So.. after I got back to Cali.. I had to fly home to Indiana to get my truck and drive it back to Cali.

My truck hadn't been shown as much love as I would have liked, but as soon as I got there, it got new tires because my old BFG's were gone and caused a horrible wobble due to being worn unevenly. Also, changed the oil, and did a coolant flush because I needed to drive it so far.

Decided to go with Goodyear Duratrac's... LOVE THESE TIRES. And random pictures of me loading up the U-Haul at my old house, grabbing stuff out of storage.









Also.. went to an auction with my brother and got this bad boy for $80.

 

So.. road trip time.. some interesting stuff happened.

Like this:


^^Somewhere in Illinois, almost to Missouri. I complimented him on his speed trap, and we talked about his service and mine.. I kissed some *** and didn't get a ticket. Nice guy actually.


And then this happened.. I think I was somewhere in Arkansas at this point.



^^ Luckily this happened when I was pulling off on an exit to get gas. Started swinging like crazy.. thought I was going to lose it. I stopped it with minimal damage done. (Yes I'm aware the hitch is upside down.. I did it on purpose). This was a stupid.. stupid.. stupid design of the hitch pin.. the kind where the end pulls out and turns to lock it in.. well, it didn't work. Lucky for me the chain didn't break and I didn't have a major accident.

Limped it to a local u-haul center with a bolt through the hitch.. and got this to get me on may.. cotter pin ftw.



Besides the terrible gas mileage and not liking going up hills while towing.. the truck performs great driving cross-country.. it's the 3rd time it's made the trip without major mechanical issues.

 

So.. that's basically where the truck sits today. I broke one of my hellas trying to man-handle it to adjust it.. so I just took them both off. Trying to decide if I want to get a light bar, or just replace my fogs with square Rigid CREE LED's. Or both.

I got to do a little off-roading in Joshua Tree National Park after I got back out to California, that was pretty cool. I'll try to post some pictures of that in the near future.

On the list of crap to get done soon:
1) (DONE) Buying some Raammat (dynamat stuff) for the truck. Tired of the road noise. I talk on my phone on speaker when I'm driving so I have minimal time with my hand off the wheel and I can barely hear anybody on the phone.
2) Tuner. I e-mailed Fred at Rogue Performance today to check out pricing on custom tunes and an X-Cal 4. (Will have to order from someone else because Fred will not get back to me after multiple attempts)
3) (DONE) Removing rear lift blocks and installing Explorer leaf springs until I can afford Deavers or something. My old leaf springs are almost flat.
4) (DONE) New rear shocks.. they are still original and probably contributing to my flat leaf springs.
5) Coil-overs up front. (Have the brackets ordered already) I'm tired of the shitty ride quality. Plus I have almost 92k on the truck now and they are still original shocks. And there is a HUGE bump getting in my driveway.. my truck jerks me back and forth trying to get in and out of my driveway.. really annoying.
6) (DONE) 06+ Mirrors. Can't decide since my truck is black just getting the black plastic ones (that aren't gloss black).. or getting ones that are paintable and getting color-matched paint and making that part match the truck.
7) New tonneau cover eventually. Mine is a button down and 1/3 of the buttons are broken.
8) Find a 31 spline L/S axle to put in the rear.
8) Eventually re-gear to 4.56
10) Might do lockers when I re-gear. Not sure what set-up I will do.
11) Superlift for double lift. I like the body lift so not sure I wanna take it off. Makes changing spark plugs easy, but it is a pain for things like tow hooks and front hitches, winches, etc.
12) Custom bumpers and sliders.

 

I went with the non painted mirrors. Now I'm wishing I had gone with the paintable ones.

Reason being, the non painted ones got scratched to hell and back a week after I installed them. If I had the paintable ones, I could just pop out the caps and re-finish them.

 

Yea, I'm just wondering if it's worth the trouble since my truck is black. The paintable white ones would look awesome on your truck. Plus my spray painting skills suck. I can never get even coats.

 

Once I get the 4x4 swap finished and the 06+ bumper painted I'll be switching out my mirrors.

 

How bad are yours scratched? I might be interested in yours.

 

truk lewks gud

 

Haha, thanks man. When are we gonna see pics of the new car?

 

Once I get some more mods done I'll post em up. It's going for tint next week I believe

 

Spoke with Jason from RaamAudio.com. Placed an order yesterday for their Package #2 which gives me 30 sheets of the Raammat BXT II (56.25 sq ft) and 4 1/2 yards of the Ensolite Peel and Stick Foam (62.43 sq ft).

He hooked me up with a military discount, so that was pretty cool of him. He got back to me really quickly and answered some questions. Props to him for that. And.. the status of my order was updated to shipped within 5-10 minutes of placing the order.

