2000 Chevrolet Silverado RCSB

2000 Chevrolet Silverado

Good base truck to start a full blown build up. Goal for the truck is a daily driver that has a Silverado SS Clone look to it. Starting out with the v6 model in order to get the stick shift, but the first signs of engine trouble will find a fresh v8 shoved under the hood. — Now sold and replaced with the 06′ Sierra 🙂

Stock Specs :

• Regular Cab / Short bed
• 4.3L V6 Vortec 200hp/260tq
• 5 speed manual
• base model
• Pewter paint, charcoal interior

Convenience / Retrofit Modifications Planned:

• Power Windows
  
• LS door panels 
• LS carpet kit
  
• Plastic bedliner
• New seats with folding center 
• Full stereo system

Cosmetic Modifications :

• Smoothed/Colour matched door handles 
• Smoothed/Colour matched bumper cap 
• Tahoe chrome grill 
• Tonneau Cover
• Clear parking lights
  

Performance Modifications Planned:

• DJM Calmax 4/6 Drop kit w/Shocks 
• Flowmaster exhaust
  

Long Term/Potential Changes :

• Bedrug –
  
• 20″ Wheels –
  
• DJM Upper Control Arms
• DJM 5″ Lower Control Arms
• DJM 1-2″ drop shackles
• DJM Rear Sway bar
• Vortec v8 Swap (4.8 or 5.3)
• Full Respray / colour change ??

Removed for various reasons:

• HD Hood
• Ratty vinyl cover

 

Build Logs:

