xT's 06 LS TB I6 4.2 Dark Gray Metallic
- Thread starter xtitan1
- Start date
i wonder what your TB is gunna look like in 3 months 
Fixed my tail light issue (where the rear right tail light turn indicator was coming on when I'd break, except solid and half as bright. If I put the right turn signal on, it would blink double fast).
I took a look at the harness and it is corroded. Also, one of the pins came off of the harness and got lodged in the plug coming from the car. Obviously, water is getting into the tail light housing somehow. About a cup of water came out of the housing. I will have to replace it as I don't feel like doing silicone caulking or baking them and as you can see in one of the pictures, the water has caused the fake chrome to peel inside the reflector.
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My replacement parts.
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I used die-electric grease or however you spell it on the plugs on the bulbs. I think I saw MAY03LT do this, but can't remember. I'm not even entirely sure what this stuff does but the guy at AAP seemed to think I actually knew what I was talking about when I asked for it so I felt pretty badass about that.
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[video=youtube_share;T3bVvzMDqoA]http://youtu.be/T3bVvzMDqoA[/video]
You can see here that the factory electrical tape has become dry and torn, and is no longer protecting the wires. I cut it off and replaced it with new electrical tape. I'm a pretty advanced DIYer so don't attempt this at home.
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I forgot to take a picture of it, but I then wrapped the exposed section in electrical tape.
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On to the left tail light, which was in need of replacement since I got hit by an out of control wall.
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When you use a replacement tail light housing, or at least the TYC brand, you need to re-use this little rubber grommet thing that snaps on to the lower of the two guide pins. It will be either on the old tail light housing guide pin where it's supposed to be, in which case just pull it off, or it will be stuck in the hole in the car where the guide pin goes, in which case just pull it out. Simply press and snap it on to the new housing's pin.
View attachment 29485
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Finished product. Very proud of myself.
[video=youtube_share;aesOi826MoI]http://youtu.be/aesOi826MoI[/video]
I took a look at the harness and it is corroded. Also, one of the pins came off of the harness and got lodged in the plug coming from the car. Obviously, water is getting into the tail light housing somehow. About a cup of water came out of the housing. I will have to replace it as I don't feel like doing silicone caulking or baking them and as you can see in one of the pictures, the water has caused the fake chrome to peel inside the reflector.
View attachment 29473
View attachment 29474
View attachment 29476
View attachment 29480
View attachment 29477
My replacement parts.
View attachment 29478
I used die-electric grease or however you spell it on the plugs on the bulbs. I think I saw MAY03LT do this, but can't remember. I'm not even entirely sure what this stuff does but the guy at AAP seemed to think I actually knew what I was talking about when I asked for it so I felt pretty badass about that.
View attachment 29479
[video=youtube_share;T3bVvzMDqoA]http://youtu.be/T3bVvzMDqoA[/video]
You can see here that the factory electrical tape has become dry and torn, and is no longer protecting the wires. I cut it off and replaced it with new electrical tape. I'm a pretty advanced DIYer so don't attempt this at home.
View attachment 29475
View attachment 29481
I forgot to take a picture of it, but I then wrapped the exposed section in electrical tape.
View attachment 29482
On to the left tail light, which was in need of replacement since I got hit by an out of control wall.
View attachment 29483
View attachment 29484
When you use a replacement tail light housing, or at least the TYC brand, you need to re-use this little rubber grommet thing that snaps on to the lower of the two guide pins. It will be either on the old tail light housing guide pin where it's supposed to be, in which case just pull it off, or it will be stuck in the hole in the car where the guide pin goes, in which case just pull it out. Simply press and snap it on to the new housing's pin.
View attachment 29485
View attachment 29486
View attachment 29487
View attachment 29488
Finished product. Very proud of myself.
[video=youtube_share;aesOi826MoI]http://youtu.be/aesOi826MoI[/video]
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Sorry, I keep forgetting to update this thread...
Since last time, I went down to hang out with MAY03LT and work on my truck at the beginning of August (2013). He's a really nice guy and has a good sense of humor, and really knows his shit. He was also very generous with his time and I was very appreciative of him helping me out.
We fixed my center console, which was not closing correctly and was just generally a giant POS. We reinforced everything and inserted pieces of rubber in between contact points to try and reduce squeaking noises from plastic rubbing against each other.
We also cleaned the throttle body. And by "cleaning the throttle body" I mean MAY basically did the hard stuff while I dropped his tools down into the engine compartment.
