You KNOW you are required to post pics/video of them working... right? We wanna see!

 

You're welcome, Stranger! And thank you for that info! I may have to go back and reroute that wire so mine can fold now.

You'll have to let me know how your mirrors behave after that. For whatever reason (been chasing my own tail with this one) the driver's side mirror likes to come on for no reason. I think my multi function is slowly kicking the bucket.

 

Sorry guys, no pics of the mirror blinkers, my phone just refuses to take a shot of if at work. Just use your imagination on that one. And theArcticWolf all has been well with my install so far, no erratic blinking here. I suspect you have a faulty multifunction/turn signal switch. It would make sense your left blinker is the one coming on unwantedly since gravity is pulling the switch that way. The real question is are the front/rear lights coming on as well? My money is on the switch. Time to do the chrome Lincoln mod. I've seen em at the yard & they look nice.

It's cold outside and I haven't done much to the truck lately. I've begun researching lift kits, something in the area of 2-4 inch suspension. When I pulled my LS 8.8 axle I also grabbed the stock lift blocks & u-bolts that were on that 4x4. Now mine is 2wd & no lift blocks, currently sitting completely stock other than the 31s. So I'm thinking one option is to simply install those blocks, but that leaves the front. Hmmm I like the idea of a spindle lift but I'm wondering if something like a coil spacer might be a better/more affordable way to go. Now another option would be to go with some explorer rear springs but I'm not sure about that, I'm not sure if those would make the ride too stiff. The members that have done this (at least the ones in the how-to) seem to love the ride feel so I need to look into it some more. I'm not against parting this thing together instead of buying a "kit" either and I'm not yet set on how big of a lift although I'm leaning towards a mild 2in. The part that hurts the most is that I just put new shocks on my truck, even 2 inches seems too far to extend them. Planning/research stages.

And there is this here steering wheel. This is the original one for my truck saved from my tilt column swap. I went to my local parts store and bought myself a universal stitch-on leather wrap as well as some waxed thread and got to work. Now this project was a pain in the *** to be nice about it. It all seemed so easy at the beginning but turned out to be quite difficult to get it straight. Now mind you the wrap itself is just a "hoop" of leather and makes no accommodation for the spokes. It took me 3 attempts to end up with this but it looks ok and feels good so I'm gonna install it this weekend. All & all, with professional quality being a 10, I rate this wheel an 8 haha.

 

Yes, all lights come on, and I do believe it to be the switch as well. Just waiting for it to become bad enough to warrant a new switch. So far it really only does it when I'm sitting still, right after I start the truck. WHen it starts doing it repeatedly in traffic then I'll break down for a new one.

 

Look what I found, a front bumper for an '06+ at my local pull-n-pay. It the cheaper all plastic one but that's fine by me since it should line up properly & I can get rid of that explorer bumper once & for all. It's actually an aftermarket one & needs a little work before it goes on but it has the holes for some fogs, which I don't have. I figure I'll move my flood lights to those holes since they're roughly the same size/shape as the opening and get a light bar for the center opening on the valance that way I can keep using my dash switches. That's the plan anyway, tomorrow I will have to figure out a better way to mount the cover to the bracket (the cover no longer has any mounting tabs along the top edge & wheel wells) then mount it up. I'm not crazy about it just being bare plastic & it has some pretty good scratches in it but it's in pretty good shape considering the donor truck had been rolled. It sucks too because it had a powerdome hood & was my color, wouldn't have worked anyway with my current grill setup plus it actually had a big dent in it & a crack. I didn't think you could dent that composite stuff. There was another powerdome but that one was taco-ed. Stupid useless junk.

 

Oh yeah check this out
Still needs some tweaking, I probably have to remove the tow bar & I want to paint the top portion but for right now I'm happy!

 

Hey, that looks REALLY good on there! Congrats on the great find!

 

Now THAT is a sick bumper, dude. The black goes wonderfully with the red. How well do your LED cubs work?

 

Thanks guys, I'm pretty happy with it. I like the black but I think I might go ahead and paint the top part red. Those led cubes work really well, especially since they were like $15 on Amazon. They are just as bright as the headlights & I'm always running em when the sun goes down. They're floods not spots. They seem to like the current location better too, I had them mounted more towards the center with the old bumper setup.

 

Here's a photo of how I mounted the LED flood lights. I used the brackets that came with the lights, bought a bolt that was 1/2 inch longer & a spacer to accommodate & drilled a hole in the bumper bracket. It just happened to want to go in there & gave me no real problems. I ended up with a nice solid mount & the lights don't bounce around at all.

Also here's a pic of those Cadillac 4 note "train horns" that I installed a while back. They're up there behind the grill & under the plastic shroud behind it. Nice & loud too.