• September 22, 2013 – Purchased Silverado from the second owner. Truck has 223,xxxkms on it. Good condition, but needs some work.
• September 22, 2013 – Borrowed plates from my mechanic and went to pick the truck up. First fire up – check engine light is on. Started driving – it started blinking. Feeling crappy and impatient, I checked the oil, coolant and other obvious signs of issue. Everything LOOKED fine. Said screw it, and limped the hour home. After getting home and scanning the computer, found it was a misfire on Cylinder #2. Check the wires and sure enough, plug wire had come off. Reseated it, and the truck fired  up like a champ. Quick test drive confirmed that was the culprit.
• September 29, 2013 – Spent some time with Shannon and a heat gun and removed the trim from the door panels as well as the plastic window covers which the previous owner had added. Also removed the trailer hitch to prep it for sale.
• October 11, 2013 – Negotiated deal for some parts for the truck. Hoping to pick up Oct22.
• October 22, 2013 – Picked up the parts today. New bumper cover, chrome tahoe grill, door handles, carpet, seats and door panels.  Hopefully get them installed in the near future.
• October 24, 2013 – Picked up an ‘eraser wheel’ from napa today. Made pretty quick work removing the remainder of the adhesive left from the stripes which were taken off a couple weeks ago. Driver side is done, passenger side needs to wait till I can pull the truck out and turn it around.
• October 25, 2013 – Finished removing all the adhesive. Also swapped out the bumper cap and grill for the Tahoe piece. Next up, door handles, and then on to the interior.
• October 27, 2013 – Door handles swapped out (including the door locks). Easy task, but tedious and tough to reach bolts. Once I finished that up, I took some time to remove the bolt for the positive battery terminal and replaced it with a bolt that has a threaded insert in it to allow a second bolt to mount to it. This makes it much easier to add ring connectors for amplifiers and other accessories. Next up interior + stereo wiring.
• October 31, 2013 – Ordered 50′ of B-Quiet sound deadener and sprayed down the seat bolts with some penetrating lube for the impending strip down.
• November 3, 2013 – Removed seats, rubber mat and under pad. Scrubbed and cleaned floor pans. Sanded down surface rust below pedals. Painted with self etching primer.
• November 5, 2013 – 50′ of B-Quiet EXTREME was delivered today along with 90′ of speaker wire was found in my stash of stuff. Should be a busy weekend.
• November 9, 2013 – Coated the floors and back wall with B-Quiet. Not 1000% coverage, but decent enough to make things sound better. Also should have enough left over to do the inside of my door panels too, but not till after the alarm and power window install
• November 10, 2013 – Started wiring today. Ran RCA and remote wires and cut the speaker wires to length. With luck speaker wires and amp main line will be installed tomorrow. Weather and time will tell
• November 12, 2013 – 0 gauge power wire run, concluding all wire rough-ins. Need to route them a bit more tidily, and then zip tie them so they stay put before the carpet goes in.
• November 16, 2013 – Wires all sorted and cut to length. Zip tied and routed as I wanted. Only thing remaining for the stereo wiring is to attach the wires to the battery on one end and the amps on the other. Speakers for the doors are a little out still time wise, but once I buy them it will be a fairly quick task as the everything is routed where it needs to be. Carpet hopefully going in this week for a test fit. Power windows were ordered the last night
• November 18, 2013 – Power window kit delivered. Nice turn around.
• November 20, 2013 – Ran the wiring for the power windows into each door, and also added a wire for the remote door locks which I will eventually add. All wiring has now been ran
• November 23, 2013 – Finished cleaning / tidying all wires up. Everything has been ran, and zip tied. Put the carpet back in to test fit the seats, etc. Mounted the door panels to ‘see’ what the truck will look like when done. Getting close to finishing the interior now.
• December 5, 2013 – reinstalled the carpet on the back wall as well as the plastic trim plate. Finished up by reinstalled the shifter boot onto the floor.
• December 7, 2013 – Picked up a piece of metal from my cousin which ended up fitting perfectly. Using that, I drilled holes in the 4 corners to allow it to be bolted down between the floor pans and seats. Also bolted the amplifiers the metal. Amps completely installed under passenger seat along with all wiring (power, rca, remote, etc). Only wiring left to do at the amps is the speaker wire which has to wait until I buy speakers. Amps in, seats bolted in. Interior nearing completion. Next up : finish power window installation.
• December 8, 2013 – power window regulators installed, and wired in. Well, using the supplied switches anyways. Not a real fan of them but they will work until I figure out how the OEM switches work. Looking for a proper wiring diagram now, and will hopefully be able to swap the switches out pretty soon. Also, I may have sourced another set of seats and door cards which will match my dash and a/b pillars better.
• December 10, 2013 – Picked up another set of door cards in the proper colour this time. Closer to making it all match.
• December 12, 2013 – Looks like i’m gonna need some brake lines and a complete rear brake job. Calipers seizing, which has wrecked the rotors/pads. Maybe in January. Finish the interior, then onto brakes/suspension
• December 20, 2013 – Picked up an HD hood today. Not perfect, but that seems to be the theme of the truck. Will have the minor touchup done when the rest of the body work is done. Be good as new.
