For Stock Rigs Only

Good morning Jeff

 

Good morning Johnathan

 

Spot on

 

So you paid management off

 

Morning


Snap
Crunch
Creak
Grind
Pop

Yea I’m up…

 

Is that just your head from the pillow?

 

No actually a defining moment.
I made it to the couch

 

Morning Bill

 

No...my tails are 100% OEM non leds. They just didn't come from the factory on my current rig. They're from my '13.

I was referring to Mark's fully DOT approved but umm...*clears throat*...non OEM rear lighting devices.

 

Good morning William

 

I understand……
He has “gray areas”

 

And not just in his beard and top of his head.

 

So I started the bed removal process with the obvious, removing the six T55 bolts. Thankfully somebody prior to me put neverseize on them and they came right out.
After that was completed, taillights came out and wiring was pushed back through. Not pictured, I removed the filler neck cup from the bedside.
After that my roommate and I ate our Wheaties, and lifted the bed off. It's a bit tricky with two people as the bed wants to tip backwards when lifting from the top of the wheel wells. (Tailgate was off for this too)
With all that said and done, we got to assessing the damage. Both sides of the frame cracked, and both support plates broken in half with welds pulled apart. I will say the welds looked very cold, with practically zero penetration.
After regrouping and analyzing, we cleaned up the frame, grooved the cracks, drilled the end of the cracks, and tig welded them closed with 308 stainless filler.
After that we hit the frame with etching primer and fresh black paint.

 

Then we ground down the reinforcement plates, and tig welded those back together as well. Hit them with the same primer and paint, then slapped it back on with new grade 8 hardware.
After that we tackled the wiring, which I posted the results of earlier. Here's a couple pictures of the mess, and one of where the wire was sandwiched to the frame.
Started this at 11:30 am, and here it is at 7 pm about to put the bed back on. I also put in an LED flasher relay to fix the hyper flash issue. And also put in the stock manually dimming rear view mirror.

Edit: I didn't get pictures but we also welded the exhaust back together and got that all installed with no leaks. (For now)

 

Nice work

 

Heavy beasts back there

 

Morning folks

Needed to stop at a place in town about 50 minutes away this morning. Decided to take the Talon out on its maiden trip past the mountain in 4 months since some wiring and sensor went haywire and it went to shit for a while. Went up and over the mountain just fine and stopped to put some fresh gas in it just outside of there. Had a slight stumble around 2200-2600 rpm's initially, but it seems to have worked most of itself out. Still believe I'm fighting some vacuum leaks. Pissed off a biker going up and over the mountain back home, guess he didn't like the catless exhaust and oil burning. Looked in my mirror going halfway down and thought "don't remember the sky being that hazy" "oh wait, that's me..."