RENAMED!! The adventures of Chase and his 2006 Yukon XL Denali!! Follow along on my travels!

[adventurenali92]

While watching a video on swapping the cooler lines the guy was really informative and helpful in that he mentioned the crank pulley on his 2006 6.0 powered vortecmax crew cab silvy. I inspected mine and decided it doesn’t look super hard to pull, let’s pull and swap the seal. The seal was like 43 bucks from NAPA so I figured it wouldn’t be hard…… well once again I was wrong….. lol.

Had it been up on a lift and had I had a slightly different tool to get the pulley out it would have been a quick easy job. Other shop friend I’m getting in good with loaned me a three pronged pulley puller the day before. But truck stayed on the ground as I don’t have a lift. It was a bear and took two days, lots of adjustments to the pulley puller, and a bigger more powerful impact gun borrowed from my buddy Chris how’s actually gotten to be quite the handy friend around. Met him and his SO Amy through my last line dance competition in Palm desert in 2020. They then proceed to relocate to big bear later that year…. He’s a big time Honda guy and has worked on and built tons of them over the years. He now owns an amazingly pristine 2002 LT Tahoe that he bought from an older retired mechanic up here and he’s torn into tons of stuff under the Tahoe engine bay and is quite well experienced. He ended up being the perfect back up to call and show me through the crank pulley job.


Never had my engine bay in the Nali torn so far apart but it got done and done right…. Had the air box, intake piping, battery, drive belt, AC belt, AND the cooling fans out all the get the right space to remove the pulley….. holy crap…. lol. I’m amazed though by how easy it was to disassemble AND reassemble everything haha.

 

[adventurenali92]

Old seal out and new one ready to go in and new bolt for the crank pulley.

 

[adventurenali92]

New seal put into the crank pulley spot. It’s crusty around the crank pulley. That needs a good scrub.

 

[adventurenali92]

Tuesday morning last week was the second day of crank pulley job and we got our “second” snow storm of the winter. However the first snow in early December was just a little inch or so dusting that was gone in a day. Got a solid three inches at my house last Tuesday and the ski resorts for about 5 inches. Still need more snow for better ski/snowbaord conditions but we'll take it.

 

[adventurenali92]

Got everything reassembled after the crank pulley seal swap. Decided for reassembly that I’d try something different with the air intake. I’ve literally had the OEM airbox sitting in a box since it came off the truck I think in 2017 when I bought the spectre intake setup off of @Rocket Man that I’ve been running. He sold it to me for a good deal and I like the little opened up and slightly more aggressive sound it gives the engine, obviously not any real power giants but worth the money I spent. lol. The one thing I don’t like is the open cone filter that has to get cleaned and oiled at every oil change. Even not living on a dirt road for the last two and a half years, my engine bay still gets really dusty, as dusty air is just a fact of mountain ski town life when it comes to vehicles lol.

So in looking at everything before reassembly. I see the factory air box has a brand new filter sitting in it ready to go. Filter was probably only in the air box on the truck a month before I pulled it and slapped the spectre intake setup on. I’d been thinking about getting a K&N or similar washable filter that fits the OEM air box and trying it out once I ran out of cleaning g product and filter oil for the reusable open cone filter. But decided screw it that filter is new, steam clean it and all it in there it should work lol.

So I cleaned up the airbox, steam cleaned the filter and put the air box in place of the open cone with the filter. After some puzzle piecing it back together and fitting everything in gently and precisely I hooked the spectre piping piece in the factory air box and the throttle body and it Al lined up perfectly. I’ve gotta say I REALLY like how my engine bay looks with the chrome spectre piping with the factory air box hooked up and no open filter. Looks so much cleaner in my opinion but the spectre piping still has that nice sound I like. Plus it’ll keep the filter clean and I feel like it’ll get better air not sucking in hot engine bay air through the cone filter now.

I also thankfully had the foresight to get the little metal factory tray pice that bolts into the fender and supports the factory air box. Pulled it from another Denali at the yard this past summer when I first thought about going back to the factory airbox and it was cheap from the pick n pull yard so no brainer.

