[lqdchkn]

2016 CCSB Brownstone 4x4 Z71
-Factory Bedliner
-Black Bowties

Current:

Mods:
KING front and rear with 1 inch rear block
Fuel Vector 17x8.5 +7
Goodyear Duratrac 265/70/17
CB Radio - Cobra 29LX
BAMF Sliders - in progress
Swapped rear steering wheel controls
OEM Fender Flares
Fab Fours premium rear bumper
Baja Designs hood light mounts
SUPERMODULATION SuperSkidz Front skid
Removed headlight switch "Auto" return spring - bigboi98 mod
[strike]DiamondBack 270[/strike]
Ambient light sensor override
GM 4 note horns
El Cheapo external A-pillar light
GM work light
GM ZR2 Rock Sliders
Leer 180 cap
Ride Rite Firestone (no drill) air helper springs

2/22/16 Picked up from dealer

2/27/16 Debadged

3/5/16 Installed CB Cobra 29LX

And here is the down side of this mounting location
Having to decide how much room you want/need to move the seat forward or open the glovebox :serious: I chose being able to move the seat almost all the way forward but still may tweak this a bit.

3/12/16 Swapped Rear Steering Wheel Controls

3/26/16 Fab Fours Premium rear bumper More Bumper at post #13

 

[lqdchkn]

4/16/16 Added OEM Fender Flares

4/30/16

Well I'm beat but it's lifted

6/18/16

Drilled big a$z hole in firewall and installed Daystar boot to run CB antenna cable and for future wiring needs.
Used the knock outs in the OEM mats on both the engine bay and drivers floor to locate the OEM clutch pedal location. Then drilled a 1.25 inch hole as close to center to the stock clutch area as possible:

With boot installed:

Cable run with cushion clamps to guide wire:

Baja Designs mounts:

7/16/16

Diamondback 270 installed

8/28/16

Installed bed mounted second battery for fridge and power when camping, solar will be coming soon to keep it charged up. Also modified some car trunk cargo slides so that they'd hold all my crap in place. They are the triangular wedge thingys, battery box is mounted in the middle against the bulkhead

Also added L-track tie down point along the tonneau edges, sides and back, to strap down longer stuff that wont fit in the bed.

9/4/16

Yesterday and today I got the solar added wired up and done.

 

[lqdchkn]

11/5/16

Installed center console switches and aux horn button for GM 4 note hrons

11/11/16

Installed El-Cheapo LED on driver's side empty hood mount.

 

[and_steve]

What...

 

[Blue15ColoradoLT]

What...

The OP is going to post pictures of a build he's working on. By using the word reserved in those posts, it allows him to reserve those spaces in which he will insert pictures later on without having to deal with members commenting or questioning what he's doing in between his pictures posts.

 

[and_steve]

The OP is going to post pictures of a build he's working on. By using the word reserved in those posts, it allows him to reserve those spaces in which he will insert pictures later on without having to deal with members commenting or questioning what he's doing in between his pictures posts.

No I got it. I was just trying to make a funny that obviously didn't work.

 

[Kokiri]

reserved (My spot on the front page is up for sale; any bidders!)

Just messin. Can't wait to see what you have throw up here OP. Subscribing to this thread.

 

[lqdchkn]

So this happened:

My local place is going to order this:

without making me commit to buying it or a deposit so I can check it out. If this ends up being deep enough to eventually add a swing out to then I'll pick it up "as a fix"

Also called KING yesterday to check on progress for the diesel version of their suspension. They said they werent gonna make an adjustment after all so, went ahead and ordered lift

 

[saytanicmechanic]

So this happened:

That'll buff right out. I keed, I keed.

If it makes you feel better, two years ago I pulled a stupid that's even worse than that (though it was under similar circumstances). I cracked the bumper/tailgate on my Outtie by backing up into the concrete pillar portion of a light pole in the parking lot where I work. I was trying to get out of the way of an over-zealous snow plow driver and didn't see the light pole behind me (back window had some snow on it, I don't have a backup camera, and the light was out on the pole too). Serves me right for trying to be nice, huh?

