1999 Chevy Tahoe 2 Door Refresh

Here are some pictures and measurements of the 1996-2000 Chevy serpentine system.
I would call the stickout 7-3/4" from the mounting surface on the cylinder head to the mounting surface of the fan/water pump pulley.
I would be curious to know if this setup would fit on a V6 in a short nose CJ.

 

take your engine and subtract 4.4"
Isn't that the same as @scott milliner is running?

I think he needed to trim the pre-shroud a bit.

 

What's the distance from the bellhousing to the front? I can compare it to my Buick 350 '71 that just fits with the side flow radiator tanks almost touching the back of the headlight buckets.

 

I'll see what I can do.

 

This is early 90’s serpentine setup, similar, I can check measurement tomorrow and compare. As @Jw60 said I had to trim the original grill shroud , same motor as Scott.

 

Looking at the '71, the Buick 350 is about 26 1/2" from bellhousing to the front of the fan pulley. In my case, the radiator ended up directly on top of the front crossmember. I decided keep most of the stock front crossmember and went to a side tank radiator to get more core area. Normal top/bottom tanks would have taken up a lot of the vertical space behind the grill limiting core area.

I trimmed an inch off the top of the crossmember for more height clearance and also trimmed the horizontal lip off the back for fan clearance. You can see how close the tanks are to the headlight buckets:


I have to run a low profile fan to clear both the fan belts and radiator at the same time. It's really tight but cools well, even on 100 degree days:


It ended up so tight because I wanted to keep my original paint grill and didn't want to cut the crossframe out. A much better solution would be to remove the crossframe, make a new one further forward, and go with an intermediate grill/radiator. That would give you both a decent sized off-the-shelf radiator and a 1.5 to 2 more inches of length over my setup.

 

Finally got around to taking a measurement, can’t get a straight edge in there but it’s 8” off the face of the block to front of water pump pulley.

 

More progress.
New battery cables from Fast and Quiet.
1/0 red cables for battery to starter and alternator to battery.
1/0 black for ground from battery to frame and engine to frame union.
4 awg for back of cylinder head to frame and body to frame union.





Buttoned up the passenger side wiring and battery cables.
All battery/ground connections sprayed with terminal sealer.
Picked up a factor starter heat shield on ebay..... one of those items that always seem to go missing.






The engine wiring harness is back in place with new retainers.
It was a bit of a struggle to get the new convoluted tubing to fit the harness layout. Once the everything gets hot it should relax.





Installed new power steering hoses.
Using the hex broach in the pump, I primed the steering system.

 

That looks awesome. I'm always a little jealous of cars from dryer climates. I wish my '93 Chevy pickup looked half as nice as those first pictures.

 

Lots of forward progress... just not much that is worthy of pics.
I did get the headers installed last night.
After cleaning them up I installed a fresh pair of A.I.R injection valves and bolted them to the engine with a fresh set of 12pt header bolts.
I hate those pesky 6pt bolts, always wanting to round off.
Resisting the urge to fire it up open headers!






With the headers installed a new problem has come up.
The passenger side header is touching the heat shield at the firewall/trans tunnel. This is probably due to the new engine mounts, new transmission mount and old grumpy body mounts.
I imagine that a new set of body mounts will improve the ride quality too.

 

Some progress over the weekend.
I upgraded the AC compressor from the problematic GM HT6 (aka belly leeker) to a Sanden SD7 style compressor.
The Sanden compressors are much more reliable than the GM style and came standard on some of GM's higher end vehicles.
This compressor coupled with a high temp orfice tube should cool the rig better than it came from the factory.

Moving to the other side of engine we have a Power Master 165 amp alternator. This is replacing the 105 amp units that were in both the Tahoe and Yukon.
The Yukon alternator was original and the Tahoe alternator had at least 150,000 miles on it from the best of my memory.
The Power Master unit comes with a dyno test sheet. It puts out 107 amps at idle and 188 amps at max RPM.
I have to source a separate ground cable equal to the size of the charge cable per the instructions. My best guess is it could prevent shocking myself with the engine running.
I have continuity between the alternator body and the frame ground.





The ignition system was topped off with a set of Taylor Cable 8.2mm plug wires. At some point the coil and ignition module will get replaced with high output units from D.U.I.
Bilstien shocks installed, these were harvested from the Yukon.
New heater hoses and heater control valve. The heater control valve is the reason this engine received a new top end a couple years ago.

 

I'm upgrading all of the cables with welding cable from https://www.fastandquiet.com/cables?gad_source=1
Back in post #48 I posted a pic of the new cables.
I am looking forward to the improvement!

 

I mean, I'm not certain that it's possible to "oversize" your grounds, electrically speaking. When I had to replace the battery ground on my F150, I replaced it with 2/0 welding cable, because the chintzy little 4GA factory cable would just get hotter than a firecracker, if you cranked on it very long.

 

My battery connections for positive and negative are both 1/0.
The engine is grounded with 4 AWG at both the front and rear.
The alternator instructions call for a ground cable the same size as the power wire so I will be adding an additional ground tie in of 1/0.
This new setup has to be better than the factory flat woven grounds.

 

New body mounts!
These are silicone mounts for 2001-2005 GM trucks from S&B Filters. Later model GM and Ford trucks are known for rubber body mount issues.
S&B mounts are not only for repair but designed as an improvement over rubber bushings with metal on metal contact points.
While they are not made for my era of truck, a quick cleanup with a burr in a die grinder opens the frame hole for the mount to fit.
Definitely not a cheap upgrade... but I think it's going to be worth it!












Four down four more to go!
It seems like they could save some money on packaging and shipping costs..... but maybe they choose to package them this way to justify the high price tag!





Something interesting....
This is one of rearmost body mounts. It appears that at some point a critter took up shop in the rear body structure.

There are 8 body mounts for the tub of the Tahoe.
The rear four mounts are subject to mud and water splash more than the front four. I decided to order new OEM bolts for all body mount positions.
When the bolts come in, I will bolt down the passenger side before moving to the drivers side.
This is is why my projects always take 10x longer than anticipated......

 

All of the body mount modification and install went smoothly. Just a little kiss with a die grinder opened up the frame holes roughly .050 and the bushings fit perfectly into place.
The supplied bolts for 2001-2005 GM trucks worked perfectly. After torquing all of the mount bolts to the spec of 65 ft lbs I was left with roughly 1/2" of body lift and plenty of firewall to header clearance.
Next up is the transfer case.
The tc from the Tahoe is clapped out. The chain has been stretched and rubbed the case for a while. All of the bolt threads for connection to the transmission are wallowed out too.... that's a separate story.... I have chosen to use the low mileage tc from the Yukon instead.
The 32 spline input from the Tahoe tc needs to be swapped into the Yukon tc. While it is apart a bearing and seal kit will be installed.
A little soak in oven cleaner made the Yukon tc look brand new again. Once the rebuild is complete I will probably clear coat it to help prevent mud and grease from sticking to the raw aluminum.
Clean parts always make assembly go smoother!

 

Looking good
That's gonna be a brand new 99.

 

That is the goal.
Once it is back on the road I will gather new parts for the rear. New leaf springs/bushings, tru trac for the 14 bolt rear axle and possibly a disc brake upgrade.