What's new
CK5
Register an account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members.

Project Caddy - 03 Escalade Build

Overview Gallery Discussion
Figured I'd give a quick update on this...

I sold the ZJ today for more than enough to pay off the entirety of the Yukon chassis plus enough to buy an 07 LBZ donor truck. Found one at auction with 35,00 miles on it which had been written off due to vandalism. The drivetrain is perfect, but the body and interior is trashed. It hits the block next Thursday so we shall see if I wind up taking it home or not.

My wife and I are moving within the next couple weeks to Edmonton, which is about 300 miles south of here. The new place isn't ideal as far as shop space goes (yet) so it'll be slow going trying to get this work all finished up. I hope to stuff the dmax in the new chassis with the old Yukon body in place so I can continue to daily drive the Escalade in the meantime. Once it's all more or less complete and ready for the new body I will need to find a place with a 2 post hoist that I can borrow for a bit to finish the job.
 
Russell said:
Figured I'd give a quick update on this...

I sold the ZJ today for more than enough to pay off the entirety of the Yukon chassis plus enough to buy an 07 LBZ donor truck. Found one at auction with 35,00 miles on it which had been written off due to vandalism. The drivetrain is perfect, but the body and interior is trashed. It hits the block next Thursday so we shall see if I wind up taking it home or not.

My wife and I are moving within the next couple weeks to Edmonton, which is about 300 miles south of here. The new place isn't ideal as far as shop space goes (yet) so it'll be slow going trying to get this work all finished up. I hope to stuff the dmax in the new chassis with the old Yukon body in place so I can continue to daily drive the Escalade in the meantime. Once it's all more or less complete and ready for the new body I will need to find a place with a 2 post hoist that I can borrow for a bit to finish the job.
Click to expand...

How much will that LBZ go for? That would still go for $8-10k here
 
I have to read through the thread still, but I find it cool what you're doing. I have an 02 escalade EXT, it would be cool to lift it and go off roading with it but I definitely am not capable of swapping the entire front suspension lol. I always thought it would be too heavy for this type of stuff anyways.
 
The LBZ fell through, obviously, but last night I purchased an 04 LLY / ZF6 truck to use for the donor for this swap. Good runner, but the same old failed dual mass flywheel bit as the 05 I'd purchased earlier and then sold to my buddy. I'll replace the clutch and flywheel then use the LLY as my new engine.

I pulled the wrecked body off the new chassis a couple weeks ago now and hauled it off to the scrap yard. I also tore Penny down at the same time and scrapped both the frame and the body. I kept the LB7 / ZF6 / NP241 combo along with the front shocks (bumps were trashed), links, rear springs, ORD shackle flip kit and all the other accessories I had installed like bumpers, radios, coolant heater etc. Once the donor truck shows up in a couple weeks, I'll get to tearing that truck apart so I can start assembling the new rolling chassis. My goal is to get the chassis fully assembled so I can just drop the caddy body on and plug everything in when I'm ready.

I'm also going to be starting some major mods on the garage at the new house shortly as well. I'm going to be doing a 35 wide by 30 deep by 16 ceiling height addition to the existing 24x24x12 garage I've already got. I purchased a 9500lb hoist to install in the new garage as well. Once I get the garage up and the hoist installed, I can get the caddy pulled off the old chassis and ready to drop onto the new one.
 
I took a couple pictures for you guys this weekend. Also took delivery of the donor truck. I'm going to start with getting the interior of the caddy done. It needs to have the center console removed to make room for the shifters. The wiring will need to be modified for the manual trans swap as well as to relocate the Bose sound system amplifier and to relocate the subwoofer as well.

My next step will be to pull the body off the donor truck to get at the powertrain, fuel tank, exhaust etc.