 

[lqdchkn]

Picked up replacement rear bumper

And wheels came back from the powder coater

 

[Vinolush]

Picked up replacement rear bumper

And wheels came back from the powder coater

Cant wait to see pics with these parts on the truck!

 

[lqdchkn]

Cant wait to see pics with these parts on the truck!

The bumper will be this weekend hopefully the wheels not till early April (Which I'm actually good with since my KINGs wont be here till about then anyway) Goodyear apparently blew out all the Duratrac 265/70-17s model I ordered nation wide and Tire Rack wont even get them till next week and then to me about the week after :serious:

 

[lqdchkn]

Installed Fab Fours Premium rear bumper

I was impressed with how thought out this was designed. It's normal for aftermarket bumpers to need more "massaging" to get to fit right than usually even the install instructions mention, so I was expecting this to be quite a job. Fortunately almost everything was really well thought out and for the most part this is about as close to a simple "remove and replace" as you can get.

I say almost because there are no recommended torque specs (this is normal for the aftermarket though) for the bumper to frame/hitch bolts and the instructions pretty much skip over telling you how to remove the spare tire winch cover/tube guide. They do tell you it needs to come off and go back on but make no mention or recommendation on how to make that happen (rant below, lol). There is no mention that you need to trim the license plate light bracket tabs for them to fit (not really a big deal, more on that below) in the new bracket design. There is no mention that if your license plate is kinda tall you may need to trim it down so that its top hole will line up the holes in the bumper. And if you're detail concerned you will be remounting the trailer wiring socket upside down (no idea why they did this) :serious: but not a huge deal

Rant: To whomever designed the locking winch tube contraption your a jerk and need to go back to engineering school. The trailer harness socket is cake and was well designed from Chevy and Fab Fours even came up with a great way to reinstall (though I didn't use it) it into their bumper given its additional thickness. Why the Chevy engineer that designed the winch tube the way he did, I have no clue it was literally retarded and you need to nearly destroy things to get it out. Why such and insignificant part got such a permanent "locking" type attachment I have no clue. smdh
/end rant about spare winch tube guide, lol


Ok on with the pics and notes

Here are the finished pics:

Toe Steps are good (at least for my tiny size 9s):

Install notes/tips:

To reattach the trailer harness socket to the new bumper Fab Fours provides 4 small nuts and bolts. They recommend you drill holes in the surround around the socket flange, install the nuts and bolts through the holes, which fit though predefined cutouts in the rear bumper. They even went so far to make sure the end user couldn't screw this up by placing the cut outs (and thus the areas to drill) exactly where the OEM socket has casting dots in the plastic :surprise:. Talk about nicely planned. However I wanted to see if I could make the OEM clips that hold the socket into the factory bumper work and I was able too. :grin2: The OEM clips have a little bit of "slide" designed into them and I could see that if they had just a little more "give" then they should clip onto the Fab Fours bumper with its added thickness. I figured worst case if this didn't work for some reason I could always drill it later and bolt them in as suggested but the fit is great and I don't expect to need to do that.

Here is how I modified the OEM clips, OEM top, trimmed bottom:

And here is how they fit with the socket attached on Fab Fours:

Here is the license plate light tab and how they need to be taken down to fit the new bumper:
Before:

After:

And now for the WORST part, the spare tire winch tube. The tube uses an outter ring that is held in to the OEM bumper from behind (no pics of it in the OEM bumper, sorry, I was too pissed figuring this thing out to stop and take a pic). The ring itself is a spring, that tension holds its locking tabs in place on the bumper and when held into place creates a cylinder on the inside of the bumper. This outter ring has internal clips to grab an internal piece that slides in from the back over the tube. This back piece slides over the tube and has "e-clip" or "star washer" like grippers that pinch into the placstic tube. When pressed over the tube and into the outter cylinder far enough, the outer cylinder's locking tabs and the grippers in the plastic hold it all together. To remove it you will need to pry at least half of the internal tube "grippers" up away from the plastic and then slide a screwdriver between the two cylinder pieces and force it out from the hind the outter rings tabs until the entire thing separates enough to come a part. It's a PITA to do and if your confused from my description hopefully you'll understand when you see it, lol so here's pics.

