I recently got a nice low mileage 2006 1500. Has the 5.3 and is 4x4. It's my first chevy and I am liking it a lot so far. I wanted to redo the seats and add lumbar support and maybe heat and got carried away while searching for options online. I read a few posts and saw a couple youtube videos showing how easy it was to swap the interior throughout the gmt800 trucks. I was under the impression that I could swap the entire door to get power windows, door locks, and a nicer door panel without too much wiring. Same with the power heated seats. My achilles heel is being impulsive... shortly after reading all that I bought a 03 escalade EXT for a parts truck. I thought it would not be too difficult to swap the dash, center console, cluster, seats, and doors to my single cab 06 work truck with no options aside from AC. I kept reading more about this online and found some conflicting things about the wiring for the seats, saw a few people struggle to get the heat option to work and one youtuber was splicing into the harness and adding all sorts of wires to get them to function right. SO now I am unsure of what to really expect.

I know the cladding on the door will not match my truck. Was planning on removing it. I've seen it's easy to so on some trucks but not the escalade because of additional clips. Not sure if that applies to the EXT but I'll see.

The main issue is I do not have the luxury of taking my time with the swap. I do not have a place to really store the EXT, I will only have about a week to strip what I need and scrap it. I wish I could have both trucks side by side while I do this without having time constraints.

Can anyone point me in the right direction? I've seen some very detailed videos on swapping in the console and the required trim pieces and wiring but nothing specific about the electronic connections for the doors and seats. The steering wheel is easy to swap but I am not sure if I will be able to use the steering wheel buttons or even the bose stereo in the ext.

I appreciate any help you can offer! I've read so many conflicting things I am just hoping someone can offer some clarity!

 

I wish you well in this endevour. All I can contribute is that even though the GMT800 series has a lot of commonality from 1999 to 2006, there will be minor variations that may bite you in the butt making this kind of swap. I can't point at them all, but the fact they are 3 years apart could be a source of minor incompatibilities.

The reason I bring this up is my cautionary tale with GMT400 vehicles. 20 years ago, I was involved in a fender bender where another car hit the passenger side door on my GMT400 - a 1996 C1500 Cheyenne. I was at fault, and rather than make a claim, went to a salvage yard for a replacement. They initially gave me the door from a 1994 C1500, that *LOOKED* the same, but when I knocked out the hinge pins and mounted it to the truck, it was literally a 1/2 inch too high. It would not latch, and the top of the door was above the top of the cab. For whatever reason, between 1994 and 1996, GM had changed the mount height of the door hinges, even though other than interior trim, all looked the same on the surface.

I had to carry it back to the salvage yard while they worked to find an actual 1996 door for me, which worked. All I had to do was swap the interior panel and the wiring for the automatic locks (the donor vehicle didn't have power locks).

The other thing you need to be aware of is that the hinges are welded - both to the door and to the vehicle. You will need to knock out the center pin to separate the door hinge in the middle, to get it off the parts truck.

EDIT:

My daily driver is a 2006 C1500 Work Truck (WT), standard cab + long bed. For what it's worth, I know the BCM supports features that didn't come on the stripped down work truck edition. This was an actual work truck for my previous employer, bought when we purchased a going out of business electrician's business and his 3 trucks. One of our guys added cruise control to it simply by ordering the turn signal stalk that had those buttons, and swapping it out on the steering column. The cruise control mechanism and smarts were already on the truck - it just was missing the switches. I'll bet the wiring harness is there for power mirrors and door locks and windows, just nothing in the door for it to connect to.

I often wonder if things like the DIC are there (Driver Info Computer), since I have the same display my old Yukon had, but without the steering wheel buttons, no way to access it. I can just toggle using the trip button on the cluster through odometer, trip mileage and engine hours. It would be nice to have access to mileage type info on that display.