My 02 tahoe transformation

[OhioHoe]

Hey everyone, I've been a member for a few months but have been waiting until I finished this project to post, because I know you all love pictures. I got this 2002 tahoe lt about a year and a half ago from my mother. It was bone stock and a little bit rusty. I soon added a set of U2-35's on 305/35/24, lowered it 2/3, painted a few pieces, and several other small things. This was it at the end of last summer:

In December we installed a 3/6 drop:

Soon after I decided that I wanted to fix the few spots of rust on the car and fix the roof which was peeling pretty bad. I work at a body shop and my boss and I decided to just paint the entire vehicle. This then turned into a complete color change and it escalated from there. So I started stockpiling some parts, including an HD hood, ss bumper cover, roll pan, paintable grille, new headlights and turn signals, smooth vent caps, and some new body panels to replace the rusty ones.

First we started with the roof. Got it sanded down, fixed some dents, and shaved the onstar antenna.

I had to drive it for about a month with a primered roof which really sucked lol

At the end of March we finally got started on it and got it all torn down.

First we took care of the rust. Both lower quarters had a small amount of surface rust so we replaced both of them. On the drivers side rear door jamb there was a small spot of rust so we cut out the section of door jamb and found that it was much worse underneath. We replaced the inner wheel house assembly with new metal, and then sandblasted, treated, and sectioned in new metal for the rest.







There was no more rust and the rest of the body was in surprisingly good shape. I then decided that I wanted to shave the rear wiper and window glass button, so we welded those up, and smoothed it out.


Then we got the roof and door jambs all sanded and ready for paint.

At this point I had changed my mind about six or seven times on how I wanted to paint the car. I finally decided on doing a two-tone, with the top being black, and the bottom being a candy red. After a lot of spray-outs I decided on using tuxedo black, which is very metallic, and house of kolor's candy brandywine. We then shot the roof and door jambs in tuxedo black.

 

[Tahoewhat]

Getting there. Looks good.

 

[OhioHoe]

I scuffed and blacked out the firewall without removing the engine which wasn't too fun but I got it done.

After that we got all the doors smoothed out and primed, and then trimmed in the backsides of the doors and gate.

Here's a close-up of the tuxedo black. It looks great in the sun.

After getting all of the exterior panels in final primer, we spent an entire day getting it all sanded and ready for paint, it took about seven hours and my fingerprints no longer existed lol

First we covered the whole vehicle in black sealer, and then misted a silver metallic down the side, because I decided to do a silver stripe between the black and candy.

Then we masked off the stripe, sanded off the excess silver, and sprayed the whole vehicle in tuxedo black, which I forgot to get a picture of. Whoops. Then we masked off the top of the vehicle to spray the candy on the bottom. I liked the candy over the black base the best because it looks very deep and I was going for a dark look.

And here it was with the candy on, right before we cleared it.


Then here it is after several coats of clear. I forget exactly how many though

Then of course I got antsy and had to throw the 4's back on lol

Here are some pics of it outside. Ignore the white around the rear quarter glass hole, we didn't paint that on purpose because the urethane used to hold the windows in bonds better to the existing urethane than it would fresh paint.



Then we sanded and did a three stage buff on the whole thing and it turned out pretty slick

 

[OHSIXX]

Amazing work...love the paintjob!!

 

[Z-56 Hoe]

Wow that looks so dam good I am totally digging it and I love that you went two tone and shaved the rear wiper. Did you also shave the roof rack? I am suprised that you did not get a weld in roll pan.

 

[OhioHoe]

Then we got all the glass back in, I installed some black housing depo headlights and some black housing turn signals, we got the smooth vent caps painted, rollpan installed, tinted the taillights, but the right way this time. I got the front windows tinted 25% to match the other windows, and we put a red vinyl pinstripe around the silver stripe to help seperate the colors.



I got some morimoto 6000k 55watt HID's for the headlights, led switchbacks for the parking lights, some white 194's, and white led's for the DRL's

I just liked the colors in this pic lol

And then we had to deal with the POS ss bumper that I bought off of ebay. It was supposed to be one of the urethane ones, but it came, and it's f'in fiberglass. It wasn't the best mold either. They're supposed to fit with the top bumper cap still on but this one wouldn't fit unless we removed it. We had to fight and pull as hard as we could to get it to fit on the bumper, and ended up having to put a large cut in it to relieve some of the pressure. Anyways, we got that fiberglassed back up, and smoothed it out the best we could. I'll probably end up buying the street scene one later down the road. Anyways, I bought a set of 03 silverado fog lights and made them fit on the bumper by cutting down the ducts on the bumper and using different mounting holes for them. I put some HID bulbs in them that I took out of a set of jaguar headlights we had in the storage room.
Here's how the fogs look from behind

The bumper actually turned out pretty good for what we had to work with

The silverado fog lights ended up fitting in the hole fairly well

Painted the bowtie in the metallic silver

Then I scored a set of escalade running boards, woohoo! So we painted the end caps

Then we painted the grille, which I also forgot to get a picture of, but that was the last piece! We painted the grille on Thursday, and Friday we put it on and were finished! I drove it Friday for the first time and absolutely love it. Turns a lot of heads and looks just like i've always wanted it to. I've been lurking on this forum for about two years and got most of my ideas from you guys. So let me know what you think! The weather hasn't been great this weekend but I took some pics when the sun peeked out a few times. Anyways, here are some finished pics.














---------- Post added at 06:23 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:20 PM ----------

Thanks guys, I appreciate it! And no, we didn't shave the roof rack because I got an escalade roof rack that I was planning to put on it. However, I'm thinking that it actually looks better without it so I kind of wish we had shaved it. And I agree with the rollpan thing, I wish I would have gotten a weld-in one.

 

[Atreuce]

Man that looks good... I wish mine looked as good as this!!!

Love that color.

 

[UGA Tahoe]

Overall the truck looks great. Paint good and body mods really look fantastic. Only thing I dont like are the wheels. They dont seem to match the truck. Maybe something not so flashy.

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk

 

[YukonXL04]

Wow. Awesome work on the truck. And alot of progress! I agree though the wheels don't seem to fit the theme.

 

[OhioHoe]

UGA Tahoe I agree with you about the wheels. I loved them when I first got them but now I'm starting to not like the look as much. If I could ever sell these, I'm thinking a set of 22" tbss reps would look nice. It wouldn't hurt to have a little more tire on these rough roads either. Although if they made a 24" tbss rep I'd probably be all over them lol