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

[adventurenali92]

While watching a video on swapping the cooler lines the guy was really informative and helpful in that he mentioned the crank pulley on his 2006 6.0 powered vortecmax crew cab silvy. I inspected mine and decided it doesn’t look super hard to pull, let’s pull and swap the seal. The seal was like 43 bucks from NAPA so I figured it wouldn’t be hard…… well once again I was wrong….. lol.

Had it been up on a lift and had I had a slightly different tool to get the pulley out it would have been a quick easy job. Other shop friend I’m getting in good with loaned me a three pronged pulley puller the day before. But truck stayed on the ground as I don’t have a lift. It was a bear and took two days, lots of adjustments to the pulley puller, and a bigger more powerful impact gun borrowed from my buddy Chris how’s actually gotten to be quite the handy friend around. Met him and his SO Amy through my last line dance competition in Palm desert in 2020. They then proceed to relocate to big bear later that year…. He’s a big time Honda guy and has worked on and built tons of them over the years. He now owns an amazingly pristine 2002 LT Tahoe that he bought from an older retired mechanic up here and he’s torn into tons of stuff under the Tahoe engine bay and is quite well experienced. He ended up being the perfect back up to call and show me through the crank pulley job.


Never had my engine bay in the Nali torn so far apart but it got done and done right…. Had the air box, intake piping, battery, drive belt, AC belt, AND the cooling fans out all the get the right space to remove the pulley….. holy crap…. lol. I’m amazed though by how easy it was to disassemble AND reassemble everything haha.

 

[adventurenali92]

Old seal out and new one ready to go in and new bolt for the crank pulley.

 

[adventurenali92]

New seal put into the crank pulley spot. It’s crusty around the crank pulley. That needs a good scrub.

 

[adventurenali92]

Tuesday morning last week was the second day of crank pulley job and we got our “second” snow storm of the winter. However the first snow in early December was jsut a little inch or so dusting that was gone in a day. Got a solid three inches oat my house last Tuesday and the ski resorts for about 5 inches. Still need more snow for better ski/snowbaord conditions but we'll take it.

 

[adventurenali92]

Got everything reassembled after the crank pulley seal swap. Decided for reassembly that I’d try something different with the air intake. I’ve literally had the OEM airbox sitting in a box since it came off the truck I think in 2017 when I bought the spectre intake setup off of @Rocket Man that I’ve been running. He sold it to me for a good deal and I like the little opened up and slightly more aggressive sound it gives the engine, obviously not any real power giants but worth the money I spent. lol. The one thing I don’t like is the open cone filter that has to get cleaned and oiled at every oil change. Even not living on a dirt road for the last two and a half years, my engine bay still gets really dusty, as dusty air is just a fact of mountain ski town life when it comes to vehicles lol.

So in looking at everything before reassembly. I see the factory air box has a brand new filter sitting in it ready to go. Filter was probably only in the air box on the truck a month before I pulled it and slapped the spectre intake setup on. I’d been thinking about getting a K&N or similar washable filter that fits the OEM air box and trying it out once I ran out of cleaning g product and filter oil for the reusable open cone filter. But decided screw it that filter is new, steam clean it and all it in there it should work lol.

So I cleaned up the airbox, steam cleaned the filter and put the air box in place of the open cone with the filter. After some puzzle piecing it back together and fitting everything in gently and precisely I hooked the spectre piping piece in the factory air box and the throttle body and it Al lined up perfectly. I’ve gotta say I REALLY like how my engine bay looks with the chrome spectre piping with the factory air box hooked up and no open filter. Looks so much cleaner in my opinion but the spectre piping still has that nice sound I like. Plus it’ll keep the filter clean and I feel like it’ll get better air not sucking in hot engine bay air through the cone filter now.

I also thankfully had the foresight to get the little metal factory tray pice that bolts into the fender and supports the factory air box. Pulled it form mother Denali at the yard this past summer when I first thought about going back to the fsocrry air ox and it was cheap from the pick n pull yard so no brained.

 

[adventurenali92]

Airbox looks good in the engine bay lol

 

[adventurenali92]

Leaking cooler lines had caused a couple other issues. Not entirely sure yet. But O2 sensor upstream drivers side had dropped enough to rub against the drive shaft and expose the insulated wires. But they were covered in oil. So that’s an issue. It’s going in Friday for cooler liens but in the meantime I got the o2 sensor replaced. Zip tied new sensor in place. The Denali branded replacement looks just like ****** thankfully and didn’t cost an arm and a leg either. Wire covering is grey first OEM black wire cover but that’s not an issue obviously.