This truck has been in my family for 12 years now and its been passed from my uncle to my dad and finally to me now that I need a vehicle for the rugged conditions here in El Paso and to tow my motorcycles up to ride spots in New Mexico. The truck was stock when I brought it back here this Christmas and debated on keeping it stock since I'm deploying soon but I couldn't resist. Here's the list for completed and mods in process:

Completed:
2" Rough Country Suspension Lift
31/10.50/15 General Grabber AT2's

This week:
Lock Right Front Differential
No-Slip Rear Differential
Hunter Brush Guard, Black
New water pump, upper intake gasket, plugs, wires

Next Week (parts still on order from 4wheel parts):
2" PA Body Lift
Pro Comp Rock Crawler Series 52 Wheels, Black (15x8/4.5" backspacing)
Gap Guards

Next to Order:
K&N Cold Air Intake
Lighting Upgrades- suggestions for brush guard mounted ones?
Transmission Cooler- researching core options/need suggestions

Future Plans:
Oil Cooler- switched to Rotella T6 because the dipstick was smoking on long uphill hauls
Exhaust- headers/high flow cats/cat-back (still researching options/value for this)
Roof Rack/Roof lights

Pictures coming this week when I knock out some of the work!
Let me know what you guys think!

Dave

 

Sounds like a good build! got pics?

 

I will take some tonight with the current setup. One of my squad leaders is a reclassed mechanic so I dropped the truck off at his place for the plugs/wires/waterpump stuff and haven't picked it up yet. I'll sneak by tonight with the differentials and get a few snap shots. I know THIS THREAD IS WORTHLESS WITHOUT PICS!!!

 

Sounds awesome an the k&n is nice piece I just put mine in yesterday

And ps feel free to put up a couple extra picks of the bl my hockey pucks don't come with instructions

 

Here's a shot of the truck as it is now with the suspension lift and 31" tires. I dropped the lockers off with it tonight so we'll be digging into it this Saturday morning. Those of you who have been in this region know it sets the standard for "rugged terrain". The lockers were inspired by the ridiculous high-center strandings I got myself in out at Red Sands, east of town. Assuming we don't run into any problems on Saturday that we can't fix same day, I'll get it out for some testing on Sunday and take some pics/video clips if anything interesting comes up.

I'll definitely take some pics of the body lift, although 4wheel parts has a location here a couple miles from my house and I've been getting cash back and install discounts building up in my email through USAA banking so I might use that for the body lift just so I don't have to mess with it. I've also got a 94 RX-7 that I built with my bare hands during college so I like to pick and choose what mechanical headaches I give myself nowadays.

PS, I am looking for good suggestions on lights to mount to the Hunter brush guard and transmission cooler options. I used all Earl's coolers with SS braided lines and AN fittings on my other projects.

 

Brush guard came in last night. I started to unpack it but realized I have to bring it to where the truck is anyway. I didn't realize how heavy it would be and I'm doing a DITY move with my bikes on a trailer so I need to weigh the truck "empty" before I start attaching all the cool stuff so I can make my "heavy" weight. I'll probably be too tempted and put it on this weekend to go play in the dirt and just unbolt it before I go get a weight ticket.

 

Alright, here's an update from this weekend:

Totally underachieved our goals for a couple reasons-
1. Discovered some **** poor workmanship by 4 Wheel Center who did my 2" RC lift about a month ago. Two weeks ago I took it back because I got under the truck to do the oil and found they had left the nuts off the sway bar and not resecured the ABS sensor wires so they had rubbed through the sheathing on the inside of the rim. They fixed this but once we got underneath this weekend we found a whole lot more- CV Joints boots were not secured and grease was all over the subframe. One of them was ripped. The new control arms from the RC kit were left without the ball joints greased even though the shiny grease fittings stick out at you when you look into the wheel well. One of the ball joints is ripped as well. I'm taking it back today to have them fix all of this and replace what was damaged because of their poor level of quality. I'll be meeting with the manager to see who was the "mechanic" on my vehicle because I'm really hoping it wasn't some uncertified high school kid working as an apprentice or something. I know when I was in college, I could handle putting a basic lift on a truck, but for a business taking money to do a quality job, it better be perfect.

