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

[adventurenali92]

Been a busy couple months since the end of April and getting my Denali back up and running. But thankfully it’s been running like a champ carting my detail gear around as I shine up rides. Every time I think I want newer one, I get in to head to work and just think nah….. I like my big always a V8 V8 lol. Still got an airbag light on the cluster to deal with… at some point… still got some electrical quirks…. But running good.

Had planned to leave big bear late last Tuesday night to head fur Utah and for like everyday for a week leading up to the trip crap kept hitting the fan…. Wrong rear power stop brake pads got delivered from Amazon. Gotta send this back. Had to pickup duralast and they’re not as beefy even though the work ok. Had to get that hammered out the day departure. Finally have a 20 inch spare mounted in the spare spot that will clear front brakes. Picked up a CK805 wheel from a suburban in one of the wires a while back and it was absolutely filthy. Covered in YEARS of built up brake dust. Finally got around to mounting a tire from another 20 I have in the garage that’s way too nice to be a spare swapped on and got it mostly cleaned up. Forward facing chrome is actually in Great shape. I still really like this weekly on the -800 Denalis. Fits so well. May have to look for a clean and not jacked up set or polish up and throw on as summer wheels. Still love my 21 Denali take offs though.

Knew I needed to to get the spare sorted before heading out to Utah so I got my behind in gear and polished the snot out of it. Could see good chrome under all the crap so I hit it with tons of steel wool and metal polish and many rounds of polish on 3 inch pads on the impact gun. And a big fluffy cylindrical shaped polish brush on the impact to get into the arches inbetween spokes. Was a lot of work.

 

[adventurenali92]

The spare tire hoist fought me and made it I pain in the behind to get up in. In addition to brake pads being wrong it delayed my trip to leaving Wednesday afternoon on the second instead of driving through the night to avoid holiday traffic and high desert temps. But the wheel cleaned up and nice and finally got the hoist to cooperate and spare in place. Brake pads beaded in and in place and I set off for Utah. Fits perfectly with a used Bridgestone dueler 275/60 tire in the spare location. Forgot to take a pic of it up under the back end. But works.

 

[adventurenali92]

Made it up here and settled into my short vacation/working on my friends cars. Instead of a day long party this year at the house, friends decided on tube floating the Weber river. I was under the impression that it was gonna be a lazy river float….. it was entirely not…. More like a cat 2 river with some decent rapids, many big rocks and small rip currents. Water was freezing A** cold….. but we had a blast. Lots of laughter and fun was had. Group of about 13 of us in our party made for a fun big group. Tubes were like 10 bucks to rent and I brought my really nice hyperlite wakeboarding life jacket that was a birthday gift two summers ago and worked perfectly.

Parked at the bottom to drop off one vehicle, ferried everyone up between the 7 seats in my Denali and my friends ram and one other vehicle plus all the tubes and life jackets and what not. And then dropped my Denali back at the bottom and headed back to the top to drop in the river.


Around the halfway point in the river, a super low road bridge and railroad tracks bridge made for an interesting obstacle. Knowing my luck, I foresaw me getting smacked into the underside of the bridge so I opted with a couple others for a short little walk around through some shrubs and up and over the road to the other side. Easy enough. On the other side there was a rocky beach where everyone floating the river hung out for a bit to take a break from the cold water, have some bevvies, and there was a rope swing off a beam on the old railroad tracks bridge so we took a good break and cheered on everyone hitting the rope swing. Quite a few people sent it. Couple from our group did and then like 4 big dudes in American flag Speedo’s sent it off the swing and we all laughed our behinds off and cheered them on. Super fun vibes. the warm day made up for the cold water and the whole area has awesome scenery to watch as we floated the river.

