Mike_D's 2017 Silverado 1500 LT Z71 (WIP)

Mike_D · March 9, 2019

Gonna try to do this in timeline format, good luck me!

November 3rd, 2017

This is the day i purchased this beautiful work of art! And its the first truck i've ever owned! Here's the details on my truck and an image from purchase day:

2017 Chevrolet Silverado 1500, LT Z71, Double Cab
Silver Ice Metallic with Jet Black interior (its actually grey, not sure why they call it Jet Black)

LT Plus Package

Power Sliding Rear Window
Universal Home Remote
Rear Park Assist
Power Adjustable Pedals

All Star Edition

Power Driver Seat
Dual zone climate control, A/C
Tilt and telescoping steering column
Remote Vehicle Start
Rear Window Defroster
110v AC power outlet
Engine: 5.3L V8 Ecotec3
3.42 rear axle ratio
40/20/40 front seat/bench
60/40 rear folding bench
Power windows/doors
Rear camera
8" color touch stereo with HD audio, Single slot CD/MP3, Bluetooth, SiriusXM
Color Driver Info Display
Front recovery hooks
Heated outside mirrors
EZ lift and lower tailgate

Most everything else is common stuff that really needs no mention.. Hell, half of what i just mentioned didnt need mention!

My goal with this truck was to purchase the least amount of features i dont want while getting the most features i want and allow myself to add more later, with the end result being that i have a truck with the most features i want and lacking the fewest. The LTZ gave me too many things i didnt want to pay for, like leather seats which i dislike very much, and heated seats that only ever make me feel like i have to poop. The LT Z71 was really a strategic choice, same with the double cab, kids cant really kick the back of my seats if they cant get their feet up there!

Let the build begin!

November 13th, 2017

My first purchase! I grabbed some weathertech floorliners and kick mats for the back of the seats. I have kids, they must NOT destroy my pretty! My 3 year old, who was 1 at this time will surely be putting her feat all over the back of at least one of my seats. And you know.. kids... dirty hands touching whats in front of them... Kids... Also a great reason for the floor liners!

I also purchased nerf bars at the dealership when i bought the truck, but they had to order them and on this same evening, I installed them.

Again on this same evening, I purchased the AVS Bugflector II and Husky Mud Guards. I never took a picture of the mud guards, but i have a picture with the bugflector and its beautiful!

November 16th, 2017

Installed a 7" antenna. You'll see it in other pictures, but it looks exactly the same as the super long one that came with the truck, just shorter.

November 20th, 2017

WeatherTech Side Window Deflectors (82740). I really didnt want the ones that stick on, i've seen far too many of them fall off, and they dont look nearly as good. These are dark and they dont show up well in pictures, but i have this picture i made black and white using Google Photos where they show up quite well, and i must say, damn she's lookin good!

January 4th, 2018

Are you wondering what happened to December? Well.. I have kids, and Christmas is in December... So.. Long story short, the holidays had their way with my wallet, but since its January, back to the build!

Frame tube hole covers and Dee Zee Heavyweight Bed Mat (DZ86973). I dont know if the hole covers really do anything for the truck, but i think its an improvement on the looks. That hole is just weird to me! If you dont know what holes i'm talking about, they are in the wheel wells (i didnt take pictures of this). If you lift your truck, they become very visible. As for the bed mat, i want to maximize my protection! So later i'll get a spray in bed liner to protect the bed from scratches, and this bed mat will protect the bottom from impacts.

January 5th, 2018

Time to grow a manly mane to go along with my manly truck!

January 25th, 2018

I hate driving around with no privacy, so bring on the window tint! Matched the front to the back

April 16th, 2018

Wife said i was spending more money on my truck then i was on her, so i had to give it a break. Three months of hell! Sheesh.... I hope she doesnt browse this forum Bring on the upgrades! Ok, so i had to ease into it with a skull hitch and chrome license plate frames for the front and back:

May 1st, 2018

Next up is the chrome caps for the side mirrors. I'm actually not too happy with these. They are from Sizver, and its hard to see in this picture but there's a dent in it (its plastic though?), and they dont cover the whole mirror, there's a tiny bit of silver that sticks out around the edges. Eventually, i'll upgrade the mirrors entirely so i can have the auto folding mirrors, i'll buy the ones that are already chrome!

