'96 2-Door Tahoe Daily Driver

[kolgeirr]

Figured it was about time that I made build threads for my three 90s/00s rigs - three total treads coming for your viewing enjoyment, starting with my "new" 96 2-Door Tahoe I picked up three weeks ago.

After a rough trip to Atlanta in my 2011 manual-transmission Mustang I decided I needed a smaller automatic vehicle as my only other rides were my 2000 Excursion and 99 Suburban, both of which aren't great to drive into and park in a city. What better smaller ride than the smallest GMT400? So I went looking for a 2-door with a tailgate in decent shape. Sold the Mustang on a Tuesday, found this Tahoe listed on a Thursday, and was up in North Carolina two days later driving off a small lot with this Tahoe.

It's a 96 2-Door, 4X4, 5.7L Vortec, Z71 with a G80. Cloth interior, tailgate model. No rust anywhere.

Drove it home 600 miles with only minor issues. Subsequently opened the wallet to feed the parts cannon, and have done the following repairs & additions:
Shocks all around.
Front brake rotors & pads, rear shoes & hardware.
AD244 alternator.
New belt, tensioner & idler.
New steering gearbox, power steering pump, Pittman arm and rag joint.
Rear glass lift supports, tailgate cables, tailgate handle & latch linkage.
New driver taillight housing & third brake light.
Rear driver parking brake cable.
Reattached several pieces of interior plastic with new clips.
Replaced the headlamp and 4x4 switches due to wear.
Passenger window regulator & motor.
Wireless Android Auto headunit (dash was already cut for a double-DIN by the previous owner) & stock-style radio antenna to replace the stubby the previous owner installed.
Nerf bar style running boards.
Wipers.
Drained & refilled all fluids.

Waiting on the parts to come in to do the following:
Replace both wiper linkages.
Replace the lift glass supports again. These ones are too strong and are tweaking the hinges enough where the weather strip isn't sealing right. Hopefully the cheapest UltraPower ones on RockAuto are weaker.

In the future I plan to:
Replace both side door pins, bushings & rollers.
Replace the exhaust - thinking of going with a stainless Gibson catback this time. Not happy with the Magnaflow on my 'burb, too much drone at 1800-2200RPM.
Put some new wheels and tires on it. Thinking of going 285/75r16s on a black wheel of some kind if I can get a 285 to fit in the spare tire carrier. If not I'll stick with 265s.
Repaint the gray areas below the hip line & on the bumpers/flares. Thinking I'll probably just cheap out and hit it with black Duplicolor bedliner from rattlecans.

Will post under this tread each time I do something to this truck - hope y'all enjoy the pictures and future postings!

 

[kolgeirr]

More interior pictures and my RPO sheet for those who like to explore options.

 

[2drXmobb]

Nice , I would highly advise security features these tend to get broken in and stolen a lot . Mines didn't come with fender flares I always liked them on this body style

 

[kolgeirr]

Nice , I would highly advise security features these tend to get broken in and stolen a lot . Mines didn't come with fender flares I always liked them on this body style

Agreed. I forgot to add it to the upcoming projects list, but I need to throw a killswitch on the thing at least. So far whenever I park it somewhere overnight I at least pull the Crank fuse; hopefully modern car theieves aren't familiar with 30 year old GM fuse blocks. Got any security ideas beyond a kill switch?

 

[2drXmobb]

I've seen a high rate of sells online salvage title due to theft selling because don't want to fix. It's pretty bad now with obs trucks easy to break into like old civics and Camrys it's unfortunate but reality is OEM parts and original condition trucks are very hard to come by these days.

 

[2drXmobb]

Yeah put a nrg quick release steering hub and wheel just put the lock on and take the steering wheel with you it's a nuisance sometimes but peace of mind is a price I'm willing to pay for. Take out the door cylinders and put the 4 door rear handles on once you get a alarm pager only bad part is if your battery died you'll have to call a tow truck to open the doors. Lowjack or a cellphone with gps in the truck , viper alarm or a decent brand alarm system

 

[2drXmobb]

You can put a screw driver in-between the door handle and pry the actuator rods and open the doors on these , so I took mines out and made it keyless entry

 

[kolgeirr]

Well looks like my driver side rear parking brake cable replacement didn't go as well as I hoped. Got the new cable on, but the adjuster for the passenger side wouldn't go out as far as I liked due to the previous owner painting the dang nut and threads on the thing. Got it as loose as I could, spun the wheel by hand a few times and it seemed OK. Took the Tahoe to work on Monday and half way there I look out the window and my passenger rear drum is smoking. Cut the passenger cable off with some bolt cutters in a parking lot, rolled it enough to unseize the shoes, and then took the wheel/drum off and readjusted the brakes at work.

So now I get to do a passenger side parking brake cable along with the wiper linkages and rear gas cylinders this weekend.

