GBrown 1867 Build

Thought I would start a build thread on here to show some of the modifications to my truck. Unfortunately it is going to jump around a bit because I have owned my truck for two years and not all the pictures are loaded in photo bucket. I will start with where I am now and back fill as I get pictures and time.

First I will introduce myself. My name is Gordon and I have been a mechanic my whole life and learned a few fabrication skills along the way. Over the past two years, I have been fortunate enough to get involved with the Raptor community and have enjoyed every minute of it. I am currently one of the team members for Raptor Expeditions and have enjoyed taking owners on many desert adventures and showing them what these tucks are capable of.

I have pushed my truck way beyond the stock capabilities and have learned a great deal from my mistakes. Over the past two years I have bent my frame twice, cracked a frame weld, broken the rear shock mounts, replaced two ADD skid plates, destroyed the lower A-arm mounts, bent the front of the frame behind the bumper, two steering racks, steering column and modified every part as I go.

I will try and share with you what I has worked for me and what has not. My first disclaimer, I do most of my work myself and I am really bad about stopping in the middle of what I am doing and taking pictures.

So lets get started.

Here is what I did last weekend. In order to run bigger tires I switched out the stock fenders for Fiber works from Outlaw. These show up pretty rough and need some work to get them to fit. They also require some body work to get them to look good.

Here is how my truck sits when I am not driving it. I have a comute car and the truck wil not fit in the garage. (It's full of motorcycles)



Truck ready for the projects to begin.



Pulled off the old fenders and you can see my King shock set up. (More on that later)



You can see by the following pictures it takes a bit to get them to fit. Pretty good except around the headlights. Got the door gaps better then they were before so I was happy about that. Used washers as spacers for the the fitment.









Here is the BFH I used to beat the welded edge over. I cut about six relief cuts in them to make it easier to flod it over.





And lastly I pulled off the rear flares to have them painted satin black to match the fronts when they are done.



Everything is off to paint and should be done this friday.

Woo hoo! Finally going with the +2 fenders!

My garage has 8 motorcycles and a bike lift in it at the moment. Cant walk unless I take all the bikes out.. Driveway is too narrow to fit the raptor back there anyways.

Cant wait to see your truck!

Go with the BFG Baja TA KR's, but they are slippery in the rain somewhat- not as bad as I thought but I avoid ice on roads at all costs... Go with Tizzles type that are DOT. KRT's (T stands for traction) might be better in the mud, I know RPG runs those sometimes in Barstow on their pics.

Look forward to following your build. I've always been a fan of your truck.

That really looks good so far and appreciate input from someone thats actually doing it.. It is a lot of work and it takes time. So in the intrest of time whats the ETA for completion of this part of the project? I will mention seeing your truck in person at pismo and seeing the pics of it now I really like the direction its going... Thanks for the help and look forward to seeing more...

Awesome! Lots of good info in this one.

I noticed in my accident the SVT badge flew off my fiberglass fender. It never sat flush since I got the new fenders on, so you might want to make sure they snap in all the way or safety wire them in from the back (Something I thought about doing as a last resort, but didnt)

What brand of fenders were they?

This will be great to follow! Thanks for finding the time to get it posted.

Bink


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ISFast said:

What brand of fenders were they?

Click to expand...

They look like the Glassworks Unlimited ones to me, exactly the same mold and color at least. Outlaw had the cheapest price for them a few months ago when I bought em. They hand delivered them to me in their Outlaw truck, nice guys.

Here is the second project of the weekend. I have posted many times about my thoughts on the Icon 3.0’s and in my opinion they are the best shock on the market. I have run the Kings for a year now and decided to make the switch to Icon. There have been many posts on shock installs so I will skip all that. The shocks were a quick swap out with no fenders on the truck. Wish it was that easy all the time. I will do a full review and video of the performance on these once I get a chance to drive it. I will also do an honest comparison of the difference in the way my truck performs.







And here is a dead King. Both sides had no Nitrogen in them.