mc4life27

What about trying one of the billet mid antennas. It’s 12 inches tall with a bow tie on top. I was give one from a rolled truck and have not tried it out yet so not sure about reception. Now I did have an old mast laying around that I cut down to a shorty and I did loose some reception. now I also used to run a stereo shop also worked for a few car audio manufacturers and can tell you that it really depends on where You live on how it will effect reception. AM for sure will most likely be zero or only a station or two because they need to be a certain length and needs to be the hugest part of the truck. As far as fm you really just need to try one and see if it works for you. There are many ways that the reception can get worse. Also if your in a heavily populated city then good chance would know a difference except if there are other things that happen to cause Issues with the gm station. But should be and issue. But I’m on the coast and have massive mountain ranges on three sides of me and can go from 0 to about 5,000 feet in altitude and if I get out of the main downtown sections with a shorty antenna I will lost some notable loss but would be different if you lived in say Death Valley or in the Midwest. Try going to a junk yard and finding another antenna to experiment with and when figure out where it works for Then cut down your stock one. Or look around you might be able yo find a collapsible antenna that you manually can raise and lower as you want it. Also the newer trucks are a bigger diameter then the classic trucks. It’s a 7mm vs a 6mm I believe. Or look into a power antenna. All I can say is if you go that route try and find a factory OEM motorized one that will fit in our fender or make sure you do you homework and find a quality reliable one with a warranty on it. There are on a couple factories that actually make antennas for the rest of the world. And back when I sold car audio antennas one of the factories could build a good quality antenna and the other factory’s were complete garbage and you could make some cash betting people that they wiuld fail with in a year.

There is only one pitman arm and one idler arm in the trucks. Also the hd trucks should have the 3 grove and the 1500 trucks should have 4 grove. That being said that’s not always the case. But I have a 07 classic hd and I have the 3 grove. Now as far as parts. If I could have any parts regardless of money I would go with kryptonite full steering package. Their tie rods, pitman arm idler arm idle pivot center arm everything. That being said I currently just replaced a lot of the components but currently funds were extremely tight but it was driving me crazy so I went to rock auto and bought the cheapest parts they hd for a replacement. Like pitman arm for like 15 bucks and idle arm was like 12 bucks that cheap. So far they seem to be holding up Well and I’m running 315/75/17. Now I do plan on replacing them with kryptonite parts in the future. Also they make a brace kit for the trucks and from what I have read it’s makes a huge difference in how the parts hold up Over time

Yea 02 to 02 there are a lot of changes. Example the dash the 99-02 use a 1-1/2 din size radio and the 03-up use a double din radio. Also 03 and up gm switch to the class 2 data bus computer system.

I believe the cans are the same but but on some of the hd trucks they have a body lift from the factory to fit the duramax and Alison motor and tranny. So you have to be careful there. Look on google for a guy who did a duramax swap into a 1500 single cab short bed truck. He has a very detailed post in his project and he goes through the difference in the bodies because he wanted to use the non hd 1500 body and frame and not the hd frame. There are some differences but I believe they are all things that can be made to fit. But yes stay with 03-07 classic. Since your looking at the 03 it shouldn’t matter since the newer body’s will have to hate vet updates gm did and they will work with what you have. It wouldn’t be like you having to add the factory updates.

I believe pac-audio makes a harness that will allow You to keep Your sat radio. It plugs in where the factory radio plugs in at and I believe it adds a little basic display with rca audio outs. It may not be on their website but give them a call if they don’t have the harness they will know if it’s possible or not regardless.