Hello,

I am new here. After a long search, I finally found a clean truck. I wanted 2006 or older to get away from some of the gov nanny stuff. Living in MN, so most trucks up here are rusty. I looked down south, and most trucks found had the paint/interior baked too much. The truck that I found was a trade in at a local dealer. It came from ND, and is nothing fancy, but a real solid platform to build on.

So far I have removed the chrome wheel covers and painted the wheels satin black. Removed the hitch. Put new (stock size) Hankook Dynapro HT's on. Checked all fluids etc. The truck will be used mainly as a nice weather daily driver/dirt bike hauler.

 

Tough to find nice rust free trucks here in MN. I see a couple grandpa driven ones pop up here and there but out of state is the way to go for sure.

 

same boat here in the chicago area, these gm trucks dont like this part of the country rockers, cab corners and fender lips are toasted on 95% of them. i ran down to Houston TX got mine

thats a clean body on that one, great starting point

 

Thanks, and yep - tough to find anything decent up in our part of the world. I also have a '99 OBS K2500 that I have built up for wood cutting/camper hauling duty. It was tough to find an OBS with a good (not rusty) frame - couldn't even be too picky about the body in that search.

I like reading/seeing the pics of the trucks on this site, but mine most likely won't end up too radical. I race dirt bikes, and the places that I go with this truck - I will still need to drive it off road a little. I am most likely going to have to keep it stock height. In an attempt to tighten up the ride a little, I ordered the adjustable Rancho shocks.

The red truck has the 4.8/4l60e. It only has 92,000 miles on it and seems to run and drive well. After the 2020 race season I hope to add an intake, dual exhaust, and blackbear tune. A little bit each year...

 

I started with the same basic mods because my RCSB was my daily. Only thing I would rethink on your plans is your choice in tuner. I had Black Bear as many people on this forum have had and my experiance wasn't as good as I hoped. I switched to Atomic Fabrication and Performance and couldn't be happier!

 

sounds like you have a good plan, shocks will probably make it ride better but these truck dont ride all that bad stock i would add weathertech liners since its driven in the winter they really help keeping the mess down i leave them in all year

i have not used atomic or black bear for tuning but from what ive seen on the forums guys with simple bolt'on love black bear heads and cam guys are hit and miss, i bought brackets off atomic and have chatted with him about stuff on these trucks a lot his a nice guy with a ton of helpful info so i would lean his way to if i was you, im not into the mail order tunes though id rather have my stuff on the dyno its not worth all the down time or few hundred saved but usually when im tuning something its not just bolt'ons seam i can never leave engines stock lol

i got a f350 diesel that does all the heavy truck duties that is to much for a 1/2 ton so im able to toy around with my silverado but its still used for truck duties towing and hauling stuff

 

Thanks for the advice. The truck came with some nice weathertech copies, so I should be in good shape. I actually don't plan to drive this truck unless the roads are clear, so hopefully it will never be driven in sloppy snow.

As far as the stock truck ride - I sold my 2018 WRX when I found this truck. While the truck is never going to handle like a WRX, after being used to the car, the truck feels a bit bouncy.

 

If you're local, I do tuning when I have time.

 

I have the Rancho shocks installed. Now it just needs to stop snowing so I can see how they work...

The oem shocks still seem good after 92k miles and 13 years old - not bad.

 

I've had the BB tune for a while now. It made the truck more fun the drive. The biggest difference is the shifting - the oem tune is terrible compared to the BB tune. It still is just a stock 4.8 with way too low (3.23) of gears, but it is slowly taking shape.