Freshly baptised GM-Truck driver

[mopar-banshee]

Hi there,

 

I am Sascha from Germany (Menzingen, a tiny town near Heidelberg, to be precise), and I recently bought a 2000 Silverado 1500 regular cab with Long bed.

I am a trained car mechanic and normally specialize in American Muscle Cars and More hardcore swaps (a 500HP LS3 with C4 Corvette Drivetrain and Suspension into a MK1 Ford Granada for Example).

 

After I moved to the countryside with mit girlfriend to restore the old House we bought I thought it would be a good idea to get myself a Pickup.

Totally digging the proprtions of a short cab with Long bed, the possibilities here in Germay to get one were bad, because 90% of all Pickups here are ext. or Crew cabs, or if the are reg.cab, they have the short bed.

Then I found one (yes the only one I could get hold of at all), it was is quite good shape, but had the 4.8 V8 (I prefered the 5.3), a shot 4L60E and only RWD.

 

I rebuild the tranny and think I actually like the RWD more now, the truck handles really well (had only experiences with 50s to 70s Trucks before) and the 4.8 is decent enough for now.

I will swap the 3.48 rearend for a 4.10 soon and put a torsen diff in it when I am at it, but otherwise the 4.8 is better than I thought.

 

Oh, and I have put a proper Stereo into it, dual-DIN Radio (was a bit of hacking) and a 1200 Watt RMS 7-Channel fully active DSP-controlled System with two 12" Woofers in sealed enclosures.

And I am atm modifying the bed to be more versatile to use.

 

In gereral I am aiming for the most practical all around vehicle poosible, as Long as you dont Need to seat more that 3 Peoples

 

If you have any questions, dont hesitate to ask.

 

cheers

Sascha

[RyanbabZ71]

Welcome Abaord!

[Daryl LBZ]

Welcome!

[txab]

Welcome

[nowicksl]

Sascha, how about a picture or two of your truck in Deutschland ?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[6.2Chevy]

Welcome! I'm curious to know why there is such appeal for short cab and long bed? Drag racing? Drifting? Appearance?

[GPGuy]

Welcome! 

[mopar-banshee]

Hi, sorry for the late answer...

 

I will post pictures in 1 or two days, I am atm not at home.

 

It is hard to say why I like the aestetics of a reg cab / long bed more, I think it has to do with the balance between the bed area and the cab/hood area, on all other pickups the bed is shorter that the rest of the car, and with this combo it is about the same.

And I also bought a Pickup to use the bed, so why not get the biggest one available.

The bed is for example long enough, that a digger with a 1m³ shovel (about 35ft³) can simply dump it onto the bed without spilling some to the side

 

I am not planning to take the truck dragracing or 4-wheeling / Overlanding.

It is mainly to carry me around and regularily some stuff on the bed.

 

I do inted to swap the engine for an LS2 or similar (definitely aluminum block) and fab some aluminum bumpers and maybe an Air-Suspension to shed weight.

The LPG system and Stereo added some weight, and I want to have  a curb weight of less than 4400lbs (almost 4800lbs atm).

 

The truck drives well on the Autobahn, atm I have set the limiter to about 115mph (due to tire speed limit) and the truck can cruise with no problem at 100 mph for longer periods without problems.

[mopar-banshee]

Here are the promised photos:

 

This is the side view ( I really hate those ugly 16" wheels).

Only thing to mention is, that i rerouted the exhaust to the back, I am no fan of side exhausts.

 

This is the front view, I made the bowtie flat black and added Foglights.

 

Here you can see the Escalade cluster (swapped in for the 120 mph speedo and the trans temp gauge) and the high mid and low speakers.

 

Behind the seats are two 12" Woofers (the other one is behind the driver seat) and two Hifonics Aamps with 1200Watts RMS combined)

The upper one is a Thor 4004 DSP  driving the tweeters and midrange, the lower is an Atlas driving the midwoofer and woofer.

 

And last but not least, the bed.

I installed aluminum lashing rails and waterproof antislip plywood (in germany called Siebdruckplatte).

The Box is bolted to the rails and can be taken off or repositioned easily.