2004 Z71 Suburban 2.0

[Stryder106]

Welcome. I've scattered 3 4L60E transmissions. The one I have now is 100% aftermarket and upgraded with all severe duty components, shift kit, converter, etc and a big transcooler in front of the radiator (I got rid of the plumbing into the radiator). Just for comparison - my new trans cost me $1700 - installed.
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With that - the design flaw in the 4l60E is the steel shaft and aluminum drum combination. What happens is as the trans gets hot, the fluid gets thin. The shaft and drum heat at different rates and swell at different rates - this causes a gap, which allows the fluid to bleed out of the 3-4 clutch pack (which is why this usually happens when cruising on the highway). Your trans starts slipping and you are taching pretty high. If you don't catch it and let off - you push all of the fluid out of the 3-4 pack and BANG. Buh-bye 3rd and 4th gear.
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The symptoms are there if you pay attention to them. The first time I dusted one, I didn't know what the symptom was - bang - 105 mile drive home in 2nd gear. The second time - I recognized it, but too late - bang - 115 mile drive home in 2nd gear. The third time I recognized it instantly and was able to manage the throttle in a way that got me home - again over 100 miles - but on this drive since I knew what was happening, I called the trans shop who had perfectly described the issue to me (they are not the ones who fixed the previous 2 transmission) and told them to build a new severe duty transmission as I would have my Avalanche to them in the morning.
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I didn't read through the build thread, but if not already done, you are going to want to pay particular attention to the tie rods as they are way way undersized for these size of rigs to actually be used off road. You can get sleeves or much thicker tie rods. Best of luck with your build. Oh - and if you want to go really crazy - teach your kid how to weld.....ask me how I know.

 

[C.I.TR3]

First quick trip now its time to get started

Returned from a trip on Monday and picked up my rig from the transmission shop on the way home from the airport. FINALLY! Between waiting for a week to go get it, two weeks at the shop, and a week out of town I can't believe it has been almost a month since the purchase. Talk about the opposite of immediate gratification. Oh well, all's well that ends well and I sure have had a lot of time to read Suburban threads on EP.

Desperate to hit the road, my son and I loaded her up and drove to the coast for a couple of days of surfing and playing on the beach. No serious off road but did get to drive on the beach, sleep in the back, and hang out between our times in the water.



With a few hundred miles under my belt, the Sub ran great but I did find a number of issues to work on. Nothing too surprising for a 13 year old vehicle with almost 200k miles on it. Plus, this is why I purchased an older car, to learn about how to work on them.

The first thing I noticed was that cruise control did not work. Since we are going to use the Sub for long trips I would really like to have a working CC. Travis was kind enough to point me in the direction of the LED brake light replacement. After a bit of reading and looking over the taillight wiring, I realized that the resistors added with the LED bulbs had become disconnected. Apparently, the LEDs do not have enough resistance on their own and the CC thinks the brakes are being applied and shuts off. I got everything hooked back up with the wire taps, and voila, CC works. I need to get some supplies and learn how to solder wire together the right way, but for now I think it is good.

The second thing I learned was that my ***** hurt. There are a number of issues with the drivers seat and apparently a broken down old seat cushion was one of them. The up and down adjustment switch does not work and it was stuck in a position with the back of the seat tilted way down and the knee area high. Very uncomfortable for me. In addition, the seat heater does not work.

I spent the rest of the morning tearing apart the front seat to try and understand what makes it work (or not work). Got the seat cushion off and it is in bad shape indeed. I have ordered a replacement. I checked the seat heater for resistance and it appears to be in spec. I guess I will have to take apart the seat back and check that one. Anyone have any experience with these?

