Project 2005 Chevy Colorado
This project grew out of me wanting to make several different parts for the new Colorado. I asked around and offered to do a bag job with free labor. I only wanted the customer to pay for all the parts. The truck had been lowered a bit and already had 20s on it. The truck was brand new. I started by bringing it in the shop and setting it up on stand level and ready to take apart. The rear of the stock Colorado had lots of things for us to move to allow room for the step notch.
I started by removing the bed and wheels. I measured every aspect of the frame, crossmembers and rear section. I used an S-10 rear step notch 8 piece kit on this truck. I prototyped and made the 4 link, driveline crossmember and gas tank mount. I made jigs for all these parts. The transmission crossmember was given to me by Clean Cut Creations for use in a tech article. The front suspension is also very cluttered up and very compact. It will take lots of cutting and moving to make room for even small bags in this front end.
We started cutting the front of the frame so we could notch into it and replate it. We cut out enough to make room for some small 2500lb Firestone bags. Even this was going to be close.
The truck had some of these DJM lower control arms already on it. I used these to make a jig for some BYC tubular arms I would soon make. I think I should have gotten some stock arms to make the jig from.
The upper control arms were stock stamped steel. These I used to make some tubular upper arms. The first prototypes I didnt like much. If I make more I will certainly start with stock arms and go from there.
The BYC lowers were made off of the DJM lowers and we used 1&1/4"x1/4" DOM tube. the uppers were 1"x1/4" DOM tube. look for DHP to make tubular arms for Colorado/Canyon trucks for bags in the future. I will probably also make these for strut bags and/or air cylinders.
The transmission crossmember was a piece from Clean Cut Creations. We started by cutting out the welded in stock crossmember ends. These ends are welded to the frame and have a small center section that unbolts. The problem was that the whole thing hung way down below the stock frame rails. We cut off everything that was lower than the frame rails.
The trans crossmember ends were cut out and we cut a hole into the frame and welded in a plate that had nuts welded to the back of it. This allowed us to install the CCC transmission crossmember without the long bolts going completely through the frame.
This truck was also finished in a rush as I tried to keep BYC afloat. I had fun doing this truck and look forward to more projects in the future where I get to prototype parts and come out with totally new products.
For more info on this or any of the other projects on our projects pages, please feel free to email me at
Mike@Dallashotrodparts.com