2. Jason (my squad leader/reclassed to infantry from light wheel mechanics and was a certified mechanic as a civilian) recommended we wait on the lockers until we can get the truck on a lift and have a better set up for putting all the springs in so we don't screw anything up. We booked a slot for the hobby shop on post and we'll be doing them this Saturday.

So all we finished this weekend was:
- new water pump
- upper intake gasket
- new plugs
- new wires- these suckers from Autozone are causing me a misfire so I need to stop by there as well and figure out which one keeps doing it so I can have it replaced.

Also due this week are my Pro Comp wheels and 2" PA Body lift. Those are coming in through 4Wheel Parts here in town so I doubt there will be any problems with it. I'll decide if we're going to do the lift ourselves this weekend or if I'll just have 4wheel parts do it. I'm kind of on a timeline to have things done so that I can be ready to take off on PCS leave when I clear.

Attached are some pictures of the lockers and the Hunter Brush Guard. I'll install that this week after I get a weight ticket for my truck as "empty"...I need it as light as possible.

 

Sorry to hear about the horrible work done to your truck. That is exactly why I do everything myself if I have the ability to. It sounds to me like you have mechanical knowledge so you should do the body lift yourself bro. It really is an easy job, the only thing I got frustrated with was the rear bumper because I didn't trim it enough. Everything else was pretty simple, I did mine by myself in something like 3 hours so I am sure if you could get a buddy to help you it would take no time at all.

 

What all is involved with the bumper mods? Ill have help and a lift this weekend so ill definitely consider it. Thi big thing with me recently is that I'm so short on time each weekend and its difficult to have consistent time at home although we did just grab an extra hour of daylight this weekend. Know any links to a how to job?

 

Alright, so I dealt with the whole ridiculous misfire problem I had after doing plugs and wires. I got shoulder deep in the engine all Monday afternoon and redid the wires, distributor rotor and cap and started to redo the timing before I realized those bolts at the back of the block were not possible to get at with the tools I had so I called it quits. Turned out to be two broken spark plugs- I had assigned one of my soldiers to do the plugs but he apparently wasn't paying attention when he was torquing them and cracked numbers 5 and 6. I buffed out the headlight housings and put the brush guard on yesterday. Pro Comp wheels were supposed to come in at 4Wheel Parts but they called and said they screwed something up and they were being shipped out today. Pro Comp wheels can be found all over the place in El Paso so I'm starting to lose patience with their lack of stock and their long shipping times. USAA's discount is the only thing that has me ordering from them over Summit and Jegs for things like this. They said 4-5 more days for them to come in so hopefully the PA bodylift kit will be in this week and we can get at it while the truck is on the lift. I'll need to do the custom bracket trick for the brush guard once its done.

I'm attaching some pictures- one of the headlights before and then after the brush guard was finished. My phone didn't save the "after" shot of the headlights when I finished buffing them but you can still see a little difference in the second picture. They aren't perfect but I wasn't about to completely resurface them. The fog light bubbles showed the most difference since they are clear. I'm also looking at hooking up a couple of KC Daylighters in the brush guard- any recommendations. The Slimline ones look good but they're so much more expensive I'm not really sold on them, or the reported lack of adjustment ease. I've done some searching but is there a huge difference between the 100 and 130 watt 6" models? I probably won't convert to HID until after I get home from deployment and decide if I'll keep the truck for longer. I was planning on long range lights- I'm assuming these are better for brush guard placement as opposed to floods?

I'm also looking to install a trans cooler too since I'm hauling my bike trailer for weekend trips and especially for my cross country time when I move later this month. I've seen pictures of the B&M model 70264 mounted behind the grill on the passenger side. I was going to go this route since it seems like a good fit and I don't want to use my extra Earl's cooler with SS lines and AN fittings I have in my extra project crap. For you guys who have one of the B&M kits- did they come with the little mounting zip tie tabs? I think I might have thrown away my stock of those from other kits but I don't want to order them for $15 or whatever they are.