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Welcome to www.z71silverado.com! |
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Here is some information about my 2001 Silverado
Z71, and the modifications I've done. |
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Fuel Pressure Regulator Replacement |
Been having trouble starting lately with a single crank of the key, so I bought a fuel pressure guage, and performed a fuel pressure test. On the first turn of the key (thus causing the fuel pump to prime), I'm currently only making 8psi, whereas 55-62 is what is required to start! Since the FPR is a lot easier to access than the fuel pump, I decided to start here. Unfortunatly, I think im going to have to also look at replacing the fuel pump too, as changing this little guy out didn't do the trick
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Tow/Haul Failure! |
Had to make some repairs to my Tow/Haul feature, as it seems that 6 years of putting it in and out of gear finally broke that little wire in the transmission shifter. Luckily, this was a freebie fix. All I had to do, was crack open the steering column, pull out a little excess wire, and strip, twist, solder and tape!
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Chrome Rims |
Since I was
16, I always dreamed of having chrome rims on my car. A few months
back, I finally got my chance. These are GM 20" rims, which can
also be an option on any new GM truck. I think they look pretty
sweet!! They are also quite a bit wider than the factory tires (which
were 265-75-R16's), and have significantly more traction.
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Fuel Send Sensor |
Today I replaced
the fuel send sensor, which had previously failed on my truck. It
was causing erratic behavior of the gas gauge needle, which would
go from the correct level, to bone dry, and back and forth driving
me crazy!! So a few of my friends came over, and we removed the
bed of my truck so I could get at the gas tank with ease. Turned
out that there was quite a bit of mud left over from my last offroading
trip (see below), so all that had to be cleaned off to keep it from
contaminating my gas tank. All in all, it was a really fun repair
to make, especially driving it
around with no bed!
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Windows Tint |
The guys at
the carwash I take my truck to had a little "keys inside the
truck" accident, and damaged my passenger side window tint
getting it open (which they graciously paid for). So I took this
opportunity to have new tint put in, quite a bit darker. In these
pics, you can also see I swapped in some orange DRLs (which I'm
now seeing popping up on a ton of FSCs in my town) The second 2
pics show "before", and how light the factory tinted rear
glass actually is. The front 2 windows have 20%, and the rear 3
windows have 5%.
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Rear Bumper Replacement |
While on a
road trip to hang out with some FSCers in Houston one weekend, I
backed my baby into a concrete pole while I was stopping off to
pick up some car wash supplies. IDIOT!! So, luckily, my friend Josh
works for a place that installs custom bumpers on new trucks, which
he was able to get me a good deal on a brand new discarded '03 bumper.
I think this would have been august of 2003, because my friend Quinton
was up visiting, and we had been at Quakecon
playing some fun games. Anyway, to swap out the bent for the new
bumpers, I had to unbolt the bed, lift it up a little, slide the
old bumper off, put on the new one, and bolt everything back down
again. wasn't really all that hard. And drilling holes and attaching
my rear lights was easier than putting them on the first time. The
black 96 Chevy 4x4 in the background belongs to Quinton, and I would
probably go as far as admitting that that particular truck was the
one that bit me and inspired me to get my own chevy. :)
 
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Debadged |
So I finally
got around to stripping all side moldings and emblems off the truck,
and wow, it made a huge difference. My friends from FSC.com had been coaxing me to do it since the day they met me, and after
all the hard work it took to get it off, I was not sorry one bit.
These pics were taken one afternoon when my buddy Nathan had just
bought his new 03 GMC Sierra Z71, and we were putting some coats
of wax on our babies. (You can also see a good example of what the
rear lighting looks like daytime, turned off) Last pic is a "before"
shot, showing the considerable difference of the after.