 

[adventurenali92]

Also why does my last post need “moderator approval?! Really?!?! What are we kindergartners on here now?! Seriously it’s my own build thread….. that’s annoying AF……

 

[adventurenali92]

Anyways… the plan was to take another trip down the river after the first trip. So we loaded up and ferried everyone up again. And this time 7 seats filled in the Denali plus one of the guys in our group floated the river on a big inflatable stand up paddle board and the only way to ferry it back up without deflating and having to air it up again was to strap it to my roof racks. First time in 10 years of owning the Denali that I needed to use them and have something on the roof…. LOL….

I was a bit worried that the Escalade racks wouldn’t work as they’re not as beefy and “functional” as some of the other factory racks and are more “for show” as many have told me in jest over the years of having them. I still like them either way. lol. But they worked perfectly. The paddle board wasn’t heavy so it sat totally fine on the cross bars, and I have some nice ratchet straps always on hand, one strap holding front of the board to the forward cross bar, one strap holding back end of board to the rear cross bar and it didn’t move anywhere and sat perfectly in place for the not too far drive back up the canyon interstate to the top drop in spot. I was like heck yeah… Escalade racks for the win!! Snapped a quick photo at the top drop in spot just before we unloaded.

Here I am with a 19 year old AWD SUV and it’s jsut out here being a jack of all trades!! I come prepared baby!! Hahahah

By the time we got the first trip done it took longer than expected, some of the gals in the group weren’t really thrilled about another float. I had come out of my tube three times, the last one being the last hundred or so hard sand I actually got dragged down the river without my tube cuz it got stuck in a current and stayed up river of me til it got unstuck. Once fully in the water, getting dragged across some rocks and then getting out and taking a solid few minutes to get warmed up again I wasnt really thrilled about going again either. We ended up not having quite enough time to do another float and get the tube rentals back before the place closed for the day so we decided to call it and head back to friends house for the evening dinner and fireworks festivities and it was a good call.

 

[adventurenali92]

I made my aunts(who always makes these for their annual derby day party) crowd favorite hit of bourbon balls for dessert to fuel the fireworks festivities and they were definitely the favorite dessert. I almost felt guilty cuz they outshined the store bought peach cobbler that friends put out…. but then again I made these from scratch and altered the recipe to make them a bit tastier…. And everyone knows ima total foodie and love making delicious food to share with people so I didn’t feel bad…. She and I also put together a bunch of Jell-O shots so ya know…… it all worked out.

 

[Fosscore]

Nice work on the that wheel polished out. Looks great! Homemade always > than store bought. But no tubing photos? lol Sounds like a great trip.

 

[willinnashville]

The spare tire hoist fought me and made it I pain in the behind to get up in. In addition to brake pads being wrong it delayed my trip to leaving Wednesday afternoon on the second instead of driving through the night to avoid holiday traffic and high desert temps. But the wheel cleaned up and nice and finally got the hoist to cooperate and spare in place. Brake pads beaded in and in place and I set off for Utah. Fits perfectly with a used Bridgestone dueler 275/60 tire in the spare location. Forgot to take a pic of it up under the back end. But works.

Wow, you got that wheel cleaned up great!

 

[adventurenali92]

Nice work on the that wheel polished out. Looks great! Homemade always > than store bought. But no tubing photos? lol Sounds like a great trip.

Once in the water phones were in dry bags lol. Not the kinda river you want to be videoing and then have a rapid dunk you and phone under lol

 

[adventurenali92]

Wow, you got that wheel cleaned up great!

Been upping my game with wheel restorations and loving the great results. lol. Thanks man!

 

[willinnashville]

Been upping my game with wheel restorations and loving the great results. lol. Thanks man!

I have my old set of those laying around still

 

[adventurenali92]

I have my old set of those laying around still

I think they fit these trucks so well lol

 

[adventurenali92]

Welp…. My return trip from Utah through the night was eventful given that the grommet type thing on the end of the shift cable securing it to the lever on the the side of the trans is supposed to have a snap ring type bit inside it that secured it into to the lever. Yeah mine was missing that second but and made for multiple shift cable freeing moments…..

