Don's Yukon

[DonYukon]

Ok so Update time, Lets seee..... last entry was 7 years ago. Well ****. Ill try to start around that point. Now some of this may or may not be in complete order and some of it I have no idea the time stamp but here goes.

So after the 14 bolt and roof rack build I added some things.

First Ill start with the Roof rack. First I installed the Hi-lift jack (which as a bonus now that ive had it over a seven year period I will say ive only used 3 times . once for actual off-roading and the other two times for taking out a tree stump and a fence post. nice to have in a emergency but for the weekend warriors like myself. put that money towards a winch IMO. Ive had to paint it twice and lube it a few times but again it sits in the elements

You must be registered for see images attach

Next was a Fiskers axe and mount : I chose the fishers because at the time the dimension s of the axe was perfect and it came with the mount. Ive literally used this thing one time. and by the time we used it to get a fallen tree off the trail I rather would have had a chainsaw. the blade out of the box (which I never checked before using it) isn't the sharpest. this thing is practically a ornament on the truck at this point. Funny story about it was I was doing some work at my dads and needed a Axe. so without thinking I DROVE HOME TO GET A ******* AXE. only to realize and laugh at myself an hour later that I had one on the truck the whole time lol . I will say though the axe has stayed relatively rust free in the years

You must be registered for see images attach

Also at the same time I added a couple of cheap EBAY rear flood lights which aren't that great but they do help to a point. As a matter of fact they do still work to this day even though one of them is half full of water

You must be registered for see images attach

I finally got around to using a heat gun and heating up the plastic on the snorkel body was able to bend it and mold it little by little to better contour the A pillar. Still needs a little work to this day but doesn't cause any door rub or branch issues now

You must be registered for see images attach

Not pictured was the best "combat" collapsible mounted shovel I bought from a swap meet. was told it was military grade and to an extent It might be true but I believe it was better as most "military grade" stuff sucks If Im honest. I used the shovel many times to dig myself out of sand or get some max-traX boards under the truck on wheeling trips. as of today though the components in it are failing quickly as rust and the elements have gotten to them.

TAKING A BREAK WILL ADD MORE Tonight

This was shortly after buying my first home in Jersey CIRCA 2015 ish.
Also to mention the following months were kinda a dry time for the truck as home Improvements and a deployment followed.

 

[DonYukon]

So after some home updates and a successful deployment I was finally able to start getting the ball rolling on this thing I believe most of this happened in 2016.

I know I bought these custom leather seat covers the day before I came back home I think they are IGee seat covers. By the way 7 years later best seat covers Ive ever owned I went with a black and grey theme for the inside. as my dash cover headliner and a few other odds and ends are also black.

You must be registered for see images attach

You must be registered for see images attach

More to be added as the night progresses Got a lot of stuff to add and information to track down.

 

[454cid]

I like that black and grey interior!

 

[DonYukon]

Ok So I left off at the interior,

At this point I started wheeling the truck ALOT more I think I went to Wharton like 3 times and Rausch Creek like 2 times all 5 of those trips were either weekend trips or all day. on top of random wheeling where I would take a dirt road or trail just to see where it led. and because of the frequent trips I started finding out the limits of the GMT400 stock IFS front end parts. I will say I only snapped 1 CV axle during this time but I couldn't keep a set of hubs under the thing for longer than a couple of months . Part of this was because of a clay pit I was playing at regularly. If you dont know clay is very silt like so it intrudes into the bearings along with water quicker than that of sand or a course dirt/mud.

It was time to start gathering parts for the SAS. and If I was going to do it I was going to do it big. Well at least big enough. after searching for a couple months I found a 1978 Dana 60 KP Which was perfect. Once I sent a true bar through it to make sure it wasn't bent I took it home for $700. You have to understand these things go for different prices depending on your location. Also I did search for a 05+ but again at the time they were going for $1000+.

You must be registered for see images attach

I ended up selling the stock Carrier and gears for $100.
Now I had one issue with my SAS. I had a already rebuilt hub to hub 14 bolt SF axle under the truck and my favorite wheels. which were now discontinued. both of these items were six lug. I of course wanted to be difficult and convert the 8 lug Dana 60 into a Six lug axle. First I tried Frankenstiening some weird Chevy Hubs and brake caliper setup over but realized without cutting off the ears or ditching the King pins all together which was one of the reasons I bought the axle I was screwed. So I sat the project to the side as time started getting busy.

