Removing 1990 Suburban nose

[SUX2BU99]

Finally found one for a great deal and I'm going to go get it. Grille, headlight buckets, all lights and rad support. Once the buckets and grille is out, are the rad support bolts all easily acccessible up top? Do I have to crawl under for anything or cut anything? If it has the factory oil cooler and anything else like that, I'll just unbolt them but leave them hooked up to their lines.

[fitz]

The 2 body bolts that go through the frame can be tough if it's a rust belt truck. Spray them down with some PB Blaster. Don't forget to grab the wiring harness.

[SUX2BU99]

Are those the same ones that go through the bushings that you replace when you buy a cab bushing kit? I did those in my truck earlier this year and they were a little tricky to get to but not terribly bad.

I'll get as much of the harness as I can but since I have a 4-headlight system now, can't I just splice the new wires in to the old and it be fine?

[fitz]

Yes, those are the bushings I was talking about.

[VileZambonie]

The harness is easy enough to grab but yes you can rewire it.

[Engineer]

You will definately want to save the wiring harness.

The headlight, and parklight sockets are different.

The headlight bulbs use small pins for the electrical connections, unlike the flat spade type connectors that your older truck uses.

[HAULIN IT]

Sux, You will have the 6 (3 on each side) 13mm bolts going up through the front of the fender liners/wheelhouses that need to be removed while on your back You may find it easier to remove the rad supports if you loosen the wheelhouses from the fenders (about the first 3 bolts up from the front under the fender lip) & the 2 big ones (at the tri-angle) going into the toeboard area of the cab, this lets the wheelhouses drop a bit & the fenders spread just a bit. Lorne

[SUX2BU99]

Thanks guys. In about the time span of 1.5 hours I got it all done with the help of the seller and some air tools. Doing it by myself on the dirt at a local wrecking yard that wanted $400+ for a pretty good shape GMC nose I don't think would have been possible. 6 or 7 times we thought we had all the bolts and then kept finding more! The trickiest to find and see were the ones under the evap canister and down in the corner by the batter tray and the one in the front of the valence panel to the center support. The hardest to get at and get loose were the body bushing bolts. Luckily nothing broke though except one piece of the center grille section that I busted while trying to get it out  It's hidden by a headlight bucket though so that's good and I can epoxy it.

The wiring plug at the fusebox was a PITA to get released but I got the whole thing now. Will that plug into my old-style glass-fuse fusebox?

The chrome itself on all of the pieces is peeling in some places and the Chevy logo isn't mint either. The rad support itself seemed to be in good shape even though the inside of it has a thin layer of dirt on it. I figure I'll probably either strip the chrome off and paint those places that had chrome on them with satin aluminum paint and if that doesn't look good, I'll just buy repop buckets and center section. The tranny cooler came along with it too but I have a B&M one already so the mounting locations will come in handy to be reused.

All in all though a good deal I think for $100.

[Captkaos]

Glass fuses on an 85?  Shouldn't be...
If it is glass they won't work, if it is the 85, you may have to move a couple, but most of it will bolt in.

[SUX2BU99]

My truck is somewhat of a mutt. It's an 81 by VIN but I believe I have a pre-81 frame since I don't see the weight-saving openings, I have an old-style steering column with the 1-button cruise switch and a glass fuse box. I seem to recall though my 81 Jimmy having that too. It's only an 85 from the trim on it. I just call it an 85 since that's what it looks like lol

[Captkaos]

AH.  I think you may have so repinning in your future then.

[SUX2BU99]

Hmmm, well either that or breaking out the DMM and find out what wire can be spliced to what  lol  So much for plug n' play!