brandonjansen - 2012 Ram 3500 Laramie Limited Build Thread

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brandonjansen

brandonjansen

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Location
Abbotsford, BC, Canada
Ram Year
2012 Ram 3500 Laramie Limited
Engine
6.7 Cummins - Tuned and Deleted
Picture and Build Update - 2016-5-5

Haven't posted up anything in this thread for quite some time so I figured I'd give a bit of an update and share a few more pictures of the truck.


Build Update
Nothing has really changed build wise. All my extra time and money has gone into my Nova over the winter as I ended up doing an overall on a ton of things in that car. The addition as of late to the truck was that I swapped out all the interior lights for LED's (something I should have done long ago). The rest has just been routine maintenance and detailing.

As far as future plans go I have a few things on my list yet but I'm not really in a huge rush to get to them. It's kind of a "whenever time and money allows for it" type thing. Here's my current list:
  • 5" Flo Pro Exhaust - With or without muffler; I haven't decided what direction I want to go yet. The exhaust will either be fully powdercoated or painted before it goes on the truck. Then a 5"x6"x15" stainless tip will accompany it.
  • OEM 2013+ sport taillights - I just feel like something on the back end needs to be changed up. I'm a big fan of the OEM sport taillights so that's likely the direction I'll go. I did think about colour matched Recon lights from Retroshop for a while but I'm not sure I'm a fan of the colour matched taillights on a mineral grey truck.
  • Smoothed and painted mirror arms - The housings will stay chrome but the arms themselves will be smoothed and colour matched mineral grey and then likely 3M'd afterwards for protection.
  • Front window tint - Not sure whether I'll go with 20% to match the back or just stick with 35% to be a little more safe.

I've still thought about doing something audio wise. Likely just changing the head unit and putting in an aftermarket amp/sub. But honestly it's not huge on my list right now because I rarely listen to music that loud in the truck. I generally just like cruising and listening to the truck itself; especially in the spring/summer when the windows are down. So that may end up being a couple years down the road.


Photoshoots
I did do a few photoshoots with the truck in the fall that I haven't shared a ton of pictures from though. So here's a few from both of those (I know everyone loves pictures).

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Gotta love it when everything on the front end matches ;)

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The last set of pictures was in front of a building that my company (Humphrey Construction Ltd.) had just finished up. It was the first huge project that I was acting project manager for from start to finish and the build of it and my truck overlapped quite a bit time period wise so it was kind of neat. I'm definitely happy with how the both of them turned out plus it was just a great background to take pictures of the truck in front of.​


2" Wheel spacers with 22x12 -40 offset wheels
When it was time to swap over to my stock wheels/37's for the winter I decided it was a prime opportunity to see how the Forces would look on the truck with my 2" spacers. Naturally I had to take a couple pictures of that as well.

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Yes the stuck out a ridiculous amount and no, I didn't have a hope of turning with them installed. Not very far at least. But I can't lie, it would be tempting to run for a while if I could clear it.

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brandonjansen

brandonjansen

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Location
Abbotsford, BC, Canada
Ram Year
2012 Ram 3500 Laramie Limited
Engine
6.7 Cummins - Tuned and Deleted
West Harrison FSR Offroading - 2016-5-5

I ended up taking the truck on a few small offroading trips with some friends this past winter. One of the good ones we did was a day trip up West Harrison FSR in December. Overall a really easy area to get up to and through. My main concern was obviously not taking the truck anywhere I was going to end up with pinstriping from branches or body damage. So we found some good open trails and just went for a good drive along the lake and then up into the mountains.

We ended up heading quite a ways up a mountain and got into some pretty deep snow. Wasn't much of an issue for me or my buddy in the Jeep (that you'll see below). But one guy had a fully stock 4Runner and the other had a fully stock GMC Sierra so they were struggling a bit. The 4Runner ended up getting stuck in a ditch and we had to winch it out so that's when we decided it was time to turn around and head back down. And don't worry, since then we've lifted and put wheels/tires on the 4Runner and lifted the Sierra ;)
From there we just found a nice spot with a view overlooking the lake, had a BBQ lunch, and did some ***** and target shooting with a couple of my buddies guns and then started heading back home.

Here's a few pictures and videos from the trip.

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A ways up the hill we ran into a bit of a ditch that became a problem for the Sierra because of how low it was. He managed to just make it through with my help guiding him up. Then the 4Runner had no issues with ground clearance; just a bit of tire spin. And again, me and the Jeep had no issues crawling up it at all.

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Eventually we made it up to a bit of a clearing area where we could park for a few more pictures.

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Not long after that the 4Runner got stuck in the ditch. We quickly winched him out with the Jeep and then started heading back down the hill.
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On the way back we found a bit of a puddle on the main road so we grabbed a quick video of us running through it. Why not make a little splash right?

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Then a little further up the road we hit more snow again so we had a little 2wd fun getting sideways in the trucks.