WP_20170616_13_37_06_Pro.jpg

WP_20170616_13_36_36_Pro.jpg

WP_20170616_13_36_42_Pro.jpg

IMG_1652.jpg
 
One issue I've been facing with the new house is an undersized workshop without enough storage space. My shop floor was littered with crates and spare parts with no place to go. This past week I picked up a shed kit and got it set up with my racking inside. I was able to clear everything out of the shop and into the shed less the LB7/ZF6/NP241 from Penny. I'd been storing the new chassis outside beside the shop as I wasn't able to put it inside with the lawn equipment and my skid steer. I had a brainwave and realized that the shop is actually a square. So I put the chassis in, put rollers under the wheels and turned it 90 degrees from the door. Voila, chassis inside with lots of room to walk around all four sides, plus the lawn mower and skid steer inside as well just inside the overhead door. Winning!

With the newfound room outside, I decided I could start taking the donor truck apart and got after it. As of yesterday evening, I've got the engine fully disconnected, the core support / front bumper removed and the cab disconnected. My little skid steer doesn't have the lifting capacity to lift the cab off though, so I'll have to wait until I can haul my father's much larger machine over to do so. My goal is to get the LLY / ZF6 / NP241 installed into the chassis by the end of July and ready for the Escalade body to be dropped on top. That, however, will take a bit longer as I need get a 2 post hoist set up to remove that body.
 
Well, I have been fairly busy the last couple week disassembling the donor truck. I finished that up the other night by pulling the cab off and removing the drivetrain (I love heavy equipment!) and decided to tear into the Caddy to get the clutch pedal swapped in.

The caddy had power pedal height adjustment that doesn't fit with the clutch pedal, so it had to be removed. I had to cut the hole in the firewall (which was marked with a dimple) and add a support bracket inside the cab. To cut the hole I just cut out the firewall of the truck and bolted it up inside the Caddy, then cut the circle out with the plasma cutter. A little cleanup with a sanding stone and I had a perfectly sized and shaped hole. I cut the support bracket off with a spot weld cutting tool, bolted it up to the clutch pedal and welded the bracket to the dash. Since I am so deep into the dash, I also ordered a new AC evaporator, accumulator / drier, heater core and HVAC actuators so I don't have to get into the dash again any time soon.

I suspect I may have the only Escalade of this generation in the country with a clutch pedal!

WP_20170710_20_18_44_Pro.jpg

WP_20170710_20_09_13_Pro.jpg

19983662_10159129444555500_5927097244088074915_o.jpg

I also need to make a bunch of wiring changes in the instrument panel to support the diesel engine and manual transmission swap before I put it back together with the plastic pieces from the donor truck to fully delete the center console. I need to add the clutch safety switch, wire in the glow plug light, re-wire the reverse lights and delete a number of the stabilitrak / traction control / suspension control related devices that will no longer be used after I'm done the swap.

I'm also going to re-locate the auxiliary HVAC controller to the cargo area out back, as it will only get used when the seats are flipped down and we are sleeping out back. It's impossible to get at the controller in the stock center console location with the seats flipped down anyways and we like to be able to set the temperature in the cabin from the rear seat. I plan to wire the rear HVAC controller up so I can turn it on when the rest of the truck is off. I will be installing an auxillary coolant heater into the truck and can heat the cabin without the engine running with it. I will replace the center console with a jump seat from a 07-14 truck. They have a storage bin under the seat, a charge port and an upper console lid which opens for even more storage. The rear seat heat switches will get re-located from the center console to the rear doors like the front seat heater switches are. I also need to relocate the Bose amp and the subwoofer which used to be in the center console too. I imagine they will both wind up in the rear quarter panel with the aux heater controller.

All this relocation and removal of devices more or less requires me to fully re-wire the interior of the vehicle to re-route and extend a pile of the wiring. I expect this will be the biggest task of the whole project and that it will take a month or two to complete.
 
Last edited:
Have you seen that guy in Canadia that does the steel pedal assemblies for these trucks? They look "ok" but not as nice as I would like one to be. I'd love to get an all aluminum one but that would cost a bunch with cnc design and machine work.
 
I've seen some posts by him, but with the photo bucket debacle I can't see his pictures. If I break the pedal assembly, I have a spare available to me.

Maybe a guy could try casting one out of aluminum? Make a mould with a plastic and make an aluminum copy. Would just need a bit of roughing around the edges and some machining to install it all.
 
