Fosscore's 2013 Suburban LTZ Build Thread

[Fosscore]

Been hardly any time to work on the NNBS with getting things sorted out since the start of the school year and setting up a place to live. Trying to keep the truck clean consists of a wash at 9pm or 6am when the wife has left it alone lol. Been meaning to give it the full detail, but haven’t been able to find the time until this weekend. The wife and daughter headed to Orlando to visit a long time friend who was in town from AUS and then catch up with her niece who goes to UCF. I shut that truck down for the weekend and went to town. Woohoo! More truck stuff after some of the personal narrative.

The kids are finally in school and doing exceptionally well, all things considered. Thankfully. 4 schools in 2 years, a bit of bullying, and zero consistency really sucked for them. Been a pretty good, yet busy 2 months. Kids finding their way, which is priority number 1. Daughter is on student council and ready to play soccer in a few weeks, then lacrosse for spring. Son is running cross country and slowly making friends. Both are smashing the first quarter subjects. Glad they are on a better path forward.

For those who followed the last couple years of limited posts, we sold everything, gave it away or donated on both sides of the pond, so it is taking a bit of time to acquire those items into a functioning house, without obtaining clutter. Was pretty cathartic to not have much, so trying to keep that course of action, but still have the necessities.

The camping table has been a great substitute for the family dinner table and study desk. lol The folding camping chair sits the 4th person when everyone is spread out on the couch we bought from my wife's cousin.

Some friends returned things we gave to them when we left, which was very nice. Other than our Sonos speakers that have served us well on both sides of the pond and a Brass Monkey 50 liter camping fridge that I bought over there and shipped back (both dual voltage and I found a USA plug to work with the AC adapter), everything else electronic had to stay in AUS. 220V/60Hz. And no furnitiure either way. Finally received our boxes (clothes, photos, misc. personal bits and pieces, tools, etc....might have to declutter some of that stuff too....smh) that we shipped to the USA back in late February. Almost forgot what the heck was in those boxes. Still tracking down about 5-6 boxes that are currently AWOL. Grrrr…



Hoping we can locate the boxes somewhere between SYD-NYC-FLL.
SYD dispatch says all the boxes loaded and shipped out, but working with me to contact his USA cohort and see if any got left behind from the ship to the warehouse to the truck to the warehouse. IDK? He said be patient as we try to track missing boxes on a global scale. I'm hoping they are sitting somewhere, but also resigned to the fact that they may have been destroyed or lost somewhere along the way.

And some other cool notable stuff. Wife and I took my son to see his first concert for his 16th birthday. Made a night of it with dinner and show at the Hard Rock Seminole Casino. The new concert hall does not have a bad seat in the house. We sat in the next to last row in the nosebleeds and the view and sound quality was spot on! So we surprised him with tickets to....

GREEN DAY!!


The boy was super stoked. They blasted through songs for 2 hours straight with no opener. He knows every word to every song and tons of info about the albums, etc…. So happy we were able to do that for him. A first concert memory for sure!

A few weeks after Green Day, our friends got tickets to see Bush, Breaking Benjamin and Alice In Chains in Palm Beach. The wife is best friends with the wife of the bassist from Bush. They go every time they are in town. We were supposed to go backstage, but it was too busy, so he came out to our seats and said a quick hello and took a few pics with the kids. Very nice of him to do that right after his set. The kids saw Bush and Breaking Benjamin, then left with our friends while my wife and I stayed to see Alice In Chains.



Not bad for the kids to see some live music and hang with us parents. My son is on a 90s music trip, so I started hitting him up with all the punk, alternative and grunge bands I could think of from that time frame. Then he just hits up the Spotify playlist and what a trip down memory lane that is and the amount of songs you don't hear nowadays, but were on constant spin back then.

 

[Fosscore]

70600 miles

On Friday morning before sunrise, I washed, iron decontaminated, clay barred and washed again the Suburban to make it ready for a Saturday polishing session.


This is what I had access to locally. $25 for 1000mL. Bit pricey but basically did what it said.

Finally time to detail the long body! Way overdue and desperately in need. There wasn’t much fallout on the paint, but some of it turned purple. Just not the entire truck like gets shown on the videos.

