Rocket Man's 02 Denali Build Thread AKA "THE BEAST"

[Rocket Man]

Great, another project for me. Mine have been on for her entire life too. Do you have the part numbers?

The black one is GM Genuine 15055342, white is 15055343. Don’t buy the Dorman ones, they don’t last from what I heard.

 

[RAMurphy]

Git it. Thanks Mark.

 

[89Suburban]

The black one is GM Genuine 15055342, white is 15055343. Don’t buy the Dorman ones, they don’t last from what I heard.

Which color goes on which side?

 

[Rocket Man]

Which color goes on which side?

White is driver side. They have different angles where the rear lines connect. Not sure if they’d work if you reversed them.

 

[Rocket Man]

I removed the rear quick connects. They weren’t as brittle as the fronts, maybe because of no engine heat. But there was no way they were coming off without just destroying them.

I don’t think I can do without elbows there, the hose would kink. I can’t find those on any GM parts site, so I ordered some Dorman ones, 1 day prime. They’re easy enough to access so if they break in the future they’re easy to replace.

 

[89Suburban]

I removed the rear quick connects. They weren’t as brittle as the fronts, maybe because of no engine heat. But there was no way they were coming off without just destroying them.

I don’t think I can do without elbows there, the hose would kink. I can’t find those on any GM parts site, so I ordered some Dorman ones, 1 day prime. They’re easy enough to access so if they break in the future they’re easy to replace.

Do you have enough slack in the lines for the new connectors?

 

[Rocket Man]

Do you have enough slack in the lines for the new connectors?

Yessir, there’s enough to get er done. I ordered some 1” spring clamps to hold them hoses on too. I hate screw clamps.

 

[89Suburban]

Yessir, there’s enough to get er done. I ordered some 1” spring clamps to hold them hoses on too. I hate screw clamps.

I love spring clamps!!!And the spring clamp pliers!

 

[07Burb]

I love spring clamps!!!And the spring clamp pliers!

Uh oh….Mark gave paw paw a st1ffy again

 

[Rocket Man]

I started on the rear hvac unit today. Fist thing was removing the old refrigerant hard lines. I know the new kit says you don’t need to remove them but why wouldn’t you? Hopefully they’ll fit in the original clips. I will say if you were to use hard lines to replace them with it would be a lot of work. There would have to be a bunch of stuff removed including the running boards, at least on a Denali. There’s 2 types of clips, neither are too hard to release. I ended up cutting the lines into several pieces to get them out. After that, and having the heater lines removed, it was fairly easy to remove the unit. There’s 2 10mm nuts on the underside and some harnesses and screws on the inside, accessible after removing the panel.

 

[Rocket Man]

To access the evaporator you need to pull the heater core, which is accessible now, and then remove the bottom of the case which is where it sits. There’s just clips around the perimeter, remove those and one 7mm screw and the case splits in 2. The rubber weep thing in the bottom was rotted so I just pulled the end off. Im not worried about bugs climbing up there.

 

[Rocket Man]

The new expansion valve didn’t come with instructions nor was alldata much use. There were 2 o-rings in there so I removed the old one to see where they go. Alldata said to reuse the packing around the thermal thing so I removed it from the old one and discovered a lot of rust around that thing. It may have been faulty. Not sure why it was so rusty.

 

[Rocket Man]

While it was apart I removed the actuators and checked all the door operations. Glad to see nothing broken. I know I replaced at least one of the actuators before. Removed the fan motor and gave it a blowie with the compressor. The foam seal that goes at the floor was tore up so I made one out of a foam kneepad. It was thicker so I had to pry down on the assembly when I reinstalled it in order to get the screws in. It sealed it up good though. So that’s it for today, waiting on parts again.

 

[89Suburban]

Outstanding! Great pics!!!


Why not replace the heater core too?

 

[Rocket Man]

Outstanding! Great pics!!!


Why not replace the heater core too?

Because it works! I’m only replacing the evaporator because of the possibility of metal shavings, I don’t want any ending up in the new compressor.

Amazon delivered the elbows and spring clamps so I attached the heater hoses at the rear. Nice and clean. The elbows didn’t state they were compatible but I saw in the comments a guy that used them in his 02 Tahoe and they worked. Pic in case anybody wants p/n’s. Yes I used spring clamp pliers! Love those things.

Also installed the white tee up front but I’m waiting on the new heater hose so I can install it to that one before I install the black one. I see why GM uses these, super easy to install.

 

[George B]

Nice work Mark!

 

[Tonyrodz]

Nice work Mark!

As usual. Old man is determined.

 

[Rocket Man]

As usual. Old man is determined.

I ain’t messin’

 

[RAMurphy]

Absolutely impressed. Wow, what a lot of work. Awesome job Mark.

 

[iamdub]

I swear this shit is like rocket science to me. Atomizing particles and shit like that.

Bruh, it's not that deep. Your ass atomizes particles. Does that mean that that's rocket science and your atomizing butthole makes you some kind of rocket ma- Oh...