The Dog's Spruce It Up Build (and BS)

Bummer man. Well, being a premium shock you could probably sell them for a decent amount to make the switch to something else. Is it NW Expo you’re going to?

 

No, that's in a couple weeks but I'm not going. Just a family outing into a pretty fantastic part of the state.

 

Cool man. Well enjoy a fabulous, well deserved trip!

 

Well this piece of artwork showed up today. Going to test fit tomorrow and hopefully get her dropped off for powder coating.



@At The Helm front bumper!!! Morgan!

I went with this bumper for several reasons which include full 3/16" steel construction throughout - main structure / skin / frame capture brackets / everything, integrated Hi-Lift points, nice clean lines and a style that isn't overdone or unnecessarily complex, and lines which offer a little more coverage over the front wing area compared to some other makes.




Off to powder coat tomorrow

 

Took the front end apart today to test fit the bumper before powder.

Started with this:




Popped the grille off by removing the two Philips head screws on top and removing the plastic rivets.

Removed additional plastic rivets holding the top of the plastic bumper on.








Removed the headlight filler pieces by squeezing the green clip with some 30 degree needle nose pliers and once removed, pulling the filler piece towards the center of the bumper.

Next, removed three Philips head screws and another plastic rivet and two 10mm bolts from the underside of the bumper below the fog light and up by the attachment to the fender and in the middle attaching to a brace.







The bumper should now only be help on by the clips between the top of the bumper and the fenders. My passenger side clip was not wanting to release easily so I took a plastic interior trim removal tool to apply some downward pressure to get the clip to release.

Next the bumper pops off and the aluminum crush bar (the only real bumper on the stock truck) is removed by removing the 14mm nuts off of the 6 studs.

I had to put a small amount of outward pressure on one of the studs to get it to slip off easily (you do not want to damage the threads on the studs!!)





And voila!



The horizontal sheet metal bracket between the headlights is removed and now the truck looks like this.



Test fit.....



Dropped off at Avid Offroad today for powder coating.

 

That's gonna look killer

 

I'm pretty stoked.

What did you do with your plastic fender liners when you installed your bumper? Cut them off or I've seen where some have kind of folded them up?

 

Chop chop. Now that I'm making room for 35's they are gone altogether.

 

Cool man. How is the whole clearancing / tubbing going? Is it more work than you expected or about as expected? Are the 35’s in conjunction with a long travel kit?

I think I’m going to stop at 33’s myself but I may do gears down the road.

 

No long travel, just more rubber.

 

Cool man.

Still looking around at moving?

 

Yes, but we are also aware of the biggest kid starting kindergarten so if we don't find some place in the next couple weeks it will get put off to next spring.

 

Almost done, just need to drill some holes in the grill or get some long zip ties to secure the bottom.

 

Looks good.

 

Thanks man, I'm pretty happy with how things turned out. I just need to drill some holes / zip-tie or figure out how to stabilize the bottom of the grille.

 

I never did anything with mine, it's been that way for a year now.

 

Yeah it would probably be fine but I’m gonna see if I can grab a couple of attachment points.

When you installed your bumper did you remove the horizontal brace between the headlight supports?

 

No, did you need to remove that to install yours?

 

Yeah that’s what the instructions said to do but looking at it now that everything is assembled I’m having a hard time just eyeballing where the interference is supposed to happen so I’m going to pop the grille off and try and reinstall that piece to see if it works.

 

I took it out to drop the winch in and then put it all back together.