My GMT800, 2003 RCLB 2500HD Build / Rebuild!

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PolarBear

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Long story on this one, so bear with me guys.

I can't be without some sort of project, build / rebuild for too long, start getting antsy.

This truck was my best friend's dad's truck, who untimely passed away in 2020. He was like a bonus Dad to me. Into the same hot rodding / racing stuff.

I've always wanted a clean RCLB 2500 or 3500 GM truck, be it a 400 or an 800. Tried with a K2XX and it turned out to be a major pile of ****, that I traded in at 9200 miles.

I was at the local furniture store, picking up a new mattress with my wife in my 2019 Ram 1500, which had an absolutely useless 5.5' bed on it. Griping to my wife, about how miserable it was to use as a "Truck" and how I just needed to find an 8' bed regular cab. For times like these.....

Out of the blue, my best friend texts me and says "Hey, did you seriously want to buy Dad's truck?". Talk about insane timing! I vaguely remembered the truck at that point, as it had been a year since I saw it. Never paid alot of attention to it. Apparently it was parked in the hedgerow, where pack rats had moved in and managed to chew the wiring harnesses up.

Money and a very specific Glock pistol that my friend has been after me for years to buy off of me, exchanged hands for this truck.

Here's how it was found after pulling it out of the field and on to my trailer.

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Of course, I had to take a picture of it being hauled by a Ram, just like my other past trucks...

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PolarBear

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Quickly set to work on the truck. Pulled the whole engine engine harness down, checked grounds, power, back probing the ECM. The truck wouldn't even crank, trigger the fuel pump or much else.

We did find a rats nest under the relay / fuse block in the engine bay, all of the grounds on the passenger side cylinder head were chewed off, rats had moved into the dash and HVAC system as well. Some repairs were done under-dash as well.

After 8 hours of probing / digging and sorting, the truck roared to life!

How awesome! I thought it was going to be a new harness at best.

Drove the truck over to work the next week, with the help of my jump box, as the battery was fully dead.

First drive didn't go too bad, aside from the horribly imbalanced blower motor and lack of vent air flow, which made it a pain to drive on a cold rainy midwest day.

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Quickly set to identifying what was wrong with the truck, beyond the mouse damage. The interior hadn't been cleaned in a LONG time. We scrubbed, cleaned and worked out most of the mess in the interior. I did notice at some point, someone swapped 99-02 power seats in the truck and the fold down arm rest on the jumpseat was missing.

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PolarBear

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Some more probing happened to reveal a blower motor and HVAC suitcase FULL of rats nest. Once that was cleaned out, the blower motor operated just fine, along with decent vent air flow!

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After that, the truck was quickly put into service as an "errand" truck. First trip was home depot! Have to take care of my wife's plant obsession!

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From on the trailer, to pulling the trailer in a short few weeks. Had to use it for work, as my Ram was at home. Handled 9,500lbs of stainless plate, no worries! Coming from a GMT400, to this 800. I sorely underestimated it.

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PolarBear

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Time to ditch the fabricated steel bumper! I'm an OEM or OEM+ kind of guy.

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I have a good friend who had a wrecked 07 GMC LBZ donor truck, he wanted the fabricated steel bumper in exchange for a whole frontend swap from the wrecked truck. Turned out significantly better, getting rid of the W/T front end and bumper.

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PolarBear

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Starting to focus on the interior, found a full jumpseat assembly at a salvage yard down the road from me. Picked up and installed the new to me jumpseat.

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I can't have an interior that looks ratty, so I went ahead and ordered a brand new console lid and swapped it in.

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Next up was window tint, I can't stand the fishbowl feeling. So I had my tint guy stop by the shop and lay down some 5% tint on the side and back windows.

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PolarBear

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Next up was getting rid of the steel wheels and smaller all-terrain tires. Nothing was wrong with them, just not my taste.

Decided to give Treadwright remold tires a try, in 285/75/16 with some decent stock PY0 aluminum wheels.

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Also cranked the torsion keys a bit to level the truck and give it a better stance.

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PolarBear

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Always been my idea of a perfect HD RCLB to have cab lights. So after reviewing kits that were closest to OEM as possible, I finally pulled the trigger and spent 2 hours measuring, marking, moving and reviewing other trucks. Before finally gathering the guts to drill the cab and make the lamps permanent.

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Also swapped in LED headlight bulbs at this point.

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PolarBear

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Next up was time to start building the unicorn RCLB that GM wouldn't build....

A FULLY optioned out truck WITH a manual floor shift transfer case! 70% of the RCLB HD trucks I see, are mostly rubber floor, manual window, lock / etc trucks. Not this one!

Ordered a carpet kit, picked up the correct 03-07 40-20-40 seats and installed them. Along with a brand new GM leather wrapped steering wheel, to get rid of the nasty urethane steering wheel.

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After the seats and carpet, I went ahead and added a double din radio with Android Auto, full kicker speakers, kicker 400w amp and a single 10" shallow box. If this truck was going to replace my brand new trucks as a daily driver, it had to have the same creature comforts as the truck it was replacing.

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PolarBear

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Still a few odds and ends to do on the outside of the truck, including making the rear bumper match the now chrome front bumper.

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A brand new bumper assembly was purchased from LMC truck and installed.

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PolarBear

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The factory hitch was really abused and had cracking on the body of it. So a Class V Curt hitch was ordered for the truck and installed.

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Next up was finally taking the dive and doing the power window, lock, mirror and keyless entry swap! I found a parts truck about an hour away from me, so pulled the dash and harness for $100. I had been collecting the door harnesses, brand new door latches, regulators, motors and other parts in the background.

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With the dash out, I quickly found the remains of Fievel's nest!

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