Offroad Trailblazers and Envoys

Frankenstein parts to our platform?

Any special projects involving a decent amount of fab work (bumpers, sliders, roof racks, etc)

by bartonmd » Wed Feb 19, 2014 9:03 am

0RESET0 wrote:Thanks. I have been to indi for training a couple times but not in a few years. I am seriously considering your front bumper kit, I may have to make a trip and pick up both when I get the cash.


If you're already getting a pallet shipped there for a bumper kit, it won't add very much extra to ship some tube with it, too.

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by 0RESET0 » Mon Mar 03, 2014 3:03 pm

Wow. I am turning up Zero on my research. I can't find any other vehicle that uses the same front shock as us. I thought maybe we could just swap in a longer spring to get the lift in the front but that will probably max out the shock travel. Next I thought maybe something else used this shock and we could swap out the half wishbone thing that connects to the LCA, no dice. I am still holding out hope for finding a longer rear spring that will fit the rear. I am trying to find data like mounting area diameter, overall diameter, spring rate and uncompressed length to compare to other springs. Not exactly easy. Rear shocks seem easy enough. lots of stuff uses the dual eyelet design. XJ people developed bar pin eliminators for the upper mount on theirs so that they could use shocks for other vehicles. Just need to find the compressed and extended lengths of our stock shocks and compare.

How much would we have to shim the front diff to bring the shaft below the oil pan? Would that section of axel survive out in the open?

Has anyone ever toyed with the idea of modifying the half wishbone thing in our front suspension? Make it longer instead of shifting the whole assembly down with a spacer. Maybe one could be made out of tubing or whittled out of solid steel to replace it entirely.

Which is more of a limiting factor on our fronts, ball joints or the drive shaft angle?
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by bartonmd » Mon Mar 03, 2014 3:08 pm

0RESET0 wrote:Wow. I am turning up Zero on my research. I can't find any other vehicle that uses the same front shock as us. I thought maybe we could just swap in a longer spring to get the lift in the front but that will probably max out the shock travel. Next I thought maybe something else used this shock and we could swap out the half wishbone thing that connects to the LCA, no dice. I am still holding out hope for finding a longer rear spring that will fit the rear. I am trying to find data like mounting area diameter, overall diameter, spring rate and uncompressed length to compare to other springs. Not exactly easy. Rear shocks seem easy enough. lots of stuff uses the dual eyelet design. XJ people developed bar pin eliminators for the upper mount on theirs so that they could use shocks for other vehicles. Just need to find the compressed and extended lengths of our stock shocks and compare.

How much would we have to shim the front diff to bring the shaft below the oil pan? Would that section of axel survive out in the open?

Has anyone ever toyed with the idea of modifying the half wishbone thing in our front suspension? Make it longer instead of shifting the whole assembly down with a spacer. Maybe one could be made out of tubing or whittled out of solid steel to replace it entirely.

Which is more of a limiting factor on our fronts, ball joints or the drive shaft angle?


Everything in this post is covered elsewhere on this site.

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by v7guy » Mon Mar 03, 2014 8:26 pm

Yeah it is, there's pictures, measurements, brain storming and general thinking out loud if you dig back a ways.
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by 0RESET0 » Wed Mar 05, 2014 9:36 pm

OK, 9055 posts and everything is probably contained in 10 of them. Am I the first one that thought that this info should be compiled or is this something that everyone has to find out for themselves? This seems like it is about the same as going to a medical forum to research cancer and having the members say that everything you want to know is in the posts somewhere. /rant

How about a little guidance on one part. What is the wish bone thing actually called so I can search it?
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by Diacom » Wed Mar 05, 2014 10:12 pm

K, see, the title of the post is OEM upgrades, right???

This implies from the first post or so, that folks are looking for other OEM parts we can use on this platform. However, your questions aren't about such things per say and more how do we resolve issues that have already been discussed multiple times. So maybe, had it been to the original intent of this post, and not just another place to go over issues we have with our vehicles, Mike may not have suggested that everything was already covered elsewhere.

The second part of your question is perhaps the only one that hasn't been directly addressed before. But, this isn't the post for it, unless your relating how another vehicles parts would work to accomplish what you are asking.

So now, we have 5 posts, this one included, that have nothing to do with the original intent of this thread mucking up what is possibly a good source of what works from other platforms to a Q&A session on repeat data that can be found elsewhere.

So I would recommend removing these as non contributing to help clean up this thread. I'd say I'm sorry if I offend, but I'd be lying.
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by DustinC1989 » Wed Mar 05, 2014 10:18 pm

Majority of it is compiled....

