Dave's 2006 Escalade AWD Build Thread

[Onebadsss]

Okay guys, I'm making my first foray into build threads with the 2006 Esky that I recently bought (mainly for my wife's use BUT, since I just sold my truck, this is now my ongoing project toy) and hopefully I can someday aspire to levels of Fosscore, 95escahoe and tgui, the sources of my inspiration!

So I picked up this Escalade on January 11th 2017 with 118,189 on the clock from Jaguar of Annapolis where she was a local trade-in by an Airforce TSgt airframe mechanic who upgraded to a 2014 Range Rover (learned all this from the sales guy I worked with). Truck was and is pretty much immaculate inside an out with all original paint, no accident history and fully loaded!

Here are some pics of her from the dealership's website listing:

This truck met all of mine and my wife's requirements: Diamond White Tricoat (love this color!), Sunroof, 2nd Row Captain's Chairs, Factory Nav and Rear Entertainment System. As a bonus to the last option: the previous owner had installed Audiovox in headrest TV/DVD players w/ wireless headphones (a setup I prefer to the factory roof mounted option).

 

[adventurenali92]

Love a good build thread! Surprisingly there aren't many nbs esky owners on here! Subscribed as I'd love to see the progress on this truck. Your images aren't showing up though! Wanna see your truck!

 

[Onebadsss]

Thanks man! Yeah I'm trying to fix them now. I'm using Imgur to host and I've tried every link code option they offer and nothing is working

 

[Onebadsss]

Okay I figured out what I was doing wrong, that was good learning experience for me. Hopefully future posting will go smoother! Now bare in mind that I am going to try and stitch together a timeline of what I've done so far and work my way up to present day over the next few days...

 

[Onebadsss]

Love a good build thread! Surprisingly there aren't many nbs esky owners on here! Subscribed as I'd love to see the progress on this truck. Your images aren't showing up though! Wanna see your truck!

I noticed there aren't many NBS Esky owners here as well, sad because they are beautiful trucks. I've owned more than my fair share of NBS pickups, this is my first NBS SUV and it was an easy sell to the wifey because she likes "high end" stuff and when I told her the Escalade was the "best of the best" GM offered in this bodystyle that was all she wrote!

 

[adventurenali92]

Boy you weren't kidding that thing is spotless!! Nice truck man! Yeah I love the nbs escalade. It's always been my dream car and still want one despite the fact I love my nbs Denali haha. Led interior swap? Haha.

 

[Onebadsss]

Boy you weren't kidding that thing is spotless!! Nice truck man! Yeah I love the nbs escalade. It's always been my dream car and still want one despite the fact I love my nbs Denali haha. Led interior swap? Haha.

I LOVE the NBS Denalis as well! I actually searched high and low for a clean 2006 Sierra Denali Crew Cab in Silver Birch but couldn't find one that met my high standards that didn't require a cross country trip to acquire (plus the wife wanted an SUV w/ 3rd Row seating so she could be the sterotypical trophy wife soccer mom, lol). I love the NBS body style in general, it's always been my favorite mainly I think because, in addition to sexy exterior lines, the NBS has a MUCH better looking interior than the NNBS. Now the new K2XX platform is gorgeous inside and out too but it'll be years before I can afford one. I like paying cash for vehicles and not having car payments

 

[adventurenali92]

I LOVE the NBS Denalis as well! I actually searched high and low for a clean 2006 Sierra Denali Crew Cab in Silver Birch but couldn't find one that met my high standards that didn't require a cross country trip to acquire (plus the wife wanted an SUV w/ 3rd Row seating so she could be the sterotypical trophy wife soccer mom, lol). I love the NBS body style in general, it's always been my favorite mainly I think because, in addition to sexy exterior lines, the NBS has a MUCH better looking interior than the NNBS. Now the new K2XX platform is gorgeous inside and out too but it'll be years before I can afford one. I like paying cash for vehicles and not having car payments

I like the Sierra Denalis as well. Cool tricks. I couldn't find one for sale in California. But unfortunately here in California it's alot more expensive to have a truck so I went with a yukon xl. Plus the extra covered space is more use able with an suv. Lol. Funny my denali is silver birch metallic. I love my interior as well. Very comfortable. Everyone says my car is a soccer mom car, but I say not as much as my sisters minivan that hauls 3 kids!!

 

[W8TVI]

Okay guys, I'm making my first foray into build threads with the 2006 Esky that I recently bought (mainly for my wife's use BUT, since I just sold my truck, this is now my ongoing project toy) and hopefully I can someday aspire to levels of Fosscore, 95escahoe and tgui, the sources of my inspiration!

So I picked up this Escalade on January 11th 2017 with 118,189 on the clock from Jaguar of Annapolis where she was a local trade-in by an Airforce TSgt airframe mechanic who upgraded to a 2014 Range Rover (learned all this from the sales guy I worked with). Truck was and is pretty much immaculate inside an out with all original paint, no accident history and fully loaded!

Here are some pics of her from the dealership's website listing:

This truck met all of mine and my wife's requirements: Diamond White Tricoat (love this color!), Sunroof, 2nd Row Captain's Chairs, Factory Nav and Rear Entertainment System. As a bonus to the last option: the previous owner had installed Audiovox in headrest TV/DVD players w/ wireless headphones (a setup I prefer to the factory roof mounted option).

Very clean looking.
About the only thing I could think of to do to it, would be a complete conversion to LEDs inside and out.

Definitely put some LEDs in the reverse lights (I use these, and they are cheap), and some switchback turn signals would look sweet on your truck (this set is what I use, and have a video linked in my built thread if you want to see what they look like).

