LBZ comes home
 

Six weeks from order to delivery. Same timeframe as the 04.5 LLY. I have a great dealer...both in terms of $ and overall experience. My trade will be pulling my friend the sales managers TT around this summer... ;)

Thought I'd miss the LLY. Great truck, good power, absolutely trouble-free from day 1

That is until I've driven the LBZ. I can't believe how much quieter the LBZ is...and the LLY DMax was the quietest of all diesels...until now.

The old truck

Then the '06 home @ 31 miles...


Still have a ton of mods stacked up in the shop. Need another couple days off to finish it.

Re: LBZ comes home
 

The '06 24 hours later...

Going with a little different look this time. Still have to install the red handles and bezels, tint the glass, Lund bugshield, install my Putnam XDR, and a few other subtle interior and exterior mods.

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Last one...

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Looks great RIP! Enjoy :D

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I still can't decide wether to pull the BS mouldings. They do serve a purpose, and up closer the look ties into the black plastic and chrome GM step bars, as well as the other black plastic on the truck.

I've de-badged other than the Allison/DMax emblems.

I guess the plan will make itself clearer when I get the body-color handles/bezels in.

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Did U paint the wheel well moulding or take off black and replace w/ red???

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You can't get the flares in Victory Red from GM so I bought a set of new take-offs (the smooth painted ones) and had another buddy spray them. R&R'd the black textured ones.

Got out of that cheap, $300 total with paint...

GM wants close to that retail for ONE smooth painted flare! (in the available colors...so that would be + paint to have red ones.

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as an aside...

20 months ago the LLY MSRP was $43674
the LBZ (with 60 more horse and 60 more lbs/ft torque not to mention beefed up Ally 6 speed) MSRP $42433

same EXACT truck otherwise.

my cost (invoice) down about $750!

not only did they re-structure retail pricing, but obviously took some of the meat out.

interesting huh?

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WOW!!!Truck looks great!I had a white 4-door just like yours...just bought a black dually to pull the bigger boat...put the power pup downloader on and gave it even more power!!!Here's a pic :drink:

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what level are you running the power pup on daily unloaded?

any issues?

Edge stuff should be out in June/July. Problem is not being able to use a level higher than 2 and have the Alli hold it.

the 650 lbs now stock is the upper limit of the stock Allison

500+ horse and 800 ft./lbs + are just easy bolt-ons away...

but it takes a 4K tranny build to hold it! :eek:

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I'm running the power pup on performance...I tried it on extreme mode once and it was crazy...no issues on performance but only put 500 miles on it w/the pup...hear any negatives please let me know,thanks.

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do you go to www.dieselplace.com

all Duramax all the time... :)

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YES,Awesome site!It's like OSO for diesels :drink:

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yes it is!

It's a fast growing site right now in terms of membership, so there are alot of flashes-in-the-pan and "newbies" it seems...but the member base over there is a good bunch and quite knowledgable.
I've done business with a couple of vendors and members, all good experiences...yes...much like OSO. :D

If your out of Oswego...lets get together for some boating this season!

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very nice, just what I'm looking for but in white or black

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Sounds great!!!I'll be up to A-bay quite a bit this season...I'm still trying to find out about slips this year at bonnie,they say they might just be doing seasonals(that will suck)...you should come to harborfest this year if you never have.

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carrboy,

Have I seen you at wrights landing launch before? We have a slip at Oswego Int june/july and then spend therest of the season at hutchinsons in the bay. Rip, where will you be this year??????

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Nice looking truck, get rid of the black moldings. It will look better without them. I took them off our suburban and it made a world of difference.

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I'm certain you have seen me then...trying to figure out your boat in your avatar...is it the powerquest 34 that has the slip where Smitty(w/31 sonic) & Timmy D(29 powerquest)dock???I have a 31 I was running last year...here's a pic.

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Umm,correct me if I'm wrong ,but he previously mentioned he bought new , smooth flares & had them painted red...in the second set of pics it looks to me like red painted wheel well mouldings... maybe I'm reading wrong?
Rippem ---- You can't get the flares in Victory Red from GM so I bought a set of new take-offs (the smooth painted ones) and had another buddy spray them. R&R'd the black textured ones.

