Project Facelift '97 Yukon

Welcome to trucks. You know, it seems like every time you turn the TV on somebody is doing a makeover on somebody else on their face or on their hair or on their body or on their house. And a lot of people don't realize that you can do the same thing to your truck, making it more unique than it's ever been a little lower. A little faster, a little cooler, whatever you're into. Heck, that's the basic roots of hot rotting. But I am not talking about a complete reconstruction like these. Now, I'm talking a simple makeover. That's what I'm gonna show you today.

All right. First, let's take a look at the subject. Now, this is a 97 GMC Yukon.

Very typical of what you'd find on any used car lot across the nation.

Now, something like this can really be a bargain. So a lot of people are jumping on these things. Now, this belongs to a young lady named Catherine

and it's in great shape. It's got low miles on it, fully loaded.

It's just kind of stuck and boring, which means this is the perfect makeover vehicle now, like a lot of people. She's not quite sure how to do this. So

we're gonna help her out and hopefully give you some good ideas at the same time. So take a good look at project facelift before the surgery.

The first thing that you need to decide is what is it exactly? You wanna do that way? You can plan it out

and you're not just throwing on a bunch of parts that don't make any sense.

Example, this is a two wheel drive street truck. This is a cruiser,

but somebody has put on side bars and a front grill guard like you would a lifted four by four.

So no, that's, that's got to go. We need to change that. Now, here's the point

and

Catherine wants a truck with a little more power.

Sounds better, handles better and looks like no other Yukon on the street.

The only request is that we don't lower it because she likes this ride height. She carries stuff in it and she drives it every day. So

how do you make a truck look lower and more aggressive

without lowering the suspension?

The right wheel and tire combination.

Now, the first modification that most people want to do to their truck anyway is a wheel and tire combination.

Why?

Well, because most factory wheels are pretty sorry looking and nothing sets the look and personality of your truck like wheels and tires. Now, if you put on something that's a little taller and a little wider, you're gonna fill out this wheel well, and that will make the truck look a lot more aggressive and it will actually make it look like it's lowered to the ground.

You don't even have to mess with a suspension

for wheels. We went to Nostalgia wheel and got a set of Boy Coddington that they call the smoothie.

Now, this is basically a hot rotted version of the old classic five spoke design

and it's got big curved spokes that flow into a nicely rounded center section. Of course, everything's fully polished. This is a hot looking wheel. Now, the size we're using is 20 by eight

all the way around.

Now, for tires, we went to Cooper tire

and got what they call the

Zion Xst.

Now, this is a nice performance tire,

but it does more than just look good. It will also handle the weight and the load that that big old SUV is gonna put on them.

The size we're using is a 2 85 50. Trust me, this combination is definitely gonna fill out those wheel wells.

All right, this brings us up to an area where a lot of people make mistakes when they're doing their truck brakes.

They don't think about them and they don't realize that putting on bigger wheels and tires greatly increases your rolling mass. So basically

your stock brakes aren't gonna get it, but that's ok. I've got the answer right here on the table. This is a front disc brake conversion kit. We got it from Stainless steel Brake Corporation

and this will make your truck stop like you won't believe.

Now, the kit comes with two brand new force, 10 aluminum calipers

and these feature four stainless steel pistons per caliper. Now, this will not only give you far greater clamping force but the multi pistons will give you even force on both sides of the rotor. This is far better than just a single piston pushing from one side.

Now, you also get high performance pads, slotted rotors, new bearings, seals, hardware, heck you can get new spindles to bolt everything in.

You can get hoses and you can get a new master cylinder that pushes 10% more volume.

This is a complete kit

and it goes in really easy check this out.

All right, with the stock weenie tires gone for good.

It's time to start tearing this thing apart. But this is a lot easier than you think. First.

We'll just unbolt the calipers,

then follow that with the rotors.

Then put a jack under the control arm to compress the spring,

then knock loose the outer tie rod ends,

followed by the upper and lower ball joints.

Finally lift the spindle out and set it aside with the other junk ready to go to the slot.

Now, just bolt a new spindle in place

and then attach the original A BS sensor.

Then follow that with the new rotor bearings and seals,

make sure you wipe down the rotor on both sides with some brake cleaner to remove the protective coating.

Next, we'll slide the calipers and pads over the rotor,

bolt it to the spindle.