I understand that you will need canbus compatible LEDs for interior lights; I'm not sure about the turn signals, but I'm sure some one will chime in.

 

[Onebadsss]

Very clean looking.
About the only thing I could think of to do to it, would be a complete conversion to LEDs inside and out.

Definitely put some LEDs in the reverse lights (I use these, and they are cheap), and some switchback turn signals would look sweet on your truck (this set is what I use, and have a video linked in my built thread if you want to see what they look like).

I understand that you will need canbus compatible LEDs for interior lights; I'm not sure about the turn signals, but I'm sure some one will chime in.

Thanks for the feedback! And you read my mind about doing the full LED conversion inside and out. I love the JDM AStar switchbacks and defintely want to go that route and I've even been thinking of downgrading the headlights from the factory HID setup to a set of halogen compatible headlights so I can run LED HID kits for both low's and high's in addition to fogs and switchbacks (want to do the Fleece Performance mod as well)...

 

[Onebadsss]

Okay, so one of the key factors that made it possible for me to pay cash for this gem of a truck was that the dealership was selling it as a "Mechanic's Special" because it wouldn't pass MD state inspection due to a few issues:

So, being that the truck was 6 hours away from me and my work schedule was hectic, I hired a 3rd party prepurchase vehicle inspection company to look it over top to bottom, confirm that the only issues were the ones the dealership had disclosed, and give me the peace of mind I needed before I booked a one-way flight down to MD to buy her and drive her home (obviously the results came back positive, lol). So the first thing I ordered, while also booking my flight down to DCA, was a new set of foglights:

 

[W8TVI]

Thanks for the feedback! And you read my mind about doing the full LED conversion inside and out. I love the JDM AStar switchbacks and defintely want to go that route and I've even been thinking of downgrading the headlights from the factory HID setup to a set of halogen compatible headlights so I can run LED HID kits for both low's and high's in addition to fogs and switchbacks (want to do the Fleece Performance mod as well)...

From what I have read, LEDs have worse throw than halogens and HIDs.
Personally I'd upgrade the HIDs to better HIDs (like a proper projector) if that is possible.

I'd do some research to see how well LEDs work on those.
Now what I would upgrade to LEDs would be the fog lights (as in put LEDs in the factory housings), as you don't need tons of throw for fogs.

The JDM Astar reverse lights I linked to are SUPER bright. I was going to add some fog lights to the rear to make up for the lack of light from the stock bulbs, but now with those LEDs in there, I don't need them at all.
I've also been using these JDM Astars LEDs for my DRLs on my 2000 Yukon XL since the beginning of March without any trouble.

 

[Onebadsss]

The 6 hour drive home was smooth and uneventful but gave me a good opportunity to get a good feel for the truck and start surveying all of it's little nit picky issues (I'm super **** so I go over vehicles with a fine toothed comb and feel compelled to fix everything, lol). Some of the things I noticed were all the burnt out interior lights and buttons with paint rubbed off, all common issues to the NBS trucks so I wasn't surprised:

 

[W8TVI]

Okay, so one of the key factors that made it possible for me to pay cash for this gem of a truck was that the dealership was selling it as a "Mechanic's Special" because it wouldn't pass MD state inspection due to a few issues:

So, being that the truck was 6 hours away from me and my work schedule was hectic, I hired a 3rd party prepurchase vehicle inspection company to look it over top to bottom, confirm that the only issues were the ones the dealership had disclosed, and give me the peace of mind I needed before I booked a one-way flight down to MD to buy her and drive her home (obviously the results came back positive, lol). So the first thing I ordered, while also booking my flight down to DCA, was a new set of foglights:

The fog lights aren't too hard to change, and I've been told that the way these fog lights are designed, you could even put some HID lamps in them and you wouldn't have to worry about blinding someone with them (you could even use yellow HIDs).

Something I forgot to mention about the LED turn signal up grades: make sure you get some side markers that say they are polarity insensitive, or non-polarized, if you want the LEDs to work like factory. You could instead get the turn signals that say they are polarity insensitive or non-polarized, as I've been told they will still work.
For me, it was easier to find the side markers (and I was able to use JDM Astar switchbacks).
(If you are curious how the side markers work and why you would need special LEDs, I have this thread about it.)

 

[kwOH]

Platinum edition?


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[adventurenali92]

Platinum edition?


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Platinum edition would have heated and ventilated front seats so there wouldn't be a seat heater switch above the drivers door master switch where memory and pedal adjustments are. The controls would be below his climate control where our trucks have that little rectangular pocket. Also his steering wheel would have little chrome pieces surrounding his wood trim on the steering wheel where it meets the leather and his gauge cluster would be different. Also his grille piece would either be chrome or color matched and the door badges would be chrome instead of gold.

 

[95escahoe]

You've got a clean Escalade to work with, love the Caddy white that's the color I wanted but just couldn't do the light interior


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[05Single]

Beautiful esky bro.
That white is so damn clean.
In for progress.

 

[95escahoe]

Ever throw the engine covers on?


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[Onebadsss]

Platinum edition would have heated and ventilated front seats so there wouldn't be a seat heater switch above the drivers door master switch where memory and pedal adjustments are. The controls would be below his climate control where our trucks have that little rectangular pocket. Also his steering wheel would have little chrome pieces surrounding his wood trim on the steering wheel where it meets the leather and his gauge cluster would be different. Also his grille piece would either be chrome or color matched and the door badges would be chrome instead of gold.

I wish I had the ventilated seats of the Platinum! Although I'm not crazy about the weird "custom" seat controls GM made for them that are mounted on the center console. I do want to do the Platinum cupholder mod though and I'm currently keeping my eye out for a good condition one on eBay...