I was thinking a cnc milled one would be cool. Somewhere I read about one that had adjustable ratios to I guess help with the stiffer pedal from an aftermarket clutch but I never saw any pics of that one.
 
I got started on the wiring this weekend. First I tore down the truck wiring harness to remove the clutch safety switch wiring and the diesel specific wiring. I removed everything without cutting anything and removing each pin from their respective connectors. I then started installing them all into the Escalade harness while also removing un-needed wiring for the power pedals, stabilitrak, electronic suspension control and re-locating the wiring for the bose amp, rear aux radio / hvac controller and rear seat heat switches. I purchased replacement switches all around as most of the stuff for the caddy is worn out or has burnt out bulbs for the night lighting.

I also built the manual trans steering column. I needed to add some wiring for the steering wheel controls and for the steering wheel position sensor to keep the BCM happy. I purchased a replacement steering wheel as the original is in bad shape. I also busted the clock spring, so I had to purchase a new one of those as well.

The plan for the next while is to continue to hash out the wiring while I wait for the replacement HVAC actuators and the replacement AC evaporator, accumulator and front heater core. Once those are all replaced and the wiring is done I can re-assemble the interior and get the caddy back up and running again with the gas engine. I may wind up swapping the gas engine and the 4l60e into the chassis for the time being just to get the caddy up and running for at least one wheeling trip this year yet. We shall see how things go with the diesel engine install.
 
If I get some time to work on it this weekend, I may be able to finish the I/P harness up. I've got all the un-needed wiring removed and the other wiring re-routed as needed. I need to add a couple of new connectors then tape it all back up and re-install it.

I got the new evaporator, accumulator and heater core for the front and rear HVAC, but I'm still waiting on the actuators. Should be able to button the dash up soon. I'm keeping my eyes open for a flip down console to install where the full center console was (hopefully I can leave the bose amp under it...). I'm thinking a 3 cup holder console from an 07-14 truck would fit the bill nicely. I'm installing the rear seat heater switches into the rear passenger door panels and relocating the Aux HVAC controller to the very back of the vehicle in the cargo area where it can be accessed with the seats flipped down and a bed in the back seat. I run it in auto more or less all the time anyways, but I figured that would be the best place to put it and still be able to use it.

I'm guessing that I will be ready to swap the body onto the new frame within the next couple of weeks, then I will take it to a fabricator to get the engine mounts, trans mount, body lift, bumpers, exhaust, driveshafts etc done up. I'm guessing this thing should be up and running by mid November. The fab work should be done early September, but I'm gone on vacation for a month so I won't be able to get it buttoned up until later.
 
This weekend I relocated the Bose amp to the rear driver's side quarter panel. I discovered there was no chance of leaving it under the NNBS center console I intend to install. I cut the original mounting bracket up and welded it to the wheel tub. Fits perfectly with the spare tire jack and wheel irons (check out how the wheel iron bracket forks fit with the amp cooling fins!)

I also relocated the aux HVAC and radio controller to the rear quarter panel as well.

This week I need to work on re-routing the wiring from the speakers to the new amp location and also the I/P harness to amp / aux controller wiring re routed as well. The last outstanding thing to do with the I/P harness is to install the 12V outlet wiring. The old wiring for the center console outlets was rerouted for the amp / aux controller, so I have to run the wires from the truck I/P harness in. Once all that is done, I can tape the harness back up and install it back into the caddy.

I'm still waiting on the new HVAC actuators, but the rest of my HVAC parts are on hand, so I can tear the HVAC housing out and get all that stuff changed out as well after the wiring is done, then finally get the entire dash reassembled.

After the interior is finished up, I will be ready to pull the body off the old frame and drop it onto the new one before I start installing the powertrain.

pics won't upload from my phone, I'll add them later tonight!
 
Love the detailed execution! Curious to see how the hvac actuators go. I did all mine plus main controller, and still don't have variable temp. Either all hot or all cold. No heat at 89, full heat set to 90.
 
You'll want to get a Tech 2 hooked up to see what would cause that. It could be an issue with a sticky door, software update or even just a bad temperature sensor. Tech 2 would tell you all of the above.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest Posts

Top Bottom