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Sound System Upgrade |
I think most
of these upgrades along in here came in pretty quick succession,
and all revolved around my tax refund I got in 2003 :) Next up,
came my stereo. I used to play live rock and roll back in the day,
and the feel of the bass notes shaking your guts around and nice
clear treble, to me, are what makes music sound and feel live. Right
now, I definitely have the feel, and maybe eventually I'll also
have the sound when I get the treble end of my system upgraded.
That will have to wait tho :) My system is pretty basic, but was
designed completely to be invisible to someone looking in from the
outside. I got a Kenwood 810XD 1600 watt amp (@ 1ohm stable), a
Kicker 10" L7, an Alpine 7897 head unit and Alpine 6 disk mp3
changer (which of course plays normal cds too, but I never play
normal CDs except now and then in the head unit). My buddy Scott,
who has been doing professional stereo installation for 10 years
or so, put it all in and built my sub box for me. We removed the
rear seat, and bolted everything straight to the rear wall of the
cab, on top of a layer of Dynomat. If my stereo ever turns up missing,
I'll also be walking to work for a few days while my insurance company
sorts out vehicle theft claims. (The head unit you can see below
in the first pic)
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Light Controllers |
Somewhere along
in here, I added a couple of relays I picked up off the internet.
One is a foglight relay, and one is a 4way headlight relay. The
default behavior for a chevy truck is for the foglights to always
be in the off possition when the headlights come on (either manually
or auto), which I think is silly. I think having them turned on
looks really cool at night (no, I dont drive around when them on
during the day!!). The 4way headlight relay causes the main headlights
to stay on when the highbeams come on, which the default behavior
is for the regular headlights to swich off. Again... silly. The
relays were about $15 each with shipping, and its a mod I'll hate
to go without on my next truck.
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Front/Rear Auxillery
Lighting |
It took me
a few weeks to find time to wire up the lights that came with the
brushguard, and by that time I had also picked up the factory fog
light kit too. Lighting kits that you buy generally come with a
switch that is the most hideous thing you ever lay eyes on, and
it will NOT match the rest of your dash board and switches. So I
copied my friend John's (Hulk from FSC.com) and tracked down some
Snow Plow Option switches from the factory. The dealers in the area
kept scratching their heads when I would ask for parts from the
snow plow option (I live in Texas!), so eventually they came from
a cool place called JPCustoms.
The factory foglights of course came with their own matching switch.
After they were installed, since my truck didn't come with them
from the factory, I had to have my MBEC reprogrammed to enable them
to work. In the first pic, you can see the snow plow switches near
where my red cell phone is. I also mounted some lights under the
rear bumper, which are a huge help when backing out of dark areas,
like my buddy Marks long driveway out in the country.
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Texas Flag Z71 Decals |
After the brushguard,
but before the lighting, came the Texas Flag Z71 decals. This rates
up there as one of my most favorite things on my truck, close behind
my giant exhaust tips. These decals (as well as my FullSizeChevy.com
decal on my rear window) came from DecalKing.com.
Everytime I pull up into a chevy dealership, the service guys notice
them right away.
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Pushbar/Brushguard |
I think the
next item I added was the brushguard, which came from 4 Wheel Parts
Wholesalers. It bolts to the frame, in place of where the front
tow hook mount. This brushguard has turned out to be pretty sturdy,
I've banged it into quite few things like concrete walls and ditch
bottoms, and so far the front end of my truck is still the bumper,
grill and fenders as when I got it!! I took these pics up on top
of the parking garage attached to my office's building.
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An Offroad Excursion |
Some of my
friends from FullSizeChevy.com forums put together an Off Road excursion
in January of 2003, and that day, 7 of us went, and had a BLAST
playing in the mud. Boys will be Boys!! Everyone that was there
all had considerable lift and 35" or larger tires, but I still
had no problems keeping up the whole day (although I guess I would
say there were a few obstacles that I avoided, but those were only
the ones that the other guys had to be pulled out of). In these
pics you can see the bug deflector, but the lack of factory fog
lights and brushguard.