Apparently there’s rebuild kits for those grommet things?! I didn’t know and bought the whole two piece shift cable…. Swapped it out and now cable and shift lever on the trans stay connected.

 

[willinnashville]

Whoops! Glad you figured it out

 

[adventurenali92]

Life has just been hectic lately. Two Saturdays ago late afternoon, after finishing up a maintenance detail on a 2020 navigator L for along time family friend, went to back the Denali out of their driveway and the shift handle lost all tension…. Shifting was no dice…. Got out and unclipped the lock collar that covers the connection point of the upper and lower cables in the shift cable assembly. It was all still connected and the grommet on the shift linkage lever at the trans was still attached. Turns out somehow the upper cable snapped and had zero tension in it. Thankfully Denali wasn’t parked blocking their vehicles in and she said no problem leave it overnight and deal with it in the sunlight….. so I called around after 7 on a Saturday and autozone could get me another shift cable but two days from their hub….. F***!!!!

Autozone in Victorville, which technically is the shortest drive time wise off the mountain had the shift cable in stock, and was open til 10pm!! On a Saturday!! I was shocked! She gave me a ride home and a little after 8pm I fired up the samurai and booked it as fast as that little 4 banger could take me down the mountain. Now….. the highway that leads down the north side of the mountain, goes from 7,000ft elevation where big bear valley sits, to 4,000ft elevation into the high desert region in just 12 miles of twisty windy mountain roads. 6 very sharp hair pin turns, 3 of which are back to back corners about half way up the drive and many very steep sections of grades. Denali handles it fine. Samurai… well it was a slow and steady ride…. lol. At any rate I was able to book it down, the store held the part for me so no one else could purchase it and I bought it and rolled back up to big bear. It’s about 50ish minutes each way, and I decided to hit Panda Express to have some food right when I got home. Good choice cuz I was starving by the time I made it home. lol.


Got the cable swapped out the next morning in friends driveway but couldn’t get it adjusted right so that the gear handle had full range of motion to get to all the gears. It was either park-2nd and not going to first or shifting all the way down to 1st but not going back into park on the other end. Her driveway isn’t flat and while I was parked at the top with it mostly flat I still knew the decline at the rear wheels wasn’t helping. So I got the cable set to be able to shift out of park, drove it the half mile from her place to my house, pulled into the garage, flat and level, neutral, parking brake set, got out and threw my wheel chocks behind the front wheels, reached under and put the shift lever on the trans to park and then pushed the handle up and was able to shut it down. After like 8 tries I finally got the cable adjusted properly. All gears good and back into park. Not thrilled that the first shift cable replacement only lasted two months…. Gotta crank out some more work this week but wanna get a better quality part, OEM or like quality so that inevitably when this dorman replacement fails prematurely I’ll have the right replacement on hand.

 

[adventurenali92]

My drivers side lowbeam HID bulb has not been kicking on for about two weeks now. It’s been wonky because of the diodes ran in the under hood fuse panel to connect up the DRL circuit to the low beam circuit to keep DRLs on at night as my anzo u bars are tied into drl. Quit all together and so I took the fuse panel out only to find no pins or wires out of place…. Was chatting with one of my line dance buddies that’s got a 2002 Tahoe and he was like “did you take the bulb from the passenger side and plug into the drivers side to see if it works there?” I’m like no…..that’s too easy! well I’ll be dammed…. Swapped the passenger side into drivers side and it lit up as it should. Put drivers side into passenger side and no dice. That’s disappointing because two summers ago I bought Morimoto HID bulbs to run in the mini H1 8.0 projectors. The original HID bulbs that came with my retrofit kit were supposed to be Morimoto and showed up as Chinese knock offs. I ran them and they worked totally fine but decided to buy the morimotos….. well last summer when the Morimoto bulbs were only a year old the drivers side failed… started going pink and then not igniting. So I reached out to Morimoto and they shipped me out a replacement bulb under the warranty…. I will say that their customer service is absolutely fantastic. They were quick to respond and got a replacement shipped to me in like three days. Well that same bulb failed at roughly the year mark. So I’ve had two Morimoto bulbs fail in barely a years worth of usage. Weirdly though the passenger side bulb is the original Morimoto bulb that’s two years old now and hasn’t had a single issue. I highly doubt they are going to replace it again but I’m going to email them and see what they say. But sadly this has led me not to be impressed at all with Morimoto quality which sucks cuz I’ve heard nothing but good things about them.

