Brad's 2014 SCREW

[Brad12]

Thanks for the confirmation @Johnny Quest. It's weird because the pics worked when I initially made that post... hopefully it works this time. Here's the repost w/pics:

I signed up for Expedition:Baja with EXO back in October and it was a fuggin' blast! It really pushed up the timeline on a lot of upgrades and my wallet still hates me ha!

Line-X'ed the bed and rear fenders, installed the Patton Fab pre-loadable bed tensioners, and got the Built Right Industries panels installed

Installed the Bulletproof Diesel Third Brake Light (and yes, those are crocs I'm wearing)

Installed a bed rack that I bought from a user on here

Then I got a custom front bumper from Forged Offroad as well as their rear bumper. These things are nice and I was super glad to have them in Baja!

Got the Baja Designs LP9s installed along with the Switch Pros 9100 controller and I love this setup!

Installed a Lowrance HDS7 Live mounted to an LGE CTS fold down mount and a Rugged Radios RM60 watt radio in the center console.

I also got Forged Offroad's LCA reinforcement and alignment system installed and I got rebuilt shocks with their Stage 1 upgrades installed. After that, it was time to head to Baja with EXO!

The truck ran extremely well the entire time and I was one of only a few trucks that finished the entire trip with only minor issues. The only problem I had was one of the power steering hoses vibrated loose causing all the power steering fluid to leak out and I lost power steering completely. Luckily, I had some hose clamps, power steering fluid, and the EXO crew helped me get it back together in about 30 mins. It was an absolutely awesome experience!

Next up will be Icon RXT rear bypasses, Icon 3.0 front coilovers, Icon UCAs w/delta joint, and an SVC V2 bypass bed rack with mounts for my Power Tank and Pro Eagle.

 

[Brad12]

Some big changes happened recently. Hopefully, I've finally figured out how to post pics.


Got a new bed setup. It's an SVC V2 rack customized to hold my jack and power tank.




Installed the full Icon RXT suspension with Icon UCAs and delta joints







Went to Baja with EXO recently and this rack and suspension were amazing. I'm really happy with everything.

 

[Brad12]

Put together a video of some recent runs through Nevada, Arizona, and Utah. Check it out.

 

[Brad12]

So my truck was at 110K miles and I had a Baja trip planned with Expedition X Offroad where I would be driving from the California Bay Area all the way down to Cabo and back, so I decided it was time to do a ton of preventative maintenance that I'm hoping will last another 110K miles.

Here's everything I did:
- Steering rack
- Water pump
- Rear axle pinion seal
- Driver/Passenger IWE actuators
- IWE hose (went with the Forged Offroad hose)
- Driver/Passenger hubs
- Passenger CV boots (driver side was in good condition)
- Outer tie rods
- Fuel pump
- Balljoints
- Oil pump (upgraded to the Livernois Motorsports billet gear pump to handle the supercharger)
- Rear axle bearings and seals
- Upper/Lower radiator hoses
- Alternator (upgraded to the 270 amp DC Power Engineering unit to handle the additional electronics)
- New Optima Yellow Top (I had to warranty it because the other one I had in there for about 4 months died on me)

I was also having an issue with my transmission temps, so Mike at Shaffer's Offroad fabbed up an additional tranny cooler for me. It runs in series with the "Saudi Arabia" upgraded tranny cooler I already had in there and it worked great on the trip. I don't remember the specifics, but it's from a mid-2000s super duty and it's huge. The hottest temp I saw on the Cabo trip was 212 while going way to fast on the road, but it stayed right around 206-208 cruising at about 80mph in 85+ degree weather and right around 200 degrees while on the trail.

While we were at it, Mike also changed up my bed cage because I didn't like how tall the tires sat on top of the Rotopax with the previous setup. I'd like to add a platform that extends to the rear of the bed that I can add attachment points to so the action packer isn't strapped down to one side. I have a feeling the bed cage will go through many more changes before I find something I'm really happy with.

You can barely see the tranny cooler behind the intercooler in the pic:


Here's a top view. Again, not a great pic, but you can see how it attaches:


Here's the bed cage. You can see the mounts for the Rotopax underneath the steering rack. I'll have to change this up once I get 37s because it won't work with larger tires. Sorry I don't have a better pic:


Bed cage all packed up on the beach in Baja:


The truck did great on the trip. I had one issue where the tranny/t-case wiring harness fell onto the exhaust and melted some wires together, but it ended up not being that big of a deal thanks to the EXO crew. This may have contributed to the wiring harness falling off :

(Pic courtesy of EXO)


(pic courtesy of EXO)

Future mods include (in no particular order):
- 37s
- Front fenders
- New wheels
- Add secondary Icon bypasses to the front
- New LCAs to accommodate the secondary bypasses
- More lights (A-pillar and third brake light)

 

[CoronaRaptor]

Great build thread. Nice gen 1 you've built.

