Will in Nashville's 2005 Yukon Denali

[willinnashville]

I've actually been a member here for over a decade now, but I never really considered my 2005 Yukon Denali a "project" until recently. Truthfully, I'm not sure I would've if I hadn't been coming here for this long.

Anyway....

I bought my Denali back in 2011 for the wife to cart around the kiddos. I come from a long line of mostly GM vehicles, so I thought an AWD 6.0 LS-based platform would be great for us. Plus it has a ton of room and was a highway beast. I bought it at a Chevy dealer, where it had been traded in by the original owner at 90k miles. I paid $16k for it, which is laughable for almost any 6 year old vehicle nowadays, much less 6 year old Yukon Denali. Since it was the wife's kid taxi, I didn't really do anything with it other than maintenance and upkeep. At the time I was daily driving my 1985 GMC C/10 (technically C/15 but nobody ever knows what you mean when you say C/15).

1985 C/10

A bit later I needed more space so I did some trading and ended up with this bagged 99 Yukon 2 door 2wd:

The Tahoe was super clean, but getting rid of my truck for that was probably the worst automotive decision I've ever made. A year or so later, I sold the Tahoe, bought a new car for the wife, and took over the Denali full time

At that point it was just a stock 05 Yukon Denali, and it remained that for a pretty long time

 

[willinnashville]

My older daughter played travel basketball for a few years, then switched to volleyball for a few years after that. I didn't do a lot to the truck during that time since it was needed for long trips to out of town tournaments.

During this time I got a subwoofer for Father's Day, so I put in a new head unit, amp and the sub in a tube enclosure that it still there. It's great. I rigged up a tablet to play songs from spotify

 

[willinnashville]

A few years later, the truck was still holding up great aside from a transmission rebuild, but it was starting to look pretty trashed inside and the clear was starting to look pretty gross

 

[tooleyondeck]

subbed! That tablet mod is interesting. My hood and roof aren't quite that bad but they're getting there, especially the roof.

 

[willinnashville]

I saw a youtube vid where someone recommended polishing the paint, even where the clear was flaked off. I tried it, but I wasn't especially stoked with the outcome. The basecoat underneath was now shiny, but the hood still looked like garbage

 

[willinnashville]

subbed! That tablet mod is interesting. My hood and roof aren't quite that bad but they're getting there, especially the roof.

I went through a whole bunch of iterations with that tablet mount. In the end I used magnets to keep it in place and metal plated sandwiched between the tablet and its case. It still works that way, although I ended up getting a head unit with android auto so I don't use it much anymore.

 

[willinnashville]

About this time I was doing little stuff like tinting my windows, switching out to LEDs and changing the headlight and taillight housings since I really don't like how the amber looks. For whatever reason, I didn't take many pics of this.

LEDs in the old housings and fog light LEDs

 

[willinnashville]

I also replaced the air shocks and compressor. As you can see, they were pretty trashed

 

[willinnashville]

About this time COVID hit, so the Yukon stopped being a taxi service. I have worked at home for a pretty long time now, so it pretty much just sat in the garage. I did start going to junkyards as a way to get out of the house and collecting parts for future fun. I found a 3rd brake light, roof rack, caps and vent covers that were already black, and finally a rimless escalade back glass that I rattle canned. It come out decent. It looked so much better than the flaking hood and roof that I considered spray bombing the roof and hood. Thankfully I didn't do that

 

[willinnashville]

I started getting quotes to respray the hood and roof and was either blown away by the price and/or lack of quality for what I was being quoted. I knew that if I paid what some of these places were asking and I got something less than perfect, it would eat away at me. After spray bombing the esky hatch, I had a nagging thought in my head that I wanted to try painting it myself. I could live with it if I screwed it up for the ~$600 or so I figured it would cost me. Besides, how much worse could I possibly make it?

After watching some YouTube vids, I picked up a Sprayit 33000 clone gun from Summit, a cheapo purple gun for primer and some Spectrum disposable paint cups from Harbor Freight. I grabbed some paint, clear, primer and supplies and turned my garage into a decent paint booth. I bought a circular sander, interface pads and some sandpaper and went to work on the hood and roof

Before:

After some sanding:

Masked off and ready to go:

 

[willinnashville]

I started on the basecoat and was almost ready to burn the mofo to the ground after the first coat. It later flattened out and came out somewhat decent after a couple coats of base

Immediate aftermath of the first coat, when brix were shat:

 

[willinnashville]

After some waiting for it to flash it flattened out pretty decent, so I continued on with base:

 

[willinnashville]

Once I got to the clear, things started looking up. I can't remember if I did two or three coats

 

[willinnashville]

More clear

 

[willinnashville]

After drying for a day or so and install of the Esky rack, I'm pleased with how it came out. It definitely needs to be cut and buffed and I have a couple sags that draw my eye to them every time I'm near the truck. The wife and kiddos were impressed, or at least they were attempting to make me feel good about it.

 

[willinnashville]

I had been acquiring parts for a mild drop while all this was going on. I scored a set of belltech drop spindles from @Dantheman1540 and ordered a rear drop kit from @NORCAL SS. One of the spindles showed up fine but the other apparently fell into a lake on the way here. Dan was the man and filed a complaint with USPS. He got a check, which we split. The spindles just had surface rust, which cleaned up with a wire wheel on my drill.

Cleaned up compared to my old one:

 

[willinnashville]

I also pieced together a set of Strada Old Skool 24s and some tires from walmart.com. Snafu with the tires - Walmart wouldn't mount them even though they sold them, so it took me a few tries to find a shop to mount and balance them. Here they are installed and before the drop:

 

[willinnashville]

The drop! After wheels and tires, my favorite part of any build is the drop. I'd never lowered any AWD or 4x4 before, but I felt pretty confident after reading the instructions and watching a few YouTube videos.

I did new hubs and axles while I was in there and I ended up destroying a ball joint to pop the old spindle off on one side. Replacing that ball joint is one of the more frustrating things I've ever attempted with a parts store loaner ball joint kit that didn't seem to have everything in it. I bought a new ball joint tool kit from Harbor Freight and had the new ball joint in 20 minutes after I got home. I bought new inner and outer tie rods and took them to the same shop that mounted my wheels to get them installed and an alignment. They recommended a new pitman arm and idler arm, so I got those installed there too. I wasn't happy with the alignment after the first try, so I brought it back the next day. It's drivable now but it's a little twitchy and looks toed out to me. I'm currently looking for a new alignment shop.

I must've lost the autoride links for the rear so I went shopping at Lowe's for something that would put me at a 3" link (according to the instructions). I'm not 100% happy with how the rear rides now. I didn't put the spacer in, so I might try that. I didn't do the free travel mod, but I did use the smaller bumpstop that came with the kit. It also doesn't feel like there's any air in the shocks, so I'm not sure the links are right.

It still needs some tweaking, but it's getting there. I've never lowered anything that was perfectly right the first time.

Here it is off the jack stands for the first time:

 

[willinnashville]

After a quick bath, I took some more pics. Man alive, it sure does look good. Wow!

 

[89Suburban]

Nice work brother!!!!