On Saturday morning, I started polishing at 0700 so as to not upset my neighbors and be in tune with the noise ordinance. I decided to change up my products this time around and went with Rupes. Their newest products matched the color of the pads to the polish making it pretty dum dum proof. I did reach out to @adventurenali92 to get some advice on the iron decon and what he thought about the Rupes, as I had been using Chemical Guys previously. I had to leave those products behind in AUS, because it was considered Hazmat and couldn’t go in my boxes.

The paint always looks good and the WDT does sparkle nicely, but had not been polished out for a long time. It needed to pop! I almost went with the coarse Blue, but decided to go with Fine Yellow polish, which turned out to be a great choice as there weren’t any really bad spots needing that kind of work. I saved the Blue pad and polish for the windows, then gave them a solid coat of Rain X.

I was racing the sun coming around the house and thunderboomers rolling in from the ocean, hence why I started so early to keep the panels cool and try to beat the hourly rain forecast. I dodged one rain shower with a light sprinkle and had to wipe down to continue. It would unload not long after I finished in the mid afternoon.

I was really impressed with the Rupes pads and polish. I still have my Porter Cable 7424, which did a great job. Would like a Rupes machine, but will wait if the PC ever dies. After the Yellow Fine polish, I grabbed a Rupes white pad and some UNO Protect and coated the entire truck, including the dreaded roof lol. That is always one big ass panel! Still looking good though. The rain came and the water just beaded right off as you would expect. Sure looked nice and I was super stoked to get that big project completed.

With the girls gone, my son and I made some dinner and decided to watch Terminator 2 Judgment Day. We watched the The Terminator (1984) a few weeks ago, so this was a perfect time to hang out with the dogs, crank up the speakers and watch the movie together.

Being 16, my son can easily sleep until 1pm as that darn teenager circadian rhythm keeps him awake until 1am or longer. All good because the weather cooperated for the morning so that I could get out and do some more work to the NNBS, since the girls wouldn’t be back until late afternoon and the rain was not supposed to hit until about 12noon. Man was it humid and no wind, but some big dark clouds kept rolling in and booming from the ocean, so I kept trucking to get his project done.

I grabbed my 19mm socket and wrench to deal with the lug nuts and.... WTF? The screw fell out of the back and steel ball bounced out of the end. Shoot! Deal with that one later. So I had to grab the lug wrench from the truck so I could continue with the project without having to run to the store. The first wheel took everything to break it free. One of the knuckleheads at the shop must have hit the gun on 100% and locked those lug nuts up nice and tight. I did not have a cheater bar either, so a few words and extra might later, they were loose. The other 3 wheels were much easier to get loose.

I pulled the wheels off one-by-one, gave them a solid APC cleaning of the rubber and decided to go a step further and clean the inner part of the wheel. Took a lot of APC, water and stiff scrub brush/toothbrush to shift that dirt, brake dust and road grime from many years and miles on the road. But what a result. Nobody will every notice, but it sure looks good to me.





While the wheels were off, I hit the frame and suspension components with Rust Oleum Matte Black to cover the spotty rusty bits and to “freshen” it up a bit. And why not? Would you expect anything less? Lol I freshened up the brakes as well with some Krylon Fusion Metallic Dark Metal for something different. Dark to mask the dirt and brake dust and some light flake and gloss to sit nicely behind the wheels. I had to put the wheel upgrade on hold for a while as the niggly maintenance items that popped up - hubs, tires, normal service, etc.. in previous posts plus setting up a house. Wishlist and still looking at something in the CK375 or TBSS again?

I also changed out the rear axle pad bumpers/jounce stops as the old ones were pretty flaky. In fact, I bought those 2 months ago and that was one of the reasons I was going to pull the wheels for easier access and that escalated quickly into more detail work. Lol



Let’s see what else...Wife managed to spill an entire coffee on the center console, which I think shorted out the wireless charging pad I installed for her. Maybe a fuse, but have not looked into it further yet. The passenger door pull broke, just like the driver side that I repaired a few years ago. Weak, skinny plastic. Grr… Still need to investigate those issues.

Managed to get a screw in the passenger front tire about a week after the new rear tires were installed. Uggghhh. Dropped it off at the shop and they took care of it for us. No charge since we purchased the tires from them. Win there.

Have an odd clunk/knock in the front end at low speed, usually when turning to the left. Happens so randomly that they could not replicate it at the shop on the ground or find anything loose up on the lift either. Everything is tight and there are brand new hubs in there. The end links are not broken. Those were just replaced when the coilovers were installed. The front sway bar and bushings are tight. He thinks it might one of the ball joints, so we are going to watch that.