I also purchased the Putco chrome fender trim kit (97296). These things were absolute garbage! I sent them back. They needed to be bent all across the entire trim, otherwise it would stick out from the truck and look terrible! No pictures of these, only got one on before stopping. This set is made to fit too many vehicles, or its made poorly. Dont buy it! There's also no paint protection on these. I'll just get some real fender flares later!

May 15th, 2018

A black vinyl sticker for the bowtie emblem on the steering wheel, a sew on leather steering wheel cover thingy, chrome tail light trim, and a chrome tailgate handle. Pictured is the chrome tailgate handle and chrome trim on the tail lights.

June 1st, 2018

Chrome trim for the sliding rear window (still not sure how i feel about these), and black bowtie emblems for the front and the back to replace the gold that doesnt really fit the color scheme... Neither do the amber lights, but i'll change that another time either with new headlights or i'l black'em out! I need more info on blacking them out, i want it done right but i've never done it before. You'll see 1 piece of the chrome trim for the rear sliding window in the second picture, but in later pictures you'll see the other piece.

I also purchased black door handles that I installed after the black bowties. With that, i also purchased these door handle buckets from Putco. They look amazing! But they have the brand name in GIANT letters right behind the handle. I may take care of that by using a flat 1" chrome trim and stick it over the words, it might cause problems with grabbing the handle though, so i'm not really sure yet on a solution, but NOBODY sells these things except Putco! So sad...

June 3rd, 2018

Purchased the Tyger tonneau cover. This thing is great! Looks good, flops in the wind a bit but very very stable! (This picture also shows off that chrome rear window trim pretty well too).

June 6th, 2018

Took this beauty over to Les Schwab and had them install a leveling kit (raised the front 2.5 inches). I kinda feel stupid for paying them so much to do what i could have done for free, but whatever.. Its done, and it looks great!

June 10th, 2018

Putco Chrome Window Trim (97508). I was sooooo skeptical on buying these because the pictures were not at all the correct items being purchased, but it turned out great! I also added chrome trim around the 3rd break light (above the sliding window). Hard to see here, but you'll see it in other pictures.

June 21st, 2018

Bed Liner! Took the truck over to Line-X and had them spray it in, they did a damn good job! Had to take out the bed mat and remove the tonneau cover, but they went back on after. This bed liner was needed baaaaaaaaaaad! That bare metal look in the bed was terrible!

June 23rd, 2018

Good things come to those who wait.. A month prior to this, i finally ordered wheels and tires, and DAMN they were expensive! I hated making this purchase, and justifying this to my wife was impossible, needless to say, I was i the dog house for quite some time because of this... Totally worth it!

I purchased the glossy Fuel Assault 20x9's, four of them cost me $1040. The tires are Toyo Open Country R/T 33x12.5r20LT's, these cost me $1361. I added locking lugs and TPMS's for $45 and $179 as well. My total? A mind numbing $2625 just for the wheels and tires! You can definitely get a more expensive set, but for my petty bank account, this was a ton!

The wheels and tires in June were the last thing I upgraded. So here's what she looks like now:

And here's whats coming in the future, but there are decisions to be made:

