TahoeTrails build

Been offline for a while,
Picked up new front and rear pads and rotors.
After getting the truck aligned, I was told that I have a bent tie rod on the driver side. So I picked up new inner and outer tie rods from napa auto. I'm hoping the build quality is good.
The truck is in the shop right now. And with a ton of bad luck I scratched/ chipped all four of my shock shafts. And that's with the rear having boots! So I am waiting for ADS to send over the rears since they are on backorder right now. Once the truck gets back everything will be installed. I'm also considering getting limit straps put onto the front of the rig. It's probably overkill, but I don't want what happened last year to happen again with my control arms.
Also after towing 150 miles with my new bumper, Ive come to find out that it tows like shit because of how big the drop of the hitch is. So I just picked up a geny 12.5" drop hitch with stabilizer kit. I'll be bolting the bars on, and will document the job with a short review following.

 

Well after a lot of waiting, my truck is back!
I got the front end revalved and added limit straps. What took so long was that all four of my shock shafts were toast. ADS was backorder 5 weeks for the rear bypass shafts.
As soon as I got it home, I pulled all the tires off and replaced all corners with new rotors and pads. As well as swapping the tie rods(inner and outer)<---- this was such a bitch, word to the wise... just buy the damn tool. It is worth every penny.
Tomorrow Ill be adding a metal rectangular tube to the frame to be able to mount the stabilizer kit for the tow hitch. There wasn't any location that didn't interfere with the leaf pack. Ill do a quick write up for that one.

 

How is your rubbing on the inner fender with the 37s? Did you limit uptravel at all with a spacer on the stock rubber bump?
We have the icon billet uppers also and 37s on 0 offset beadlocks, and we hit the metal of the inner fender even with a small washer as a spacer for the stock bump. We’d destroy the plastic liner you have I think. Unless you clearanced the metal and then bolted in the plastic?
Awesome build by the way. Love that you use it to bash on and stuff.
How is your bed slide holding up?
We got an aluminum one from Jotto and it’s pretty thrashed from all the off road abuse. But it was light at only 90lbs.

 

I only rub when I don’t see a hit coming. But it does rub both the inner fender as well as the liner I put in. Not bad though. I did not put a spacer in on the oem bump. Only the super bump. I took a bfh to the fender before installing the fender liner. It’s about as seamless to the fender as possible. I’ve hit the fender twice in my last two trips, but I was going 45 and underestimated the upwhoop. It’s a minor rub, but I’ll be going to button self taps, these are a little too stubby.
As far as the bedside, I got it before I started really wheeling for work. It’s the contractor 1500. The thing weighs 150lbs. It’s held together nice.

 

So I ran into a slight set back. I purchased quarter inch think aluminum u plate. Got it home and realized it won’t fit. Little bit of a space cadet move thinking I could wedge it in there. So I brought it to a buddy’s house to get cut in half. Now the plan is to just sand which the plate in the middle to get it back to full strength. Here’s a quick pick of the materials. I’ll be using grade 8 bolts with nylocks for this job. Will update when done.

 

I feel stupid.

What is this for?

 

Since getting the rear bumper built. Towing has become a little sketchy. Not really from the bumper, but just how high the hitch sits off the ground. I’ve gone through 3 hitches trying to find one that worked. All were either not enough drop or felt very unstable due to the amount of drop. So I picked up the geny 12.5” drop hitch with its stabilizer bars. These bars need to be bolted/welded to the frame or bumper of the truck. Well of course there’s no where to put these things on the rear of the truck without destroying the leaf pack at full stuff. So I need to drill into the frame and put in a plate running across the rear crossmember. The biggest bitch is that I have to take off the rear shackles and shocks to get enough clearance to get the drill in there. Here’s a quick pic of what it looks like.

 

Just curious how did you attach the liner material? And is it attached the fiberglass as well?