Got out of that cheap, $300 total with paint...

GM wants close to that retail for ONE smooth painted flare! (in the available colors...so that would be + paint to have red ones.

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carrboy, Troutly is speaking of the bodyside mouldings (soccer-mom ding protectors).
5PM runs a Donz-eye 28

Troutly, I wish they were available in this bodycolor (Victory Red). The only viable alternative for some protection, is the 2" wide all chrome that comes on the GMC's. I am leaning toward pulling these black ones off though. ;)
Like I said, I think they'll look even more absurd once I get the red door handles and bezels in.

5PM, WHITE! you will hate yourself for owning that much black paint!
I'll be where I've always been this year...year #16. :D
I have July and August off again this year. With all the work going on here at the ranch...that'll be a majority of my season. Getting this place dressed out this year is pretty important to me. Got a couple of big projects going down here. :)
First on the list is some excavation and an estimated 300 tons of 3/4- crushed stone.
Of course, the stone is free. :D
To think of all the springs I spent picking rock here on the farm...not knowing it was gold. :rolleyes:
They make asphalt too...hmmm...

Article in the Sunday paper about all the debris in the River from the 2 big wind storms this winter. The last one caused an estimated 38" storm surge in the river. :eek: Docks, crib tops, pieces of boathouses and anything else you can imagine, including canoes, kayaks, whole picnic tables, gas/garbage cans ect. Alot of stuff blown off the NW shore. Cheney's 18 Whaler was blown off the lift, partially submerged in Spicer Bay, and it was 3/4ing into the wind! "It's a lumber yard out there" was quoted. :( Some really nasty, sizable and dangerous stuff...and it'll be around awhile. I'm in no big hurry to hit the River...trailering down to Henderson and doing the Lake thing early is gonna be a much safer bet!

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I just bought an LT, the factory flares came painted, added Denali pre-painted door handles and painted the bumper cover to match [white] really cleans up the truck

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The thing about front-end paint (bumper cover/valence/air dam) is that they are a b!tch to keep between the bugs and stone chips. Those will stay stock on mine for cleaning ease.

Luckily for me the black pieces that will remain go a bit better with red than white. A whited-out truck looks really nice tho...

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We dont have real bug issues in Az, rock chips YES! We us 3-M clear guard on all painted [front] surfaces

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Rippem, I am a red fan, just sold my Ford yesterday, wouldnt pull [safely]my new boat, 37's, 7 inch lift :eek:

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Nice lookin' truck though. :cool:

wandered a bit with a load I bet!

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to say the least :rolleyes: I had 35's with a 4.5 inch lift on it and it pulled and more important stopped my 353, got stupid[bored] and lifted it again to 7 inches, mistake!!! wandered bad and would'nt stop for sh#t, new boat's coming in 3 weeks and somethin had to go!

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Knew I was reading wrong...Troutly doesn't seem to miss too much... as far as black or white,DEFINITELY WHITE!!!I have the black and I miss my white one soo much!!!The black looks nice clean but just a little dirt and it looks like an old relic.

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especially in AZ, dust here sucks, 20 minutes after washing a vehicle[black or any other dark color] it looks like hell

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;) :cool:

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I've had three white dodges, so It looks like one more white truck won't hurt. Carrboy, Smitty and Timmy are very good budz of ours, we'll have to hook up in 'swego. Rip is one of the few bayers not afraid to get on the big lake and visit us from the bay. Between us, 3rd bird and a few others we could have a hell of a weekend in the pond!

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I've had a white one also...(the one that burned). :eek: I found the white pretty forgiving/easy-to-keep. Thought about it again. I'm just into red right now. White is the "universal" hauler color!

