Beatdown Z

iTrader: (18)

Hell of a build! I like it

silentbravo

iTrader: (1)

Now this is what you call a tear down and build up. Funnily enough that's almost exactly the picture I needed of the gutted interior. I was curious what was behind the firewall, just below the windshield glass, as I might want to poke a hole or 2 in that area.

Looks like there is just the window defrost vents up there?

77x

Its plastic strip about 2.5" tall that runs across the top of the firewall. The defrost vents are still in the dash. If you drill through it you'll end up straight in the wiper motor assembly area.

77x

Better seats. I like that I can put the center console up and down. Much better.


So the power for the power seat comes from the mid BEC under the dash, which makes sense. But the seat ground continues down the the drivers side, wraps around the back of the cab and grounds at the bottom of the passenger B-Pillar. This ground is shared with the rear defogger. My W/T cab doesn’t have a rear defogger window so I am not installing that harness.

I don’t know why GM did this. It’s a relatively high amperage connection and they make it run through a 8 foot ground wire. I’m going to pin the power/ground wires into my existing harness and place the ground on the stud under the passenger seat area. The existing defogger button I think still controls the heated mirrors. Can always add defogger glass later.

BigBlock90

iTrader: (4)

Very nice build! Keep the progress pics coming.

silentbravo

iTrader: (1)

Ah forgot about the wiper motors, will have to look up for some more pics or video to see what it looks like in there.

As for that ground wire, power seats and the rear window defogger are used very infrequently and for short periods of time, so it probably saved GM a few pennies to put it all on the one wire for simplicity.

77x

No, the grounding point is the same (on the low side of the passenger b-pillar). But yeah, probably production line reasons...


Got the 12 volt pinned in for power seat. Ran my ground to the stud under the passenger side. Taped everything up nice just like factory leading up to the driver seat. Looks very nice.

Swapped vinyl head rests from the WT seats to the cloth ones to match vinyl on the top of the center console. Think it looks ok, very subtle.

Gonna leave the 4wd lever on the floor so I can more readily swap from np263 to 261 with minimal mods (Incase I break my t-case). I like being able to utilize either option. Don't really care about the ripped seat, it was a work truck after all.

Pulled dash from the LT truck. Going to swap hvac stuff, the dash, and either (maybe) door panels/regulators/mirrors or headliner tomorrow. Pretty much ready to tackle any GMT800 heater core at this point.

silentbravo

iTrader: (1)

Could you do me a favor and take a few pics of inside that cowl area, where the windshield wiper linkages are? I have ran my 2nd battery wiring across the top of firewall, and secured to those factory studs, but would like to add one or 2 studs or threaded inserts along there to secure wire/fuse holder better. Haven't found any pics of inside there on the interwebz.

I'm mostly interested in the passenger side (of course both sides would be good to know), doesn't seem like there is anything over there (just the fresh air intake for in cab filter) based on some other pics I saw from GMT400... and it looks like your donor truck has that cowl cover removed, easy access to see. Thanks

77x

Yeah you will be fine adding studs to the passenger side. There is nothing on the passenger side until the right side wiper blade spline.

77x

Swapping door harness, speakers, regulators, locks, and door panels.

Interesting note: the WT cab has four speakers with “step-up” door speakers while, while the LT cab had a six speaker system with “base” door speakers. Guess the WT got slightly better speakers to make up for the lack of the two smaller door speakers. Neat. Swapped over the “better” ones.


Headliner shenanigans. Installed new cubby hole/overhead light thing.

Tow mirrors are cool.

Used some paper, a few reference points, and a pencil to shade/stencil the original holes off the LT cab. Then transferred it to the WT cab, taped it down, measured, used a punch then drilled new holes. Now I have a sharky fin. 🦈🦈🦈🦈

Just gotta power up the cab bolt seats down, fix rear door handles. Need to pull steering wheel and realign the clock spring. Don’t know where it is relative to the tires. Oops 😬.

Terminator X and trans stuff have arrived. Need to finish trans then get drivetrain stuff mounted.

I still need an intercooler and some fueling stuff.

Fixed clock spring alignment. Took the wheel off, pulled clock spring, turned it till i felt it stop on both sides. Found center, for the most part, reassembled. Hopefully, I didn't screw up one of the ribbon cables inside, fingers crossed.

Going to try to slap transmission stuff together this weekend.