Lastly, we put a loaner PCM in from PCMofNC (these guys used to be called "PCM4Less", same thing). I took my PCM home and sent in it in to them. For those of you who do not know about the process, you fill in a questionnaire asking about the state of your truck and any modifications done to it, as well as preferences for various tuning choices. I went with pretty much default and tuner's choice for everything except shift firmness, which I asked for a shift firmness of "1". I think recommended is "0" and the hardest is "3", but I could be wrong about that. MAY recommended I go this way because some people have buyer's remorse from having to firm of a shift if they go with anything above "1". I also asked that they tune for 87 octane fuel (regular at the pump) as I didn't want to spend the extra gas money on better gas. If you choose to, you can specify that you will be using better gasoline and this will give them more room to "play" with in terms of tweaking performance, specifically I believe with timings. You should discuss all of this on the phone with them though, because I may be saying this wrong. When you actually want to order however, they prefer you fill out the questionnaire online. I was a little put off by the guy telling me to do this at first, but then I was on their site and read their policy about why they do it this way, and it simply is just a heck of a lot easier for them and results in fewer mistakes.
PCMofNC has several programs dealing with how exactly you want to do it. I chose the "loaner" option, which is where they first send you a "loaner" PCM so you can still use your truck, then you send in your original PCM to be tuned. They tune it, send it back to you and you install it back into the truck while taking out the loaner. Then you just send the loaner back, and you're done. This way you keep your original PCM (which is ideal because you won't have to do a CASE relearn, which would be the only tricky part to this whole process), while not having any downtime, either.
PCMofNC tuned my PCM and sent it back in a very fast amount of time. Actually, I ordered the loaner only very shortly before I headed down to hang with MAY and ordered express shipping. PCM had that thing out in no time, and as a result of their quick shipping, I was able to get the loaner PCM in time and do the removal and replace with MAY. Since I have put new tires and wheels on (more on that down below), the acceleration and throttle response of my truck is much improved. Cost was I think about $150 after the rebate for sending back the loaner.
Videos from that day:
Okay fast forward (it's now October 2013, which is now about 4 months since joining this site, although I was lurking for a month or two before that). I have:
Since last time, I went down to hang out with MAY03LT and work on my truck at the beginning of August (2013). He's a really nice guy and has a good sense of humor, and really knows his shit. He was also very generous with his time and I was very appreciative of him helping me out.
We fixed my center console, which was not closing correctly and was just generally a giant POS. We reinforced everything and inserted pieces of rubber in between contact points to try and reduce squeaking noises from plastic rubbing against each other.
We also cleaned the throttle body. And by "cleaning the throttle body" I mean MAY basically did the hard stuff while I dropped his tools down into the engine compartment.
Lastly, we put a loaner PCM in from PCMofNC (these guys used to be called "PCM4Less", same thing). I took my PCM home and sent in it in to them. For those of you who do not know about the process, you fill in a questionnaire asking about the state of your truck and any modifications done to it, as well as preferences for various tuning choices. I went with pretty much default and tuner's choice for everything except shift firmness, which I asked for a shift firmness of "1". I think recommended is "0" and the hardest is "3", but I could be wrong about that. MAY recommended I go this way because some people have buyer's remorse from having to firm of a shift if they go with anything above "1". I also asked that they tune for 87 octane fuel (regular at the pump) as I didn't want to spend the extra gas money on better gas. If you choose to, you can specify that you will be using better gasoline and this will give them more room to "play" with in terms of tweaking performance, specifically I believe with timings. You should discuss all of this on the phone with them though, because I may be saying this wrong. When you actually want to order however, they prefer you fill out the questionnaire online. I was a little put off by the guy telling me to do this at first, but then I was on their site and read their policy about why they do it this way, and it simply is just a heck of a lot easier for them and results in fewer mistakes.
PCMofNC has several programs dealing with how exactly you want to do it. I chose the "loaner" option, which is where they first send you a "loaner" PCM so you can still use your truck, then you send in your original PCM to be tuned. They tune it, send it back to you and you install it back into the truck while taking out the loaner. Then you just send the loaner back, and you're done. This way you keep your original PCM (which is ideal because you won't have to do a CASE relearn, which would be the only tricky part to this whole process), while not having any downtime, either.