Then we put on our new hoses go up on top both in our new master cylinder. Believe the system and boom, we got new brakes. Now, see that was easy.

While we're in here, we're gonna do something to make Catherine's rig handle a little better.

And that is put on a set of these new Edelbrock IAS shocks. Now, these have a special active valve in them. It stays closed when you're driving on smooth roads, gives you a nice firm performance drive

and then when you hit some rough roads, that valve opens, giving you more flow

that allows the tires to follow

the contour of the road better and that gives you a smoother ride and better control. So it's like two suspensions all in one shock. The best part is

these just bolt into place. Now, we're gonna take a break when we come back, we're gonna do something about the sound and the performance of this old uconn.

Welcome back to trucks and our version of a facelift. Now, this is a 97 GMC Yukon that we're basically bringing up to date both in looks and performance by putting on some aftermarket parts.

Now, we've already got a set of 20 inch wheels and tires on this thing, which has done one

for the look of this rig.

Notice that the wheel wells are filled out nicely. You got smaller gaps, heck these side bars even look like they belong now.

And we've also upgraded the brakes to make up for these bigger wheels and tires so we can still stop this thing. Now, it's time to deal with performance.

Now, Katherine is pretty typical in what she wants to do to this truck. She wants to get more performance out of it, but she doesn't want to put on a super charger or nitrous or something like that.

That'd be too much. She just wouldn't use it enough. Remember, this is a daily driver but we can still help her out.

So the first thing we're gonna do is get some air into that engine.

Now, this of course is a very stock, very restrictive air filter system

and this is the kit that we got from air raid. Now, it includes a new air inlet pipe

hardware and the filter. Now this doesn't just filter better. This gives you considerably better airflow, which of course translates into more power. But the best part about this is once you put that in,

that's it,

you never have to replace it

because air raid guarantees those for life. Of course, you will need to

clean it once in a while. Katherine.

All right, with the filter system taken care of, we're gonna move on to an area where there's almost always some extra horsepower hiding

that's in the engine, computer tuning.

Of course, the only way to find some of that hidden horsepower is with one of these super chips max micro tuners.

This is very simple, just plugs into your engine's diagnostic port,

then you just punch a few buttons. Now, this basically allows you to change some of your truck's tuning parameters. So you get maximum performance out of it. If you are tweaking a late model computer controlled truck, this should be one of your first investments,

ok? We have the computer tweaked. We got some air coming in. Now, we need to get some air flowing out. We're gonna do that with this

Basani Cat back system. Now, it includes the main pipe that comes from the catalytic converters

that flows into their special muffler. Then of course, you've got the tail pipe and a nice polished tip.

Now, this will not only give us a little bit more power, but it's gonna give us a much better sound, which of course is something that Catherine wanted.

The best part is this system bolts right in place of your stock system. So I'm gonna put it on, you take a break when we get back,

we're gonna see if we can help that interior out a little bit.

Welcome back to trucks and our Facelift project. We're basically, we're doing a makeover on a 97 Yukon. Now, the unique thing about this project is everything I put on here so far is very simple. Something that just about anybody can do to make their truck run a little better and stop a little better and look a little better, you know, stand out from all the stock cookie cutter vehicles out there.

Now, one area that most vehicles really need some help is in the interior, but first

you need to go shopping for some parts.

Now, if you're thinking about modifying a truck, whether it be a street truck or an off Roader,

well, you really need to pick up a style and concepts catalog because

they've got just about everything that you can imagine from tail light kits to pedals, to trim

carpeting all the way up to suspension and body kits

and that's where we got the stuff that we're getting ready to put on. Now, first thing we're gonna change will be our dash and our gauge cluster. Give us something more performance oriented

to match the look,

those five spoke wheels. Now, white face gauges have been around for a while and they're cool,

but this is brand new from us Speedo and this will change your gauge face to stainless steel. Very cool. Of course, we got pointers to go with that.

Now, for the dash, we're gonna convert from that old boring black plastic to a carbon fiber look. And this kit from wood view is gonna make that possible. First, we'll pop off the existing dash.

Then

before you pull the cluster out, turn the key on

that allows the gauges to move where they're gonna go. Then once they've settled,

take the template that comes with the kit

and mark where those needles are pointing. Now, this is very important because this is gonna decide where you put your new needles. When you put them on.

Now you can pull out the cluster and go to work.

Now, look at that. It's a nice subtle difference. That'll make people say, mm man, what's different about your dash?

