2002 Tahoe "Expedition" build

[AA1PR]

You can get a easy 2" by cranking the torsion bars up front and a spacer in back. Anything more than that, to do it properly, you need to buy a good kit, and that will cost quite a bit.

I bought & had them installed (trail master) 2.5" leveling keys at my local performance shop, I know the whole thing installed at the local shop including the keys was less than $500

you also need longer shocks (get) or the shock extensions (dont recommend)

I still have to get and install the rear 3/4" spacers, not sure if the $$$ spent is going to be worth it though

been thinking about this thread & might follow suit with something similiar for a roof rack & ditch my Thule ski container

 

[justcuz]

I've noticed lots of questions about the suspension, especially the rear springs. On my 2000 K1500 Suburban I had a lot of sag while towing a trailer to move my daughter to college in 2007. I looked for a while and settled on H2 Hummer rear springs. I bought them from GM Parts direct for about $182.00 a pair. I run 285/75x16 tires on my vehicle and have lots of tire clearence. The best thing of all is now there is practically no sag in the rear of the vehicle loaded with 7 people and their luggage. My next step, 3/4 ton torsion bars for the front to level it out. My Suburban, according to the number tags, has the lightest weight capacity torsion bars GM makes. The pictures show the rear body clearence before the spring install, the 2 springs setting side by side, body clearence after the H2 spring installation and finally the completed installation at the shopping center parking lot.

 

[02TahoeMD]

Update new mods

Been awhile since I have had time to tinker with the truck and actually use it for the intended purpose. Which recently I finally got to do. But, first up-

Re: Front brake lines / lift. Did the keys on mine but at full droop the originals are stretching, how much longer were the SS ones you replaced them with? And with the rear emergency cable and 2" spacers it rubs or is too "tight" - did you replace or re-route or ??

The Goodridge lines were about an inch longer and have no issues with stretching. The rear E cable was left as is, never noticed rubbing.

Re: Front calipers - where from? Cost of the conversion? and do you like the greenstuff pads - have had yellowstuff recommended to me.

Still has the original GM calipers, just painted them with a caliper paint kit. The greenstuff pads have been good, no real issues other than some noise at bed in.

Have you ever thought about changing the vacuum booster for the brakes to a hydroboost?

No, I have been trying slow down the amount of mods and put the $$ towards trips and other hobbies. The brakes still work fine so I am not sure if a conversion is needed.

As for the H2 coils, that looks like a great idea. As my rig starts to age (she turned 10 this March) I may consider replacing the rear coils with a set.

NOW - onto my most recent modification, directly related to my use of the rig for camping. Usually I would just load the truck like a short bed pickup truck and not worry about how the rear cargo area was organized. Recently I started taking my dogs on the trips as well and needed a way to load the gear and not worry about them getting squashed during a panic stop or driving down a steep camber hill. So, I got a Raingler cargo net to act as a cargo area divider.

They cost about $160 and so far strike me as being worth every cent. I used two of their stainless hoops to attach it to the body on the "C" pillars of the interior. While doing this I discovered something I had never noticed - the drivers' side C pillar interior is about 8 inches wide, while the passenger side is about 15 inches wide. This is done to accommodate the A/C system, but I cant help but wonder why the engineers decided to put that on the passenger side and thus make for a bigger blind spot than there needs to be.


Anyway, it is necessary to anchor the net to the actual steel structure and not the plastic trim for proper strength. I also used a set of gear tie down points from Tractor Supply on the middle anchor points that already exist in the trim pieces, and then tied in the bottom points to the bottom seatbelt anchor bolts, and used a narrow rope to secure the bottom tie downs (not really needed with the strength of the side ties).

Since I dont have a basement I usually just keep the cargo area loaded with 80% of my camping gear, so it is really quick for me to load up and head out on the road.

Another mod I did was to add some K9 kennel screens made specifically for the NBS style trucks. These are secured with 4 screws each, and it helps make sure my one crazy squirrel obsessed German Shepherd doesnt dive out of the truck while crawling down a trail. I also have a strap in dog mat in the back to keep the "kids" happy. It only take about 5 minutes to remove the gates and flip up the seats on those super rare occasions when I actually have more than one passenger.