Oh you can remove the bumper from the truck before messing with this and I don't think it would even be plausible to try removing on the truck, so take the bumper off first so you have room to work with this thing.

Here are all the parts removed in pretty much their original assembled order:

Here you can see the inner (with the "grippers") ring and outter ring together with the tube removed. Yes the tube is jacked from prying on it

Another devastated tube pic with the rings separated:

When I reinstalled this mess into the new bumper there was no way I could make the tabs on the outter ring that clip onto the bumper fit on the Fab Fours since it's so much thicker. I ended up adding extra foam tape to the back of the tube, flatting out the grippers (since you have to pry them back to loosen them) so that they could grab the plastic and then just using that to hold the assembly against the bumper. Like I said above this part is really pretty useless and is really just for aesthetics and assist getting the crank into the spare tire winch so there's not really any tension on this thing and it should hold fine with the added outter ring.


ZOMG that was long.


TL;DR : Fab Fours bumper is cool and straight forward to install, OEM spare tire winch tube guide sucks.

 

[deadly99]

Looks great, nice writeup. Is th additional weight noticeable (did it dropbthe rear end height at all)?

 

[lqdchkn]

Looks great, nice writeup. Is th additional weight noticeable (did it dropbthe rear end height at all)?

Yeah I noticed the weight a tad but IMO I think it makes the rear ride (at least when unloaded) smoother. I didn't take before and after measurements but I didn't really notice a height drop. The stock bumper is pretty heavy I'm guessing ~40lbs and this I think they said was 60-70 so it's not much difference. I mainly noticed that it was smoother going over speed bumps a little faster.

 

[deadly99]

One more quick question. How much further do you think it sticks out the back than the stock bumper? Truck length is a concern for me as I park in a garage. Did I mention I quite like how it looks and the price seems decent.

 

[lqdchkn]

One more quick question. How much further do you think it sticks out the back than the stock bumper? Truck length is a concern for me as I park in a garage. Did I mention I quite like how it looks and the price seems decent.

No clue as I didnt measure the stock one but I think you can do that and compare. I measured from the bottom of the tailgate and got (rounding up a tad to be safe) about 7 inches at center and about 8.5 inches to the shackle mounts.

 

[deadly99]

Thanks, much appreciated.

 

[Vinolush]

Installed Fab Fours Premium rear bumper

I was impressed with how thought out this was designed. It's normal for aftermarket bumpers to need more "massaging" to get to fit right than usually even the install instructions mention, so I was expecting this to be quite a job. Fortunately almost everything was really well thought out and for the most part this is about as close to a simple "remove and replace" as you can get.

I say almost because there are no recommended torque specs (this is normal for the aftermarket though) for the bumper to frame/hitch bolts and the instructions pretty much skip over telling you how to remove the spare tire winch cover/tube guide. They do tell you it needs to come off and go back on but make no mention or recommendation on how to make that happen (rant below, lol). There is no mention that you need to trim the license plate light bracket tabs for them to fit (not really a big deal, more on that below) in the new bracket design. There is no mention that if your license plate is kinda tall you may need to trim it down so that its top hole will line up the holes in the bumper. And if you're detail concerned you will be remounting the trailer wiring socket upside down (no idea why they did this) :serious: but not a huge deal

Rant: To whomever designed the locking winch tube contraption your a jerk and need to go back to engineering school. The trailer harness socket is cake and was well designed from Chevy and Fab Fours even came up with a great way to reinstall (though I didn't use it) it into their bumper given its additional thickness. Why the Chevy engineer that designed the winch tube the way he did, I have no clue it was literally retarded and you need to nearly destroy things to get it out. Why such and insignificant part got such a permanent "locking" type attachment I have no clue. smdh
/end rant about spare winch tube guide, lol



