Another JR

Regarding your question about total price, we could take a guess at what will be charged (sales tax, license fees, document prep fee, etc) but you’ll get the best estimate by calling the dealer’s finance office (the person you sit down with to sign papers and complete the purchase).

I can only guess what they are for, but maybe they are provisions for a trailer connector that has camera connections. I think all the trucks have those connectors in the bumper but the similar connector in the left rear of the bed for 5th wheel trailers is an option. Maybe they are provisions for that optional connector.

Those are FAKRA connectors, used for video signals and data networks. What trim level is your truck?

“...My wife’s Denali ...”. Reminds me of a funny craigslist ad I saw where a guy was selling one of the bigger Harleys, and said he was open to a trade for another Harley, “but no Sportsters - my wife doesn’t need a bike.” Cracked me up.

JT, Sorry - I didn’t see your post until today. On my truck the fuses for the “PRK LAMP LT” and “PRK LAMP RT” are the fuses for the fender flare marker lights, the front corner marker lights, and the roof marker lights. They are fuses 34 and 42 in the main fuse box on the driver side of the engine compartment. Here are some pictures. I suspect if you look hard you may find a connector in the engine compartment or fender area that would disconnect the roof marker lamps. I would start by following back the wire for the left flare light.

I can understand the opinion that the extra safety features aren’t necessary for you. I had that same opinion for a long time. However, now that I’m in my late 50s I appreciate the help avoiding an accident. I will say again though that the features themselves work quite well on these trucks and false alarms are rare in my experience. I run with all of the features active all the time.

I have an SLT with those options except for the rear view mirror camera display. I would have bought that if i could but it was not available on the SLT, and the AT4 and Denali were about 6 k more and I actually liked look of the SLT the best of the 3. The surround camera is nice if you are trying to park around obstacles, but the vast majority of the time parking I only use the rear view from the tailgate camera. The hitch view from that same camera is also very useful when lining up to a hitch or backing right up to a wall. I don’t think I’d miss surround view if it suddenly went away. i have safety packages 1 and 2, or whatever they are called. The lane departure warning with vibrating seat is something I really wanted and it works well. I use it in vibrate mode normally but if driving a long highway stretch I turn on the audio warning and crank it it up as a guard against possibly nodding off (not as a substitute for stopping when sleepy though). Using vibrate most of the time means the beep really gets my attention when i use it. The forward collision alert works well also, but that was less important to me. It has gone off several times, but in each case I was already aware of the situation and covering the brake. I have not had it actually brake on me. There was one time it briefly alerted as though a head on was imminent, but it was due to a weird turn lane layout from the opposite direction on a curve. I could see why it alerted even though it technically was a false alarm. I doubt it is easy to add the options later, but I don’t know. I have pacific blue metallic, and I like it. It doesn’t stay looking clean very long though - kind of like black.

I bought the oem replacement camera for $89, and a FAKRA camera cable from Pasternack for $40, and made a camera enclosure out of a plumbing fitting and mounted it on the back of my camper in the same position as the tailgate camera. Works perfect. I had no problem wrapping the large tailgate connector with two layers of plastic bag and taping it up. You just have to get under the truck and use two hands to work the bag into place.

I did this to replace the tailgate camera on an SLT, but the camera angle on the spoiler camera appears to be about the same 45 degrees. I used the gm part number camera from an online gm parts dealer (around $89) and a 6 foot FAKRA cable from Pasternack that cost $40 shipped. (Pasternack will make whatever you want in a FAKRA cable, and they were fast. Call them if you find their web site confusing. They had me on the phone almost immediately with a sales person and an engineer and figured out what to build for me in minutes. ) Anyway, I just made a housing by cutting up a pvc pipe fitting and it has worked great. That aluminum cross piece was already there to protect the door from being dented by the fold down step, and was at the perfect height, so I just bolted the fitting to it.

I just used a voltmeter and confirmed that only pin 4 has 12 volts on it when the truck is off and no lights are on. i’m not sure what you would like pictures of, so to start here is a view of the general battery installation and one of the i fuse block. The 30 amp fuse is connected to pin 4 of the trailer connector. The 100 amp fuse comes from the main battery fuse block. My truck has a gas engine with single alternator. The aux battery option includes a larger 220 amp alternator. My understanding is that on diesels the second battery is a parallel wired starter battery with no isolator.

I believe all of that is correct except my understanding is that only the trailer positive (pin 4) is powered from the aux battery, and pin 7 is reverse lights. That’s my understanding of standard 7 pin trailer connector wiring, but I have not tested pin 7 to see how it’s actually wired on my truck.

I will take some pictures later this evening. I have not yet wired anything to the second battery. I ordered the option because it was way cheaper than adding the battery system later, and eventually I’ll use it to power an air compressor or refrigerator or both. The factory wires the trailer 12 volt supply to the aux battery. No other loads are on it right now, so I can’t give a report on using the aux battery yet.

Please post pictures of your finished wrap project. I’ve been thinking of various ways to make my identical chrome steps black. I was thinking maybe pull the plastic treads off and Linex them, but a wrap is a good idea if it will hold up to the foot traffic.

Call the dealer service department and ask?

