Growing up doesn't have to suck

tomloans said:

Looking Good IAMDUB! Hope all is well. The truck is running like new and strong since you and others here helped me get those new heads on. I have put roughly 20k miles and all good!

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iamdub said:

Putting this here for later reference.

07-14 Chevy Tahoe Custom Black & Clear Projector Retrofit Headlights - BlackFlameCustoms.com

Customer Headlight Build Updates – Customer: TJ D – Vehicle: 07-14 Chevy Tahoe – Projectors: H1 Bi-Xenon – Lens Upgrades: None/Factory Clear – Shrouds: E-46 Chrome – Bulbs: CN – Ballasts: NHK FAST – Paint Theme: Black Surround & Chrome Center / Accents – Vinyl Logo/Decals: None – Extras: CLEAR...

blackflamecustoms.com

View attachment 420257

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Monz11 said:

How much for these? Just replace the projectors with ones from the Retrofit Source, shake and bake and tint interior. Save ya some $$$

I did my Spyder headlights, with the GTR bulbs (lifetime) and new projectors. Saved and still have the halos

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iamdub said:

Oh, I'm not buying them! I already have the black housings with clear reflector. I'm researching retrofitting a small but good projector into them. I don't care much for the look of projectors cuz they look like beady eyeballs- worse than the bubble eyes of the factory Yukon headlights. But the small projectors in a darker housing tone it down to what seems like something I can live with. I'm not sure what brand of headlights I have. They were a resell deal on Marketplace when the guy didn't get what he thought he was getting. But there are a few projectors I'm looking at. The ones from TRS look identical to some others for a fraction of the price. Still researching...

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kbuskill said:

I think this is the guy I contacted about building me a set of headlights before I decided to just do it myself. He was emailing back and forth with me and then just fell off the face of the earth... lol never did get a response back so I said screw it and jumped in and built my own.

Of course I could be completely wrong and it may have been a different company. I slept a couple times since then. I still have the emails so I'm sure I could figure it out if I cared that much.

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adventurenali92 said:

Not sure what will work on your GMT900 housings. But I have Morimoto mini H1 8.0 projectors that I retroed into anzo denali housings. I’ve been happy with their performance and the projector swap in the housings was stupid simple. Though I’m not sure what your housings entail as to getting a projector in their.

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iamdub said:

A few shots of the process-

Gutted front:

View attachment 235200

Traced the slot in the Belltech alignment cam with silver Sharpie to mark where the frame slot will be elongated:

View attachment 235201


Used a cheap set of rotary rasps from Harbor Freight. Surprisingly, I did all eight slots with this one bit. It was pretty worn and cut much slower on the last few, but still did it. I also had to switch to a right angle drill because the angle grinder fell apart:

View attachment 235202

Elongated slot:

View attachment 235203

New control arm with factory cams:

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I wanted to use the factory alignment as a baseline which would be lost with the Belltech cams. So I marked the positions of the original cams before I removed the old control arms. I also kept the original cams in their order after removing them. After elongating the slots, I reassembled everything with the old cams and turned the bolts to position the new arms per the original alignment marks. Then, I carefully removed one bolt at a time to reinstall them with the Belltech cams. The frame mounts were tight enough to keep the arm in position while I removed and replaced the bolts. With the BT cams in place, I marked them so the baseline would be maintained as a reference.

I cut a piece of angle iron to span the lips of the wheels, vertically across the middle, and stuck a magnetic angle finder on it to measure the camber before and after the spindles and control arms were replaced. The McG spindles caused a lot of toe out and about 1/2" total narrower track width. I've got the toe pretty close and it tracks mostly straight. The steering was overly responsive, so I dialed in some positive caster. The steering wheel at first was at about 9 o'clock and is now around 12:15, so I went a hair too far. But, it's completely driveable and the alignmnet will be fine-tuned during and after Phase 2.

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89Suburban said:

Do you have a pic of the cam you alignment cam you used to trace the hole? Or a part number?

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