My 1997 K2500 Suburban

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cjmspartans

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Well. I wish I had a great story for this truck, but I picked it up in late December of 2017 and have been throwing quite a bit of money at it. Lately I've been using it as my daily driver as my Chevy Cobalt has a nasty exhaust leak... but I intend on using it for camping trips and towing my project car around whenever I need to.

It has the 7.4L Vortec in it, and I managed to squeeze about 12mpg out of it with mixed city and freeway by barely touching the accelerator :p As of now, it has 161,*** miles on the clock and it seems to be running pretty well. It threw a P0300 code once while going full throttle up a 7% grade which kinda sucked. My guess is it needs a tune up with the ignition system. New plugs, wires, distributor cap and rotor. A new fuel filter really couldn't hurt, either.

I'd love to put a K&N FIPK cold air intake on it for the sound and extra 20hp, but I'm thinking it's a waste of money since I couldn't imagine much of an increase in MPG and it has plenty of power as it is.

Things I need to do to this truck is flush the rear heater core, repair some rust on the roof where it meets the windshield (sigh), and fix the stereo system. The two front speakers work with the aftermarket head unit, but the rear speakers don't work for some unusual reason. The previous owner had a subwoofer and a amp in the back from what I can tell, as the wiring is all there for it. I just hope they didn't ruin any of the wiring in the harness that goes to the head unit as their wiring job is garbage.

A video of it accelerating from 0-80 (I let off the throttle a little around 60mph):
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Here's some pictures from my first post in the introduction subforum:
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cjmspartans

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Todays project was repainting the trim on the truck. The old fake chrome was flaking off and had a rusty discolored look to it, so I removed the plastic layering on it with an exacto knife and sanded the plastic surface with some fine sandpaper. So far I only finished the drivers side. The passenger side will be for another day, as will the trim on the front bumper. Oh, and I'm using some Rustoleum metallic paint that has a high shine to it. I figure why spend $100+ on new trim when I can just make it look better for $5? :)

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Cheap Heap

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Good idea with the trim. The passenger side of my C1500 has the exact same issue, thanks for the tip!

Nice looking truck!
 

cjmspartans

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Good idea with the trim. The passenger side of my C1500 has the exact same issue, thanks for the tip!

Nice looking truck!
Thanks! I didn't realize it was going to rain overnight, but it looks like the rain gave the paint a pitted look. I'm going to have to sand, prime, then apply the paint a second time. So infuriating, but I should have checked the weather before. Big whoops on my part.
 

cjmspartans

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So, a bit of an update on the burb....

The front passenger side wheel bearing just died a loud and horrible death. It's been making some funky noises for the past month and I've been telling myself that I'll fix it next paycheck. But, things happen and it kept getting pushed off as money is a wee bit tight. So, after grabbing some food the right passenger wheel started making a loud awful squeaking noise.

The awful sound:
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So, I get home and get the front end on jackstands. Checked the wheel for slop and there was a ton of play. It also wouldn't spin freely. I jump in my other car to head to NAPA for a new wheel hub assembly, and turns out they didn't have it in stock. They called another location 30 miles away and they reserved it for me. Bought the part, got home, took the wheel off and attempted to remove the rotor.

What I found is that the four bolts that hold the wheel hub/rotor on were way over tightened from the shop that I got new brakes from when I just bought the truck in December of 2017. I hit it with penetrating oil, a torch, an impact gun, and beat the snot out of it with a dead blow hammer (the desperation was real) for well over three hours. The end result? A bloody finger, zero bolts removed, two damaged wheel studs and a rounded head on one of those four bolts. :banghead:

I'm going to return some tools I picked up as well as the wheel hub assembly and just bring it to my parents mechanic. A job that should have only taken 2 hours tops turned into a 3+ hour attempt at removing four bolts. I can't say I didn't try but man, those bolts are stuck on there like they were torqued by the hulk himself...

I hope after this repair I'll be able to go more than 6 months without any expensive repairs to this rig. This truck has it out for me lol:buttkick:
 

98BlackSierra

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Those bolts are no joke. I tried taking out the three on my truck and they were were so rusted out the heads rounded off immediately. Ended up torching them to get the hub off and removed the studs by welding a bit to them lol
 

cjmspartans

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Ended up torching them to get the hub off and removed the studs by welding a bit to them lol

I wish I knew how to weld since that would be extremely useful right now. Maybe one day I'll learn when I get some free time.

Part of me is wanting to just drown the bolt in liquid wrench, let it sit overnight, then take a whack at it again. But the bolt head starting to round is concerning to me lol
 

cjmspartans

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I went at it with a lot of liquid wrench, a impact gun with 300 ft-lbs of torque, and heat again. Completely rounded the bolt :banghead: Wound up trying to slot the bolt head, and that also failed, so it's going into the shop before Friday. I'm sure the tech who's going to work on it will just love me...
 
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