Which brings me to the biggest mistake I ever made in my build. I found a shop through a friend that said " these guys are awesome" and because I had zero time I called them and told them what I wanted done. I ended up dropping the truck off in November. the timeline for the 3 link SAS with coil overs was supposed to take 30 days TOPS. they did tell me they were busy . only thing that sucked was the shop was in PA and took me over 1.5 hours to get there. so I relied heavily on communication to get check on things and verify the parts ordered.

2 months into the build with some shotty responses from the shop I got pissed and drove to the shop this is how I found it. Now there is a HUGE mistake I found that some may not notice I will give the answer in the next update to what it is. If you can spot it let me know .TO give you a hint the second picture is taken with from the driver side.

By the way when I called them and asked why they did what they did they denied it and said I was wrong and didn't know what I was talking about.
I replied with
1. I have pictures *******
2. No off-road shop thats worth a **** would tell me I'm wrong about that with a straight face
3. the only reason your doing the job is I dont have time BUT IM MAKING TIME. I gave them a 10 day deadline and told them I will be there to drive it home or drag it on a flatbed home.

You must be registered for see images attach

You must be registered for see images attach

Will post another update later tonight. taking a break. getting pissed just thinking about this **** show

 

[DonYukon]

IF you guessed the Track bar being mounted backwards you guessed it right. now if you dont know the track bar and drag link need to be mounted as close to the same angle and length as possible to prevent any bump steer and bind up when articulating. Most people find this out as their angles are off but if the track bar is backwards it can spell disaster. magically when I picked up the truck it was corrected and they still didn't admit it.


So after the 10 days as promised I went to pick up the truck. now Funny thing is they found the motivation to get it finished. Because of work I went later in the evening to pick it up and started seeing multiple issues.

Some of these said issues were blamed by them saying "your budget limited us" yet when we went over the budget for the swap I still had $840 dollars to play with and that was before any issues arose.

here is how it looked the day I picked it up. Now, because I had lost complete trust in their ability to work and was tired of the truck sitting there I decided to pay with a credit card so I could contest any charges if the work was not done. the inspection would come later the next day when I had daylight to go over everything.

You must be registered for see images attach

You must be registered for see images attach

The last shot was taken in their shop

I started going over the truck the next day. and started jotting down the obvious. and while doing that I decided to take everything off and inspect the entire swap as it all seemed jacked up.

1. Push pull steering vs the crossover that I requested. so of course I had more bump-steer issues.
= When I complained about it I was told "Well you can either have hi-steer or push pull....
(WRONG Crossover and high steer are different . while its true you cannot have Hi-steer without crossover the only thing that changes is the Tie-rod gets moved up and out of the way. )

2. the "custom made brake calipers were so weak that they were bending inwards under heavy braking and were digging the caliper into the top of the Rotors. I asked why they didn't just use the caliper brackets from RUF and run 2500 suburban Calipers???

Response: they didn't think it would work because of clearance. It literally took me two minutes to measure the clearance ( I had plenty ) using the diagram off the RUFs website.

3. exhaust was cut off to make room and never re-installed or repaired.
4. Loose Rod end nuts . upper and lower left rod ends were both out of wack and loose. so literally the first time I took it for a drive the Caster walked out and I would develop Death wobble issues later.

5. I had a "paint residue" all over the trucks windows. was less apparent on the plasti-dip but took me a whole day to clean it off.
6. the lock rings for the coil overs were loose.

The list goes on... I ended up requesting they refund me $800 dollars for the missing itemized work and some of the things I had to do to fix the issues. they didn't want to work with me so I had to threaten to sue them before they obliged.

Lesson here is I will never trust another "Off-road speciality" shop to do any of the work on the truck. I should have done it myself and ended up re-doing half of the **** anyways.

You must be registered for see images attach

 

[DonYukon]

First thing I did was clean the truck up. took me 2 weekends to get all the "over spray" or whatever off the windows. Good thing the truck was plastidipped and its a trail truck.

Got me A Hi-Lift Isolator

You must be registered for see images attach

Again trying to keep this stuff into close proximity of timing.

