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2000 GMC K2500 Sierra Crew Cab Stepside

How thick would you make the winch mount plate for that little 4500lb winch? I'm thinking a 1/4" plate and fairlead mount would be ok and then have something thicker on both sides to make shackle mounts. Maybe 3/4"?

I think I'm going to try to make something myself for the time being. I'll have to see what materials I can come up with.
 
GWeakland620 said:
I think 1/4 should be fine.
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Cool. I think I've worked out a little plan for it and I'm hoping it'll be as neat as I think it will.

If the weather holds this evening, I'm wanting to get the steering system completely torn down and ready to start putting in all the new bits I've accumulated for it over the last year. New MOOG TREs, idler arm and bracket as well as the pitman arm will be going in hopefully tomorrow evening. I'll just leave it on stands and ready for the other parts to come in this weekend. Then I can rough in an alignment and have it ready to inspect. It needs tires as the wide walls of my Michelins are cracked pretty deep and the inspection guy told me last year he wouldn't pass it again.

I'm going to browse and see what I can find used in the 285 or 265 sizes. I'd like to stick with 285s but as little as I drive the truck right now, I'm not sure it's that big a deal for 1" OD. There's some stuff going on at work that's got me hesitant to spend any more money than I have to right now. I just need to get it through inspection right now.
 
Got everything out! It all came apart ok until it came to pulling the pitman arm. My puller didn't have the chooch to get the job done and wasted it's threads. I think I'm going to take it into work and have the machine shop press them apart.

I managed to take up the slack in the steering box adjustment so hopefully after all this it'll handle decent. The control arm bushings are still in rough shape but nothing I can do about that right now.

Hopefully I can get it all back together tomorrow evening.
 
Got the steering box and idler arm back in and everything assembled. I've got to go back and torque everything later but I was up from about 12:30 to 4 this morning then worked a 10hr day at work before starting on this. I'm too tired to hold up the wrenches at this point.

Me and a buddy are heading over to the West Virginia state fair tomorrow to watch the horse pull and check out the "fair folken". I'll have a go at the truck tomorrow evening after I get the girls from school.
 
GWeakland620 said:
That should steer a whole lot better lol.
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No kidding!!! I'm looking forward to checking it out. I may still have to come back and do the steering box in the future if I hang on to the truck.

Well, the shocks I ordered don't fit. The door tag on my truck says 8600lb GVWR and the shocks I ordered are for the 8600lb GWVR but they are almost an inch too short and even if I try to jack up the control arm, I can't compress the suspension enough on either side to get them installed. I verified they are shorter than the ones I'm taking off and I checked the listings on Rock Auto again vs the lengths in the Monroe catalog. I'm not sure what's going on. I guess I need to check my door tag against my VIN but the door is white inside and out and that usually means it wasn't replaced.

For now I'm just going to return them and move on. I'll come back next spring and put on another set of the Bilstein 4600's that's on it now. Now I'm trying to find a set of inspectable used tires to stick on it for the time being.
 
I finally got the steering system replaced and the new master cylinder on it. I picked up a set of 265/75/16's for $125 that should get me through inspection and into next year where Julie will be working. Then I'll probably throw a set of 285/75/16 Cooper Discoverer AT3s like my Xterra has on it and begin rotating them through. After a couple years with them on the truck, I'll swap them to the X and wear them out and the truck will get a new set so it always has new tires for towing/hauling purposes and the X always has used, beater tires on it that I'm not so worried about cutting down.

I still need to bleed the brakes a bit more, but the weather and stomach bug Morgan brought home from school has me not wanting to be out there today turning wrenches.
 
Got the truck inspected and the used tires on it today. It looks so weird and puny with the 265s on it. :frown1:

The A/C won't hold a charge now. I know better than to let things sit there way I have this truck for the last few years. I'm trying to drive it more now and I'm trying to figure out how I want to proceed with repairing it. There's too much disassembly to replace the compressor seal so I may just put a whole compressor on it. Before I go through that, I may try a can of stop leak and a good charge. I'll drive it for a few days to cycle the stop leak through the system.

Beyond that, it seems to be doing ok. A loose battery connection caused a starting issue at the shop that inspected it. Got that solved and I've been driving it all evening.
 
Yeah I hate having to step down in tires sizes. I understand all the benefits, but my eyes tell me it's not worth it haha.
 