At any rate I have the original Chinese HID bulbs on the low rams right now and both are working as they should. Haven’t had an issue with these despite being Chinese products lol. Will run these for now.

 

[adventurenali92]

My great aunt, whom I absolutely love to pieces recently relocated from Vermont down to Tampa Florida to help care for the only other great aunt that’s still living who’s dealing with cancer. Aunt Sally came out to cali for two weeks so my mom booked her timeshare resort in Palm Springs and we spent a few days down there. A good friend, Jennie, that’s also a line dance instructor and teaches once a month up here at Wyatt’s, is from Palm desert. She got connected because of my buddy Chris with the 2002 Tahoe mentioned in the last post(he got her connected at Wyatt’s). She works for a company that does Jeep tours through the shadow hills, right in between palm desert and Indio, on private land owned since the mid 1950s by the Wilhelm family. The area is rich with native American history and it just also happens to be where the San Andreas fault runs through the area. Not only that but this particular area along the San Andreas fault also is where the North American plate, and the pacific plates meet! The big bear mountains on the north side of the basin that Palm Springs and the area sit in, are in the North American plate, and the San Jacinto mountains where the Palm Springs tram goes up, are on the south side of the basin and sit on the pacific plate. I knew the San Andreas fault ran through the area but didn’t know about the plates and that the plates are the reason why the San Jacinto mountains, and the San Bernardino mountains(which is where big bear is) sit almost perfectly perpendicular to each other.

Anyways Jennie comped the whole three hour tour for me, mom and Aunt sally and gave us the whole nine yard tour. Super fun and fascinating to learn about the history. They run their tours with red CJ7 keeps and their company is called red Jeep tours. Aptly named lol. It was a blast! Managed to snag a few fun photos. Thankfully Denali ran flawlessly there and back, and while aunt Sally has ridden in the Denali a few times over the years, she rode in it down the mountain Thursday morning last week to get back to the time share and she was like “dang! I can’t believe you still have this thing and it’s got over 200k and is still super smooth, super comfortable and that everything still works in and on it!!” H-E-L-L yeah it all does!! Haha

 

[adventurenali92]

Got to go on a couple little “hikes” up a couple canyon spots within the tour to see the terrain and what not and it was so fun. The one little canyon opened up into a little bowl and we took a minute to stop and listen, in this little secluded spot there was literally no ambient noise form any of the surrounding areas simply because were basically in a bowl shaped crevice in the rocks. It was pretty spectacular.

Also fun fact, the tattooine desert scene in a new hope episode 4 of Star Wars where the Jawas come out of the little canyon was filmed right here on the Wilhelm land. Jennie showed us the canyon they sued for the film. Super cool film history literally right here in socal where I live haha.

 

[adventurenali92]

Wracking up miles. Caught the odometer perfectly right as I pulled into the garage a couple weeks ago one evening.

 

[adventurenali92]

Oil change yesterday evening, and then off the moutniwn today to meet how ti with my sister in Orange County. She’s out from Tennessee visiting my aunt that lives down in villa park, aunt is dealing with chemo for colon cancer she was recently hit with. Was lovely to roll down the mountain even just for a few hours to have lunch with my sister and aunt. Thankfully everything was in order with the Denali and he ran good. I get Super stressed when things go wonky with the truck but today wasn’t one of those days thankfully.