About a 10k or 12k trailer is about the point where i think one should consider buying the diesel, but only if you tow much of the time. For me, towing an 8k boat, going slower up those rare few grades where i have to is not a big deal. The grades aren’t that long, and 50 really isn’t that slow anyway.

Rancho shocks, it’s one of the several packages that includes skid plates, and hill descent control. The shocks are ok but not great - ride quality could be better. I plan to replace mine with Bilsteins pretty quickly. The reason to buy this package is if you want hill descent control. I bought it, but it’s questionable whether I’ll actually ever use hdc on a crew cab long bed truck.

Yeah, the whole thing about CA equating DOT required roof marker lights to a light bar is absurd. They obviously take themselves seriously because they apparently prohibit sales of vehicles with marker lights. However, the difference is visually obvious. I will occasionally travel into CA with my roof marker equipped truck and don’t plan to worry about it one bit. They won’t ticket you, and if they did it would be thrown out simply by you sending a letter citing the state to state reciprocity. requirement. In general at least the state police know this and won’t ticket you.

My 3 month old 3500hd had a few clunky shifts in the first 1000 miles like that, essentially coasting toward a stop or turn but with a little bit of gas pedal to hold speed a little longer on an incline approaching an intersection it would shift hard from second to first. The transmission software must be adaptive to some extent because It seems to have figured it out and, while that shift is not perfectly smooth, it now does that same shift much more smoothly. I’m at about 1700 miles and it hasn’t occurred for several weeks. My foot has probably adapted some too, giving less pedal in those situations. Overall I think the transmission operates very well and is well matched to the engine and rear end (I have stock 18” wheels and tires SRW).

The two fuses for all of the marker lights (i think minus the mirror markers) are labeled on the inside of the cover of the fuse box under the hood. If you only occasionally want to change whether they operate you could just pull those fuses when you want to disable them. It will disable the fender flare markers as well as the roof markers. On mine, the roof markers are powered with the left fender markers on one of the two circuits. Have you thought about just covering them so you don’t eliminate the other markers? Finally, as I think somebody asked above, why? If you are an out of state licensed truck they don’t expect you to alter your lights when you enter the state. Your vehicle was legally sold and licensed in another state with those lights, there is no switch to turn those lights off, and states are required to honor the licensing of visiting vehicles. It’s like the no front plate thing. You can’t get ticketed in a two plate state for driving a vehicle licensed in a one plate state.

Does it rattle regularly or just when you hit bumps? Are you sure the noise is the tailgate? I suspect the latch is adjustable to tighten it up. However, the 3500 hd has overload springs in the rear and I can hear a clunk every time they contact the main springs as I hit large bumps when my slide in camper is on the truck.

I guess it depends on your definition of “ride better.” Plus putting the gps antenna at the back of the cab where it will be covered by a cabover camper is just plain silly.

I’m hauling a fairly light camper (2000 lbs) with my 3500 hd slt gas long bed and I love it. Plenty of power. Quiet in the camping areas, no need for obnoxious extended loud idle, no stink, no DEF or DPF issues, no searching for diesel. Basically the camper settles down the ride, and beyond that I don’t know it’s there. It also pulls an 8000 lb boat up the ramp like it’s nothing. I have the camper springs up front, which are overkill for my load, but probably a good idea if your camper weight exceeds 3000. They are noticeably stiffer than the standard front springs, but not excessively stiff. I’m only at 1500 miles, but I’m getting 17.5 mpg empty and 14.5 with the camper on at 60 to 65 mph. The mileage drops to 13.5 by 70 mph. No problems climbing, though. It’ll climb as fast as you want to go. I’m very happy I did not get diesel.

Back the OP’s original questions ... On my truck if you disconnect one camera the whole network of cameras goes down. I bought the camera that goes in the tailgate ($97) and a universal FAKRA cable from Pasternack ($40 shipped) and built a housing from a 45 ell PVC fitting. I mounted it on the camper at roughly the same position and it works fine. The big connector for the tailgate is a heavy duty connector and should be good for many matings. It just needs to be protected from dirt and water while it is disconnected. The separate little FAKRA camera connector is less stout but was tested for something like 50 matings. If you are gentle with it I think it will last. Another issue with camper mounting is, if you use the trailer marker light circuit to power your camper marker lights, the truck detects a trailer and disables the rear parking assist system. My camper is bed length so I wanted that system operative. I ended up tying into the truck marker light circuit at the left rear wheel well marker light wire bundle and parking assist now works.

My 93 k2500 tailgate was an easy one man job. The new one is too big and too heavy for one. The first time you pull it off the driver side hinge is really tight. I didn’t use a pry tool (cringe) on my new 2021 multipro tailgate. Instead, after freeing the passenger side, my son and I rocked it up and down while applying pulling force until it finally came free. The main thing is not to smack it into the truck when it comes free. When it goes back on I’ll be applying teflon or silicone lube of some kind.

My cousin once had the exhaust from his little Mini Cooper (gas) melt the tire of his bicycle on a rear rack on a highway trip. He couldn’t figure out what had caused it, then I noticed that little tiny exhaust pipe pointed at it from under the bumper.