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Dual Exhaust |
Next, along
game custom exhaust, and rolling a coating into the bed, These pics
would have been taken Thanksgiving weekend 2002. My buddy Quinton
and I rolled the bed liner in at his house. The bed liner it came
with from the dealer was a piece of crap, and was damaging the paint
along the bedrail. Ditched it, masked off the edge just under the
spots, and rolled the coating on. So far its been moderately sturdy,
but there are a few spots the sun has worked on it pretty good,
and at this point I've decided that on my next truck I'll just give
in and pay the high price of Rhino Lining, instead of cheap do it
yourself. Oh well, what I have works it just may not last forever.
The Exhaust job was done at Bud and Ben's Muffler shop in Dallas.
Basically what we did was saw off the original system at the Y-pipe,
leaving the O2 sensor, and welding/bending 2 new sets of pipe for
true dual exhaust, with huge 4" wide 24" long chrome tips.
They are loud, and when I lived in trailerpark... I was king of
the rednecks!! I wish I had some godo quality soundbites, but I
dont. These pics were taken in Quinton's driveway.
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A Little 4WD Demonstration |
Soon after,
I took it over to my friend Shane's place, who had this giant patch
of undeveloped land behind his backyard. I was giving Shane a quick
demonstration on how well the 4WD improves traction, even when I
to an obstacle that brings the truck to a stop. This is a short
little video showing me driving up a 4 foot tall embankment, starting
in 2WD. The embankment stop my truck, and you can even hear the
read wheels spinning uselessly. I hit the 4Auto button, and pressed
the gas again, and my truck effortlessly continued up the embankment
(making a nice little *bark!* as I pulled into his driveway!) I
wish I knew how to make a screenshot of a .mpg movie, but alas,
I do not. Here is the link.
You can also see the bud deflector I added (which is now gone).
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First Road Trip |
My first road trip was to my
home town to see my parents, and my good buddy Quinton (who also
drives a awesome chevy 4x4). My goal that weekend was to get it
down to the beach and try out that 4WD!! These two pics were snapped
from up on the pedestrian deck of one of the ferry boats that goes
from Galveston Island to Bolivar penninsula. We had been down on
the beach earlier, on one of the few areas where you can park on
the sand. I remember I deliberatly left it in 2WD, and I also just
as deliberately drove right at a soft deep spot, and sure enough
it sunk right down. Flick of a button, and forward progress resumes.
RedZ71-1, beach-0.
Haha, if you look really hard,
you can see where a seagull took a great big crap right on my hood!!
I saw it from the deck above, and was petrified. it was about 2
or 3 hours until we got back to some water that I could wash it
off with, but it was too late, and to this day if you look hard
enough (and anal retentively enough), you can find the place where
that super acidic feces marred my paint. :(
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Opps! Got Her Dirty! |
This pic was
either the first morning, or second morning I had it. I was on my
way to Best Buy the night before, and had taken that suddenly came
to part that was under construction, and the entire road was torn
up. Heh, I can't recall if i put it on 4WD or not:) This happened
before the dealer did my complimentary carwash, since as you might
have noticed in the pic below, the ground was wet from rain. My
salesman laughed when I pulled up, saying that his way guy was going
to be pissed!! I felt like an ass, but I didn't know that road was
going to be under contruction :)
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Day I Bought Her |
This was taken
the day I bought it, as I was leaving Chuck Fairbanks Chevy in De
Soto, TX. It's a 2001 Chevy Silverado 1500. What you see here is
an extended cab Silverado LS with your basic Z71 package (which
includes the Z71 emblems, Billstein shocks (red ones!! hehe), and
skid plates). I think it also includes the transmission fluid cooler
and the Autotrac 4WD transfer case, but I could be wrong on those.
One of the days I'll research it out and make corrections here as
necessary. I bought it somewhere around July 18th 2002, and as you
can see, it was pretty plain. :)
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