My 02 build/restoration

I used some of their adhesion promoter so that should help it. I think I used 6 bottles of red and maybe 5 of black total. Bought 8 of each originally

2 coats on the body plus a light dust coat
Then 3ish in the bed and 2 on the grille, fender flares and mud flaps

 

Cool. I just was wondering. I used bottled of orange on my truck and 4 bottles of black in my bed and my bumpers.

 

Nice, I dig that orange. I was considering it but my family didn’t like it so

 

Same here. There was a couple that said it won’t look good but I did it anyways. When it was finished then everyone liked it

 

man really like your truck, specially the 2 tone. was on @Orange01tAcO thread admiring his orange taco... kinda got inspired. im gonna paint mine (imperial jade) and do the lower with black liner... hell might as well do the bumps too! jam up work man!

 

Ha the exact same thing is happening to me now with all the people who said this raptor stuff wouldn’t look good

Mine was imperial jade originally, I think. The green would look cool with some black liner.

 

I say do it how you want. Maybe only you can see the end results in your mind. So just do it. Haters are okay. I know I can’t please everyone. So I don’t even try.

 

True, I'm just excited to reassemble my truck and drive it

 

Haven’t done a ton. I have a 3 year old and will have a newborn in a few days. I had a lumber rack on my truck from when I remodeled my house, it was ugly and looks better without it. Pulled off the plastic liner, I’ll be raptor lining the bed in the next few weeks. My Satoshi mod is old, and I bought a new grill to replace it. I couldn’t help myself but start cutting the new one. I’m going to attempt to put the mesh much further forward than the normal back placement. The mesh in the photo is just a mock up, the honeycomb will go the other direction. It was just a scrap piece.

 

I’ve also had a burning smell that was intermittent. I could not figure out what it was to save my life. I thought it was my heater core going bad, but I happened to pop my hood at the right time today. My valve cover gasket has been leaking for awhile. I just did a drain and refill on my atf, and while my truck was running and I was checking the fluid level, I saw smoke. Traced it to the exhaust right under the valve cover on the drivers side. Oil/gunk was dripping down on to the exhaust. Looks like I’m replacing the valve cover gaskets sooner than later. I’ll probably follow timmys video and do everything except the plugs and wires, since I did those recently. I’m also due for a water pump and timing belt, so I may just make it a couple day job and do it all at once.

 

Some progress on the grill. Took a lot of measuring and trimming to get the mesh to sit where I wanted it to. The grill will be raptor lined in black. I don’t know what color I want to paint the letters yet. Waiting on a couple more parts for my valve cover but those should be here in a few days.

 

Where did you get your steel mesh?

 

It’s actually ABS. I found it on eBay. https://www.ebay.com/itm/293883602207 It’s relatively thick, compared to the steel mesh. That gave me the idea to have it only slightly inset on the grill and not flat against the back. The mesh was trimmed (like 4 times) to fit inside the cutout. Secured in place with jb weld at every contact point. Here’s it with the letters mocked up, I haven’t decided what color I’m painting the letters yet.

 

Did the valve cover yesterday afternoon. Valve cover gaskets, cam plugs, spark plug gaskets, upper and lower plenum gaskets, throttle body gasket, and pcv valve and grommet. Had the batter disconnected the whole time. When I put it all back together it’s idle was really high. Like 1500 high. Shut it off, started it back up and it was better, but still like 950-1000. Drove it for about 10 minutes and it’s idling right at 750 now. I cleaned out the throttle body real good when it was off, but I didn’t clean the iac valve. I don’t know if that caused it, or it was just the computer reseating to a clean throttle body? Either way, it’s good now. And I have no more oil leaking on to my exhaust and that is a win. Grill and raptor lining the bed are slowwwwly in progress. I have a timing belt kit coming next week that needs to get done first.

 

Replaced my timing belt, idler pulleys, water pump, thermostat, drive belts, and radiator hoses today. Everything was oem except the radiator hoses. I wasn’t going to change them and decided to last minute. I was way past due. The timing belt and water pump had almost 160k miles on them. I was shocked that the water pump wasn’t leaking, and the timing belt was in surprisingly good shape. I was going to do the cam seals and crank seal, but they weren’t leaking at all so I let them be. Job went pretty smooth and I’m happy with it. Wont let it go 60k past next time.

 

I really like the ABS instead of steel mesh. I may have to borrow this idea in the future!

 

I gotta secure the letters still, but it’s turned out great. Really like the look of the abs not being all the way inset like is common with the mesh.

 

Finished the grill install. I used 3m foam tape to secure the letters. I wasn’t 100% confident on the tape alone, so I used it with adhesion promoter, and it feels as stuck on as it can get. For those of you who have bought aftermarket cheap grills, have the fit fine? It fit fine except for around the passengers side headlight. I had to use a zip tie to convince it to sit in the right spot around the lights. Fender flares also came off. I was going to paint and reinstall, but I like the clean lines without them. Leaving them off for awhile, and may fill the holes. Next up is suspension. Then 4x4 and manual swap. Then paint or wrap, haven’t decided yet. Picked up some icons from @local523 thanks again! I’m probably going to get jba UCAs, I don’t feel like paying extra for LR just to be able to adjust the ball joint, and I don’t really want to deal with the maintenance on uniball. For the rear, I haven’t decided what shocks I’m putting on, but I plan on rebuilding my leaf packs with a few donor leafs. Not looking for the 3” that guys get from adding 2 Chevy/Ford leafs, just want about 1” to level it out once the front is done.