What "wish bone thing"? Control arms?
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by Diacom » Wed Mar 05, 2014 10:22 pm

He's asking about the shock Yolk that mounts to the bottom of the front shocks to the lower control arm.

A google search of "Chevrolet trailblazer shock diagram" had the image up and the associated part on gmpartsdepartment.com found in short order.
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by 0RESET0 » Thu Mar 06, 2014 2:57 pm

Diacom wrote:K, see, the title of the post is OEM upgrades, right???

This implies from the first post or so, that folks are looking for other OEM parts we can use on this platform. However, your questions aren't about such things per say and more how do we resolve issues that have already been discussed multiple times. So maybe, had it been to the original intent of this post, and not just another place to go over issues we have with our vehicles, Mike may not have suggested that everything was already covered elsewhere.

The second part of your question is perhaps the only one that hasn't been directly addressed before. But, this isn't the post for it, unless your relating how another vehicles parts would work to accomplish what you are asking.

So now, we have 5 posts, this one included, that have nothing to do with the original intent of this thread mucking up what is possibly a good source of what works from other platforms to a Q&A session on repeat data that can be found elsewhere.

So I would recommend removing these as non contributing to help clean up this thread. I'd say I'm sorry if I offend, but I'd be lying.


You are correct, I have gotten off track. My questions were not intended to rehash things but some of them pretty much only did that. My whole intent for this thread was to compile the information needed to make a list of parts from other platforms that could be used on our trucks to accomplish things that we are resorting to aftermarket items to accomplish. Longer OEM FRONT springs instead of spacers, longer YOKE for the front end since increasing the length of the spring will be useless without a longer shock, longer OEM shocks FRONT or REAR instead of the Skyjacker units, etc. I will keep searching. I know this information would be useful and if I have trouble finding it in the forum then someone else will to. I know we all come here to share information. I am sure all of the questions have been answered before, nothing new under the sun and all that. If the goal of this site is to increase the public knowledge of our platform then sometimes that means you have to answer the same question just one more time. You guys all know what I am trying to accomplish. I may not be effective in asking the correct questions but sometimes you can't search for what you don't know that you don't know.
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by djthumper » Thu Mar 06, 2014 3:12 pm

Some of the stuff you are looking for does not exist, such as the longer OEM shocks and front springs.
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by navigator » Thu Mar 06, 2014 3:20 pm

I think part of it is this is such a unique platform there aren't many parts you can use from other platforms with the exception of a few mentioned already.

If there were an option for front CV axle that would allow more droop, that is likely the biggest holdup to our front end while staying with the IFS setup.
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by DustinC1989 » Thu Mar 06, 2014 3:26 pm

Stuff I've learned from just searching and reading

Due to the way our front suspension/axle is designed, Mark's 3" spacer is the max we can safely run.
There are no longer shocks available for the front out our trucks. Spacers or coilovers... that's it.
Heavier springs, yes. Longer, no.
Only ways around all that is SAS, which has been awhile since I've read up on but I think its something like 8-10" minimum lift to clear everything.
Or A LOT of custom stuff that would cost a lot more that a SAS and still probably not be as good
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by The Roadie » Tue Mar 18, 2014 11:45 am

0RESET0 wrote:OK, 9055 posts and everything is probably contained in 10 of them. Am I the first one that thought that this info should be compiled or is this something that everyone has to find out for themselves?
The master list of acceptable lifts and accessories is in a stickied thread. We assume everybody reads the link they're given when they join, and I thought that includes a mention of the stickies. I'll have to check into that.
This seems like it is about the same as going to a medical forum to research cancer and having the members say that everything you want to know is in the posts somewhere.
Sorry I came back into this thread late, and it DOES indeed need a mod clean-up to take this meta-discussion to its own thread. But giving noobs the quickest path to read up on the best recommendations is indeed the staff's mission, and it's under discussion even today on the staff forum.
How about a little guidance on one part. What is the wish bone thing actually called so I can search it?
As has been discussed, we call that the yoke. There are no other platforms that use this suspension design except the identical Chevy HHR (Heritage High Roof, 2006-11), a PT Cruiser clone that was designed by the same team of GM goofballs that gave us the GMT360 mutant we all know and hate/love.

If you fabricate a longer yoke, you run into the same damage scenario as an above the strut spacer on top. The lowering crowd (I keep up with them on our sister sites GMTNation.com and tbssowners.com) has a vendor that makes a SHORTER yoke. But we can't pull that trick in reverse.
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