2003 Tahoe LT - Sister's 1st Vehicle [Update 12/8/19 - Pillars + Brush Guard]

[Galandorian]

Hey all,

You may have seen my other thread:

or one of my many other vehicles...

anyways, my sister just picked up this Tahoe last weekend as her first real vehicle. before that, she had been driving our parents' hand me down 1999 s10 blazer

2003 Tahoe LT 5.3l v8, 3.73 gears, 4wd
157k miles
minimal rust

$4400 cash

and of course you know we can't leave anything stock, so at minimum we'll be doing some cosmetic upgrades

 

[Galandorian]

the vehicle is currently at my parents house, and my dad has been fixing most of the quality of life things (heated seat not working, window switch, cosmetic interior, etc)

the first time I walked in to see it, he already had ripped the bumper off

evidently it was rusted through in some spots that I hadn't seen, so they're gonna replace that

hopefully by the end of the weekend we'll have it plastidipped with new headlights and tail lights

 

[OR VietVet]

I recently thought my 2002 Tahoe LT needed to be replaced with something newer. Got very frustrated with that search after a month. Decided to keep my 2002. Been putting money into it. Cosmetic and performance. I am having fun and that keeps me out of trouble. If I was you and the dad I would get her in there and get her dirty helping out. Cannot have more fun than that.

 

[Galandorian]

I recently thought my 2002 Tahoe LT needed to be replaced with something newer. Got very frustrated with that search after a month. Decided to keep my 2002. Been putting money into it. Cosmetic and performance. I am having fun and that keeps me out of trouble. If I was you and the dad I would get her in there and get her dirty helping out. Cannot have more fun than that.

Haha I think we've all been there everyone in my family has looked at newer and "better" vehicles, and we keep on ending up just buying more GMT800s

a great reliable platform, and there are so many different things you can do with them to make each truck unique

unfortunately the sister doesn't really care to understand how anything works, she just wants the end product

but dad and I have fun building out the vehicle and making sure it gets her from A to B safely

 

[OR VietVet]

Then the least she could do is be there to hand wrenches and tools and keep the cold beer flowing. She may say she doesn't care but if you get her under the vehicle on a creeper and have her hold this or that, she may surprise you. My wife, before she passed, always made sure I got her keys when it was maint/repair time on her Trans Am and she had never cared about working on it till I got her under there one day changing out plugs from the bottom. She was fascinated about it and then started pointing at things and wanting to know what they were and what they did. Then she wanted me to let her change oil ad then something else.......etc. She would talk my ear off when I wanted to watch something on tv but she wanted to talk CARS.

 

[Galandorian]

Then the least she could do is be there to hand wrenches and tools and keep the cold beer flowing. She may say she doesn't care but if you get her under the vehicle on a creeper and have her hold this or that, she may surprise you. My wife, before she passed, always made sure I got her keys when it was maint/repair time on her Trans Am and she had never cared about working on it till I got her under there one day changing out plugs from the bottom. She was fascinated about it and then started pointing at things and wanting to know what they were and what they did. Then she wanted me to let her change oil ad then something else.......etc. She would talk my ear off when I wanted to watch something on tv but she wanted to talk CARS.

maybe one day she'll take an interest lol

right now we have 2 weeks to get this car all set before she comes back from college to pick it up

since she goes to school a few hours away, it wouldn't be easy for her to come over every night to work on it anyways
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basically all I've done so far is 10 ish hours of plasti-dip

she wouldn't let me de-badge or remove the moldings, or the running boards

we threw in some of my old aftermarket lights, and on Saturday it'll be going in for tint. 20% on the front windows and 70% entire windshield

we pulled the system out of her Blazer and hope to have it installed in this vehicle by the weekend

 

[HiHoeSilver]

maybe on day she'll take an interest lol

right now we have 2 weeks to get this car all set before she comes back from college to pick it up

since she goes to school a few hours away, it wouldn't be easy for her to come over every night to work on it anyways
-----------------------------------------------------
basically all I've done so far is 10 ish hours of plasti-dip

View attachment 233466
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View attachment 233468
View attachment 233469

she wouldn't let me de-badge or remove the moldings, or the running boards

we threw in some of my old aftermarket lights, and on Saturday it'll be going in for tint. 20% on the front windows and 70% entire windshield

we pulled the system out of her Blazer and hope to have it installed in this vehicle by the weekend

Wouldn't normally say it, but with the dipped parts, I kinda like the moldings and running boards.