I love the Lake. ;)

I'm all about that. I think ya'll like the newest deckhand. She's a hottie, smart, and waaaay :cool:



EDIT: Will "Yo" be there to build the fire? Bruce said that's his first and last name. :p

Yo does do nice work. :)

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yea I had a white truck once too... :rolleyes:

replaced that with this 496/Allison GMC

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Can you give me a little info about that lift? What brand etc... What year is the truck? What size rims? I have an 05 I am wanting to lift and I like the looks of yours.

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Donahoe lift, 7 inch, 37X13.50X20 Toyo MT tires, Weld 20X10 Sandstorm wheels [polished], truck is an 05. If your going to tow anything large, I wouldnt go that big of lift or tire, I like the Toyos, E-rated and wear well for the type of tire, pm me if you want a complete list on what I had done to this truck, 25k in adds

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Rippem,
Congratulations on the new truck. I like the Mods you have made so far. Looks like our trucks are going to look very similar. I am still trying to figure out how you got your truck before me! :rolleyes: I ordered mine two weeks before you and got a build week of 3/13 which was then bumped to 4/3. Your dealer took good care of you.
Dan

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I was wondering where you were on this Dan. :D

"Your dealer took good care of you."

always does! Not only is the boss at the Chevy store a friend and nieghbor, I worked with the service manager many moons ago. I was a service writer and he was a tech...
So I asked Terry when I bought the LLY crew "how do you feel about power adders and mods?"

his answer..."have fun, I'll take care of you, unless you destroy something that my regional service rep wants to look into...if that happens, we'll have to 'clean the truck up'...." ;)

my build week was 3/6. Truck landed here 3/21.

Post some pics when yours hits.

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Rippem,
I just received an email from Howard saying my truck is going for a short train ride. :D I hope to get it next week. Pictures to follow. What rims did you go with?
Dan

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Panther Juice 8
18x8.5 4.61 backspace 0 offset
3400 lb load rating, 3 yr chrome warranty, lifetime structural.

That backspace (or more, up to say 5.65 for an 18x 9.5 (like the Eagle 114) are the perfect combo for stance on these trucks IMHO with a 285/60-18 tire. Less bs than that stick out too much with any tire, and more than the Eagle (for example) will hit the suspension on turn-in.

20's just don't have enough sidewall hieght for any "work" and you sacrifice a fair bit of ride quality (compared to a similar tire dia 20" combo) in a 7000 lb vehicle because of just that fact.

I turned the torsion bars up 6 turns (give or take each side) to #1 level the truck (closer) front-to-rear and #2 level the truck side to side. I tend to go for a side-to-side that makes the truck level w/me (250 lbs) and a full tank of fuel on the driver's side. No noticable change in ride qualitywith the bars up an 1 1/2" or so. I've always done this.

I had to trim the back lower corner off the spoiler.
It turned out very nice...I'll post some pics.


The tires are Yokahama Geolandar H/T-S "street truck" tire.

31.4 dia (about the same as a typical 265/75-16) They have a 3086 lb load rating at 50 PSI, and are getting great reviews...especially for wet performance and ride quality(check tirerack for survey and specs)...and they are not expensive. They appear to be one of the best buys for the dollar in a + size (truck) tire, looks that way to me just knowing what I paid for them...
Though there have supposedly been some found out-of-round...time will tell. One hopped a little on the balancer but doesn't show itself on the truck, yet...if it does it'll be replaced, as I bought the tires through another buddy of mine who's the largest tire retailer in the area. :)

I have no use for an all-terrain type tire as I have 245-16 load E Blizzaks on PYO's for winter. This one may sit out winters anyway, as I'm building/ressurecting a last gen FS gas 4WD for a winter driver/plow truck.

A street type tire for the appearance and performance I wanted is hard to find in this size (18") that has much more than a 25-2600 lb. load rating...watch out for that. ;)

Keep in mind that a combo like this is signifcantly heavier that the stock aluminum wheels and 245-16 tire. This extra "unsprung" wieght is always a negative...to acceleration, braking and mileage...
Your results may vary...to tell the truth tho...how much noticable effect can there be, on anything but mileage, on a 7000 lb. (braking) truck with 650 ft lbs. (acceleration) of torque?

That's my story...and I'm sticking to it! :D

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Juice 8