Took the truck out and had some immediate binding issues.

Now one of the issues I immediately ran into which was expected and my fault was I told them to leave the NP246 in place. Well the drive shaft they supplied was a no go it was bottoming out into the slip yoke at the slightest driver side up travel. Add to that the constant front shaft spinning was starting to Walor out the ears on the rear of the shaft. I was still trying to get this thing working even though I knew the odds were against me. I ended up quickly ditching it for a NP241.

Next I would address the Push pull steering set up and the hubs that they had all wrong.

somewhere I had a victory as I took these shots

You must be registered for see images attach

You must be registered for see images attach

By the way Im no longer on Instagram

SO back to the issues. the truck had a nasty case of BUMPSTEER. Some was to be expected but it was ridiculous. my angles between my drag link and PanHard bar were not even talking to each other. Luckily those idiots made the PAnhard bars mounts adjustable but even with a tweak it was way off.

I ended up doing a bunch of measurements and ordering a hi-steer kit (to this day I still haven't installed it fully lol the tie rod is in the stock location ) Once I installed the Kit I think my difference in angle was 2 degrees or something which is great. between that and just a 2x4 and ratchet strap backyard wheel alignment I could actually drive the truck down the road.

(Will update brakes and talk 6 lug Dana 60 problems tomorrow)

 

[DonYukon]

So one of the biggest questions I get asked is "why a six lug dana 60 swap".

Answer is pretty simple years before when the truck was still a DD, I went out to recover a guy with a stuck F250 in a pond. I ended up blowing up the stock 10 bolt up Well at the time I had six lug wheels and tires I already had paid over 2k for and to top it off I didn't have the funds at the time to SAS. So a 6 lug SF went under it that I completely rebuilt with locker and all. So once I was faced with the whole 8 lug Dana 60 I decided to try out some 6 lug hubs. Now the amount of frustration I had to deal with with these damn things were not worth it IMO. sure the truck is dialed in now and works great the process to get it there and charting through the uncharted territory was a nightmare. the Hubs are custom forged and need parts from 2 different hub kits . the brake calipers are from early 2500 suburban with a SA up front (can't remember which one but have it written down) and the rotors are stock to the truck with the centers milled out. Its a nightmare. now Ive logged 8 off-road trips and 9,000 trouble free miles since then but when these hubs aren't rebuildable Any more the truck will go 8 lug. so as far as 6 lugging any 8 lug front axle take my advice DONT DO IT

Here is another pic of the day I brought the axle home and some of the above stated

You must be registered for see images attach

You must be registered for see images attach

You must be registered for see images attach

You must be registered for see images attach

You must be registered for see images attach

 

[DonYukon]

For the transfer case I went with a NP 241 It had the best chance at communicating with the NP246 to TCCM mated system that was stock to the truck.

Once I acquired the right VSS sensor and some trial by fire with the TCCM wires I was able to trick the PCM into believing both existed . its rather easy process which involves Obviously a speed sensor going into the VSS and a Switch that I switch on if I need the gearing changes from the transmission for 4LO. AS a bonus I technically gained 2LO as long as I keep the transfer case in 2wd and the hubs unlocked. 4HI doesn't change any shift points in the transmission so I have to do nothing other than shift the transfer case and lock in the hubs.

speaking of shifting the transfer case I ended up building a custom center console to house an asortment of goodies. as of today It needs two things . I have to pretty up two of the gaps in the trusses that lead up to the dash and install a cubby on the back side with a locking door for storage. but other than that it works flawlessly and being that its constructed out of aluminum its extremely light for its size yet I was able to stand on it without it buckling or bending. Here are a few pics of the build on it.

My only regret was not being able to weld it but I have neither the correct welder or the know how to weld aluminum.

You must be registered for see images attach

You must be registered for see images attach

You must be registered for see images attach

 

[DonYukon]

And here is the console today after being completed about 90%

You must be registered for see images attach

 

[DonYukon]

So these photos are from 2019 , took another trip to RC offroad park for a test and tune. Overall pretty happy with it no binding or rubbing at full flex eventually ill run another set of coil overs with 2 inches more of travel but will have to do some more trimming. I also really love the height of the truck its not too tall and feels pretty planted for its size even in the rock gardens.

You must be registered for see images attach