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2017 Colorado ZR2 Diesel Build

8K views 44 replies 14 participants last post by  fsumotorhead 
#1 ·
Starting to finally get into building our ZR2 and decided we should showcase some of it here.

Specs:

2017 Chevrolet Colorado ZR2 Crew Cab Diesel
-Factory front and rear lockers
-Factory Multimatic mid travel suspension
-2.8l Duramax (VM Motori) 4 cylinder diesel
-Factory vinyl floors/heated leather seats


This is the rig we are building from and using to showcase our products for our company 589 Fabrication. I'm sure it will change it's looks repeatedly.

So far, this is what we have on it:

-Rear Shock Skids
-Bed Mounted Hi-Lift Jack
-Bed Mounted Spare Tire Carrier
-Fullsize front winch bumper
-GDE Engine Tune
-ARB Compressor mount
-Smittybilt 9500 synthetic rope winch


In the near future it will have:

-285/70r17 Falken WildPeak M/T tires
-17" Beadlock wheels
-CB radio

Here is what it looked when we bought it:



Putting the logo on the side:





Shock Skids:



Spare tire mount:



Jack Mount:

 
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#6 ·
Looks interesting, but I'm excited to see you actually fab something for it... It'd be cool to see a rear shock relocation kit to help with that ground clearance issue in the rear. I'm sure it'd be nice in rocks.

Also, obligatory reminder that Duratrac sidewalls are made of paper and should probably not leave the road. :finger:

Sent from my Moto G (5) Plus using Tapatalk
 
#15 ·
Looking good Thomas. Do you have beadlocks picked out yet? Ours should be coming along shortly, tooling and all that jazz is done and samples made, we're just ironing out a few details.


He fabbed all the parts that are on it. That's what his aforementioned company, 589 Fab, makes. This is his personal truck and test mule for new products.
 
#23 ·
In preparation for Snofari this year we made some changes to the truck.

- 1" Rough Country spacer up front.
- 285/70r17 Falken WildPeak M/T.
- 17" Fuel Wheels
- Repainted the front bumper.
- Replace the factory zr2 front skid with our steel front skid plate.

Started Thursday morning off like this:



This is what we ended up with before we left Thursday evening:





We took a bunch of photos at Snofari. I'll post more once we get them all downloaded, but here is a few:







 
#27 ·
:sonicjay: you should have seen it with me trying to keep up with black friday orders. It was destroyed. Felt good to get it all cleaned up.

With the IFS the truck had no problems in the tight an twistys up there. We never even came close to getting body damage. It was a great time and we plan to find the trucks limits.
 
#33 ·
I've seen a few people running 285/70's on ZR2's with a leveling lift - but wanted to ask someone who's actually done it - Did you cycle the front suspension with the coilover removed to see what ran out of travel first? UBJ? Outer CV? Are you losing droop travel with the 1" spacer, or is there enough design margin in the joints that it doesn't matter?
 
#37 ·
Figured I could update this a bit.

Long story short, #4 cylinder decided it wanted some sunlight and poked a hole in the block. Since I had the emissions deleted, Gm wouldn't warranty it. Oh, well, I knew the risks going in.





Found a motor in a Salvage Yard in Wisconsin that had almost the same miles as mine with a 90 day warranty. I drove out and picked that up for a decent price.

Got that motor swapped in just in time for our 2 week, 5,000 mile trip to Glacier NP, Yellowstone NP, and Rock Mountain NP.

Got the truck all loaded up and had to test out the new tent.





Engine was running great, so we headed out on our trip.













 
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