Did a KHC Gen 1 to Gen 2 shock bucket conversion and installed some Gen 2 King 3.0's over the weekend:
But for those who care, I guess we should rewind and say how we got here. I'll start by saying that TORR events and a bad-influence wifey that embodies YOLO are
not good for ya boys bank account.
So two weekends ago we attended the TORR event at VIR where we were once again likely the most stock truck in attendance. Taking a ride along in
@Jakenbake 's truck did not help with my envy as well as the wife telling me that I 'should square that shit away'.
At these events they have a banquet and a raffle with insane prizes. My raffle luck is utter dogshit, but I wanted to support the cause. My wife's luck isn't so bad, so with the only $20 in my wallet, I had her buy a ticket. When it came time for the raffle, I know the things like BD LP4's and 37" Toyo MT's where going to be a hot ticket item thereby minimizing our odds of winning, but I did spot some shock bucket conversions that I'd been considering for a while and wouldn't you know, nobody had put in for them. I guess being the stockest Gen 1 in attendance has
one advantage. By the time the drawing started we were
still the only ones in the pot, so it was an easy 'W'. So we won a $550 ($600 shipped) set of parts for $20!!
Next day (Sunday) was messaging my sales guy and trying to swap out the Gen 1 Fox 3.0's I had on order since November for some Gen 2's that he actually had in stock ready to ship. That was no problem and he said he had 5 sets of the rear shocks that I was looking for, inbound at the end of the month, but 4 were allocated but that I could have the last set. Sweet. These are currently sitting at a 7+ month lead time.
Come Monday, he went to check on that set of rear shocks and they too had been allocated, BUT... He could get a set of Kings the next day! I wasn't keen on the idea of mixing and matching, but then remembered that I had a local shop that had King Gen 2 coilovers IN STOCK! Reached out to him and sure enough he had some. Went and snagged those the next day and squared away my order for the rear set up. I should be seeing that stuff in a couple of weeks. So yeah, in a world where everything seems to be made from unobtainium, things have seemingly worked out really well for me. All suppliers took care of me with some generous military discounts as well as some additional swag. I'm extremely grateful.
INSTALL
The buckets:
Install was surprisingly mostly trouble free but pretty time consuming. I started on the passenger side and the only real problem I had was breaking the lower plug wire on #1 when I went to yank it out. Totally my fault. Things I did notice though was that you'll be hard pressed to do that lower plug service without yanking your coilover out after this mod. It looks like they considered it at least and that's why you have those windows in the rear of the buckets.
Chopped out the first bucket with my cordless grinder. That shit was for the birds:
The buckets do take a little bit of fitting and massaging. Opted to bolt-in for now as I don't weld. So next issue is the two lower bolt hole locations they give you won't actually work. You'd be putting a hole right into the frame bosses that attach to the bottom of the UCA tabs. No way to use a fastener here.
I elected to forgo those fasteners for the time being and am going to have them welded in. So the bucket is currently being supported by 2x 1/2" grade 8 bolts, 2x 7/16" grade 8 bolts, and the 2 UCA pivot bolts 14mm grade 10.9 (I assume). I'm fine with it as a temp solution.
Next issue was boring the fore-aft holes. The one hole for the 1/2" bolt into the old bucket was simple (other hole/slot already existing). For the side holes you need a 90 degree adaptor which works great, except mine is 1/4" hex receiver and the step bits that I was using for the holes did not have a 1/4" shank. This issue coupled with how much it sucked to use a grinder to cut out the bucket caused me to phone a friend that has all the toys. Enter Mr. Plasma Torch:
This little thing is a monster and a life saver. Even has it's own built in compressor so you don't have to plumb air to it. Amazing!
Continued...