Fender Flares. These will definitely be paint matched, and they will be the riveted bolt on style! My only issue here is getting a pair that doesnt break the bank. Seems they all cost $800+ and i dont think thats worth it. Right now, its looking like i'll get the Tyger Auto flares for $179, and paint them myself. I can get all that done for under $300. I'll lose my husky mud guards, but those were always meant to be temporary!
Black or Chrome door accent trim. Currently they are paint matched, and i think if i stuck with black fender flares, black would be great, but since i'm paint matching, i think chrome may look better. What do you all think?
Auto folding mirrors. Trucks are large, parking spots are small, auto folding mirrors just make sense to me, especially because i'm always parking in larger public parking lots.
Black painted grill (like the red line editions!). I think the grills on the red line's look great! I dont want to spend $1000+ on a new grill when i can just paint it black and it'll look great! So thats the goal. I just need to find the right paint and the right process and get it going. Any recommendations?
Bull Bar. I'm not really sure which way to go here, black or chrome? I currently have the paint matched grill (except the insert area, thats black), so if I go with black, will that be too much black on the front end? Too much chrome if i go that way? This is a hard decision... I also need one that has the license plate holder since in my state of Oregon, we are required to have license plates on the front and the back. blah...
Seat Covers. I cant find anything at a reasonable price, so eventually i'll find something i like at a reasonable price or i'll bite the bullet on the expensive ones.
Truck bed organizer. Mostly for groceries. I can put them in the back but i have to drive easy or the bags spill everywhere! I was thinking about a bed extender since when its folded in, its sectioning off the back? Not sure here yet, they are expensive and i dont want to spend that much on it just for groceries!
Headlights/Tail lights. I like the custom look on headlights and tail lights, and i've seen some really nice looking ones! But not for my truck... yet... so i'm just waiting until i find ones that i really like.
Grill accent lights. I'm struggling with this one! The ford raptor, and the special ops silverado (which i dont think they ever made?) have lights across the top of the grill. I want to do this too but i want them as accent lights, not something to light up the street. I want to get 3 or 4 lights that will fit in there. I love the color of the lights on the special ops, but overall, i want a white or blue color, but nothing super bright. I'm not having any luck finding anything here. Any recommendations?
New Hood! I like the hoods with the hood scoop on the 2500 HD's! I want that hood, or something similar that has the scoop, and looks bulky and awesome! If that means i lose my bug deflector, thats fine, but i'd like to keep it if possible. Any recommendations on hoods?

Well thats all she wrote! I do want to add other things like a nicer stereo because those gaps on the sides suck, better speakers, trim accents in the cab, knob covers, but some of these are a ways off or i just cant find anything. Sometimes you just have to wait until a vehicle is 5-10 years old before the good stuff comes out!

If anyone wants more info, pictures, or anything, respond and i'll supply!

Edited March 11, 2019 by Mike_D
word corrections

Mike_D · March 9, 2019

I figured this is appropriate, a before and after sort of thing.

Mike_D · April 4, 2019

I got my fender flares. Grabbed the Tyger Auto bolt on look for $179.

Any advice on painting these? I found the code for my paint on a sticker in the glove box, it said U636R, but Google searches all return WA636R. Are these the same? Here's my best shot at the steps to do this, please help me correct my mistakes! I've never painted anything before.

Rough it up with 200 grit sandpaper or scuff paste and scotch brite pad.
Wash it down really well
Use an antistatic plastic cleaner to help keep the dust off
Apply 3 coats of primer (15-30m between coats)
Apply 3 coats of paint (15-30m between coats)
Apply 3 coats of clear coat (15-30m between coats)
Wet sand with 2000 grit sandpaper (or should I use less? 1200?)
Buff to shine.

Did I miss anything or get anything wrong? Those 8 steps are what my research has bright me to.

PMad · July 8, 2020

Well crap... Apparently i have 2 accounts Well... Here's my latest update, added paint matched fender flares:

I've got chrome tips for my grill and a new 3rd break light coming in tomorrow. Here's what the front currently looks like:

I'll add the chrome tips and 3rd break light tomorrow, and i have three dual row LED's coming in this weekend to simulate the special ops lighting on the front. I also have a black bull bar and tint for all of lights (headlights, tail lights, fog lights, etc...) coming in by early next week. I'll have pictures when all of that is on the truck.

PMad · July 9, 2020

https://i.imgur.com/IKgGphs.mp4

Not sure how that video is going to show up but its of the 3rd brake light that I added today. When i walk to the side of the truck, before zooming in, you can clearly see the old one with a chrome trim added on laying on the tonneau cover.