 

[Brad12]

Great build thread. Nice gen 1 you've built.

Thank you

 

[EmbDriver]

BM? whats your middle inital? I am Brad also

 

[Brad12]

BM? whats your middle inital? I am Brad also

Nice. My middle initial is "E".

 

[EmbDriver]

Ah very well sir...I am BLM totally got screwed by blm......

 

[Brad12]

Well, I haven't done a ton to the raptor lately, but I took it on an EXO run up the Lost Coast here in CA a couple of weekends ago and had a blast. I'm still having issues with tranny temps getting pretty high at sustained high speeds, so I need to look into that for sure.

Apologies in advance for the pics not being rotated the right way. For whatever reason that happens when I take them from Supermotors and paste them here. I don't why I have so many issues with pics on this stupid forum and I can't get an admin to help me.

Here's a pic from the run


The big news is that it's time to go to 37s! Bigger tires, smaller holes amirite?!?!

I spent some time last weekend at a buddy's house clearancing the stock fenders. My 35" Falkens are at the end of their life and I've been extremely pleased with them, but I couldn't get a new set of them in 37s because of the backorder issues we're all facing right now, so I went with some 37x13.50x17 Gladiator Xcomp A/Ts. I also decided to get some new wheels, so I'll be trying out the new Icon Rebound Pros... I'm just waiting on them to arrive and then I'll post pics.

In the meantime, here are pics of how I clearanced the stock fenders based largely on what I read on here. I offroad pretty hard/regularly and I know @Bigg50 does as well, so I followed his lead on how he clearanced his fenders on his Gen 1. I won't know if there will be some additional trimming needed until I actually get the 37s mounted w/the new wheels and take it offroad, but I'll be sure to update this after my next run in a few weeks.

Rear Fenders​

The rear was pretty straight forward. We started with 1" cuts on the pinch welds but quickly realized 2" cuts was the way to go. You can definitely do the rear pinch welds with a 5lb. sledge hammer, but a 10lb. makes it easier. We mostly used the 5lb. My rear fenders are Line-X'd and it held up great with the exception of just a few sections (see below).

You can see the three tabs where the Line-X didn't stick here


But it turned out great the rest of the way and the Line-X held up

Front Fenders​

The front was definitely more involved.

After removing the fender flare and liner, we cut the lower portion of the actual fender off to make sure there is enough room to stuff the 37s. This might not be an issue on stock 34mm offset wheels, but most aftermarket wheels are 0mm offset which pushes the entire wheel/tire out about 1", so this is necessary in order to run stock fenders and fully stuff 37s. I got this idea from Bigg50's thread.

Stock fender before cutting for reference


How we cut it


In addition to the actual fender, we cut the fender flare as well. You can see in this pic we left the two mounting points intact, but we cut out where the sharpie is drawn


We moved on to the pinch welds, which were much more difficult to hammer down and I would definitely recommend using a 10lb. sledgehammer for these. Like the rear, we made 2" cuts and didn't cut through any of the plug welds.

Here it is marked up


And here it is with the pinch weld hammered down


We also cut off this lower tab since it was no longer needed




I didn't get great pics of this, but there is an extension from the pinch weld that we also cut off. You can see it in this pic starting right above where the pinch weld ends and it's not actually a pinch weld, but it hangs down, doesn't provide any structural support, and needed to be clearanced because it could definitely do some damage if it came in contact with a tire.

Here's a pic of that part already cut off. You can see what was there in one of the previous pics above


We ended up just using some black Steel-It to paint the bare metal since this will be hidden behind the fender liner anyway, and then put everything back together.


One of the drawbacks of cutting the fender and fender flare is there is a gap between the two now. However, you don't see it unless you're looking for it or actually stick your head down low enough to see it. I may get some soft plastic and figure out how to close that gap, but it doesn't bother me for now.




The last thing to note that I didn't get pics of is the wiring. Some of the wiring was attached to the fender liner, especially on the driver side, and I wanted to secure it not using the liner in case it gets ripped out. So I just got creative and zip tied it out of the way. The driver side was particularly tricky because there aren't any great spots to zip tie the wiring, so please let me know if any of you have done this and how you secured it.

Anyway, I'll post pics once I get the Gladiators mounted and I hope this helps someone out!