The seat adjuster is a whole other mess. For those of you that have not been under their seats, there are two motors that drive screws the move either the front or the rear of the seat frame up or down. When I first opened it up, the front motor did nothing and the pin that attached the end of the screw to the frame was missing. The rear motor was trying to turn but was bound up. I managed to free the stuck frame and lube it up a bit so it moved but then the rear motor stopped working. All I get is a clicking from the control module when I operate the lever. I was able to manually move the screws and frame into a more comfortable position and fabricate a new pin for the front so, while not adjustable, they are in a better spot. Not sure where to go from here. New seats are outrageously expensive, the adjuster part is several hundreds of dollars, and I have not been able to find a used one locally although I will keep looking. With the new pad, I think I will be ok just living with it the way it is unless someone has other suggestions.

Last thing for now is that I purchased an ODBII reader and the DashCommand app for my iphone (no android so no Torque app). I got the DashCommand because it was supposed to read tranny temp. Could not get it to work so I will be diving into this one too. What fun!

Next projects include a second battery and a leveling kit with keys and spacers. I will be reaching out to you all for advice on these when I get there.

 

[borison]

Kinda sounds like a fun project, you seem to have the right attitude and you're having fun with it=winning Looking forward to your progress. Love these kinds of builds.

 

[ClovisMan]

Honestly for the keys and spacers, I would just let the local 4WParts do it. Its kinda a pain in the *** if you don't have the unloading tool and a good impact.

 

[rayra]

lol, must be rusted to ****, then. Keys and spacers is ridiculously easy, otherwise. The unloading tool is available as a free loaner tool at many chain auto parts stores. The key bolt is an 18mm and you can turn it with nothing but a regular breaker bar even with the vehicle sitting on the ground.
As for the rear spacers, it's all of 6? 7? bolts.
All you need is basic hand tools, a pair of jackstands and a floor jack.

I detailed the procedure in my 'hey vortec guys' topic - a couple times, as I changed spacers. It's a couple hours work if you go slow.

http://forum.expeditionportal.com/threads/155266-Hey-Vortec-Guys!-Sierra-pickup-Suburban-Yukon-etc

Keys and spacer swap starts here -
http://forum.expeditionportal.com/t...ckup-Suburban-Yukon-etc?p=2131210#post2131210

And here's my second pass at it, when I put taller steel spacers in, got my shock boots on and added my front tie rod sleeves, replaced sway bar end links
http://forum.expeditionportal.com/t...ckup-Suburban-Yukon-etc?p=2220142#post2220142

 

[Chili]

Yeah, keys and spacers are pretty easy on these. About as easy as it gets. I did mine pretty quickly on the ground, by myself.

I try to do as much as possible with my vehicles. Sometimes it's a pain and would have been easier (maybe even cheaper) to just pay someone, but then I wouldn't be acquiring new knowledge (and tools)!

I do still have limits though. No transmission rebuilds or anything too deep in the engine. I did help a friend do an engine swap on my son's first car, but I was more of a parts monkey than a helper.. lol

 

[C.I.TR3]

Tackled a couple of easy ones today. First, I downloaded the GM PIDs for DashCommand so now my transmission temp works. I have a Dashboard that I downloaded that has transmission temp along with a number of other gauges. I also created a stand alone gauge that takes up the whole screen of my small iPhone 5c and is easier on my aging eyesight.

This is my first experience with an ODBII reader and I am pretty amazed at what you can do with this thing. I had my check engine light on and used the tool to scan the codes (P0154 and P0155) both related to the O2 sensor. I was able to google the location of that particular sensor and crawl under the truck to take a look. I found the pigtail for the O2 sensor had come loose from its connection. Plugged it back in, cleared the codes, and bingo... no more check engine light. It sure is fun when some things are easy.

I am in total agreement regarding the keys and spacers. One of the main reasons I purchased a GMT800 was because I had read that they are a pretty easy car to work on and that is one of my major goals. My son and I learning together. I was not up for the transmission swap I needed but want to try and focus on doing work ourselves.

Rayra, I have read your instructions on the key and spacer swap. I am sure you have heard it a million times already, but Thank You for your excellent thread. I have read through a number of parts of it. It seems like there are a million key and spacer options out there. Are any better than any others? Do I just get the inexpensive ones off Ebay or pay a premium for Cognito or one of the other name brands? Do I do the keys first then figure out what spacers I need? I am hoping for 2" in the back and keys to level it out. Any recommendations?

