My 'day off' daily driven project.

Then one day on my way to work I blew th ereturn line from the oil cooler. Thinking it was just a leak and I could top it off and make it to work I was quickly proven wrong. Ended up heat seizing the motor. So in the middle of winter with no room in my garage my friend and I yanked the blown 4.3 and swaped in one from a '03 Sierra with just over 14,000 miles on it.




Worst part is, when I mounted the transmission I heard it clicked and continued to tighten the bolts. Even though it was seated I made the mistake of not turning it back to click again. I ended up crushing the pump on the tranny. Since I know nothing about trannys I sent it out for a nice rebuild for some heavy duty internals and a Corvette servo. Didn't want a shift kit, but the new servo does firm up the shifts a bit.

So nearly two grand behind my other mods would have to wait. But alteast I haqve a fresh new motor.

Nicer weather was in the air so I started my tail light swap. I really like caddy tails on dimes but wanted something different. Looking at modern Caddy lights none of them had close enough fit for me but I like the taller lights. So I ordered up a pair of TYC LED tails for a Colorado and started cutting.


Please bear with me, this is the first time I've cut anything up like this.

Once they were mounted I welded in a filler plate to size up the corners and see how I will need to weld in small panels to make it fit better. BTW, it's welded from the inside that is why you don't see much weld on the filler panel. lol



Here shows how much I need to compensate on the corners.

Just looked at those photos, the tail lights don't hang out that far, that was before I notched the tabs on them.

Here they are installed and unfinished.


And a little video of how they look at night.

Well I haven't finished the tails yet but it's next on my list.

After I repaired a busted heater core (what a PITA), I started on my bumper.

Was originally going to go with a smooth roll pan, but needed a opening fo rmy trailer hitch (it's behind the plate in the bumper). SO I decided instead of just a roll pan, why not chop up the bumper?

I started by removing the plastic from it. I then marked my lines and handed the reciprocating saw over to my 11 yearold daughter.





Then I made filler plates for all the holes including the license plate lights.




Smoothed out before filler. The two areas left will have carrage bolts welded into place to mount the bumper brackets. They will be notched to slide into place and then tightened down.

Since I remove 3"s from the bumper I wanted it tucked closer to the truck so I cut 3.25"s from the bracket.



I then welded a peice of 1" flat stock to the back upper lip for a more finished look and a place to mount the plate.

With the empty space on the sides of the plate I decided to try something to see how it would come out. In a bench vise I bent some round stock I had layng around, cut it up and welded it into place.

I went and purchsed some small spikes, drilled 9 holes and ran them across the top of the flat stock.

Here is the bumper so far.





I'm going to go back and raise it up 1" to eliminate the gap.

Thanks. Never was a huge fanof roll pans on Xtremes cause you can see the side panels from the rear and they look out of place without a bumper. But I do love the side view. I don't have a stock to a finished photo but I do have stock vs freshly cut.

Stock


Test fit after cutting off 3"s.

Well got started on the next thing. Shaving the handle from the tailgate.

But instead of just boltig on the relocator I figured I'd go the extra mile.



Only thing I worried about was if the handle breaks, I'd have no way to replace it if the box were welded in. So I thought about it and came up with a solution.

I tack welded the washers on the bolts to the relocator.


Then I notched the ends of the bolts so a screw driver can be used to turn them from the backside if needed. Now looking behind the handle you can see the ends of the bolts notched for a screw driver. Hopefully I will never need to replace it, but I figured 'just in case'.

Then I tacked in the relocator and filler panel.

These were taken before I finished. I was taken a break to cool off the welds and figured I'd snap a shot.