Saturday was a busy day for me...this is definitely the largest project I have attempted on my own to date. Everything went very smoothly (except one stupid mistake...will explain in a second). Definitely made a mess of the garage floor. Everything bolted right in, no modifications needed for anything. Very nice. It was nice that the radiator support was set up to accept the 34" radiator and that the fans bolted into the 28" radiator holes. All I had to do was swap the bottom and top bushings over from the original radiator to the new ones and it dropped right into place. I also put two Tru-Cool tranny coolers in, one in front of each fan. I tranny temp was just over 165 in traffic today in 100* weather.

The Nelson harness is great, the only suggestion I'd make is to have the wires a little longer so I could have more flexibility in where to mount the relays. I may go through and lengthen them, but I don't really want to chop up the harness cause it looks so pretty. I also ghetto-rigged a ground wire switch to turn the fans on until I can get the PCM fan feature turned on.

These fans are going to make a HUGE difference during the summer, since the clutch fan likes to lock up all the time when sitting in traffic.

So....no project of mine ever goes perfectly. I definitely forgot to tighten one hose clamp on the tranny coolers and the hose decided to come off while I was getting on the freeway. Had a nice plume of gray smoke trailing the truck, and ended up losing about 3 quarts of fluid. The hose was right in front of the fan too, which blew fluid EVERYWHERE inside the engine compartment. I have visited the local do-it-yourself carwash three times now to use their engine degreaser trying to clean out as much of the fluid as I can. It's not completely gone yet, but I got it to stop dripping, which makes me feel a lot better. Had mom come to the rescue and take me to Checker to buy more fluid, and I was on my way. On the positive side, the engine bay is cleaner now than it has been since I got the truck.

Sorry if this is not something for most of you guys to get excited about, but it was a big deal for me...most of the stuff I do is little stuff, didn't do any of my own work on the s/c, headers, or exhaust. I'm just happy it all went in like it was supposed to. Pics below are:
1. Before
2. New radiator
3. Fans (with old radiator in background)
4. After (1)
5. After (2)

Special thanks to:
02sierraz71_5.3 - 05 truck fans in brand-new condition
BlownChevy - Radix coolant tank relocation bracket
creederado - install write-up
Nelson Performance - Fan wiring harness
Performance Radiator in Phoenix - 34" radiator
desTRUCKtive and vanillagorilla (thanks in advance) - enabling the fan feature with HPT

 

great job glad it all worked out
looks good.

wouldnt mind seeing a pic of your tranny cooler setup, how do you have them mounted? Im getting ready to do mine as the tranny is getting to 200 in heavy traffic with the air temp around 90.

Checked with a buddy of mine that works for GM and he checked to see what safe operating temps are and gm gives a range from 150 to 230 under high towing loads in case any ones interested.

 

Nice clean install , and you're right, nothing ever goes exactly as planned for me either. Those OEM Fans look really good in there, thats on my list in the future.

 

I'll take a pic tomorrow, forgot the cable for the camera at the house. All I did was use the included zip ties to mount the coolers to the radiator.

My total cost, in case anyone is interested, was about $600. I probably could have saved some money by being more patient and getting a used radiator.

 

Good going. I was excited when I finished mine, as well. It's always a great feeling when you finish up a project, it looks good, and everything is working as planned - even if you were leaking a little. Little crap like that always happens. Congrats.

 

Yea man, looks real nice Congrats on the install!

 

Those fans look good. I need a set of those fans along with a 34" rad, myself.

 

Looks good, were did you end up putting the relays?

 

Hey man thanks to you too for the write up, that helped a lot. Forgot to put you on the list...fixed!

Right now I have the relays sandwiched between a wire loom and the cover for the PCM, didn't have enough length to put them anywhere else. Where did you put yours?

 

I mounted my relays on the PCM cover.