 

[rayra]

Thanks for the kind words, I'm glad to know folks find the stuff useful.

I'm not a fair judge, as I'm a cheap b*stard. I went with the Rough Country kit, but that's pretty much considered 'low rent' these days. But that brand and KYB and Rancho and Cepek was all there was ~25yrs ago when I first started messing with this stuff.
Thing with keys and spacers is that they are lumps of metal. Rudimentary. I don't think there's much of a 'quality' argument to be made regarding these parts. Shocks, certainly. Complex drop-suspension lifts with complicated engineering, certainly. But a couple lumps of iron / steel, I don't think it matters much if at all.

The kit I bought came with 3/4" poly spacers, which wasn't much. It's really offered as a 'leveling' kit to take out the factory nose-down rake. So I installed it and found that I still had a lot of adjustment range remaining in the new keys. I played with that a bit and then elected to go for the larger 2" metal spacers. And I found the 3/4" poly spacers to be somewhat squished when I pulled them, so maybe I was getting only 1/2" out of them. I'd think you could readily mix and match new keys and spacers.

I bought my stuff as a kit, with their shocks. I cruise pretty slow, judged them as sufficient. I got bashing around out of my system a long time ago. There are much better shocks out there.

I later bought my 2" blocks off eBay, seller pe-motorwerks
Rear Leveling Kit | 2" Lift | Chevy GMC Tahoe Yukon | Black Steel Spacer Block


Enjoy the time wrenching with your son. School him in the Mysteries of properly holding the damned flashlight on the work and you will do well.

But seriously, safety first, get some good jackstands and ALWAYS use them. Get a proper wheel chock and use it. Be very aware of where you put your hands. I 'knew better' but still managed to mangle my left hand doing suspension work on an old Firebird. Gravity and leverage are not your friends.

 

[C.I.TR3]

Any input on this kit? A few reviews online that sound pretty good.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/3-Front-2-R...ash=item33cfb9ec90:g:89UAAOSwKytZLGLr&vxp=mtr

 

[rayra]

Looks fine to me / good as any. The stuff about CNC vs forged I would call marketing fluff. The 'forged' keys on our trucks certainly last and last and last. The torsion bars fatigue long before there's any trouble with the keys.
The price looks fine, too. And divorces you from any package kit shocks.

put some grease in the round pockets on the lever arm of the keys before assembly, and lube the key bolt. Things will be much easier to load / unload and adjust once on the ground.


eta the k1500 Sub weighs ~5600-lbs, So get some beefier jackstands and floor jack .

 

[Chili]

FWIW I used the Rough Country kit also, and was happy with it. I didn't want to try to go too high with only the keys in the front, so just stuck with their spacer. The higher you crank the keys, the closer inboard the front tires will move, fyi. So depending on how much cranking you do, you may want to look at some wheel spacers or wheels with a better offset, fyi.

 

[rayra]

also worsens the ride and greatly limits the rebound before you hit the stop, if you crank too much height on. I went for just shy of level with the 2" rear spacer and my street ride remains pretty plush.

 

[C.I.TR3]

Trailer Hitch Wiring

The bracket that held the hitch wiring plug was mangled so I thought what the heck and did this. The hitch was so bent and broken that I was not able to make a decent template from it so the fit is not perfect. Oh, well. It is functional and the bumper is bent anyway. Hoping to replace it at some point. Thanks again to Rayra.

 

[C.I.TR3]

Question on keys and spacers

As discussed above, I was looking at doing a mild leveling lift with keys and 2" spacers. My goal is to level the burb and get a little more clearance without adding to much wear and tear on drive components. From my research it looks like this is the best option. In measuring my truck the rear already sits 2" higher then the front. Since the keys say they lift 1-3", should I just order keys to bring it up two inches? Sounds like I do not need spacers in the rear unless I am missing something. I do not want to put 2" spacers in the rear and still end up with a lot of rake. Thanks for the help.

 

[tbisaacs]

If you just want to level it, I would skip spacers.




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