I'll let you guys know how the stuff is when I install it this weekend. I'm pretty sick of the road noise, engine noise and exhaust drone.. and just the rattles and not solid feeling overall.. so hoping this straightens things out.

 

FWIW I bought exploder leafs for my truck from Rock Auto for about $300 shipped to my door. Way cheaper than any local shop around here and they're NEW.

 

Thanks. I was quoted by a local junk yard at $50 each. At this point anything is better than what is in there. My driver side one of the leafs looks like it's about to fall out. Thank you though, I didn't even think to look there for them.

 

Finished up the install of the Raammat and Ensolite sound deadening last night. It took 2 long days, and now my hands hurt.

Recommendation: If you want 100% coverage.. buy more than what I did if you have an extended cab. For the actual Raammat I didn't feel like I needed 100% coverage, but I still feel like a little more would have been ok.. but I got a good portion covered. I would have liked to have more of the Ensolite closed cell foam as that is what really helps with the sound deadening/road noise issues.

Either way.. I highly recommend it. The cab feels solid, doors shut easier like they have some weight to them. Speakers sound better, even though they are stock for now.. I'm set up to upgrade when I do the door speakers and 4 channel amp I wanna do down the road. Would have liked a little better results on the exhaust drone, but it is noticeably better. I probably should have focused more on the back wall and maybe doubled up on that area. Or get a new exhaust.

But for $240 which is what I spent.. It feels like a completely different truck. I took a few pictures that I'll upload to photobucket later and post here.

 

Yea, I debated getting some from the JY too, which was about $100 less than what i paid, but I also plan on keeping my truck for a bit, so the choice was easy for me to go with new leafs, rather than older ones.

 

Yea that makes sense. I'm definitely keeping it for a while. It's just a cheaper alternative right now. One of these days I might double lift and at that point I would go with something like Skyjacker lift springs.. once I make a definitive decision which way I'm going.. I could always get Deavers as well. $600 is just not an option right now.. I need shocks all around, and I don't want to do that until I have enough to do a coil-over swap up front.

 

So as promised.. pictures of the Raammat and Ensolite install. To be completely honest.. the improvement isn't as drastic as I thought it would be. Still a lot of road noise and exhaust drone, but it is an improvement. The truck feels more solid, the doors especially. Radio sounds better, although it makes the stock speakers sound like total crap stock speakers. An upgrade will come sometime in the near future I think.


I didn't think about taking pictures of the doors, but this is what it looks like with the door panel off, in case you were wondering.




This is all the tools it took to get the interior completely removed.




Raammat installed. I wasn't going for 100% coverage.. just trying to eliminate any rattles/vibrations.




Ensolite foam installed. I was going for closer to 100% coverage here to help eliminate road noise.. I start to run out, but got it good enough.

 

And.. teaser of what's coming in the near future:

 

Ordered everything I need for mustang rear disc swap (GT, not cobra). Just need to get Diff oil, axle seals, and brake fluid and I should be ready to go for this weekend to do the swap.

 

Update this bish.

 

And put it in the right section! This isn't FRF!

 

Haha.. I just tried to move it.. screwed it up and somehow lost the first post. It's in the right section now though :)

Edit: Fixed it, lol. I'm a moderator newb, haha

 

Update as promised:

Installed Mustang GT disc brakes on the rear. Night and day difference.

Here is what I ordered:
SS brake lines: Brake pads: Rotors: Hard brake lines:
First time opening up my diff:



Nasty smelling diff fluid:


Rusty *** drum brakes:


Test fitting the rotors:


I had to cut my stock hard brake lines off because they were rusted on.. I was planning on just cutting and reflaring them.. but in anticipation of having issues.. I got replacement hard lines and bent them up using the old ones as a guide




Stainless Steel lines hook right into them.. just need to tack weld that tab to the axle:



All the write-ups I read never mentioned these stupid calipers and how you have to compress them. Ended up buying a special tool that looks like a cube that you put on the end of a 3/8" socket wrench. You can get the cube at Autozone.


Calipers on.. one day I will paint them. I bought the paint, but got lazy. This swap took me long enough.. was sick of waiting.






If anybody needs help or advice on doing this swap, hit me up. Ran into a few snags and a few issues.. so I can do my best to help you out.

For example: Knocked out my spider gears in the diff when I slid my axle shafts back in.. Pro tip.. put the pin back in the carrier to hold those gears in place. Then push the axle shafts back in.. pull the pin, slide in the rest of the way to put the c-clips back on the shafts... then put the pin back in.

 

Two things:

Those cubes are garbage. I bought one for my grandpa's van years ago and none of the six combinations were correct. I had to grind one of the sides down to make it work.

Also, your springs are definitely garbage. I thought mine were bad. You're gonna get a crapload of lift with Explorer springs if that's how your springs look.

 

Double post... What a newb lol

Nice update though. I'm ready to run my new discs too.