 

[Fosscore]

 

[Fosscore]

A couple from this morning with sun.

 

[Fosscore]

I got a call Monday morning from the wife saying the dash was lit up like a Christmas Tree. ABS light was on, Service Traction Control light was on, Traction Control was OFF, Stabilitrak was OFF and the brakes were squealing.




She's not a heavy foot driver, but I told her to watch it anyways and the squealing would go away once the paint wore off the rotors, which it did.

Called my mechanic buddy for some quick advice on the lights as I still don't have a code reader. He said come down anytime for a read. Stopped by Tuesday morning and the front wheel sensor code pops up. WTF? They just changed the bearings and I only took the wheels off and did some painting.

He reached in and followed the sensor wire down from the harness plug up at the top of control arm and right down by the clip on the bottom end of the control arm, before it heads down and through the brake dust shield. There was a very small crimp/slight cut in the cable. Just enough to trip the code. He joked, “That’s why you shouldn’t paint your brakes.” Lol



I have no idea how that got damaged as it is clipped in place by 3 different style clips. He couldn't find any spares in the shop right then, but found one in stock up the road at O'reillys.

I walked in the shop and there was nobody there. One guy walked down the parts aisle, said somebody would be right with me and never reappeared.

Waiting, waiting...I can hear voices in the back room....waiting. I ask out loudly, "Hello, anybody back there?" I hear one guy to another say, there is a customer here and that is more important.

Out he comes, looks up my part, grabs it and as I double check the part number for a Dorman replacement at $50, he has given me a $25 part by Standard. He and another employee that jus appeared??, both say it is a better part, with a lifetime warranty. I paid for it and left.

My mechanic asked if I kept the old bearings that they recently changed out because there are 2 working sensor cables right there.
I could not recall as so many boxes and moves but they are somewhere, I think?, but will go on a hunt for them.

I remembered that they were in a friend's storage unit way out west near the Everglades. I drove out there at the end of the day, 30 minutes each way, and YES! I had not tossed them. Sitting right next to the OEM front springs that the coilovers replaced.

Brought the shot Timken bearings back to the house and got the truck set up again to change the cable just as the sun was setting. Still no relief from the humid weather, but at least no sun. As you know, what should have been a quick wheel off, undo the sensor bolt on the hub, unplug and done, turned into a bit of a mission. Hence, why we get to write fun stories. And use some colorful language in the process..lol.

The mechanics obviously work on so many models and years of cars that they all blend together. Turned out that there was no way I was going to access that Allen key bolt to remove the sensor from the hub, without removing the caliper and rotor like they originally thought. Uggghh!!



Not ashamed to say, I was using my mechanic for guidance via text, just to make sure I was doing the right thing. We've been friends a long time and I was determined to not have to take it to his shop to sort out.

Once we figured out the caliper and rotors had to come off, I had to turn the wheels all the way to the left to access the caliper bolts with a cheater bar for the extra leverage. Oops didn't have a cheater bar. Wait, used the extension off the jack and found myself a 3 foot red cheater bar. Red = more leverage and speed.

Next problem was that my socket wrench decide to lose the steel ball and the flat head screw fell out the back. WTF!

So I put the 18mm long socket on the caliper bolt, and the jack extension cheater bar and broke both bolts free. I hung the caliper on the other jack stand. Now to remove the rotor and finally have access to the one screw holding up swapping out my part.

I could not break it free with an Allen key, a torx and I even tried the impact lightly. Nope head was rounding off. Shoot! Messaged my friend back and he said try tapping a torx right into the head of the screw. Sure enough took an S2 Torx 30 bit I had, hammered it into the screw head and lightly impacted it out and the rotor was loose. I left the torx in that screw head for the install. Pulled the rotor off and there was the Allen key screw I had been after.



It loosened up and removed without further hassle. Then to figure out the 3 different style clips up the control arm and the harness clip at the top (with separate pink insert to keep the plug together before it traveled up into the engine bay). Trying to be careful and not slip and break the clips or stab something else lol, I got it sorted and fit the new/old sensor wire in place.

I reassembled everything back the way it was supposed to be, put the wheel on, lowered the jack and fired it up. NO LIGHTS!!
Went for a spin, accelerated and hard braked a few times to make sure all was good. Hit the lug nuts one more time and called it a night.

Sweat equity and zero dollars spent for that repair.

