Texas82GP's GMT900

[Texas82GP]

So I've been wanting to do some clay bar/machine polishing/waxing work on the truck. Especially the top and hood. The truck has always sat outside, the entire 13 years I've owned it. The hood wasn't looking that great.....

Sean helped me hang some plastic in the garage and plastic up the rest of the truck. We clay bared the hood and top. I got out my 6" DA polisher and assortment of foam waffle pads and tried to go to work with some Meguires #2 Fine cut cleaner. The hook and loop backing came right off. Ok, I'll use a slightly more aggressive pad. The backing came right off. These pads are probably five years old and were put up right, but I guess the glue went bad.

I started over with a red pad (medium cut) by hand. I went over the hood in sections twice. Then I went to a green pad (soft polishing) with Meguires #9 Swirl remover. Finally I went with a coat of the Meguires Hi-Tech Yellow Wax (Paste). This is no OldsCool but the hood really came back. To tell the truth, I'm relieved.....

While I was working on the hood, Sean went over the top with the fine cut cleaner with an orange pad (slightly less aggressive than the red pad I was using). He had a family commitment so when he pulled off I went over the top two more times with the fine cut cleaner and the red pad. Then the same process as the hood with the swirl remover and the wax. The top was worse off than the hood but it really came back....

I'm planning to clay bar and wax the rest of the truck over the next week or so. Not much else on the truck needs polishing like the hood and top did. I ordered some new supplies, including new foam polishing pads. I'm planning to help Sean do this on his truck.

I guess that's it for now friends.

 

[DRIVEN]

I never, ever would have guessed that truck lives outside.

 

[Texas82GP]

250 miles later, I really like the Coopers. We'll see what I think in a few years. They are very grippy. I have to get very aggressive to make them spin.

There's been some belt noise on the front of the engine for the last six months or so. I was sick of it. I decided to restore it so I bought both belts, both tensioners and the idler. When I got it apart Sean noticed that the pulley on the alternator had a significant wobble to it.

The original alternator went out in 2017. I didn't have a backup car back then so I had to fix it then. We have a NAPA at the front of our neighborhood so I went there. The alternator they sold me didn't charge. They couldn't test it and didn't have another so I ended up going to Advance.

I don't know if the pulley has been wobbling this whole time or not. It's hard for me to imagine/believe that I wouldn't notice it or would ignore it. Nonetheless I got Advance to swap it out.

The job took longer than it should have. At the very end, I hooked up the negative cable and then Sean went to install the brace that goes from the fender to the cowl, over the battery. He dropped one of the bolts and it didn't fall through. Off came the wheel and the fender well. Out came the battery. An hour and a half later we found in the K&N air box. Because pics or it didn't happen....

The third brake light on the truck is looking haggard. I noticed it last weekend when we were working on polishing/waxing the hood and top.

I bought a new GM assembly and decided to try my hand at painting it with the VHT Nightshades coating....

It turned out good. I think I put a bit much on it. It's a bit of a pain to install with the bed cover, and these are very leak prone so I seal them with clear Silicone sealer. I'll swap it out next weekend and snap some more pics.

I really like the VHT products. I'm thinking of painting the new GM headlight assemblies I have for the truck with Nightshades.

 

[Texas82GP]

The truck rolled 195,000 miles at the end of last week. That's:

• 113,000 miles on the cam swap
• A little under 26,000 miles on the 4L85E swap
• roughly 2300 miles on the new Cooper tires

This past weekend Sean and I changed the oil, rotated the tires, adjusted the air pressure in the tires, and did another drain/refill on the 4L85E. The drain refill on the trans replaces about 8 quarts of fluid and I'm doing it every 10,000 miles, just because. In the last 73,000 miles I rebuilt the 4L65E twice and then swapped to the 4L85E so I want this one to last. The fluid looked great. There wasn't much on the magnet on the drain plug so I think all is well there. At my current rate, It looks like it will roll 200,000 miles in January.

When I put the new tires on the truck, I replaced one of the wheels. I did this because one had a little road rash on the lip. Instead of discarding that wheel and tire, I decided to keep it and put it in the bed. It's newer than the 13 year old tire under the bed and, even more importantly, I don't have to get under the bed to retrieve it. I decided to get a 2.5 ton floor jack and a four way lug wrench to go with it. This way, if I have a flat on the truck it should be a lot easier to deal with.

I once found myself laying under the truck on the side of I-10, in the rain, with heavy trucks going by trying to get the stock jack situated and trying to get the spare tire out from under the truck. I don't want to relive that experience. After finishing up the maintenance work, I got everything situated in the bed and tied the spare wheel/tire and jack down with some ratcheting straps. Am I hauling around unnecessary weight? Absolutely. I think it is worth it though....

 

[Texas82GP]

The truck is starting 2022 with around 199,350 on the clock. I've been off work since 12/23. I wanted to give the truck some attention over the break. I didn't come close to doing everything on my list but I did get some stuff done. The first day on it I:

• Changed the oil
• Roatated the tires
• Adjusted the air pressure in the tires
• Tightened the rear brakes. I went out 10 clicks on each side. This really improved the pedal height and feel. I don't know why they don't self-adjust better.
• Greased the outer tie rod ends and lower balljoints. This is all that is greasable on my truck.
• Replaced both headlight assemblies.

For the last five years or so I've run aftermarket smoked headlight assemblies. The driver side assembly that was recently on it was installed when I repaired the collision damage from the hit and run incident back in 2019. Right out of the gate, it was aimed at the sky. When I tried to adjust it down, the adjuster came apart. For about two years this folded up paper jammed between the adjuster and the core support has been what held the adjustment on that side....

