Thanks!

 

Great pics man! It's amazing how much better the 31's look

 

No kidding, no more skipping leg day and they do so much better offroad

 

Went camping this weekend, had a great time out there

Before everyone else showed up we went exploring on our own, ended up getting stuck and digging a nasty rut and flexing that crazy, tire was up against the fender, managed to get my self out with a old rubber boot i found though!







This was a rather steep hill, we had also done it at night which was really freaky haha





I need to step up my game with my axle situation now though, the one wheel peel just doesn't work in sand, going to really start hunting for an explorer lsd axle and leafs. I'd also like to get some kinda maxtrax knock offs, not sure what brands are decent I just don't want to spend $400

Later this week the other guys should send me the pics they took of me

 

Ordered a Hurculiner kit so I can do my box, redo my rockers and around the fenders, bed rails, on top of the tailgate and maybe the inside of my bumpers.

Also FINALLY getting a new axle on Saturday! 8.8 31 Spline, lsd with 4:10s from an Fx4 level 2! He's also giving me the U bolts and oem 2.5" blocks

 

So I did end up getting the axle, 2.5" blocks and the gas tank skid plate. The brakes are completely shot on the axle but so are the ones on my current diff so that's alright.

Found a stock B2300, makes me a little sad on the amount of I've spent on my truck

And went camping this weekend, loaded the cap right to roof. We also slept in the cap which was absolutely terrible, Mosquitoes went straight through the box drain holes(or so I'm assuming) and when we woke up there were dozens inside

 

Alright so today I picked up some metal to start my spare tire carrier project, pretty simple design but it should work, just need to get a full size spare. Sadly around here Dick Cepeks are stupid expensive, cheapest I've found is damn near $300 for 1!

Anyway this is very similar to what we're going to copy, welding it to the side of the hitch so my receiver is always open for my shackle or drop hitch

 

Good idea for the tire carrier. I'm assuming it will fold down so you can open the tailgate/cap easily?

 

Yup that's the plan!

 

Are you just gonna do a pin or are you gonna go with some type of self locking latch that locks in as you push the tire up?

 

It'll be a pin system, not sure exactly how my friend plans on that but I told him as long as it doesn't wiggle around I'm happy

 

Might be hard to eliminate all wiggle but you should be able to keep it to a minimum

 

Swapped out the 7.5 open diff for the 8.8 today, besides having to replace all the brake parts it went well, threw in the factory 2.5" blocks, sits perfect to me with rake just like from the factory, next weekend I'm going off-road so I'll be able to test the limited slip!

This is with the old 7.5" axle in the box, should be similar in weight to the spare carrier /full size spare and roof basket

 

Nice work bud. Trucks lookin killer

 

Thanks man, starting to get close to " finishing" the build and really just enjoying it doing little things here and there

 

Alright so its been awhile and I got some updates, during my week off I re painted both bumpers and my grill and hurculined my rockers and fender lips. During this time I also used sem paint on my interior interior, the results do look really good to my self but I do see why they recommend adhesive promoter for it as on the bottom of my door panels some paint was chipped, oh well when I eventually get xlt panels(with map pockets) I'll do it again proper. Sadly I don't have interior pics right now but here we go with others
My Buddy helping sand

Hurculiner came out great, seems WAAYY stronger then the previous duplicolour crap I used last summer

Colour matched booty, Haven't got around to installing the rear spacers yet


Then yesterday me and few friends went off road, the limited slip worked absolutely awesome and paired with these tires made me go places I thought unreachable with a 2wd, hill climbs were much easier as with any off angle sections





Where things went downhill...don't ask me why but I got dumb going cross wise through ruts..and surprising it was going! Until I stopped for my friend in the xj to pass and I got high centered on my frame. At this point the Dakota had gone home and it was jus me and the xj, he tried yanking me for about half an hour and after breaking two two straps we gave up, called his buddy in a big ole Ram
Well that plan also back fired, he turned down the gravel road before the one we were on, he then thought he could just follow the powerlines to us as we were in sight...well this is what happened

He's standing on solid ground there with water in the cab
So we called the Dakota back out to try and get the Ram out since the Xj couldn't get any of out still and we broke a third tow strap. He showed up, backed up to the ram and hooked on, gave one good yank and slide slide side ways from dry grass into muck and sank real quick(No pics). At that point we gave up and went back to town with the xj and got a tractor which got us all out, only took about 5+ hours for this to all get sorted out
The aftermath

 

Quite an off road story. Glad you made it out... eventually.