TerryD said:
Got the truck inspected and the used tires on it today. It looks so weird and puny with the 265s on it. :frown1:

The A/C won't hold a charge now. I know better than to let things sit there way I have this truck for the last few years. I'm trying to drive it more now and I'm trying to figure out how I want to proceed with repairing it. There's too much disassembly to replace the compressor seal so I may just put a whole compressor on it. Before I go through that, I may try a can of stop leak and a good charge. I'll drive it for a few days to cycle the stop leak through the system.

Beyond that, it seems to be doing ok. A loose battery connection caused a starting issue at the shop that inspected it. Got that solved and I've been driving it all evening.
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Please don’t put stop leak in it. You will hate yourself if you ever have to do a major repair. The shop will hate you if you ever take it to them. And if they are a good shop they will ask if it has stop leak in it and refuse to recover it if it does.

A complete o ring kit is like $4. Anytime it’s opened replace the drier. Acdelco is $12. The compressor will probably be more but I know these systems like to leak at the switch on the back of the compressor which is an easy fix
 
TreeFarm said:
Please don’t put stop leak in it. You will hate yourself if you ever have to do a major repair. The shop will hate you if you ever take it to them. And if they are a good shop they will ask if it has stop leak in it and refuse to recover it if it does.

A complete o ring kit is like $4. Anytime it’s opened replace the drier. Acdelco is $12. The compressor will probably be more but I know these systems like to leak at the switch on the back of the compressor which is an easy fix
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The unfortunate news is that there's already stop leak in it from before I bought it as well as the UV leak detector. I guess i need to get the light and go looking to see if there's something obvious like that switch. I'll also check into that o-ring kit too since it will have emptied itself soon anyways.

I remember from my parts store days that the warranty on a replacement compressor was dependent on replacement of the dryer and the orifice tube so if I go in that far, it'll get those as well. Thanks for the advice!
 
TerryD said:
The unfortunate news is that there's already stop leak in it from before I bought it as well as the UV leak detector. I guess i need to get the light and go looking to see if there's something obvious like that switch. I'll also check into that o-ring kit too since it will have emptied itself soon anyways.

I remember from my parts store days that the warranty on a replacement compressor was dependent on replacement of the dryer and the orifice tube so if I go in that far, it'll get those as well. Thanks for the advice!
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It sucks but A/C is one of those systems you cant skimp on as it will just cost you more in the long run. don't forget about the oil charge if you go replacing parts. and try not to run it too much. Shelling a pump means replacing the ac condenser as well since modern ones have such small holes you cant really flush them. Luckily the orifice tube will catch the debris before it hits the evaporator on the high side, and the drier will catch anything between the evap and compressor on the low side. when compressors go they usually blow debris up the low side into the drier aswell.

I replaced everything but the evap in my system
 
Stop leak for anything is bad juju. I call it "fix it to sell it" as in mask the problem long enough to get it out of your hair. If you plan on keeping the truck, just do it right and save yourself the headache.
 
I'm usually one that does it the right way, to my detriment generally. It was holding fine till I stopped driving it daily.
 
I got the diff skid and radiator deflector back on and recentered my steering wheel finally. Also dumped a couple cans of freon in to see how long it'll hold. I'm gonna drive it to work this week and see what happens.
 
So the A/C is leaking pretty bad. Gonna have a local shop take a look at it sometime soon. I also priced out some tires for it this weekend. Bit out off my budget to do right now, but hopefully by fall after the wife has been working a while and we can start getting caught up on stuff we've had to let slip by.

I also need to start hooking up my trailer and towing it around occasionallly just to keep everything in better shape truck and trailer wise. Bunch of other projects right now that are more pressing (as usual?) so back to running in circles around the truck....
 
I'm going to plan on getting this thing into a shop week after next to get the A/C looked at and hopefully going again. After that, it'll be time to look into tires. However, and I hate myself a little for this, I'm considering lifting it some. I'm looking at a 4" kit cranked down in the front to about 3" of lift so the suspension still has full cycle and it's not quite so high. Then I'm considering a set of 295/75/16 Cooper Discoverer XLT (or whatever it is now) which I think I can also run on my X with minor trimming after a few years on the truck and a new set of lower gears (and locker) in the X.

Maybe I'm going crazy though....
 
Don’t lift GM torsion bar IFS. BAD IDEA. Waste of money.
Put a body lift on or cut to fit. Leave the suspension stock.
 
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