After tearing down the front end I got to what I was looking for. The frame was just like I thought. Perfect! Well almost, the bumper brackets in the center were slightly tweaked. Nothing a larger hammer couldn't fix. It was a good clean hit that got close to the frame but didn't mash it. The only thing that got smashed was the passenger front brake line.
So my next task was to fix that brake line. No sweat I had the Sado to take parts off of. Before I disconnected anything I took a look at both trucks to compare brake lines. This is when I made a big discovery about the differences between Silverados and Sierras.
It may be common knowledge here on the forums but I found out that in 2004 Silverados sit higher than Sierras.
I discovered this because on the Silverado the brake lines run on top of the frame rail to the abs block. But on Sierras the lines run on the sides of the frame rails because there is no space on top between the body and the frame.
The brake lines won't switch over from a Sado to a Sierra. They will however switch from a Sierra to a Sado.
So after that discovery I decided to go to the junk yard and find a replacement and just splice the brake line at the radiator support. I ended up finding a 2007 Silverado that basically just the frame and brake lines were left.
The strange thing about this Sado was that the brake lines looked just like the ones for the Sierra. They were routed along the side and not the top of the frame rail. Maybe the junkyard screwed up and miss labeled the truck or maybe sometime later all the trucks used the same frame. I'm not sure but you can see that in 2004 they are different.
So I bought the line and took it home to put it on the Sierra. I guess on the new body style the radiator crossmember is closer to the engine than in 2004. The brake line was the right diameter and the fittings were the correct thread but the line was short about 3 inches from the radiator crossmember. No big deal again I just rebent the line a little to make it fit. These brake lines were very soft and you could bend them with your hands. I was just careful not to kink them. It turned out perfect. I redrilled one of the holes for the plastic clips but that was all.
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