 

Gotta get yourself a winch!

 

I think I'm going to try and find a used tj/yj tube winch bumper sometime

 

Changed the engine oil yesterday, put on the rear wheel spacers also, the 1.5" spidertrax spacers made for a perfect match width with the front

Also locked my self out earlier this week so I took the cap off to go through the back window, too me it looks super goofy without the cap



With the spacers and cap back on


Mud flaps are pretty useless at this point

Near perfect I'd say


Things left for the summer
-Finish spare tire carrier (friend building it has been extremely busy with work)
-Roof Basket, rage powersport low profile. Going to mount 2 led pods facing backwards and one on each side facing downwards to help light up campsite, then mount my hi lift and axe/shovel on the sides as with a pair of smitty bilt traction aids inside it
-Jeep tj/yj winch tube bumper. After last weekend I realize I definitely need front tow hooks and a winch and jeep bumpers are MUCH cheaper, not an exact fit but it's been done before

I'm not exactly sure how I'll set up a light situation but I'm thinking of getting another pair of hella 500's but in the true "Fog" version and get a pair of black magic covers and sticking them overtop of the winch spot as shown in the picture and put my normal black magics on the roof in front of the basket. this is the bumper I'm looking at, Smittybuilt for $350 Canadian so it's a great deal. I'll most likely get a 8500 pound winch(Again smittybilt, they seem like a good value compared to Warn ones) so I have enough power to help other bigger trucks if need be

 

I went with a smittybilt xrc 9500 with synthetic rope. I haven't had to use it yet though

 

I know I could get away with a 6500 for my truck I just want extra strength for some heavier trucks I wheel width, 9500k might be the perfect size

 

I've seen guys break 8k winches with toyota pickups. That's why I went with the 9500. When you think about it, if the truck is high centered, you need something that can pull the weight of the truck plus a lot more. When I was spooling the rope onto mine, I hit the brakes in some dirt and it started dragging the truck lol

 

Went to the beach yesterday so it gave me a reason to throw the girlfriends raft on my roof, got 35% tint on my side windows the other day, not too dark but very nice and noticable when driving, shouldn't get hassled by police I hope


Then later in the day I found some more mud at a friends farm. The rear wheel spacers defiantly make things a bit messy but yet again I was super impressed with how this thing did. Limited slip and these 31's really plow through mud

Funny thing is all that mud on the chevy was from me roosting him when he got stuck in the same hole i had been doing donuts in and I had to stop and pull him through the mud


Fender flares are defiantly on my list, even though I know Oem Mazda flares won't cover all the tire it's got to be better then this

 

More photo dumping

The whip hit every overhead support beam, my roof rails just cleared the entrance door, got lots of looks as the whip was rocking back and forth banging around



Decided to test my flex a bit, mainly to see if the tires would clear my fenders now with the spacers in the back. The front was right on the bumpstop, back right was drooped out and just stouching the ground. Back left wasn't quite compressed all the way, still had at least 3-4" before hitting the bumpstop so I assume under full compression the sidewalls will rub


Better pictures of the tint job, super happy I got 35%, its the prefect amount, Very relaxing while driving and looks killer


Also picked these up this morning, bad quality picture from the ad but they're mint! From an 07 Fx4, the seller said the air bag plug might be different then mine so we'll see about that, I know I need 93-97 Ext Cab rails to bolt in so I'll be making a junkyard run shortyl