 

[Sparksalot]

Red = more leverage and speed.

Absolutely it does.

 

[adventurenali92]

I’m learning about this Florida humidity on this trip…. Lol. Man I don’t know how you can work on the truck with it…. You’re a champ for it! Glad you got the truck buttoned up!

Edit: trucks lookin fresh after the rupes polish and pads! Sharp for sure! They do a great job! I love my rupes polisher as well! It’s pretty badass so If you get the chance grab one! You won’t be disappointed.

 

[Fosscore]

My wife decided to take my daughter and 1 friend to Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios Orlando last Friday night because my daughter turns 14 on Halloween!!

That is what she wanted to do this year rather than a party at the house. My wife will still make her a cake as she does every year, but what a cool idea.

I was never going as I'm a big scaredy cat and scary movies and jump scare houses would probably not go together. My boy was all set to go, but the flu claimed him first, then me in a 3 day successive window and 2 of my work colleagues had it as well, so I was doomed to succumb. My daughter's other friend succumbed to a sore throat the morning of the trip, so she backed out. This turned out to be a great trip with just the 3 girls, the new Taylor Swift album and 180 miles in the long body up the turnpike.

They had a great time in all the houses, my daughter rode her first roller coaster, the Hollywood Rip Ride Rockit and had plenty of scary moments, chainsaws, random weapons and scary people amongst the crowd, etc...

They got back to the hotel at 0130!

It was really cool to hear the breakdown the next day when they got home, while I was flat decked to the bed and useless on the nicest blue sky weekend in months.

I was pretty happy with the long distance numbers, because the around town 9MPGs that the wife gets, who is not exactly a hot rodder, but will step on it to clear the a##holes in her way...because she can get out of harms way is all that she can manage. And $100 fill ups on 89, as you all know, hurts to see a digital Benjamin Franklin disappear out of your account rapidly.

The Burb is so much more fun to drive than the Toyota Hybrid I have been running with work. 2021 Hybrid, 6 cylinder, front wheel drive gets a steady 18MPG, but chirps the front tires if trying to get on it and sounds hollow. Hauls the kids to school and gear just fine, but nothing exciting. Buyable, but sort of forgettable.

Anyways, here the figures:

446.6 miles
17.0 mpg
26.2 gals used

 

[pwtr02ss]

My wife decided to take my daughter and 1 friend to Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios Orlando last Friday night because my daughter turns 14 on Halloween!!

That is what she wanted to do this year rather than a party at the house. My wife will still make her a cake as she does every year, but what a cool idea.

I was never going as I'm a big scaredy cat and scary movies and jump scare houses would probably not go together. My boy was all set to go, but the flu claimed him first, then me in a 3 day successive window and 2 of my work colleagues had it as well, so I was doomed to succumb. My daughter's other friend succumbed to a sore throat the morning of the trip, so she backed out. This turned out to be a great trip with just the 3 girls, the new Taylor Swift album and 180 miles in the long body up the turnpike.

They had a great time in all the houses, my daughter rode her first roller coaster, the Hollywood Rip Ride Rockit and had plenty of scary moments, chainsaws, random weapons and scary people amongst the crowd, etc...

They got back to the hotel at 0130!

It was really cool to hear the breakdown the next day when they got home, while I was flat decked to the bed and useless on the nicest blue sky weekend in months.

I was pretty happy with the long distance numbers, because the around town 9MPGs that the wife gets, who is not exactly a hot rodder, but will step on it to clear the a##holes in her way...because she can get out of harms way is all that she can manage. And $100 fill ups on 89, as you all know, hurts to see a digital Benjamin Franklin disappear out of your account rapidly.

The Burb is so much more fun to drive than the Toyota Hybrid I have been running with work. 2021 Hybrid, 6 cylinder, front wheel drive gets a steady 18MPG, but chirps the front tires if trying to get on it and sounds hollow. Hauls the kids to school and gear just fine, but nothing exciting. Buyable, but sort of forgettable.

Anyways, here the figures:

446.6 miles
17.0 mpg
26.2 gals used

Sounds like an awesome birthday for your daughter!

Happy belated...

Hope you're feeling better.

I know that burb was spit shined for their voyage as well

 

[adventurenali92]

Sounds like the burb is running good! We did magic kingdom, epcot, and universal last week when I was there! Epcot was definitely my favorite! Wish I had my Nali there to trek around in cuz cabs sucked lol.