I also added the chrome tips on the grill. Didnt turn out like i had hoped.... I'm not really sure if i'm going to keep them... I'll rock them for a bit and see what i think in a couple weeks, but here's a picture from the front and an angle of the before (on the left) and the after (on the right):

Edited July 9, 2020 by PMad

Mike_D · July 13, 2020

So i added the 20% tint to the headlights and taillights. This totally killed the look of the chrome tips on the grill so im definitely taking those off.

I completely botched the vinyl tint on the tail lights. Its just, something i guess i cant do at all on tail lights haha. So i purchased new tail lights. I'm waiting for those to come in.

I did get three lights that i'm going to stick in my grill for that special ops look. Here's what those look like:

I'm working on a way to mount them, then i'll post pictures of the lights when they are installed, with the chrome tips on the grills removed.

slj2008 · July 13, 2020

it's getting there - Any info on your three lights , also photo of bull bar installed ( Why not brush guard ) ??? Thanks

PMad · July 15, 2020

On 7/13/2020 at 9:37 AM, slj2008 said:

it's getting there - Any info on your three lights , also photo of bull bar installed ( Why not brush guard ) ??? Thanks

I have the three lights but havent had a chance to get out there and find a mounting solution for them and my bull bar has been delayed yet again! Originally it was going to ship 7/8, then on 7/8 they changed it to 7/15, and today they changed it to 7/23 so i've emailed the mfg to see whats going on.

I've chosen not to go with brush guards and grill guards because they cover so much of the front end. I like the look of the grill and want to be able to see it, but i'd like to have some kind of front-end protection and a bull bar fits the need. I also like the look of them. They add style without taking over the front end.

slj2008 · July 15, 2020

9 hours ago, PMad said:

I have the three lights but havent had a chance to get out there and find a mounting solution for them and my bull bar has been delayed yet again! Originally it was going to ship 7/8, then on 7/8 they changed it to 7/15, and today they changed it to 7/23 so i've emailed the mfg to see whats going on.

I've chosen not to go with brush guards and grill guards because they cover so much of the front end. I like the look of the grill and want to be able to see it, but i'd like to have some kind of front-end protection and a bull bar fits the need. I also like the look of them. They add style without taking over the front end.

When you get BULL BAR - Are you adding light bar also ?? Photo when installed . Thanks

Mike_D · July 15, 2020

4 hours ago, slj2008 said:

When you get BULL BAR - Are you adding light bar also ?? Photo when installed . Thanks

The bull bar I purchased has a light bar in it already, so I won't be purchasing another, but I'll be making a switch panel out of the cubby hole for the lights I have. I might be getting some rock lights too.

slj2008 · July 15, 2020

Thanks for the info. ROCK Lights - people will see you coming at night ??

PMad · July 15, 2020

5 hours ago, slj2008 said:

Thanks for the info. ROCK Lights - people will see you coming at night ??

Definitely wont be using the rock lights while driving. I'd use them a little for show, but mostly for lighting up the wheel wells so i can see my tires and get any big rocks out of my tires. I'd likely only use these when camping in the woods.

Mike_D · July 24, 2020

All right! Finally got my lights in to mimic the special ops lights! I'll show links to parts and explain what i used so that anyone who comes across this and wants to do this to their truck will have all the resources they need.

