Wikid's Tundra

Your additional replies were while I was typing. I am liking the Fabtec. Design or something similar. Thanks. Great ideas

 

Ok guys
I got it back
Here are a few sneak peeks at what's going on
It was way dark, but I tried to get it under some light




Here's a little shot of the shiny stuff , with a little something extra. One of the reasons, it took longer than expected to do this install was because of the R&D , to get it made for production


I think I'm liking the look of these wheels. They also have the correct width for the fender flares

 

After the suspension install I could immediately tell the difference, on the road. Only problem was, i was carrying all the stock parts, that weighed the truck down in the back. that night, I took the hotel cart and unloaded all the parts , into my room Saturday morning we followed Nicole from Total Chaos out to Indio and a few other places, to take a few shots.







We found a little trail with a few whoopydoos. It was about 1/2 mile or so... just enough for me to stretch everything out. Here's what my fender flare looks like, after getting just a bit of air. I can obviously set the bypass more firm, but it sure landed nice.





Next was "King of the Hammers", area. We actually went across the desert, to a sand dunes, where we took some video. There was also a GoPro in fender well. No of that footage will be available, until it's all worked out and edited. Nicole took most of the photo's and will get me some of them as she gets them processed. The wife just got a few shots that you see here . All in all the suspension works well. the boxed lowers, were what held up the installed, since they were still in development. Truck was way dirty, when we got back to the hotel. I was out early, looking for a car wash.
Early am shots

I think I may need to raise the back a bit . it seems like it could use a little lift.
What do you guys think?

 

I have been busy nursing a toothache, but have been doing little projects, to wrap certain things up. Mostly on the wiring end. Adding Delphi connectors, tubing some of the wiring, and just cleaning things up a bit.
I did want to touch on an important part of projects like this, that seem to get neglected
Baja Designs, also offers security hardware for all of their lights. I actually intentionally did not mount my roof rack, before my Total Chaos trip, because I didn't feel like worrying about someone just coming along with a Allan wrench and removing my S2 lights

I ordered these for all of my lights. These will actually attach the bracket to the light itself. The hardware that attaches the bracket to the roof rack will be very difficult to access, especially after I add a backing angle bracket. This would at least slow someone down from being able to take them off and run. Lights are an expensive investment. The hardware is just a little insurance .

Something to think about if you run any accessories that can easily come off with simple tools.


I decided not to post the hardware pics. If you want to see them pm me and I will send it to you

 

Loving those wheels!!!

 

I received these today I will be running 2 of these through the roof of the shell, for my wire runs Along with these I got junction boxes. I like this idea, instead of several plugs that I need to mess with. Once I figure out mounting for the J boxes I will wire everything up and put the roof rack back on. If you need to make wire runs to the roof Deck seals are the ticket. If its the main product for boating, i will trust it here.
There are different sizes and rubber to fit in them, along with a solid plug I will save if I ever need to remove the rack

 

One Switch-Pro panel is officially alive.

I have been working on rack pre wire . Also running all the cables through the roof.
All roof lights are now pre wired . When they come on, it will be mount and plug in
The (6) S2's are actually working. Those are actually the only roof lights I have currently.
I used a single junction box on the roof to run 2 cable in 2 cables out. The rack is actually lower than it was.
It was very exciting, knowing that the lights actually work, after all the intense figuring and wiring

 

Not bad. When do you plan on doing some mods? heheh
Seriously>>> Very WELL DONE. Nice pics too.

 

Mods? What are those? All my vehicles are stock

Before the suspension , I opened up the body mount, to make sure I had clearance. Today, I went ahead and closed it up. Wheels/tires clear just fine .

I have a hard time understanding, why plates are sold to fill the gap, when its really pretty easy to cut them with an angle grinder, then form them to the body mount. It seems you need to use a grinder, one way or the other. Different strokes for different folks

Before, drivers side


After


Passenger before


After


It however was a one step forward, 2 steps back sort of day.
I was negotiating getting back out of the garage, because it was tight and at an angle I just completely came to close to the passenger side. Not thinking, I caught the side mirror on the garage opening and broke it. I stopped but it was too late . Since it has all the bells and whistles, I was quoted $618 bucks, to replace it. OUCH That is suppose to be a good guy price. If you all know of a wrecked 15 with blind spot monitors etc, that has a good passenger side mirror, let me know

 

Ouch... Feelin your pain.

 

This picture was released to me from Total Chaos .


