2000 Suburban K1500 budget low lift with 37"s

[CrazyDrei]

In the military we used to euphemistically call that "Good Training!" and curse under our breath.


You make the tank drop sound easy enough I might just perch mine atop a couple chunks of 4x6 when the time comes. I have been planning to cut the floor.

Rayra,

Don't cut the floor, it will hard to seal it and will make you take on too much water in deep water crossings, lol. Pop the fuel fill and vent hoses off, jack up the front end of the sub and siphon out as much gas as you can. Then use a 2x4 and a jack to support the middle of the tank, undo the two tank straps, undo the two evap canister bolts, pop the two fuel line connections at the front of the tank, and it slides right out effortlessly.

Good luck.

 

[CrazyDrei]

Oh man! I am glad to hear it is easy to drop the tank as I have to replace my pump/fuel level sender on my 2002 Burb. Sorry you did it for nothing though! I will be reading this thread (and forum) thoroughly as I will be modding mine for a cross country trip over the next few months.View attachment 471066

Techspy,

That's a great looking truck you got there. I like the light bar placement, it definitiely eliminates the blinding hood glare if it was mounted above the windshield.

 

[Buddha.]

Oh man! I am glad to hear it is easy to drop the tank as I have to replace my pump/fuel level sender on my 2002 Burb. Sorry you did it for nothing though! I will be reading this thread (and forum) thoroughly as I will be modding mine for a cross country trip over the next few months.View attachment 471066

Are you sure it's not a stepper motor in the dash? My neighbor has a similar vintage Chevy and found that to be the fault.

 

[CrazyDrei]

Are you sure it's not a stepper motor in the dash? My neighbor has a similar vintage Chevy and found that to be the fault.

Buddha,

Stepper motors do fail in these trucks so do the the sending units on the fuel pump. My fuel gauge did not work five years ago but the low fuel light did turn on when I had 5 gallons left. I replaced the fuel pump and the fuel gauge started working again correctly.

Does anyone know how to troubleshoot to isolate the stepper motor or the sending unit?

 

[CrazyDrei]

P0300 codes.

I have been trouble shooting at slowly replacing parts of the fuel and air system that are associated with the P0300, P0302, P0303 codes that I have been getting lately. Checked for vacuum leaks, found a couple, replaced the vacuum lines. Fuel pressure regulator would build up to a fuel pressure then it would slowly decrease, so I replaced it. New spark plugs that are gapped correctly, new spark plug wires. Compression is good in all cylinders. Leak down done and also good in all cylinders.

The truck sounds like a tractor when it runs, so I dumped a can of SeaFoam into the engine oil, drove 100 miles, and changed the oil with 1 quart ATF and 4.5 quarts engine oil. The sound of valves and lifters has gotten much quieter, motor runs smoother, idles without the check engine light coming on, however once it warms up the codes pop up again. Feels like the motor is lacking power.

My next step this week is to replace the crank position sensor and see if that helps. If that doesn't work my next step would be to replace the lifters and cam shaft. Not looking forward to it but I think I can get all the parts pretty cheap.

Any other suggestions of where to look to fix the misfire codes before the truck goes on the chopping block?

Stay tuned for more shenanigans!

 

[CrazyDrei]

Big front brakes: 3 month update.

It's been three months, closer to four, since I upgraded to GMT900 front brakes, and the difference is subtle but noticeable when you really need it. Regular city driving the stopping is exactly the same unless I hit the brakes hard then the truck stops quicker than before. I don't have the exact numbers for stopping distance but I have noticed that under hard braking I have more distance between myself and the vehicle in front of me during hard stops than before.

Towing and mountains is where the difference is most noticeable. Fade has dramatically decreased and the stopping power increased on long downhills: 5,000+ vertical feet and over 10-20 mile stretches with a heavy trailer. I spend more time using the brakes on long downhills than I did in the past where the fade forced me to engine brake more.

Overall, for around $200 for the front calipers, disks and pads its a pretty good deal and this is one mod that I will keep for the rest of this truck's life.

Been busy at work the last few weeks, but I have several adventures and fun projects to write up when I get some free time.

Stay tuned for more shenanigans!

 

[chilliwak]

Nice looking upgrade there Mr Crazy. I do notice some discolouration on your rotors which seems to me would come from heat build up. I am looking forward to seeing what you do next. Cheers, Chilli...

