I've had the truck for almost 2 1/2 years now and have over $2k invested in her other than the purchase price of $2750 on 2-22-2010. Decided it's come a long way from the day I bought it, it's time for a build thread. It had 183,000 miles on it and now it's about to roll over to 228,000. (And I just made the mistake of doing the math on how much I have roughly spent on fuel, ($6000, 100 tanks of gas)

This is the day after I brought it home. (2-23-2010) It was extremely clean looked almost new. With 183k on the clock.







Then on 2.28-2010 I got the toolbox, and got the outside all washed and waxed.

 

3-28-10 More Wax and a new Muffler




4-3-2010 Radio, subs and cb installed







5-18-2010 2002+ Mazda Tail Lights installed

 

5-20-2010 Installed power windows, door locks, mirrors and explorer seats. Eventually I removed the cheap after market power window setup and installed factory power window regulators and motors.










5-24-2010 Overhead Console, Explorer Center Console, Factory Hidden Hitch






6-1-2010 Installed New Heavy Duty Leaf Springs as mine were starting to sag and bow bad.

 

6-14-2010 Changed the color of the gauges, HVAC, Installed Explorer Bezel w/ 2 Fog Lamp Switches, Changed Led Bulbs in Fog Light Switches, Installed LEDs in HVAC.




6-19-2010 Took it off-roading for the first time








8-21-2010 Took it off-roading for the second time

 

8-23-2010 Plasti-Dipped the bumpers and stickers are gone





10-10-2010 FX4 LVL 2 Seats



10-31-2010 All Waxed yet again






11-14-2010 Testing it out in the mud




3-16-2011 Clearance Lights

 

7-24-2011 Hurt the truck off-roading





10-29-2011 Body work on the door and tail gate. I got sick of looking at the backwards check mark on the passenger side. Then I found a door at the jy a couple weeks later that matched the original color almost and replaced it.







12-15-2011 Just Some Fun




1-14-2012 2 15" Memphis Subwoofers

 

2-18-2012 Finally Body Lifted. And yes I did the body over night by myself. Started at 7pm on a Friday night and finished it at 10am Saturday morning. No sleeps breaks in between, just a few smoke breaks, non heated garage, snow outside, I froze my ----ing *** off.










2-25-2012 New tires and wheels installed

 

5-20-2012 My Latest Project still not done. 2 JBL GTO0804 8" Subs, 4 JBL GTO938 6x9s, 1 JBL 4 Chan Amp, 1 JBL mono amp. All black interior, rubber floor.

I Still gotta take the box back out, make it about 3 in thinner, can't put my seat far enough back, tune the amps a little better, touch up some paint, paint the dash and get a new passenger door panel.

 

Here are some vids showing how the system sounds right now. Still some tuning left to do and a lot of vibrations to get rid of. But so far it sounds really really good, It sounds a lot clearer in person, phone did a bad job recording.

 

Truck looks good. You can't really notice the paint difference from the front side but definitely the back. Any more plans for it?

 

Oh yeah, I have way to many plans for it. But its gonna take a few years before any of them happen.
-cummins motor swap
-tube chassis
-dana 60 front and rear
-4 link rear, 3 link front with coil overs all around
-complete internal and external roll cage
-06+ ranger front end

 

^dam. im keeping my eye on this one if all that is goin on!

 

Yeah it'll def be a few years before I'm able to do it though. Gotta get a place with a garage, tube bender, welder and all that stuff before the fun can start. I'm hoping by summer of next year of having a dana 44 under the front, prob just do it the easy way for now with leaf springs.

 

Glad you got a build thread going. Trucks looking good.

 

So I say it's time for a update thread, it's long past due for one.

Painted The Truck Back in August or September. Needed a paint job bad and this only costed $45 just to get me by until February.












Then last month I scored a 2011 hood for $20 as it had just been in a little fire lol. So I decided it was time to do the front end swap. Picked up the fenders at the local salvage yards, ran out of fuel on the way back, sending unit quit working in my truck. Ordered up a new header panel, light and a grill of ebay and got them installed.

Pics of the hood at salvage yard.


After a little cleaning


Installed on the truck, still got a little bit of body work to do on it but nothing major.


And I scored a factory front skid plate off that same truck

 

I also have completed the boxes in the back seat a few months ago. Got the sub box enclosures completely built and covered in black carpet. Finished shaping the storage box and got the inside of it and outside of it carpeted in black as well. I'll get pics of it tomorrow.

Planning on painting the truck come this February when there isn't **** to do and once I finish the body work on it. Painting the truck Flat Black with PPG Epoxy single stage paint.

Also I got one of these beast ordered for it today. Hopefully it'll come soon.



Finally picked up a welder and I'll soon be making a rear bumper, sliders and a headache rack for it and possibly a tube tailgate with a spare tire holder.

 

Nice. I'm liking the progress with the franken-truck. It looks good.

 

Looking good. Updates?

 

um so is it a ford now? you need ranger emblems on the sides but its looking good!

 

the front end swap looks great, nice score at the junkyard haha.

 

None yet, weathers been to cold for me to finish the body work on it. Need to get started on that soon, only have a month before its getting painted. My front bumper should be here within the next 2 days though, so that should be getting installed next weekend.
I'm waiting for paint before I put the emblems on.
Thanks.

 

Alright so I finally got around to taking finished pics of the box. It's a little dirty as I haven't had much time to take a vacuum out to the box, love having a rubber floor, just sweep and wipe lol.

 

Also the front bumper from C4x4 arrived on Wednesday and I got it installed yesterday.

Let me tell you this thing is just pure 100% beef. Def worth the price of the bumper. Lot's of fabrication went into this thing and he didn't skip on any of the details. He raised the bumper 1 1/2" inches to compensate for the 3" body lift, any more and the brackets would have lots their strength. So there is a little gap under the headlights, nut I'll fill those in with a rubber strip or something.

I'd def recommend this bumper to anyone out there. I just went with the plain jane $500 one and sprayed it with rustoluem satin black. I plan on building a brushgaurd for it in the near future and I'll have a winch again by the end of march.

Winch I plan on getting. Recon 10,500 lbs Premium Winch Kit | TruckandWinch.com I read lots of reviews on it and no one had anything bad to say about. And they have a 3 year warranty.



Onto the pics.



The Brackets, also made out of 1/4" Folded steel.

 

The swap and new bumper are awesome!!

 

Thanks. Also just bought some #1 torsion bars from 01RangerEdge, ordered all new moog lower ball joints, upper control arms, inner and outer tie rods and also camber bolt kits. Hopefully by the end of next month my truck will drive like a brand new truck. Also gonna be getting lift shackles and explorer axles for the rear this spring.

Next month I'm gonna be ordering some sliders, cb setup, winch, dual battery setup. This spring I wanna get a head rack built for it and hopefully a rear bumper with a tire swing.

So which color of black should I paint the truck next month. I'll be ordering the paint next week. Flat Black, Satin Black or Semi Gloss Black. Right now the fenders are flat black, the bumper is satin black and the grill is semi gloss. Just so you guys can get a little bit of what it would look like. I'm more towards the satin black, but the semi gloss would look really good on there until I took it off roading and scratched the **** out of it.