PCMofNC tuned my PCM and sent it back in a very fast amount of time. Actually, I ordered the loaner only very shortly before I headed down to hang with MAY and ordered express shipping. PCM had that thing out in no time, and as a result of their quick shipping, I was able to get the loaner PCM in time and do the removal and replace with MAY. Since I have put new tires and wheels on (more on that down below), the acceleration and throttle response of my truck is much improved. Cost was I think about $150 after the rebate for sending back the loaner.
Videos from that day:
- [video=youtube;hjyC-K6iYw0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjyC-K6iYw0[/video]
- [video=youtube;yg1zcIfkUJY]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yg1zcIfkUJY[/video]
Okay fast forward (it's now October 2013, which is now about 4 months since joining this site, although I was lurking for a month or two before that). I have:
- Replaced all light bulbs in my headlights with the following:
- Low Beams
- These are definitely an upgrade from stock bulbs. The main difference is color temperature; these are a much purer white than stock, which appeared somewhat yellow to my eyes. Brightness, I'm not sure, it's hard to tell without a side-by-side, but you wouldn't want to go too much brighter without projectors because you are going to blind other drivers. Definitely would recommend buying these over the stock bulbs, unless they give out prematurely on me, but they seem to be vetted by a lot of reviewers on Amazon in that regard.
- High Beams
- Side Signals
- Bottom Signals
- Low Beams
- Removed the running boards
- This was an easy project, it requires a 13mm socket and socket wrench, and either a skinny dude to slither underneath the truck or a jack and some jack stands to give yourself some room to get under there and work. You will immediately see these giant C clamps coming off of the boards and bolting to the truck. You want to undo the bolts that are going into the truck. Once you undo all the bolts, the boards will fall right off, straight onto your face! Perfect!
- Replaced the seal around the license plate pocket
- 07 Wiper Upgrade
- Great Guide at TBSS Shootout. Please note that you do not need the "ramp" part. The ramp already on there works perfectly with either wiper.
- Bought new 20" TBSS replica wheels
- The replica wheels I got at a reduced price from 05tbowner because they were used and rattlecanned with gold paint. I am planning to do my best to strip, or at least smooth out, the gold paint and then plasti-dip them.
- Bought new tires for the replicas, and had them mounted (after some hiccups)
- More on that process here
Okay time to update again...
Show the spoiler to see some updated pics and some additional comments about the wheels and brake job!
- Modified dual park/turns for rear lights:
- This requires some custom work to be done using multiple park boards. Credit goes to MAY03LT for doing these for me.
- His how-to is here.
- Plasti-dipped my wheels with aluminum plasti-dip:
- I got some excellent tips from the GMTNation community about prepping wheels (or anything for that matter) for paint.
- Changed to EXT front caliper brackets:
- I followed Mikekey's how-to article.
- This allows one to use larger rotors in the front. It's a very simple upgrade if you're changing the rotors and pads anyway.
- Painted all caliper brackets and calipers red:
- I used a wire-wheel on a power drill to prep. The wire wheel is similar to the one pictured here.
- Used a duplicolor caliper kit, except the brush was terrible (bristles kept coming out) so I changed to a cheap disposable brush that was of a similar size and shape but better quality.
- Wear a respirator for all of the dust! I used this one.
- I used these cartridges with the respirator.
- Installed new brakemotive drilled and slotted rotors and pads:
- Brakemotive is a company that sells rotors and pads on eBay. They have a good reputation around here and are very inexpensive. We will see how my experience goes.
- Discussion of Brakemotive rotors
Show the spoiler to see some updated pics and some additional comments about the wheels and brake job!
xtitan1 said:I did my wheels finally. Some prep work as advised in a thread I made on here by some members who had great tips (thanks guys). I basically ended up finding that 320 grit dry on a sanding block worked the best. Just get it smooth to the touch when you run your hand over it. Obviously then make sure it's thoroughly clean and dry.3 coats of aluminum plasti dip. I had to shake the can like five minutes straight so that it wouldn't come out in clumps. Keep those bottles warm. I masked off with painter's tape and newspaper. I finished with one heavier coat of clear gloss dip. Take all of the tape off right after you out the last coat on or you may pull all of the plasti dip off with it if you let it dry. Best advice I received was to get a respirator. I thought they were only for professional painters and too expensive, but 3m sells a nice one for like 30 bucks. It saved me a whole lot of headache (literally). I was also able to use it while grinding the calipers with a wire wheel so I wouldn't breath whatever the heck that stuff was.Example of how a wheel came out:Finished product (sorry for the dirty car, I have wax and sealant on under there for protection though so don't freak out too bad):