 

[adventurenali92]

Airbox looks good in the engine bay lol

 

[adventurenali92]

Leaking cooler lines had caused a couple other issues. Not entirely sure yet. But O2 sensor upstream drivers side had dropped enough to rub against the drive shaft and expose the insulated wires. But they were covered in oil. So that’s an issue. It’s going in Friday for cooler lines but in the meantime I got the o2 sensor replaced. Zip tied new sensor in place. The Denso branded replacement looks just like the original sensor that came out, thankfully and didn’t cost an arm and a leg either. Wire covering is grey instead of OEM black wire cover but that’s not an issue obviously.

 

[adventurenali92]

So I made a small life change this passed weekend. My friend Lisa has owned a 1988 Suzuki samurai for the past 12 years. It’s always been her back up/fun non daily driver vehicle. She’s loaned it to me many times over the years and it’s such a fun little ride to whip around in. She made some vehicle changes and decided to sell the samurai. I knew I couldn’t let it go to anyone else. I already had to give up a deal on buying her moms crazy low mile clean 2007 LBZ sierra and knew I had to scoop up the samurai. The samurai now calls my garage home and the road tank has a garage buddy. It’s come in super handy the last few days sorting out this oil leak and the O2 sensor issue. Love being back in a manual trans.

 

[adventurenali92]

Slowly starting to build a fleet. lol. The samurai will be a fun little project car to work on. Gonna learn how to get my paint skills up to par and the samurai will be great for that. Plus driving it literally like driving a go kart on steroids and its totally street legal haha.

Had to musical cars the garage the last couple days while I left the Denali in the garage. It just barely fits pulled all the way into the garage lol. But works when I need to do it to leave the samurai at the other end to back it out of the garage.

 

[swathdiver]

So I made a small life change this passed weekend. My friend Lisa has owned a 1988 Suzuki samurai for the past 12 years. It’s always been her back up/fun non daily driver vehicle. She’s loaned it to me many times over the years and it’s such a fun little ride to whip around in. She made some vehicle changes and decided to sell the samurai. I knew I couldn’t let it go to anyone else. I already had to give up a deal on buying her moms crazy low mile clean 2007 LBZ sierra and knew I had to scoop up the samurai. The samurai now calls my garage home and the road tank has a garage buddy. It’s come in super handy the last few days sorting out this oil leak and the O2 sensor issue. Love being back in a manual trans.

I had a Sammy once, it was so much fun to drive around in and play with off road. Top speed was 66 mph and she got 29 mpg in 2WD and 18 mpg in 4WD.

 

[adventurenali92]

I had a Sammy once, it was so much fun to drive around in and play with off road. Top speed was 66 mph and she got 29 mpg in 2WD and 18 mpg in 4WD.

Only a 5 gallon tank!! So nice haha. It is a ton fun to drive. Been driving it the last three days and just can’t get enough of how much it acts like a big go kart haha.

 

[swathdiver]

Only a 5 gallon tank!! So nice haha. It is a ton fun to drive. Been driving it the last three days and just can’t get enough of how much it acts like a big go kart haha.

Mine was just over 10 gallons. It was the first year of fuel injection, a '91 model. It was the high output model, 66 horsepower! LOL

 

[adventurenali92]

Mine was just over 10 gallons. It was the first year of fuel injection, a '91 model. It was the high output model, 66 horsepower! LOL

Oh my haha. Big step up over my 88

 

[swathdiver]

Oh my haha. Big step up over my 88

Always smile when I see one, great memories. Thought about getting another to restore someday.

 

[Tonyrodz]

So I made a small life change this passed weekend. My friend Lisa has owned a 1988 Suzuki samurai for the past 12 years. It’s always been her back up/fun non daily driver vehicle. She’s loaned it to me many times over the years and it’s such a fun little ride to whip around in. She made some vehicle changes and decided to sell the samurai. I knew I couldn’t let it go to anyone else. I already had to give up a deal on buying her moms crazy low mile clean 2007 LBZ sierra and knew I had to scoop up the samurai. The samurai now calls my garage home and the road tank has a garage buddy. It’s come in super handy the last few days sorting out this oil leak and the O2 sensor issue. Love being back in a manual trans.

Could use an LS swap

 

[swathdiver]

Could use an LS swap

There's one with a rotary motor making 450 horses that does a wheelie all through the quarter mile at the drags.

 

[Tonyrodz]

There's one with a rotary motor making 450 horses that does a wheelie all through the quarter mile at the drags.

