Ford F350 upgrade and maintenance log

ARBs are sensitive and in tune with their emotions

 

Felt a little under the weather this weekend but today I felt more towards my baseline so I did a little work on the truck to get ready for my road trip for my arb bumper.

Cleanish. Had rain last night but those black hubs really help improving the look as well as the function.

Old bushing.

So Ford uses this capture nut thing that I guess the threads got a bit chewed up. I don't have a tap and chaser kit yet but I had some good old bolts and nuts i used to get the threads better.

Gooder

Bushings greased and bolts had anti seize applied.

Next side.

Done. The old bushings seemed okish. At least by hand the felt rigid but on the sides they were a bit swollen and soft. I have also ordered the dieselsite standpipes and dummy plugs as well as the ipr socket.

 

At mod mafia, gonna get my arb installed with the help of one of my friends. Good day. Also have 3/4 tank from the west side of satx to magnolia tx. Not too bad.

 

Got the bumper on, very quality piece. Better than some road armor's and ranch hands I have seen in the past.

Figured y'all would like a mini hummer pic dump. Mod mafia is a high quality shop. This two door was my personal favorite.

Never have seen this elocker badge before. Must've been a rare factory option.

Cab off a four door.


Moved the pallet to the main shop.

First step is to uninstall the factory bumper. Not too difficult or heavy. Four bolts in the front, two underneath and two in the side.

Next was we laid out all the supplied hardware and inspect where everything should go.
first were these brackets that mount to the frame and installing new caged nuts where the tow hooks used to go.

Second was to drill and mount the tension rod.

Next we removed the headlights to make wiring the bumper indicator lights easier.

Wiring completed.

While underneath we noticed the stabilizer bracket was slightly touching the steering stabilizer. We made a notch and stacked some washers to compensate for the lack of clearance.

Next we can get the bumper installed. As I haven't got a winch yet it made the install much easier. With a winch it is recommended to have three people install the bumper. So we aligned the bumper and tightened everything and checked the lights. Everything works as it should.

Finished product looks pretty good. I need to invest in some arb for lights.

 

I exchanged the clamps on the boost tube today with the riffraff ones. Unfortunately the riffraff boot will not work with the banks intercooler, angles don't line up, OEM is curved while the banks has a straight cut to the turbo. Ill see if I can exchange it.



I also ordered some arb lights to complement the arb bumper. The headlights on the truck are just as bad as the Tacoma so this'll help a little bit and I'm still not sure if I'll stay with the chrome grill and headlight or a color matching grill and black headlights.

I got a spot and flood combo as it's supposed to be the best of both worlds. Hopefully it'll be better than what I have cause sometimes in the hill country they have random cows out in the road.

 

Thanks brother, yeah in satx that is the norm unfortunately and I see the end results in the ed. That wreck looks awful but the cab is in very good shape so glad everyone was safe. Imo there's no excuse not to tie down loads as harbor freight has straps from like $6.

 

Did some maintenance today, starting with the coolant filter.


This second filter has less contaminates then the first filter.

This filter should be good for a years operation.

Next is the external transmission filter. To me it looks original.


Cleaned housing

New filter installed.

Done. Now to do the transmission side.

 

Today I did the rest of the transmission maintenance and upgrades.

Got the ppe transmission pan, lubelocker gasket, xdp solenoid, sonnax plug, and amsoil transmission fluid.


What I like to do is lay the gasket and put the bolts through to check the true ness of the gasket. So far looks good.

Next was to drain the fluid and remove the pan. I believe the stock pan holds 8 qts.

Kinda hard to take pics with fluid and gloves but the solenoid to replace is the middle one in the back. All the stock solenoids have the plug at the 6 o clock position.

New xdp solenoid installed. Whats weird is you install at the 6 o clock position to slide it in then rotate to the 7 o clock position to get is fully seated to install the c clip.

Unfortunately I could not figure out how to take the old plastic plug out. Not a transmission expert so it'll have to wait. I really couldn't find any instructions for it so it could've been a pinch to release which I think is what is was or another clip but it's in a weird spot for one. Another to-do in the future.

Next I installed the 6.4l powerstroke filter. What's nice is this is a screen and filter. The old one for a 6.0 powerstroke is just a screen.

Next this part was difficult by yourself but doable. These pan is considerably heavier but is supposed to add rigidity to prevent the case for flexing. I am not a fan of the allen bolts. It's not much of a problem until you try to torque the 3 back bolts on top of the transmission cross member. I just used an Allen key by hand and matched the torque of the others by feel. They're only torqued to 10 ft pounds. Topped of the fluid and started it and ran through all the gears and no leaks. All that is left is to take it for a test drive.

 

Arb lights came in, now I need to figure out how to mount them.




Maybe one bolt is good enough as when this bumper came out one bolt was good enough for the ipf lights. On the other hand maybe a t piece bracket would be better to mount the lights. I'll have a look around and brainstorm.

 

Very Interesting they changed the Light Mount but the Bumper Bracket is still the same.

 

i guess its a why change it if it works?
a possible solution in my mind
https://www.mcmaster.com/33125T464/

 

Does that measure up to all the holes correctly? Or close enough with a little help?

 

I decided to just see if one bolt would be good enough. As the instructions require two washers and included a nylock nut it wouldn't hurt to try. After putting some muscle on it I can shake the truck so I believe it's rigid enough. Per @Torspd just send it



Plenty of clearance with the top bar. Might've been ok with the 9in but I didn't want to take away too much room for the radiator.



I included the dimensions Incase it's needed later.


Square catch nuts go in the back and are held by the arb bracket.


Both spot and flood lights installed. Pretty neat imo. I ran out of daylight so I'll need to do the wiring tomorrow. From the instructions it is plug and play. Only thing that's not is the high beam adapter. I believe my truck runs h13 bulbs so it's not compatible with the plug.

 

Looks Good!!! All will tell once your moving and how much vibration there is or isn't when they are on.

 

Decided to do the wiring after work. First was to find a hole. This looks like it's for the manual equipped truck so I have access.

Controller cable in the cab

the blank for the power pedals looks like the best spot.

popped blank out and tucked the wire through over the fuse box.

Most people mount the controller like this but exposes the hole. So...

I'll mount it like this.

running the harness was a slight challenge as everything is shoehorned in here cause of the diesel. But I found a decent route going through the driver side headlight.

Ran the harness over the frame and inside the bumper.

Found a good body ground on the inner fender.

Hooked up the red to the battery and..... nothing. So I'm thinking maybe it was to be wired into the high beams and can't be bypassed. I'll have to look at the instructions some more tomorrow. But seems like 90% there.

 

Egt gauge came in, figured it'll be installed when the new intake manifold goes in with the new up pipe.
https://youtu.be/el94_h2jJB8?si=XvV89r19yLMKkYXJ
Install vid shows the install isn't as bad with the stock manifold.


Got new OEM cab moldings. Might need to embrace my inner David freiburger and get another set of OEM goodness.

Arb looks good on the Chevy's.

 

I had cut the second oil filter last night for comparison. Much less junk when compared to the first filter pictured below.

Ideally I'd get the bullet proof diesel oil cooler which is on the list but a couple of other purchases are in front.

 

Got this new multi port charger in.

 

Got home and installed the new PowerPoint

The wiring was as I expected which is power and ground. Simple enough


The new PowerPoint has a fuse built-in so it was a redundancy.

Wired up
off

On

Installed. It's nice to turn off the PowerPoint without having to unplug everything. For some reason Ford decided that the PowerPoint is always live.