 

[CrazyDrei]

Nice looking upgrade there Mr Crazy. I do notice some discolouration on your rotors which seems to me would come from heat build up. I am looking forward to seeing what you do next. Cheers, Chilli...

Chiili,

Welcome back, we missed you around here. I drive the truck really hard and I'm sure that the rotors are discolored from the excessive heat as you said. The GMT900 brakes feel better but I will find out in another 6 months how they are holding up.

Stay tuned for more shenanigans!

 

[rayra]

Crazy I'm about 14mos (but only ~5k mi) ahead of you on them GMT900 brake swap and they're still working great. Much the same observations as you, in urban stop and go no real difference. Hard / Panic stops, fully loaded stops, a marked improvement over stock. So much so I'm thinking about trying the similar swap / install on the rear. Have yet to look into the technical details yet. I suspect it's a straight bolt-in as the fronts. But I might just go with the year-appropriate Powerstop rear rotors and pads. That kit's only about $160 and I know it will fit / function.

late edit seems the GMT800 already have 13" rear rotors, same as GMT900 and it seems the 800 series caliper is better. So the 800 benefits from a 900 FRONT swap but the 800 rear is better as-is. So maybe some powerstop ceramic pads for the rear will be enough to better match my front upgrade.
https://www.gm-trucks.com/forums/topic/149050-gmt800-gmt900-brake-interchange/



eta and boll_rig might have some questions for you about 285 clearance on the rear shock top bolts when the tires are stuffed deep in the wheel wells.

 

[hotdoginabiscuit]

2000 burbs have the 5.7 vortec right? I have a 98 k1500 truck that had similar issues. I would clean your MAF sensor. Worked for me but, you know, ymmv...

 

[CrazyDrei]

2000 burbs have the 5.7 vortec right? I have a 98 k1500 truck that had similar issues. I would clean your MAF sensor. Worked for me but, you know, ymmv...

Hotdoginabiscuit,

2000 was the first year of the 5.3 and that's what I have. I have cleaned the MAF, was only good for a week or two, replaced the MAF and that was also good for a week or two. My motor sounds like a diesel, and has a ridiculous amount of valve noise and clunking from the heads. Compression is good in all 8 cylinders, leak down test confirmed that the valves seal properly. After all the trouble shooting and replacing worn parts everything is pointing to a pitted cam and bad lifters. Right now I am looking for an RV cam that will give me more low end torque as a replacement, once I find one I'll do a writeup on the install.

Stay tuned for more shenanigans!

 

[Buddha.]

Maybe it's pinging? Does running high octane change anything?

 

[bigdogyj]

CrazyDrei, have you ever taken the rig through the mud? Maybe previous owner? My friend had an 01 Tahoe that was subjected to mud ( I mean hammering through a mud pit purposely) early on in its life. Well 12+ years later the mud and water had corroded and pitted the area where the knock sensors are in the valley under the intake manifold. I can’t recall the exact codes that were tripping but your drive ability behavior seems awfully familiar. Just a thought.

On edit: Here’s an example of what can be trapped in the valley, under the intake manifold.
https://goo.gl/images/BJYVKR

 

[CrazyDrei]

Maybe it's pinging? Does running high octane change anything?

Buddha,

Doesn't sound like it's pinging. There is also no change with higher octane gas or using an octane booster.

Most of the problems with misfire codes started after I installed the snorkel. Initially I though that the newly added resistance was suffocating the motor of air, but it would also be ramming way too much air into the motor confusing the MAF and messing with the timing too much to cause misfires. I decided to turn the snorkel around so that the air will be brought into the motor through the vacuum rather than rammed in.

This looks very silly. And after a week of driving with the snorkel facing the other way there is no difference in how the motor runs. Still throwing the same misfire codes. So I turned the snorkel head back facing forward.

Stay tuned for more shenanigans!

 

[rayra]

what specific codes are you getting? misfires usually name a bank or even a specific cylinder. Cam and lifters might be needed, but it wouldn't come on all of a sudden as you've described. What's your fuel rail pressures? Maybe your new pump replacement already crapped out? our problem sounds systemic, some subsystem whose failure impacts the entire operation. MAF was a good start. Look for problem sources that are a single point of failure. You didn't have 16 cam lobes or 16 lifters all crap out at once. Cam position sensor? The tale ought to be in the codes. Or maybe you got a bad tank of gas, as rare as that is.