2001 Denali Refurbishment

Continued from this thread: http://tahoeyukonforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=49131&page=2

It's outside. All the mechanical repairs are done.

Newly-painted front bumper is installed, grill is cleaned up and new turn signals installed under headlights. Still need to polish the headlights, have to get the rest of the 3M Clearbra off the hood and upper fenders, and give the truck a HUGE bath and detail job, but it's coming along.

Little-by-Little.

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---------- Post added at 06:41 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:38 PM ----------

I'm making him re-paint the front bumper. He gave me a deal, and I KNOW it was zero fun getting that Clearbra off the bumper, but still, it had runs in it and orange peel. I felt like a bit of a jerk making him do it again...but I do not want the truck to look like it's been in a wreck, you know?

For some reason in addition to the normal radio antenna on the front fender, this truck has not one but TWO OnStar antennas on the rear 1/4 windows. One on each side. Well the driver's side antenna was missing, only the base was on the glass....so I nabbed one at Wrench-A-Part this morning and screwed it on...and now the truck has three antennas.... Umm...weird. I feel like one of those HAM radio guys now. Ok then.

Also, when I bought this thing the rear doors really seemed to be hard to open, and would screech open. Never had that issue on our '03 Burb. I figured the pivot/stop needed to be lubricated, so I put white grease on it and the hinges. It got a little better, but still popped and drug when opening. Well I found out that only the 2000-2001 Tahoe/Yukon had these pivots, made of metal, and in '02 GM changed the design to a plastic pivot to fix this dragging issue. I nabbed two of these plastic pivots for the rear doors at Wrench-A-Part and will install this weekend.

Projects!

-Mike

---------- Post added at 07:18 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:41 PM ----------

And here is this weekends project on the hood and fenders. I got my plastic razor blades in. Oh boy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sutxyn74N8s

Please make a right up on the rear doors clips you are talking about...my rear doors clunk and screech too.

doylee4693 said:

Please make a right up on the rear doors clips you are talking about...my rear doors clunk and screech too.

Click to expand...

Someone on here beat me to it! See here: http://www.tahoeyukonforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=27786

This is a really simple repair that makes the truck feel so much better!

-Mike

---------- Post added at 10:07 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:58 AM ----------

Just to share, when I went to pull the door link/stopper at the junk yard, I noticed that it said RH/RR on it....for right-hand, right-rear. The truck was missing the driver's side rear door, as were the other three Tahoe/Burbs in that yard...the did all have passenger rear doors though.

Since I could not find another truck with the driver's rear door still attached, I went to a 2nd salvage yard, found one, removed it, paid more for it (not a Wrench-A-Part yard)and then getting in my truck compared the two parts and slapped my forehead...when you turn it over, on the bottom side, it says LH/LR on it.

Doh!

So yes, it's the same part for both sides...you just have to turn the part over and not be a moron like me.

-Mike

I just went and picked up the Denali from the paint guy. Second time's the charm, front bumper looks MUCH better, and makes the hood and fenders look that much worse!

Now the fun begins. Supposed to be a gorgeous weekend, temps 60's to low 70's and sunny.

Got a window tint appointment tomorrow morning to tint the front door glass to match the rest of the side and rear glass. Then will be scraping that mess off the hood and fenders, and the stickers off the tail gate glass, followed by a LOT of bug and tar remover on the lower body, and then a big all-over bath, followed by a LOT of waxing and polishing. Then the interior detail, plus want to installed the polished mirror covers and detail under the hood.....plus scrub the RWL tires....and on and on.

We'll see how far I get.....

Here are the "before" pics from my work parking lot just now. My buddy Truong had borrowed my tow dolly, so bringing it home. Could not even tell it was back there.






-Mike

Good work man comming along nicely.

Awesome, not wasting time.

First off, I removed all the wood on my '89 Olds Custom Cruiser wagon a few years back, and would have done that job again rather than removing the cracked Clearbra from this Denali. It was that much of a nightmare...

Got home at 7pm and had to go grocery shopping, so did not start on the Denali hood until a little after 9pm. I finished this morning at 4am...no joke. I had to get up for the window tint appointment this morning, and I'm walking zombie now. The tips of my thumbs are numb from the plastic razor blades, and my shoulder and arms are so sore I almost can't lift them. :no: Lord what a pain in the rear!!

On the upside, Jonathan and Lily helped me for a good long time. Had the stereo on and the kids were singing along. I'm really proud of them both, they really worked hard. Joseph however came out for 5-mins and decided this was too much work and went back in the house. Oh well,at least I had two solid helpers.



I started the project by spraying the Clerbra down with Tire Wet. Read online this slimy stuff helps. Then after working on it with plastic razor blades for an hour and only getting pieces off the size of my pinky fingernail, I sent Lily for her hair dryer. HEAT IS THE KEY HERE!


