Ok, with all the help on the forum- I bought some parts for the 2004 silverado to help it pull my boat a little easier.

Good news- Hellwig helper springs. I got the progressive, "quiet" version ($228 Amazon). Went on very easily. It raised the back of the truck about 1 1/4 unloaded, and reduced the loaded (my boat on the hitch) by an inch. I haven't taken the boat for a ride to see how it handles, but it seems as if the body roll has been reduced some empty. I only put 1/2 of the max. preload into the inital adjustment. Maybe I'll tighten the ends down a little more to see if it helps more than an inch of sag. The ride isn't rough at all.

Good news- Curtis 15522 hitch. ($172 Amazon) I got a new one because my ball holder was froze on, and I wanted less of a drop. Easy to install, MUCH more stout than the GM one. The only thing I missed was the plate to hold the plug. I whacked the OE one off and drilled and tapped a couple holes in the new one, and back in action. For another $30, I'm very happy I went with the Class V. Bolted on perfectly.

Bad news- I bought a ScangaugeII ($160 Amazon)hoping to be able to monitor my trans temp. I tried both US and CAN codes, along with several others I found on misc forums from other guys. Not a huge deal, I can send the thing back if I can't figure it out. I was hoping maybe somebody on here knew the code for the silverado. I also sent the mfg an email for help. That's the least of my problems.

Bad news- I also ordered a corvette servo piston ($16 Ebay). I messed with it for 2 hours this evening and can't get the darn cover off. I read, printed, researched, and thought I was good to go. I had a large pry bar (construction hook style) pressing on the servo cover and it wouldn't move at all. I had a piece of flat stock against the floor board to reduce deflection there. I was pulling hard enough to bend the pry bar and took a small piece of the casting off of the round boss sticking out. I tried hitting it with a propane torch (I didn't want to hurt it with accedaline), I PB Blasted it, even tried prying the retaining ring off as-is, with no progress. I really need some tricks and tips here. PLEASE!!

Next- I've got a tru-cool trans cooler M7B on order ($69 transmissioncoolers.com). I was thinking about just trying to swap out the stock one (behind the bowtie) with this one. I'm really not in the mood to hack into the OE lines and I figured I would still get much more cooling than the stock trans cooler. That thing doesn't look like it does much at all...

Any thoughts on any of these things would be more than appreciated.

Take care,
Tim

 

It sounds like you scored some good deals, but be careful in removing the cover to install the corvett servo's if you break the transmission case it's going to get real expensive real quick.

Go on you tube and you will find some instruction videos on how to remove the cover

good luck

jvp