Did a few small projects with my brother on his truck today. Last weekend, after doing the spray-in bedliner, I ordered a set of the bumpers that go on the tailgate latches. He was missing one. Today he put them on and I coached him on adjusting the strikers forward so the gate is latched snug against the bumpers when it's shut. Nice improvement.
Last August, I bought him a Kenwood in-dash receiver. It's a pretty nice unit with XM, hands free, CD, etc. He really likes it but the past few months we've had trouble with speakers cutting out, particularly the driver's front. We replaced the front door speakers a month or so back. They were a nice upgrade but that wasn't the issue. Today, we pulled the bezel off the dash and slid the head unit out of the dash. While it was playing I started wiggling/pulling all the wires. I found the problem. When I put the pigtail from the radio together with the pigtail Crutchfield supplies you to connect to the truck's harness, I used the heat shrink crimp connectors. Somehow, I had a bad connection. This made me a bit poochy lipped. I ended up re-doing the whole harness. I soldered each connection and then did marine grade heat shrink. It turned out nice. Problem solved. Now I don't feel so big on those solderless connectors. For those that haven't used it, the marine grade heat shrink assortment they sell at Harbor Freight is great stuff. We used a bunch of it on the Camaro. I soldered everything on the Camaro except for the Weatherpak connectors. I may go back to doing business that way after this experience.