Ok. Installing these carbon fiber trim pieces is even easier because these things just slide into place over your existing dash

and then they're held in place with adhesive strips. So all you have to do

is clean the dash with this supplied cleaner

and then just stick everything on

and that's it.

Now see in just a short period of time, you can have a whole different field coming off your dash.

Now, I know some of you might be thinking, oh, you know that's nice. But

what about the facelift part of this? Well, I'm getting to that because next week

I'm gonna turn this GMC into a Cadillac

using my own special magic wand.

You know, a long time ago when you took your vehicle to a mechanic, his main diagnostic tools were his eyes and his ears.

Now, obviously, technology has changed a lot in vehicles since then.

But also in tools. Yeah, you still have your eyes and your ears. But today's technician will use something like this.

Now, I know this looks a little scary

but it won't be once we show you how it works,

how it works is brought to you by Wyotech.

All right, Alan, what we want to look at is what kind of diagnostic tools that a mechanic is going to use to find problems. Now, say somebody comes to you with a check engine light on. What do you do?

Well, the first thing we need to do is find out why the check engine light came on. Ok. The computer for the vehicle since the problem with the engine or the power train and it's going to turn that light on and let the customer know they need service. Ok? What kind of tool we're going to take a scan tool, hook it into the diagnostic link connector underneath the dash

and this will tell us why the light came on

and it will also give us information about the engine how it's operating.

Ok. And then it's up to the mechanic to take those codes and those, those numbers

and decide if they're in parameter and, and

what needs to be done as far as repair work. Correct? Yes, we're gonna take this and find out or it will give us a general place to start and then we're gonna test the sensor circuit component that it leads us to. Ok. Now, obviously you need more tools than that. What is this big thing sitting over here? This is an oscilloscope and it can basically

di

the entire engine much more accurate than what we just saw. Much more accurate. We can hook it up to our ignition system as well as all of our various sensors on our engine and it will give us accurate readings of what's going on. Ok. Show us what it'll do here right here. We're looking at a fuel injector wave form. It's showing us when the fuel injector is turning on,

when the fuel injector is turning off. Ok. What else will it do?

It will show us lots of ignition wave forms right here. We're looking at all the ignition patterns stacked on top of each other.

We can spread them out in firing order

to show us

how the spark plugs are firing, how many volts it's requiring.

So this will allow you to pinpoint a problem right down to the actual component

really close. Ok.

Now, let's give it a hypothetical situation. We're gonna have Wayne disconnect one of the spark plugs.

We're gonna see how this machine finds it.

All right. What are we looking at?

Well, right now we're looking at firing time, we need to change screens

and I have all of my cylinders on my screen and firing order.

Ok. And right now we're looking at cylinder number five, which is requiring what over 40,000 volts to fire spark plug. I definitely know there's a problem with cylinder number five. So you'll be able to go right to that and fix the problem. I'll go to cylinder five and find out exactly what's wrong. All right, Wayne is the problem.

Well, hopefully this gives you an idea what kind of tools and techniques these guys are using. Not only that

but how they work.

If you're driving a diesel truck and you wanna pick up some extra power, but you don't like to turn wrenches.

Well, this evolution programmer from edge products has got your name all over it

and this has three different power levels allows you to punch in up to 100 extra horsepower and up to 200 ft pounds of torque just by pushing some buttons. Heck, it even has a diagnostic tool built in so you can check and erase error codes. So you don't make an unnecessary trip to the dealership.

It does not get any easier than this.

You know, every once in a while a product will come along. That is so innovative that it completely changes the way people look at something. Now, a prime example of that is this electric hydraulic braking system from a BS power brake. Now, first glance, it's pretty interesting. You've got a polished aluminum electric pump

and a matching polished aluminum reservoir and master cylinder. And the way this works is instead of using engine vacuum to power your master cylinder, like a standard power brake system.

The electric pump supplies the power to the master cylinder. Ok. Sounds interesting.

How well does this really work?

Well, the average seven inch booster will deliver about 500 P si to your brake lines.

This little guy will give you 1800 P si to your brake lines

and that will stop anything. Now, add to that installation is a couple bolts here, couple bolts here and a couple of wires. You got a heck of a system. So if you've got a truck with big tires on it or a performance truck and you need to get it to stop,

you need to check out this system.

A BS power break is the only place to get it.