Custom Upgrades on a 2003 Chevy Silverado - Silverado Styling Staples

  |   silverado Facelift chevrolet Silverado No matter how much of an individual you think you are, here in our world of custom trucks, the basic modifications still stay the same. Shaving, painting, and swapping out body parts will be eye-catching elements of every custom truck. The problems with most of these modifications, if you want to do them yourself, are all the specialty tools required, not to mention the knowledge of welding, spreading mud, block-sanding, and painting. If you have this magazine in your hand right now, then we're sure you have some knowledge of how it all works, but just in case, we're going to show you step by step. We here at Sport Truck don't own a complete body shop, so we hooked up with Drew Brothers Customs (DBC) in Arizona, self-proclaimed merchants of cool. We met Rob and Rich Drew when we shot their Crew Cad'. We asked if they would show us some of the cool things they were going to do to an '03 Silverado, and after bribing them with dinner at the local waffle house, they were in. The Brothers Drew told us that the most frequent modifications they do to customers' rigs are smoothing the rear of the truck (shaving the handle and roll pan), painting door handles and mirrors, and doing some sort of front-end clean up. This story will cover all that: shaving your gate handle and installing a steel roll pan; smoothing out the front end with an SS conversion; and paint-matching the door handles and mirrors. Some of these parts are aftermarket, such as the roll pan and mirrors, but the handles and front-end stuff are all GM. We stood behind Scott Deheart, one of the many talented guys at Drew Brothers, clicking photos and slowing him down all day so we could bring you all this cool coverage. Scott, when you read this, we have just one thing to say: Get back to work, you slacker. Front
The nose of the truck is the first thing most people see, so customizing it is kind of a no-brainer. DBC decided to use a few factory SS truck parts to change the truck's attitude. The bumper cover and lower ducts were ordered from GM and sent straight into the booth for prep and paint.

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Side
Besides altering the handles or the mirrors, there isn't much you can do to a door that doesn't require massive amounts of custom work. This truck will be a daily driver, so DBC thought it best to keep it kind of simple and just install a set of mirrors and paint-matched Escalade handles. The handles have a twist: They are the rear handles, so there is no keyhole in them. This will add one small custom touch that most people will overlook - that is, until they try the key.

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Rear
The back of your ride is the last thing people will see as you cruise off, and you don't want them thinking that part of the truck is still stock, especially not after this other work has been done. DBC is going to smooth the back of this truck with a handle relocation kit from Sir Michaels and a stamped-steel roll pan from AIM.

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Paint
One thing all these upgrades have in common is the fact that they all need to be painted, and unless you have the tools and knowledge to do all the steps necessary, we don't recommend you practice on this now. These pieces need to not only be painted, but they also have to be the exact color; all the parts sit next to something that will have the factory paint on it, so any deviation will look bad. Body shops spend lots of money for the computer-controlled mixers and such, so you might want to leave this one to the professionals.

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