Someone had asked me how much lift I have. Not sure on the exact number, but it for sure isn't more than 3" . There is only about 1" cranked down on the coil over



On another note

All of the rest of my lights have been shipped from Baja Designs.
Next week should be interesting

 

Since I received a big box of lights from Baja Designs, I figured I may as well begin installing them
First up 3 lights for the front bumper. You know its never as easy as just bolting them on and plugging them in.
I bolted the first one, and realized that the angle of the bumper didn't allow the light to level out. I took some channele I had laying around and made an offset bracket for each light. It did the trick, all level now.




I still need to make one plug, but 2 of em actually work

I took it out and did some down the road testing

DRLS with engine running


These are the Squadron driving lights only


These are the 2 XL 80's on the bumper They could use a little aim up, but you get the idea


XL80's and Squdrons. Because the 80's need to be aimed, they are drowning out the Squadrons, except yu can see it fill to the sides. Correct aiming of your lights will give you the best fill for the entire pattern. In this case, adjusting the 80's , would get much more distance, yet keep the wide pattern close in



The joke here is that I turned on the headlights, but could barely see them come on





I went ahead and threw it in reverse



Here is the next step.
I wanted to mount the lights, but not directly to the rack I figured if I had a mount made that was simple, but designed well, it would accomplish making everything look right withpout wires showing

So here is what fit that thought. 2x2" 1/8th Square tube. beveled in front so it doesn't look like just a box. So I had 1/8th inch plate added at about a 45 degree angle. The 2 inches gives it a little more height, off the rack. Then I had the back opened up , so all the wires could be stored there. The only wires that you will see are the wires coming off the light into a notched hole , then the main cable coming in from the bottom, but the rack hides lots of that







My only fear is that the space will not hold all f the connections . We shall see tomorrow

The entire device gets mounted to the roof rack, through the cool track system it has. I pre drilled the holes in the bottom of the mount to just fit the screws and put bolts on the inside of the box. The box has a back plate to close it all off purdy Poof Should be no wires
Tomorrow , all these lights should be blazing

 

Damn, thats a lot of lights you got there, looks like a space ship ready to lift off. Rig is looking awesome Wikid!!!

 

Nice shot of Don's Rig we got at Off-Road Expo in Pomona! The quality and attention to detail is very impressive!!

 

Thank you
Back from Off-Road Expo . It was actually kind of exhausting , getting ready as I could be, then actually getting there. I left Thursday morning at 3:45 AM , first stop was to Deaver, to fix the springs. They rebuilt them and had me out of their shop by 12:30 PM, then i found a place to do hand wash and detail. Of course the hold up after that was them actually allowing vehicles in their show places.

Here are a couple of shots. You will see that the truck is really close to level now. It made it ride drastically better, even though with the springs not right, it was much better than it ever was.

 

Nice build. Glad to know that 35's can fit with just a little bit of cutting.

 

Thanks Yes 35's aren't too difficult with the right set up

I have been busy with work stuff since Expo, but today I made a little progress.
I was always going for more of an old school look on the lights, with new technology, of course, so my next thought was to get the round bezels for te lights. This makes the light look bigger in size, which more matches the lighting output, plus it fills the area between the lights and rounds everything out

Here is old look


New look

Old look

new look

 

I have to agree. It just changes the look enough

 

Looks amazing, would love to see some up close pictures of your new lower control arms.

 

Great looking truck.

 

I've got a good answer to that.... When I cut mine out, it came out in a couple pieces... I thought about cutting, bending it back and welding it up. But in the end it was easier to have a nice new piece of metal to work with. The new metal, an 80 flapper, satin black and you would never know it wasn't that way from the factory! 24 bucks didn't seem so bad after all the money spent on tires alone! Ha

Although... Maybe I guess you could say I needed to be better with my grinder and cutting disk

Man I love those wheels. It was between those and the black fuels I have now. If my truck was white I would have gone with them. Great taste!

 

I can get a few tomorrow and post them up. I should have done it today , while I puled the wheels to do a good job greasing the poly joints. Truck sounded like and old man for about the last week. I also gave the uniballs a shot of TriFlow and even picked up some WD40 Silicone to get the areas grease won't get.

Thank you

Yes it does take a little caressing with the cut off wheel and grinder . Thanks for the props on the wheels . I thought it was the correct choice, but everyone has a different spin, on what they like

 

Seeing some pics of the lower control arm would be great, thank you for taking the time to take some pics and post them. I'm really interested in purchasing a set of the lower control arms, I emailed Total Chaos to try and get a price, and also see how soon they will be available.

 

I obviously have removed my swaybar. I can barely tell it isn't there with this suspension. I see no need to put it back on




No charge for the thumb shot

 

Excellent, I hope there ready sometime soon, I would really like to get a set of these lower control arms

 

Do you have any idea what they are going to charge for the lower control arms?

 

Looks like in one of the pictures something has rubbed the back side of the control arm, is your wheel rubbing? Is there no steering stops?