 

Personally, I would leave it all black like it is... it just looks that good. But, it is your truck, so paint away!

 

Over the holidays my brother & his wife fed my junkyard addiction with some cold hard cash that was meant to spend at my local yard, so today I went & came out with a bed liner as well as a tailgate liner. As an added bonus today was the first time I've removed my camper shell. (I argue it's to be referred to as a camper shell rather than a truck topper, an egg shell without the yolk/whites is still a shell-a camper shell without a sink/bed is still a shell) anyways check this out
I finally used my roof rack for something too, you can see my camper shell dangling by it in the background. It's funny, without my shell the truck doesn't look all that special. Here's a shot of my nice used, dirty as hell pendaliner bed liner tailgate liner-liner haha
And yes I did install my steering wheel, also found a spot for my R-F sticker

On top of all that I have a 42 inch curved LED light bar on its way, planning to mount it on the shell, possibly onto the rails of the rack. I'll have to look at it first. Another idea I had was of course above the windshield & installing between it & the roof some little Amber LEDs, perhaps the same ones I used for my door markers or single sections of rgb strip, & those would act as running lights without installing the actual lights/housings. I love cab markers but they look funny on our trucks, this way I'd have them & not have to look at them all day. All that will come after I get my hands on the light bar & see what I'm working with. Plus there's wiring to think about, don't want to drill into the roof of the truck and there's the fact that I have already drilled 10 holes in the shell for the rack, so theres that...

 

Be careful with that liner. Your bed can rust out and you'd never even know it. I had a hole in my bed that was growing.

I took the cover out, used rust reformer to kill the rust spots, then primer and then some good paint to seal it. Check in a couple years and see if it starts to rust.

 

Thanks for the warning, sorry you had rust issues on yours. As for mine it is a concern although I'm not terribly worried about it. Shell+under rail liner+desert southwest=not a huge issue. It's something to watch out for though and a thought that had crossed my mind.

What's messed up is I had to take it to the car wash & spray the crap out of it. First thing I did with it, ugh.

 

Oh yeah! Look what came in the mail.
I have here a 42 inch spot flood combo light bar, now I'm trying to decide where to mount it. I'm thinking about mounting it to the tracks for the roof rack for 2 reasons, well 3.
1. It's possible that mounting above windshield would create too much glare.
2. Cab mounts for a 42in are practically non-existent.
3. As it happens the light should drop right into place on the rails as they are already properly spaced.

I'm most likely gonna put it on the shell just in front of the foremost rail, my only issue with that is the brackets that came with the light is too tall.

I would like it to sit below the rail for obvious reasons and as you can see it ain't gonna do it with these brackets. So I may pop into a local 4x4 shop & see about mounts that attach to the bar but I'm really probably better off making my own. Perhaps a simple L bracket will do, if I'm lucky I can snake the wires through an existing hole for the rail, but if not, I'll drill another.

 

I ended up mounting my light bar on the shell as far forward as possible using the mounts that came with it. I looked at all options & just went with what was easy. No worries it's all nice & sturdy.

Here's just the headlights

Here's the headlights and floods

And this is adding the light bar to that

I was maybe 50 yards from that hill, pretty shiny.

 

Nice light output. Curious, do you know off hand how much that LED bar draws in amps?

 

That light bar should be pulling 20 amps, I haven't put the multimeter to it but it's specs say 240 watts so...it's way bright either way. I did end up with a shadow from the cab blocking the beam a bit but it's OK because the headlights take up the slack.

On another note I picked myself up a used receiver hitch, of course I'm not just gonna slap it on without painting it so pics are for later but I have my latest project working. I just got done sanding off the surface rust but the weather took a turn so it's on pause for now. I think I'll use some rust reformer on it for good measure. I had a thought of painting the hitch red but I don't know bout that one.

 

Truck looks good man!

 

Well, according to ohm's law, wattage divided by voltage gives current, which (assuming a perfect 12) is 20. More likely though is a few amps less, considering when the truck is running, there's a higher voltage present.

 

Thanks 00GreenRanger glad you think so. It's coming along pretty nicely I think.

On a related note, I found a powerdome hood! It's off of an '03 fx4 & it's scratched to hell plus it's green, but other than that it's really in pretty decent shape. I'm gonna have them paint it at work. I'm pretty happy so far, I want to go put it on right now haha.

Also I installed my receiver hitch. No pics yet but it's there. Now I need a trailer hahaha.

 

That'll look good on your rig man. I want a powerdome haha

 

Powerdome for life! You'll love the way it transforms your truck.

 

Here we go. This is how I found my new powerdome at the yard & how jacked up it was. It was already unmounted & leaning up against the donor truck. I didn't even need a wrench.

And today was the day for paint

I'll be installing it in the morning. I can't wait!

 

Shiny!