Jump to content

New owner! Have a couple questions


Vette.SSS.SHO2

Recommended Posts

Just wanted to say hi.

I bought a 2003 SS a few weeks ago, Arrival Blue. So far I'm enjoying it very much! Its my first truck. I've needed one for a while. I'm into sports cars so of course I wanted a sport truck. Since one of the tasks I have for it is winter duty it had to be 4 wheel drive or all wheel drive, which eliminated everything from teh running but the silverado SS.

 

So far I've worked to customize it a little to my liking. I'm working to remove the nannies.

Pulled the onstar fuse, where is th ebox located? I want to take it out entirely.

Deleted the DRLs then rewired them to come on with the parking lights, because I like the look, I just don't like lights coming on all by themselves.

Deleted the auto lights, although I'm working on a better way to delete them with the option to make them still work when I want them, and making the approach lights still work. I added HID projector fog lights, TBSS style, not in the "brake" ducts.

I put most of my car energy into my otehr vehicles, but I'll be having some fun with this since its the new toy!

 

Is there a way to remove the seatbelt warning light? I'm a religious user of seatbelts, but I don't like my car telling me to put it on. Some cars have the seat belt tied into the air bag system, I don't want to compromise safety systems. If that's teh case can I remove teh bulb without adverse effects?

Speaking of bulbs, I think I have one out in my instrument cluster. Please tell me GM didn't solder the lights right onto the circuit board requiring disassembly to replace them! I really hope that removing the gauge needles is not required to fix this.

 

Where is a good source of switched ignition power inside the cabin? There's an ignition fuse in the panel on the left side of the dash, is that pre or post switch/relay?

 

I have a squeak coming from somewhere behind me, must be something in the cabin in the back seat area. Are there any known likely culprits?

 

The stock audio system has got to go eventually, but I want to use it for the time being and spend energy on other things I want to modify. I'll be fine if I can add an aux input into it. Has anyone used the PAC AAI-GM12 module to add an aux in port? I have facctory XM, the head unit is the in-dash 6 disc changer version.

 

Thanks!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Welcome!

 

As for your gauges (yes the lights are soldered) we got a guy on here that does LED conversions, repair etc... His username is Silverado777.

 

There is a orange power wire that comes on with the gauge lights under the steering wheel panel, might have to dig a little to find it.

 

A few people run that aux thing i'm pretty sure, don't have any experience with it though so ill let someone else take care of that.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There's thread on here, maybe a week ago on what one person did with the aux cable. Turned out really nice...guessing its under stereo/ audio. GL got Any pics?

 

Sent from my 4G Razor

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Great!

Thanks for the welcome!

I have a few pictures floating aroundI'll have to find some and post a couple.

Thanks for the info on the ignition fuse and the aux in. I'm not used to not having the shop manuals to use for reference. They're out of stock until sometime next month from what I understand. So I'm flying blind trying to figure out how to hook a few things up.

I Will never understand why GM chooses to solder light bulbs right onto circuit boards making them so hard to replace. I guess they figure it will be out of warranty before the first one goes, and if so its someone else's problem. Sucks fo rthe owners though! Nothing I haven't been through before, but I do not like the idea of having to pull the gauge needls off. I've done that on antoher car once and don't want to do it again. Do the motors have stops in them? That would at least make it a little easier to get them back on in the right spot. I assume they aren't keyed, most aren't.

 

Oh, andotehr problem. Seat heater controls backlight is out on the passenger's side, any trick to replacing that? Is that a removable bulb or anotehr solder job? I guess I need to get ready for another inteior LED conversion... Although I always like the results!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

THa's a great how to guide on the LEDs. Looks like I'm in for more fun. I'm pretty familiar with the process of replacing GMs light bulbs with LEDs. Do you seem to have good luck with the 470ohm resistors? I guess it depends on the products. In y Corvette I used 5mm LEDs and the resistor that was recomended to pair with them for 12V operation by the company where I bought them. I started killing them a couple a month. Very frusterating to pull the CC module out over and over again replacing a couple of flickering LEDs at a time. I thought at first they might have just been poor quality LEDs but I had never questioned the specs before, so I did the simple math on the circuit, the company was specing the wrong Resistor based on the forward current on the LEDs. Like most they were suggesting 470 ohm, but the math worked out almost perfectly for 560 ohms. I started replacing them with 560 as they went out, no more problems. Pulling the climate control is one thing, I only want to have to take the cluster apart once :-)

So on the cluster, I can (Very) gently rotate the needles CCW until they reach their stops, then mark that exact position with a sharpie on some painter's tape, then when reassembling them just make sure when I gently rotate to the stop CCW they match up? The how to talked about getting teh truck up to temp to set the position, if I just use the stops on the servo motors that would be easier. I can verify some of the readings with ODB2, but not all of them are reported electronically.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...