• December 21, 2013 – couldn’t stand the two-toned interior any longer. Did what any OCD car guy would do : swapped the freshly installed seats/carpet for the proper coloured items. Looks much better now. Would have done the door panels too, but decided to rebuild the work bench in the garage first. Hopefully do the doors tomorrow so I can see what the interior will look like when completed. Also, ordered some clear corners
• December 22, 2013 – installed proper door panels. Interior needs driver side kick panel and OEM switches wired in and its DONE.
• December 23, 2013 – Door switches finally re-wired for the OEM units. Both sides working as they should. Only required running 1 additional wire from door to door. Tomorrow the panels go back on, clean up and I can consider my interior mods complete. Just need to plug the headunit in when I get a chance. May be a while before that happens.
• December 24, 2013 – Door panels in, everything hooked up and working. Still want to wire in the keyed power better, but that will be done when alarm is installed. Looking pretty good. Certainly not a new truck, but i’m happier with it now. Need to put the door sill back in, but otherwise, interior is DONE.
• January 3, 2014 – Clear corners came in today. Should look good. Replacement power window regulator came in as well. Hopefully get them installed over the next couple weeks.
• January 9. 2014 – New pads, rotors and calipers outback, and all new brake lines installed. Insurance put on the truck and its ON THE ROAD! Couple more items to clean up. trim to reinstall and I will give the truck a good shake down.
• January 10-19, 2014 – Installed the head unit, Sirius radio and bluetooth microphone this week. MUCH better then the AM/FM cassette that was in the truck. Also, picked up some 3/4″ MDF and spent some time in the garage building a new sub box. Right now it sits about 95% done. Ran out of glue to finish putting the carpet on. 5 minutes and two shots of glue and the box is done. Add door speakers and the stereo will be DONE
• January 23, 2014 – Sub box installed and working. Amps tied into the battery. Stereo 100% complete with exception of door speakers.
• February 16, 2014 – Picked up a steel roll pan for future installation
• February 21, 2014 – Picked up most of the parts for my front end swap. Just need to go back and grab 1 more fender and my grill. Didn’t have room in the truck for everything.
• March 6, 2014 – Picked up headlights and front parking lights for the 03 swap today.
• March 7, 2014 – Picked up the grill which I forgot a few weeks back, and also was able to get the frame horn pieces that I need. Just 1 fender away from doing my front end swap.
• March 25, 2014 – Picked up DJM 4″ Lower control arms from the owner of my previous truck. Tried to get the toneau cover too but he wouldn’t bite.
• March 29, 2014 – Picked up the driver side fender. Now have all parts for front end swap.
• April 9, 2014 – Dropped off the new sheet metal at body shop to be cleaned up and colour matched. Also, made plan for fixing up the rockers and cab corners this summer.
• April 14, 2014 – Ordered rear 6″ flip kit, front+rear shocks and a tailgate handle relocating kit. Hopefully have the parts within a couple weeks
• April 26, 2014 – Picked up outstanding parts. Grabbing some balljoints this week, and then its slammin’ time.
• May 11-12, 2014 – Flip kit installed, C-Notches installed. No major issues, just time consuming. Need to replace 1 leaf spring bolt (that wouldn’t come out). Also, the small brake line that goes to the back driver wheel needs replacing as it is leaking pretty steady now. Parts pending, front end gets started tomorrow night
• May 14-22, 2014 – Lower control arms in, bolt for leaf spring installed and everything tightened down. Had a buddy put some ends on a brake line for me, and with help from Shannon I was able to get it all bled out and working again. Truck is all done, and ready for the alignment booked May 23
• May 23-25, 2014 – Went for alignment. Unfortunately I needed an upper ball joint to do the alignment. Monday the BJ went in and alignment finished up. Rides better but not great. Looks like I have some adjustment to do next weekend.
• May 27, 2014 – Ordered my Silverado SS replica bumper cover and a new pair of rockers and cab corners. Plan is to pick up in USA June 7.
• June 6, 2014 – Parts picked up. Will speak to Paul this week about install time.
• June 19, 2014 – Picked up a LoRider tonneau cover for a great price today. It is in mint condition, just needs a re-spray into the pewter colour to match my truck
• June 30, 2014 – Finally found the source of my clanging noise — broken leaf spring. Contacted a friend and picked up a used pair.
• July 2, 2014 – replaced the drivers side leaf spring, and re-torqued all suspension bolts. No more creaking noises. MUCH firmer feeling launches.
• July 10, 2014 – picked up 03 Silverado tails. Would have prefered the 04-07, but couldn’t pass them up at the price
• July 31, 2014 – Picked up an MB Quart component set. Not exactly what I want, but price is right and it allows me to yank the factory crappy speakers out.
• August 17, 2014 – spray painted and half-ass installed the roll pan just to cover the rear end. Tired of it being wide open. Needs to be properly painted, and welded in better, but that can wait
• August 22, 2014 – Bought another tonneau cover in the right colour which has better removing ability. Now I can pop it off it need be to haul big items much easier
• September 9, 2014- Took the truck in for a couple repairs. Busted fuel line and a worn out cap/rotor was making for a poorly running tuck that was pissing out fuel. Quick trip to Smouts Garage and its all better now
• Sold truck to purchase 2006 GMC Sierra