Nice!. I think it was on Roadkill--the guys swapped a 440 into one.

 

[adventurenali92]

Could use an LS swap

My thoughts exactly…… could be hauling serious behind up and down the mountain with an LS swap…..

 

[adventurenali92]

So last week after battling the oil cooler lines and deciding I was done messing with it, I made the appointment for last Friday to drop it to the mechanic next door to my gym. Good guy and is reasonably fair with labor prices and he’ll put me into the first available opening he has when I need something done so that’s always a plus. He was also cool with me bringing the new cooler lines that I’d already bought and using them. So Friday morning I start up the Denali, pull it out of the garage and head back inside to get my coffee mixed up and grab what I needed to hit the gym while the truck was warming up. I come back out ready to leave not even ten minutes later and THANK GOD I made it out when I did…….. I see the truck DUMPING OIL out all over the ground……. CRAP CRAP CRAP…… it was tapping slightly but not running horrendously so I immediately shut it down and pop the hood.

Another one of GM’s wonderful design ideas to use cheap plastic parts to connect lines that have HOT engine fluids running through them…… ooi…. The little plastic donut that connects the cooler line to the radiator fitting had broken and the line popped off which allowed it to dump oil.

Such an odd occurrence because the evening before, I had to rearrange stuff in the garage and swap the truck and the samurai position in the garage so the truck would be ready to go and I ended up letting the truck idle for closer to 15 minutes simply because it hadn’t ran much the few days prior. And it was totally fine. Moved the vehicles around, moved a few things while I let the truck run in the street and while it didn’t get all the way up to running temp it was close but no problems. Then the next morning BAM oil everywhere… all brand new oil dumped on the street….

Thankfully we have AAA for roadside assistance and whatever the highest number of miles of towing so I called and they put in a tow request. Called the mechanic to let him know and he said “no worries we’ll get it sorted when you get here.” Thankfully the tow request put me at an hour wait for a tow and less than 10 minutes after getting off the phone with dispatch the driver called said he was jsut a few minutes away. I informed the AAA dispatch of the necessity for a rollback deck truck since it couldn’t be towed on its wheels with AWD and the driver was impressed that I knew that was necessary lol. Had me towed in a few minutes.


Mechanic said I lucked out and that there was still a quart of oil in the engine when he got into it and that probably saved me from any internal engine damage….. Crisis averted and the cooler line got swapped. But dang that was a scare I really could have done without… lol the remnants of the oil dump still need to get cleaned up but my paycheck from the resort barely covered rent….. ugh…. I’m tired of this slow season about even being able to just do simple things like pick up litter from the store to clean up the mess….. anyways, let the Denali sit in the garage over the weekend and save fuel so I used the samurai. Been driving it the last couple days and it’s running fine and holding oil pressure fine, but it’s still letting out a little oil burn smoke from under the hood which it was doing a bit of off and on before the cooler line swap. So I still need to figure out why that is. I’m sure I haven’t gotten all the oil cleaned out of the engine bay so I gotta give it another pressure wash and hit everything with some ZEP purple cleaner in the foam cannon to get cleaner done into all the crevices of the engine. No dull moments I guess….. I’m just thankful i didn’t grenade my engine.

 

[adventurenali92]

I’ll admit though the samurai doesn’t need anything mechanically immediate yet and it just trucks right along. Gonna work harder than it has probably in its whole life haha. Gonna drive it the next couple days to and from the ski resort since I’m not detailing and don’t need the Denali. Hopefully it’ll keep the Nali out of the supposed snowstorm in bound. Saturday night through Tuesday morning expected and all the predictions are completely all across the board. So we shall see how much we get. Definitely driving it to work tomorrow. If the snow gets to deep I’ll probably have to take the Denali but if not then it’s time to see how the Sammy does in the snow. Been almost ten years since the last time I drove a manual in the snow but last time it was a lifted 93 wrangler loaned to me from at the time a boss’s husband at a part time job, so the boss could keep from quitting during the startup of a fresh ski season and while my Denali was out of commission during my whole transmission debacle. Bikini top Jeep with no dash mounted heater vents in the a very high volume snow filled December was not fun….. but I managed and actually wa so retry good with the manual trans in that Jeep in some very slick snow conditions lol.


The Sammy will be better since it was a full vinyl soft top and dash heater vents so a tad bit warmer haha.