This is after an hour and a half....


Using the hair dryer and getting small areas really hot, were were able to finally make some progress. Worked great until the hair dryer caught on fire...no joke....smokey mess, killed it! And scared Lily off too... Oh well.

So next I got my pole-mounted halogen work light, which gets lightning hot, and we used it to heat small areas until they were smoking, and then scraped off those areas and moved on.

Lily was out there with me from 9-11:30, and Johnathan lasted until 1:30am. Johnathan was determined to get all the plastic off the hood before he went to bed. He worked on the driver's side and I worked on the passenger side, and we met in the middle at 1:30. HUGE help, I owe that kid!

After all the plastic was finally off I was left with the glue residue. I didn't think it would take long to get that off. Here is just after we got the last of the cracked plastic off at 1:30am:


Sprayed it down with Goo-Gone and got to work. The glue would not come off! I worked for an hour using the Goo-Gone and my fingernails, scratching glue-boogers off the hood. This is 2:30am...stuff WILL NOT come off!!


I got frustrated...2:30am, jeez, tried Bug and Tar remover. Worked for 20-mins...Nope, no help there. Next up was white polishing compound. Nope. Went back to Goo-Gone an my fingernails and finished aty 3:30am.

Amazingly the hood looked great. I cleaned up my mess in the garage....little pieces of plastic everywhere. Then for good measure installed the chrome door mirror covers, backed the truck out of the garage, and sprayed the entire truck off.

Fell into bed at 4:30am after a quick shower. Got up a few hours later for the tint appointment. Can't raise my arms...hurts to type...ahahaha....I'm so old and out of shape!!

Made it to the tint shop on time, and the front door windows are now nice and dark to match the rest of the truck. Turns out the tint shop installs those Clearbras, and they were putting one on a brand new Mazda for the local Mazda dealer. $750!! Holy Crap!

I told the guy at the shop about my night, and he smiled and said "We do full vehicle wraps, and we charge more to remove them than we to to put them on". I don't doubt it. He said if I ever have to removed one of those bras again (I will not be doing that), to use steam. Says it really helps, but it's still a nightmare.

He was cool, he could tell how sore I am I think. He voluntered to take the two band and flag stickers off the rear tailgate window for me. They're gone now, nice!

So now I'm back from the tint shop. Nabbed these pics for you all to see.





I still need to scrub the tires, then bug and tar removed the entire truck, and then wax it....plus degrease under the hood....and then do the full interior clean-up and leather treatment.....but all I want to do right now is take some Tylenol go back to bed. :sleep:

Such fun! Will post more pics once I get the rest of the clean-up and detailing done.

-Mike

Nice work...Kids make great slave labor dont they XD

Wanted to share my "basically done" pics of the Denali from this morning.

I spent all day yesterday on the truck (and all weekend basically). Cleaned under the hood, then bug and tar remover on the lower body (tar on white paint SUCKS to get off!), then compounded, waxed, and touched up the paint. It's like detailing a house...

Inside I scrubbed the carpets, cleaned every interior panel, then first cleaned and then conditioned the leather seats. It smells WORLDS better inside now.

Anyway here are the Glamour Shots from this morning. It's a really nice truck. My wife comes home from Colorado today, and I'm picking her up at the airport in it. She's not seen it since we bought it....I'm hoping she freaks out over it. It looks a LOT better now.






I like the oval exhaust tip. Need to put one on the black Suburban


Interior cleaned up really well. Still have a little work to do in here, want to replace one panel on the driver's seat and need to touch up the grey trim on the console, but other than that it looks nearly new now.








The underhood looks a lot better. I almost soaked all the plastic with Armour All...but every time I do that it just sucks up dirt and dust, so I left it dry. It's spotless though.



I'm really happy with how well this one came out.




Oh and I drove this truck about 100 miles on Saturday afternoon. Had to run errends and take the kids down to South Austin. I re-set the trip odometer, and was in a lot of traffic for most of the trip. Hit the Average MPG button when I got home....10.7 mpg. Ahahaha! Ouch! And this with a fresh tune-up and filters. Hahaha.

On the upside I did press the Instant MPG with the Cruise set at 75mph on the highway, and it showed between 16-21 at that constant speed. We'll see how well it does on our next Dallas trip.

It sure is pretty for a 12-year-old vehicle! Hope it's reliable for us. So far so good!

-Mike

Happily my wife loved the finished Denali when I picked her up last night. It really did come out well.

She's driving it up to Dallas today...this will be it's first road trip with us, hope it does well!

Oh and she made me put her Aggie license plate frame on it. I keep telling her we live in Austin, but you can take the girl out of the country but not the country out of the girl I guess.

Take care all!

-Mike