 

[Galandorian]

Wouldn't normally say it, but with the dipped parts, I kinda like the moldings and running boards.

noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

running boards are only for lowered vehicles and moldings are for never

I do think it has turned out really nice so far. amazing what some cheap rubber color coating can do to a vehicle.

I'm super excited to see what it'll look like with tint and a brush guard

 

[HiHoeSilver]

noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

running boards are only for lowered vehicles and moldings are for never

I do think it has turned out really nice so far. amazing what some cheap rubber color coating can do to a vehicle.

I'm super excited to see what it'll look like with tint and a brush guard

Change the running boards for some nerf bars then!

 

[OR VietVet]

Can you still buy nerf bars! WOW!

 

[Galandorian]

took a couple extra days, but we finally got the tint done

70% entire windshield, 15% front windows, stock GM tint on the rest

my vehicle is 50% entire windshield, 1% windows for reference

looks a lot darker at night, but it is a very nice trade off for tint and visibility otherwise

I'll get some pics tomorrow during the day that will show it better

hoping to get the sound system installed this weekend

1x SoundQubed 2200 @ 0.5 ohm
1x SoundQubed 90.4 @ 2 ohms per channel on stock speakers

Brand X 270a alternator, stock lead acid up front, 105aH Sam's Club Duracell in the rear

single SoundQubed HDC418 with PSI recone

 

[Galandorian]

took a little longer than anticipated, but we got the sound system worked out (mostly)

gained a little more trunk room!

doesn't sound too bad with just stock speakers either. we're working on a write up for how to bypass the Bose Amp, since we couldn't find any easy info on it

 

[Galandorian]

and some daytime shots for all the people who only wanna see the Denali

 

[SirReal63]

Excellent progress. I have enjoyed your sound system builds.

Five Star Car Stereo on YouTube has a couple vids of the procedure to bypass the Bose system. They helped me greatly when I did mine.

 

[Galandorian]

Excellent progress. I have enjoyed your sound system builds.

Five Star Car Stereo on YouTube has a couple vids of the procedure to bypass the Bose system. They helped me greatly when I did mine.

I found a video that wasn't very easily titled that eventually got to it lol

here is my dad's quick fix write up:

super easy

 

[Galandorian]

got some more work done this weekend

put a new brush guard on:

and then all the speaker grilles were rusted out, so my mom went to paint them

but the color ended up blue instead of grey

I said it looked horrible and needed redone, my parents seem to think my sister won't notice. so we have a bet on it.

I'm going to get my sister black door handles for Christmas, so I'll have to take the panels off again anyways to install those, and I'll repaint the grilles either straight black, or find a paint code that matches

 

[Galandorian]

I also replaced all of the OEM Bose speakers with aftermarket

SoundQubed QP-MR6.5 in the front doors
SoundQubed QS-SD25 Silk dome tweets in the pillars
DS18 Elite Z-354 3.5" mid ranges in the pillars

used MyCustomSpeakerPods ABS mold to get the job done:

and I am extremely impressed with the sound quality, even a little bit jealous

although my car is much louder, her car now sounds a lot more musical. having the sound stage in the pillars makes a huge difference

Crossovers are as follows:

Subwoofer = 0 - 100hz
6.5" doors = 100hz - 3.15k
pillars = 3.15k+

 

[Sam Harris]

got some more work done this weekend

put a new brush guard on:

View attachment 236195
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and then all the speaker grilles were rusted out, so my mom went to paint them

View attachment 236198

but the color ended up blue instead of grey

View attachment 236199

I said it looked horrible and needed redone, my parents seem to think my sister won't notice. so we have a bet on it.

I'm going to get my sister black door handles for Christmas, so I'll have to take the panels off again anyways to install those, and I'll repaint the grilles either straight black, or find a paint code that matches

Sorry, but why would you change the CM door handles to black..?

 

[Galandorian]

Sorry, but why would you change the CM door handles to black..?

I don't know what CM stands for, but the outside door handles in silver are super ugly.

always looks best to have a silver vehicle with black accents

 

[NoReverseYukon]

Cm I believe means color matched. I'm not a fan of unicolored vehicles either.
Don't you have a screen to protect those speaker cones? I see damage in your sister's future.