Mithardy75's HD build

[mithardy75]

Hey everyone,

 

I am new to this build thread deal but I have had some people tell me that buying a beat up 15 year old truck was a waste of time and money and this will chronicle them being wrong. So I guess to start and make a long story short I was a die hard F#rd fan, sorry didn't mean to curse I know this is a family page, and where I live in Michigan you mainly see GMC and Dodge. A good friend of mine was helping me do some work one day and we had to use his truck because mine was down for the 100th time. And after spending a day in his truck I started looking and eventually bought a 99 GMC sierra 1500. I loved that truck and spent many hours and dollars making it my own but in the end it is only a 1500. So my fiancé and I talked and we started looking for a 2500HD. After a few months we found a 2002 crew cab SB that has spent almost all of it life in the UP. As you can tell I have a thing for buying old vehicles and making them mine. I would rather spend $3500 on a truck and put $6000 into it than buy a $10,000 truck. Oh and all the while this truck will be my daily driver. So here is goes.....

[mithardy75]

So after buying the truck and checking all the fluids it was time for a small road trip. 500 miles total nothing big and the truck did just fine.

[mithardy75]

Oh the joys of buying someone else's problem. So far the truck needs a new driver side CV half shaft seal, the rear brakes are so far gone they were eating into the rotors, the outer tie rod on the driver side and the inner tie rod on the passenger side need replaced, the ABS light is on and still trying to figure that one out, bank 2 sensor 2 is giving an error code, there is an exhaust leak I think at the driver side manifold. Oh and lastly the previous owner backed the truck into something and damaged both passenger side doors and the rockers need replaced.

[mithardy75]

 

Well instead of just turning the old rotors I figured it was time for an upgrade.

 

This should fix the problem with the bad tie rods.

[mithardy75]

Something I forgot to mention in the beginning is this is not going to be a huge lifted truck or some monster trail rig. It is going to be a beast of a work truck. I know that someone is going to tell me if I was building a work truck why didn't I go with a diesel, I have nothing against diesel trucks but where I live it gets very cold and I work 3rd. Our plant will not let us plug our trucks in. I have seen too many guys take forever to get them started and warmed up, I have seen it take more than an hour. Now don't get me wrong I am not going to leave the stock 245's and sitting at stock height, but at the same time I don't want my tow capability to suffer because I sit too tall to tow a 5th wheel.

 

I am always looking for suggestion on the next step. So if you guys want leave me feedback good bad it doesn't matter to me. Help is help.

[Full Lock]

Cool story but where are the pics?

[mithardy75]

I keep forgetting to take some. I dont bring my phone in the garage. I'm doing brake lines this weekend. I'll take some then.

[mithardy75]

Well took some time this weekend to finally work on my truck. As it sometimes happens I mentioned I was doing rear brakes and rotors and a buddy of mine wanted help replacing his break lines. 9 hours later both trucks got done.

My truck didn't take too long. Just your standard breaker bar, penetrating oil and brute force. All went good on the drivers side, it took about 35 minutes. When we got to the passenger side the E brake was holding the old rotor from coming off. Took a little persuasion but it came off.

Here is a picture of the new and old rotors side by side. They are the same size just one is drilled and slotted.

Here is a picture of the passenger side once we got the rotor mounted up and the caliper bracket on.

One thing I found out while doing my brakes is that the E brake system needs to be rebuilt. If this truck wasn't being built for work purposes I would just do away with it.

 

As for the other 7 1/2 hours let me just say replacing the brake lines on an 04 Chevy 2500HD sucks. Sorry there are no photos of us working on his truck. I have done brakes with a bulk roll of brake line before but never with prebent lines. As a hint draw a diagram of what lines go where before you start. We tried to replace one line at a time but there is not really any space and the other lines get in the way of trying to screw in the new lines to the ABS system. The prebents were nice but the directions didn't give a clear idea of what lines went where. We had 7 lines and the directions only showed 5. Also the bends on some were so far off that we should have just made the lines ourselves. And lastly the next time I do brake lines I am renting or buying a brake bleeder kit.

[mithardy75]

Well here in the next couple weeks I am going to have to get on my tie rods. I really like the rare parts tie rods, but has anyone ever had experience with the fabtech ones on a stock height truck? Give me your opinions.

[mithardy75]

Did my tie rods this weekend, unfortunately I wasn't in a financial place to be able to buy the HD tie rods. I went with AC Delco advantage. It was very easy as most GMC's are but then I found out my idler arm is going bad. I didn't take any pictures as there are so many I didn't think anyone wanted more pictures of OEM tie rods installed. I will be putting up some pictures up of a set of rims that were given to me. I friend of mine gave me his stock rims of a 2006 Ram 2500. I'm gonna try to put them on today. I have read a lot and there are mixed feelings on it. Some say the 6" backspacing is too much but others say as long as you done go above a 285 they will be fine.

[mithardy75]

Well the 285s fit really good. I had to remove my front mud flaps because the tires rubbed. From lock to lock I have no rubbing in drive or reverse. These rims are off a 2006 dodge 2500, they have 6" backspacing and I believe a positive 43 offset. The rear tires are firestone ATs they are brand new and unfortunately I had to go with used tires right now as I getting married new year and my wonderful fiancé reminded my we have a couple things to pay on this month. The GMC center caps went on just fine but they stick out about a 1/4 of an inch. I will have to grind the posts down flush with the rest of the center cap. When I do that I'll post pictures. I also saw where others have used dodge rims and put 07 gmc center caps on because the chrome finish matches much better.

[mithardy75]

These are the center caps I'm going to buy. They match the high chrome better.

[mithardy75]

Isn't it nice when you buy and tool and it's also a toy. I was getting tired of my check engine light so I bought a Bluetooth OBD2 scanner. It will be in sometime in the next few days. I will post my review and pictures when I get it in.

 

This is the one I bought. It had the best reviews and the most sold.