Eyeing one of those rear disc brake conversion kits real hard lately...

 

[kolgeirr]

Yesterday I replaced the worn and squeaking wiper linkages, the passenger side parking brake cable, and attempted to put on weaker gas struts on the back glass.

First, a word of warning to anyone else experiencing parking brake issues and replacing the cables: replace both sides at the same time, with the same brand of cable! I replaced by driver's side a week ago with an ACDelco, and the passenger side on Saturday with a Dorman. The Dorman return spring in the passenger's drum is much stronger than the ACD return spring in the driver's drum and since the system tensions the driver's cable using the passenger return spring, I only have two options: 1.) driver's parking brake works but passenger's doesn't. 2.) passenger's parking brake works but driver's is always engaged and can't be released. Obviously I went with option 1, since I don't want my brakes smoking again. I'm hoping that, eventually, maybe the driver's cable will stretch enough and the passenger spring weaken enough that I get to have both sides of parking brake.

I could replace one of the cables with one that matches the other side for brand and strength and get them both working, but eh... one brake is enough and I'm tired of taking drums off. So tired.

Struts were attempted because the struts I was sent are about twice as large as they should be and definitely aren't going to work. Guess I'm back to hunting up weaker struts or just waiting until these TuffStruts lose strength with time. Though I'm hoping I fixed some of my rain ingress issue in the back by reattaching some weather stripping that was loose and adjusting the glass latch in the tailgate to hold the hatch further back. Assuming that will cause the weather strip to be smashed a bit extra and hopefully go back to sealing. If not, guess I'll spend the $40 and redo the rear body weather strip.

Wiper linkages were easy. My old ones were clearly worn. The cheap SKP ones seem fine for a replacement. Betcha can't tell which one's the new one..

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Cleaned up the cowl while I was in there and found a free wrench sitting below the driver's linkage! +1 tool for the shop.

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Also looks like the previous owner pre-broke the passenger end off my cowl cover for me, which was nice of him, because I didn't have to worry about breaking it myself. Nothing a zip tie and a fender washer couldn't "fix." I expect this temporary fix to be permanent since it works.

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I'm taking next weekend off. The weekend after that I'm pulling the dash out to replace all the HVAC blend doors and actuators. I've got the usual defrost-is-always-on issue which, with the heat and humidity here lately, is causing my windshield to fog up when the A/C is running. This'll be my second GMT400 dash pull and, while I'm not looking forward to it, I expect it to go quicker than the first time. Though it'll be my first time disassembling the HVAC box in place because I don't want to evacuate my A/C system and drain my coolant to pull the box out entirely.

 

[kolgeirr]

No pictures this time, but figured it's about time I got around to another round of status reports across my build threads, starting here with the 2 door.

I did pull the dash and rebuild the HVAC box with new doors and actuators, heater core and evap unit. Got.. lucky? and the rubber ball in the high-side AC fill valve failed on the way home and dumped all my refrigerant into the engine pay on a drive home from work. So since the system was empty I just replaced the whole AC system - compressor, lines, condenser, etc. Used a parallel flow condenser and a variable orifice tube this time. Works fine, but not super cold - the GMT400 standard AC system from my experience. Not sure the variable orifice tube does anything a normal one doesn't.

My quest to resolve my heavier-than-I-think-it-should-be steering continues. Since the last update I did another new power steering pump, a set of new lines, idler arm and idler arm mount, lower ball joints, complete upper control arms, and today did all new tie rods and adjusters. Still heavier than I feel like it should be, but my reference is my 99 Suburban with the EVO bypass installed. Did these earlier trucks just have heavier steering than the later GMT400s? Either way, I'm out of steering components to replace and suspension bits to lube. Everything that twists with steering is replaced except the front axle shafts and CV joints. Might just resign myself to concluding that this is just how it's supposed to be and call it done.

Had it aligned once already, but apparently the usual alignment guy wasn't at the shop that day, so the tech only adjusted toe. With the ball joints replaced and the front cranked level, I can tell with the naked eye that camber/caster are both wrong. Going to see if I can get it realigned this week and get camber/caster/toe all done - maybe that'll bring the steering around to "normal" feeling.

Otherwise, I replaced my Tuff Support rear lift glass struts with a set of Stabilus Lift-O-Mat SG230041 - much, much better. Hold the glass up fine and lift it nice and slowly when pulled, but don't have to fight to get the glass down and closed again. Highly recommend these SG230041s to anyone that needs rear glass struts.

I've got a set of pins, bushings and rollers for both doors from Cunningham Machine I'm hoping to put in sometime soon, and I've got a Gibson 615501 catback exhaust kit on the way which should be here Thursday. Kill switches going in sometime this month. Looking forward to doing some mods and improvements instead of repairs as I finally near the end of the repairs list.