The lights, i bought 3 of them with the goal of having low brightness so that they would serve more as accent lights that i could always have on. So the ones i found were 900 lumens each, turns out they are a lot brighter than i had imagined! Here's the link and the picture of what they look like:
https://www.superbrightleds.com/moreinfo/led-light-pods/6-rectangle-led-work-light-off-road-led-driving-light-12w-900-lumens/5881/13376/
I also needed a harness to plug them into that connects to the battery for power and gives me a button to turn them on and off. Since i want to control them all together with 1 button and not individually, i purchased this harness from the same website:
https://www.superbrightleds.com/moreinfo/wire-harness-relay/led-light-wiring-harness-with-weatherproof-switch-and-relay-single-channel-atp-connector/2075/4708/
Total cost with shipping was $91.53, not bad at all! I did also find a promo code that took $8.88 off the price, but still, thats under $100 for all three!
Next i had to mount these to the truck, so i did some test fitting to see what kind of hardware i might need and came up with a plan. The first part of the plan was to make sure the brackets i bought would allow for two bolts instead of one since this would prevent the lights from swiveling. I also bought 6 bolts with 12 bigger washers (one for each end) and 6 lock nuts to help ensure these wont unscrew. I figure since these will be going into plastic, they'll probably loosen up a bit over time so lock-nuts seem essential to me, and the bigger washer will help ensure a wider area of pressure so the bolt heads and nuts dont pop through over time. I went to ace hardware, and here's the brackets i bought, i didn't get a picture of the other hardware by itself, but you'll see it in pictures later. This is pretty common hardware so it shouldnt be too difficult to find it. It will probably be better to go to the smaller hardware stores instead of places like Lowes and Home Depot. It'll be much harder to find it in the big stores!
So before hooking anything up, i wanted to make sure my lights worked. To do this, i needed to hook up the wiring harness, then one by one, test each light. So I hooked up the wiring harness to where the arrows are pointing. The left side is the only negative terminal. On the right, there's several terminals, each one is a positive terminal. So i took the empty one since i found a nut in my toolbox that fit on there perfectly.
The harness has a relay, and pretty much all of the cables come out of that relay. Power cables, switch, and cables to hook up the light. The relay has a bracket to mount it, so if you look at the picture above, you'll see a hole below the left arrow. Thats where i mounted it, but on the underside. Originally i had the bottom where all the cables come out pointing towards the front of the truck, but the positive terminal didnt have a good route to the battery so i swung it around and pointed it towards the back of the truck, but then the coil or springy thing or whatever that is for the hood (top middle of the picture below) was hitting it when closing the hood, so i pointed it straight down the center of the positive and negative terminals on the battery and its fairing well right there so far.
Since my wiring harness is single channel, its only intended to hook up one light. The wires on the connector for each light are pre-stripped, but since i'll be putting 3 of these together with the harness, i'll need more wire to twist them up, so I stripped them down further like so (right side is original):
I tested each one, one at a time by hooking everything up as a single channel, then turning the switch on and off again, they all worked:
Next i needed to mount them, so i started with the one in the middle. I put the grill back on and held the light bar in place in different combinations of brackets and positions. I found the best combination to be with the L bracket and having the light point straight out from it. So I attached the center mounted bracket that came with the light bar to the L bracket and held it in place so i could find exactly where i needed to drill the holes, and i marked them, drilled the holes, and mounted it. The picture below is of the light fully mounted. Its a bit hard to tell whats going on here, but i'll show some other pictures in a bit.
Next was the side's, so i went to the driver's side first and essentially did the same thing as the center but quickly found that there's some plastic in the way that needed to be trimmed, so i did this on both sides. I used a pair of dykes to cut through it, then a chisel (hit it with my hand) to smoothen out the surface. It all worked really well:
After playing around with the brackets and the lights, i had figured out how to make it work. I used the T shape brackets, with the center hole drilled out using a 5/16 bit so that the bolt that comes with the lights would fit. Now these were actually going to hold the lights up too high, so i had planned to find a nut that could go between the T bracket and the light bar bracket to serve as a spacer, but i couldnt find any. Instead, i found these plastic spacers in my toolbox that were used for a wall mount for TV's, they fit perfectly and gave just the right amount of spacing, so i used them. Below is a picture of the hardware for mounting this thing on each side, and the order they would go in (bolt goes through light bar bracket, through spacer, through T bracket, through lock washer, and into nut).
Alright, i dont know what the hell this thing is, but i realized i needed to take it off to screw in these mounting brackets. The bolt would either go up through the bottom, or down through the top. Either way, i needed a socket or open end wrench on one end, and a screw driver on the other, and that was impossible without removing this thing. What the hell does it do anyway? It looks like it might open and close? But i cant figure out how it would actually do that?
So finally i was able to screw things things in!...... or not
I had gotten the nut 90% of the way on when it seized and the screw stripped out. So i had to go back to my toolbox and use this abomination instead:
It worked, the hole in the bracket even seemed to be cut for that type of screw/bolt/thing... So I figured that since i had the dremel out and i had to cut off the other bolt, i might as well cut off the bottoms of the bolts on the side mounts since they were hitting that weird thing i had to take off the grill, and then, I attached the lights and put the strange grill thing back on.
So i put the grill back together and tested the lights, they are purdy!
Last piece was dealing with the wires and getting the button in the cockpit, err... i mean cab. I zip tied the wires everywhere i thought made sense, then tried to find a way through the firewall by going through this little thing on the driver side with a metal hanger:
Boy that was a mighty fun 3 hours trying to make it through the firewall. I pretty much mutilated that rubber thing. For anyone else doing this, surprise surprise! It looks just like that on the other side too! Its like.. a rubber bubble... And i hate it!

