I got it up to speed the steering wheel vibrated, I think it's from all the worn out and tired front end/steering parts (had the guy at the tire shop double check the wheels). The passenger mirror glass decided to give up the ghost while going down the interstate, it falls down and to the right. The old flange gasket blew as well, the way back home had lots of drone. Picked up stuff to do an oil change while I was out, going to do that this week.

It's nice to be behind the wheel of a 400 again, I'm enjoying it quite a bit.

I'm going to pull the mirrors off the other 400 since she isn't going anywhere for a while, I've been thinking of some ideas for what to do it after she's fixed, but that's a post for another time.

Kind of unrelated but I've been trying to get a set of chrome corners, having a hard time finding them for a GMC, plenty of Chevy ones everywhere.

Ive been in the same boat for a while with fining markers.