Here are a few pics from my recent trip out to West Maryland -

Ronin and Brandi. Brandi is the one who obsesses about squirrels and other small criters.

Again, thanks to everyone who have taken the time to read this build thread and for the compliments over the years. :ylsmoke:

 

[TexasHunter2013]

What kind of bumper/brush guard/winch do you have on your truck? I have a 2001 Z71 and I have been looking for a good bumper replacement. Yours looks perfect.

 

[Superu]

What kind of bumper/brush guard/winch do you have on your truck? I have a 2001 Z71 and I have been looking for a good bumper replacement. Yours looks perfect.

While a quick look through this thread would have taken you to page 4 and this link, I figured I'd give you a newbie pass and provide it.

You'll make lots of friends on this forum if you put some up front effort in yourself. Welcome. :ylsmoke:

 

[d67u57]

that pic with the pooches,superb

great truck too.

 

[gun45boat]

Great Job on the truck. Its just right!!!

 

[nickchowell]

Hey man. Nice Tahoe! What kind of cross bars do you use for your cargo rack? It looks pretty low profile? I'm going to be ordering up a Surco rack and I don't want to have it up on cross bars so far that it looks weird. Thanks in advance.

 

[BBslider001]

What kind of bumper/brush guard/winch do you have on your truck? I have a 2001 Z71 and I have been looking for a good bumper replacement. Yours looks perfect.

Don't mind some of the useless answers you might get on here. There are some really good people here with some great knowledge. Hope you'll feel welcome.

While a quick look through this thread would have taken you to page 4 and this link, I figured I'd give you a newbie pass and provide it.

You'll make lots of friends on this forum if you put some up front effort in yourself. Welcome. :ylsmoke:

Gotta call you on this one buddy. Maybe some "aloha" would go a long way with newbies. Texans don't usually understand "rude". He paid a compliment AND asked where he got it. Isn't that what a forum is all about? I mean, you can google search anything but then you might not get real world answers.

 

[HARDTRAILZ]

Very nicely done.

 

[02TahoeMD]

that pic with the pooches,superb

great truck too.

Great Job on the truck. Its just right!!!

Thanks for the compliments, they are sincerely appreciated. :elkgrin:

Hey man. Nice Tahoe! What kind of cross bars do you use for your cargo rack? It looks pretty low profile? I'm going to be ordering up a Surco rack and I don't want to have it up on cross bars so far that it looks weird. Thanks in advance.

The rack is just attached to the factory roof rack, to include the factory cross bars. So far it has held up just fine, to include carrying two kayaks on extended trips. The rack is primarily secured to the side bars (main structure) of the roof rack. The Defender rack itself is pretty rigid. Hope this can help.

 

[nickchowell]

That's what it looks like. Is it a Z71 rack? And if you don't mind me asking how did you attach it?

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

 

[02TahoeMD]

That's what it looks like. Is it a Z71 rack? And if you don't mind me asking how did you attach it?

No it is just a standard LT version roof rack. That is all this rig started as, a run of the mill soccer mom special LT. I got extra long hose clamps, painted them black, and then covered about 6" of them with heat shrink tubing, and and then attached the rack to the side rails using the hose clamps. As I tightened them down I bent the metal to fit around the square edges to take up slack and finished tightening them up. Then I took a dremel tool and trimmed off the excess. There are also a couple of metal "L" brackets that I used to bolt to the rack rails and the bottom of the Defender rack. The L brackets were probably unneeded as the hose clamps have held pretty darn well.

Just an aside I had to use the Milemarker winch to help out with a tree cutting project. A friend of mine had a tree that needed to come down but was leaning hard towards a pine tree he needed saving. The winch worked great in spite of sitting dormant without any hard use for 2 years, I just had him keep steady tension on the line with the remote while I cut down the tree.

 

[Wilbah]

02Tahoe- thanks for posting all the pics and such a thoughtful build. Great inspiration for me! And love the GSD's...ours is East German and Czech so she's a lot smaller than yours but they are great pets and family members!

 

[SARguru]

Where did you get the K9 screens? Suggestion for you is to get a section on screen door mesh and sandwich the door screen between the k9panels and the door frame. This get bugs out as well.

I only came across your post yesterday and I must echo all the comments very nice truck. I run a suburban and been planning many similiar mods.

Subscribed!!

Nic