So, to be clear, and hopefully this helps others. Try to go through the middle, and when you try to poke through the rubber on the other side, make sure you arent already pissed off or drinking, because this little devil is going to take you for a spin! Go through the middle!! And when you go into the cab, you'll find a black box behind the emergency break, it has 2 latches on the right and 1 on the left that you'll probably need a screwdriver to undo, and it BARLEY helps if at all. I used a wire coat hanger, and it came out on the left side of the box WAY up top about as far as you can see when you are on your knees sticking your head under the dash.

This photo is probably worthless because its such a mess to look at. You can see my hanger sticking out on the bottom left. If you follow it back, it vanishes behind some plastic thing. That plastic thing is the box with the lid off, you can see the 3 locks for the harnesses that are plugged in, and there's an empty space there for another one. If you look closely, you'll see there's a very thin opening to the left of the box, thats where the hanger is coming in at. Its actually coming in from way up above the box and its going down the entire side. Its pushed up against the box though so you cant really see it under the lip on the edge. Also, if you buy the same lights, you'll have to cut a 2-3 inch slit in both sides of satans condom, which can be pretty difficult without massacring it. I need to figure out how to fix the thing, it looks like blackened ground beef now, but i got it!
I feel like its pretty dang bright. I tried to point all the lights straight so that i could use it with my headlights. They are so much brighter than my headlights so i can easily see the light beam while driving and they are definitely pointing towards the other lanes, and my view in front of me appears to be as bright as it would normally be with brights on. Maybe brighter but its hard to say. Nobody flashed me when i drove by so thats a good start!

Ok so a couple extra pictures here. Because the design of the grill, my goal was to have these sit about an inch behind it. I felt like that should give air plenty of room to blow around these lights without putting too much pressure on them. If they were closer, the air wouldnt have anywhere to go and would build up and could cause the lights to wobble and likely break free of the plastic. This only worked for the middle light due to the curvature of the grill. Here's a top down look at the center light:

I also found it easier to line up the lights horizontally due to the notches at the edges where the vertical parts of the grill are molded in. Vertical alignment of the lights wasnt easy to eyeball, but the brackets and everything just worked perfectly. I didnt get any pictures of the side lights, but they are quite a bit closer to the grill then the middle one. I didnt have a choice, but they are much closer on one end then the other due to me trying to angle them straight and the curve of the grill.

As for where i put the switch? I drilled a hole in the little change cubby and laid the switch in there for now. I'm working out how i'm going to do a switch panel. I like all the custom switches i've seen online, but they are huge! I dont like the size, it looks awkward.

Let me know if you have any questions or want to see any other pictures. I also have my bull bar but i will probably be putting that on this weekend. I was going to do it today but that $%#@!&@#%$ firewall killed my time!

Edited July 24, 2020 by Mike_D

slj2008 · July 24, 2020

Good Job with write -up and Photo's . ANY word on Bull Bar ?? Did you pull the tint of head lights ?

Mike_D · July 24, 2020

The headlights, turn signal, and fog lights are all tinted to 20%. I tinted the tail lights too but it turned out horrendously bad so I bought new tail lights that were already smoked. I'll get pictures of those up soon.

I have the bull bar, going out with the family today to the lake so I won't get to it today, but I might put the bull bar on tomorrow.