Ok on with the pics and notes

Here are the finished pics:

Toe Steps are good (at least for my tiny size 9s):

Install notes/tips:

To reattach the trailer harness socket to the new bumper Fab Fours provides 4 small nuts and bolts. They recommend you drill holes in the surround around the socket flange, install the nuts and bolts through the holes, which fit though predefined cutouts in the rear bumper. They even went so far to make sure the end user couldn't screw this up by placing the cut outs (and thus the areas to drill) exactly where the OEM socket has casting dots in the plastic :surprise:. Talk about nicely planned. However I wanted to see if I could make the OEM clips that hold the socket into the factory bumper work and I was able too. :grin2: The OEM clips have a little bit of "slide" designed into them and I could see that if they had just a little more "give" then they should clip onto the Fab Fours bumper with its added thickness. I figured worst case if this didn't work for some reason I could always drill it later and bolt them in as suggested but the fit is great and I don't expect to need to do that.

Here is how I modified the OEM clips, OEM top, trimmed bottom:

And here is how they fit with the socket attached on Fab Fours:

Here is the license plate light tab and how they need to be taken down to fit the new bumper:
Before:

After:

And now for the WORST part, the spare tire winch tube. The tube uses an outter ring that is held in to the OEM bumper from behind (no pics of it in the OEM bumper, sorry, I was too pissed figuring this thing out to stop and take a pic). The ring itself is a spring, that tension holds its locking tabs in place on the bumper and when held into place creates a cylinder on the inside of the bumper. This outter ring has internal clips to grab an internal piece that slides in from the back over the tube. This back piece slides over the tube and has "e-clip" or "star washer" like grippers that pinch into the placstic tube. When pressed over the tube and into the outter cylinder far enough, the outer cylinder's locking tabs and the grippers in the plastic hold it all together. To remove it you will need to pry at least half of the internal tube "grippers" up away from the plastic and then slide a screwdriver between the two cylinder pieces and force it out from the hind the outter rings tabs until the entire thing separates enough to come a part. It's a PITA to do and if your confused from my description hopefully you'll understand when you see it, lol so here's pics.

Oh you can remove the bumper from the truck before messing with this and I don't think it would even be plausible to try removing on the truck, so take the bumper off first so you have room to work with this thing.

Here are all the parts removed in pretty much their original assembled order:

Here you can see the inner (with the "grippers") ring and outter ring together with the tube removed. Yes the tube is jacked from prying on it

Another devastated tube pic with the rings separated:

When I reinstalled this mess into the new bumper there was no way I could make the tabs on the outter ring that clip onto the bumper fit on the Fab Fours since it's so much thicker. I ended up adding extra foam tape to the back of the tube, flatting out the grippers (since you have to pry them back to loosen them) so that they could grab the plastic and then just using that to hold the assembly against the bumper. Like I said above this part is really pretty useless and is really just for aesthetics and assist getting the crank into the spare tire winch so there's not really any tension on this thing and it should hold fine with the added outter ring.


ZOMG that was long.


TL;DR : Fab Fours bumper is cool and straight forward to install, OEM spare tire winch tube guide sucks.

Bumper is really slick!

When i scrolled down and saw the pic of the spare winch tube I broke out in a cold sweat!

I had the same issues with the spare winch tube clamp on my Sierra bumper. I bought a new reproduction clamp to replace the OEM clamp after replacing my bumper. Took about 1 hour to change bumper and another 90 minutes and a page of new vocabulary to try to get the repro clamp to fit…. Finally chucked it and put the OEM clamp back on…

 

[lqdchkn]

Notes on the KINGs

KING says in their instructions that they set the coilovers to level the truck but that was not the case for me at least right off the bat. May they will settle bit but right after install they were really high. Fenders centerline with the wheel hub were about 38 inches from ground. about an inch higher than the rear. I bought a 1 inch rear block just in case as I've had this happen before with other lifts and I'm glad I had it. All four corners are running about 38 inches from the ground now.