On top of that, a coating had started peeling off the lens and it looked terrible....

I really prefer the smoked headlight look but got tired of having no headlights. I literally had a shadow in front of the truck when something with modern headlights was behind me.

I've had a pair of Genuine GM assemblies for at least a year and a half. My brother and I tried to install a headlight tint kit on them but failed so I just put them away and did nothing. I came pretty close to sanding them, spraying them with VHT Nightshades, clearing them and then sanding and polishing recently but I'm tired of no headlights and didn't want to spend that much time on the project so I just installed the new stock assemblies as is....

I wanted to change the oil in the rear diff but you wouldn't believe the difficulty I had with getting a cover gasket. I went to three different auto parts stores (different chains). All wanted to sell me a $50 rubber gasket. None had a number for a paper gasket for an 8.6" 10-bolt. Ridiculous! I ended up having to go home, look up the part number on my own and then go back to the first store, which had it all along, and buy it. I didn't want to buy it online and have the mailman fold it over like a taco to get it in the mailbox. I haven't had a chance to get back under there since.

I also had flushing the brakes and power steering on the agenda but after my recent auto parts experience, I bought all those supplies online and am still waiting for some of it. Dad and Sean got quite a bit of my time off on their projects so the fluid services will have to be done later.

While adjusting the rear brakes, I noticed one of the rear shocks appeared to have been leaking. I had recently noticed that the rear of the truck seemed a bit soft. I went ahead and ordered a pair of shocks for it. I sported for the Bilsteins....

A big improvement. I'm guessing the old shocks had at least 100k miles on them.

Oh, about a month ago I put new front brake pads on it. I only got about 24k miles out of the last set. The left front had started squealing during breaking. I like the performance of the aggressive pads I'm running, so I just bought a new pad and rotor kit. When I got it apart, the rotors were still nice. It turned out one of the clips that go in the pad abutment bracket had broke free and was rubbing the left front rotor during breaking. It left no damage on the rotor though so I just went with new pads and put the rotors on the shelf. The passenger side probably had 10k miles left in it but the left front pads were pretty thin. I replaced the calipers, abutment brackets and brake hoses last time, so I don't know what the deal is there.

I guess that's it for now friends. Thanks for following along.

 

[Supercharged111]

If the 8.5 in your truck has the same stupid brake design as the GMT400 trucks, there's nothing you can do about that adjustment. Can you do a factory disc swap? Better yet, hunt down a 9.5" 6 lug rear axle. They have normal brakes out back that actually work. I went through the same thing on my 1500 in sig.

 

[joesregalproject]

I like the look of the tinted headlights but being able to see is kinda important.

The truck looks fantastic. It looks like it has 1/4 of that mileage.

 

[motorheadmike]

The aftermarket headlights on my TBSS are the worst. Fitment is crap. As is adjustability. They are also peeling.

 

[Supercharged111]

Did your truck not have a factory reusable metal backed rubber gasket? The wife's 07 Envoy Denali has one, maybe hunt down a part number there. The 5.3 rigs (5.3 guaranteed with the Denali) got the 8.5/8.6 rear end and the mighty TBSS got the holy grail 9.5" setup. The pleeb I6 rigs got the measley 7.5".

 

[Texas82GP]

If the 8.5 in your truck has the same stupid brake design as the GMT400 trucks, there's nothing you can do about that adjustment. Can you do a factory disc swap? Better yet, hunt down a 9.5" 6 lug rear axle. They have normal brakes out back that actually work. I went through the same thing on my 1500 in sig.

It has the big "W" shaped spring between the shoes. It wasn't fun to work on the first time but now I have the correct tool for it so hopefully next time will be better. I really prefer drum brakes on the rear so the answer is probably to just keep tightening them every 10k miles or so. I think part of the reason I burned through the last set of front pads so fast was that I was lazy about keeping the rears adjusted tight so the fronts were doing all the work. It may get a rear brake job this year. If not this one, then next for sure.

I like the look of the tinted headlights but being able to see is kinda important.

The truck looks fantastic. It looks like it has 1/4 of that mileage.

Yeah, I drove the truck around the block last night to see how they were aimed as I knew I'd be coming home from work in the dark tonight. The improvement is dramatic. I'm looking forward to having headlights tonight. Based on the ride home, I'll adjust them if needed but they looked good, right out of the box last night. I still prefer the smoked look but I don't think it is worth all the negative trade offs at this point. Thanks for the compliment. I've tried to keep it up. I haven't done as well as I should with the wax and it has taken it's toll on the hood and roof. Hopefully it will be parking in the garage at the new house before the end of the year.

The aftermarket headlights on my TBSS are the worst. Fitment is crap. As is adjustability. They are also peeling.

I had all of these problems. I've had a few sets but the latest driver's side assembly I put on the truck after the wreck is the worst. The GM assemblies fit like a glove. Changing these is not that much fun. You have to remove the grill and the bumper cover. It's not that bad, but it's a bit of a pain if all you want to do is change a light bulb. Terrible design!

Did your truck not have a factory reusable metal backed rubber gasket? The wife's 07 Envoy Denali has one, maybe hunt down a part number there. The 5.3 rigs (5.3 guaranteed with the Denali) got the 8.5/8.6 rear end and the mighty TBSS got the holy grail 9.5" setup. The pleeb I6 rigs got the measley 7.5".

No, it came from the factory with a paper gasket. I've never seen the rubber gasket. I guess a reusable gasket wouldn't be a bad thing but I just got irritated that I couldn't get a paper gasket that day, upon request. In the end, I found the part number and the first place I had gone to earlier, NAPA, had it all along. Their database just didn't call for it. I still ended up paying $15 for a paper gasket. Ridiculous!