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brandonjansen

brandonjansen

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Location
Abbotsford, BC, Canada
Ram Year
2012 Ram 3500 Laramie Limited
Engine
6.7 Cummins - Tuned and Deleted
American Force Wheel Polishing - 2016-5-5

In preparation to throw the American Force wheels back on the truck I wanted to polishing them up and get them looking better than new again. I had been stocking up on a few products throughout the winter that I wanted to use and planned to go all out to get them as shiny as possible.

Here's what I ended up doing:

  1. Polished twice by machine (drill with Mothers Power Cone and Power Ball Mini) and Autosol Metal Polish
  2. Polished once by hand with Adam's Metal Polish 1
  3. Polished once by hand with Adam's Metal Polish 2
  4. Sealed with two coats of Poorboy's Wheel Sealant applied by hand

I ended up having about 10 hours into the polishing and sealing but totally worth it IMO. I can't say enough for Adam's Polishes products as once again they've blown me away. The Metal Polish 1 & 2 are by far the easiest metal polishes I've ever used and the results were fantastic! Not to mention I barely used any product to do it; the bottles still look brand new sitting in my cabinet after doing 8 wheels now (I ended up doing my Nova wheels as well). I'll pictures speak for themselves....

Just starting with the Mother's Power Cone and Autosol
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After step 1 and 2 listed above
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The final product
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Next step of the detailing regime will be a full clay bar, polish, sealant, and wax for the truck. I ended up buying a new Flex 3401 VRG polisher last month to do my Nova and am stocked up Jax Wax and Adam's products and I'm definitely excited to use on the truck. It's just a matter of trying to find a weekend to do it. Life has been crazy busy lately and I just haven't gotten around to it.
When I do that I also want to crawl underneath it again and give it all a good wash and then pull my driveshaft out again and polish it up so it's looking mint. Once I have everything cleaned up properly I'll take some good, detailed pictures of it all to post up.
 
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brandonjansen

brandonjansen

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2012 Ram 3500 Laramie Limited
Engine
6.7 Cummins - Tuned and Deleted
Putting the Truck to Work for Church - 2016-5-5

A couple other pictures I wanted to share yet are some opportunities I've had to use the truck to give back to the community a bit. As some of you may know I am a Christian and very involved with my church (The Abbotsford Vineyard). One of the main things I do for them is drum on the worship team 2 or 3 Sundays a month. Because of this I'm very involved with the leadership team there and am kind of on "the in" with what's going on. This leads to hearing about lots of times where I can volunteer to help setup for different services or events that are going on. The truck and trailers I have access to have come in handy with this a few times. I haven't taken pictures of everything but here's a couple.

Hauling staging, scaffolding, props, and sound equipment for an Easter service we did in March.
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And more recently I had the opportunity to haul what's called the Free!Style trailer across town to be restocked and organized for upcoming events. Free!Style is a ministry through my church that takes brand new donated clothes, sorts and tags them, loads them in a trailer, then brings that trailer to various locations to help people in need by letting them "shop" for clothes for free in the trailer. Great way to get connected with the community and help some people in need.
I'm proud to have that trailer and name behind my truck and support this ministry.

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I am in no way trying to toot my own horn with this post saying "oh look what I do" or anything like that so please don't take it that way. I just often find it cool and interesting to see ways and opportunities that guys are jumping on to help out others. Especially when we can involve one of our hobbies into it because let's be real, I also love pulling the trailers around as I know many of you probably do as well. Just more of a reminder or spark to maybe get more guys giving back to their local communities because I honestly just find it as an awesome thing to do.​
 

R.L.K.

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Awesome post !
 

Pull Ya

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Beautiful truck!!!! Well thought out, well executed and the results definitely show your time and effort in this project. Very well done!!!!
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MarkV

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Much needed update!! Really like your truck. Nice and clean. And keep up the good work with the church!
 
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brandonjansen

brandonjansen

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2012 Ram 3500 Laramie Limited
Engine
6.7 Cummins - Tuned and Deleted
Towing Trailer Video - 2016-5-27

Put together a quick video towing my Dad's 28' enclosed trailer around town a couple weeks ago. I was doing some more work for my church moving some stuff and had just bought a new GoPro Hero 4 Silver so I decided it was a good opportunity to test out the camera and get some new sound clips/video of the truck. Definitely happy with the quality that this camera produces.

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MarkV

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Gotta love Gopro's eh!!! Really nice video of your truck. And love your turn into the church parking lot. Nice and wide. Great looking truck!!
 
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brandonjansen

brandonjansen

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2012 Ram 3500 Laramie Limited
Engine
6.7 Cummins - Tuned and Deleted
you give me truck envy

Yep , I hate him
He gives most "Truck envy "

Haha thanks guys! I apologize for making you envious. lol.

Gotta love Gopro's eh!!! Really nice video of your truck. And love your turn into the church parking lot. Nice and wide. Great looking truck!!

Yeah they're definitely a lot of fun. I've had the original GoPro Hero for a number of years now but it finally kicked the bucket on my in the fall drag racing. It was time for an upgrade anyway. Definitely happy with the Hero 4 Silver. I was just down in Oregon last week riding on the sand dunes with a whole bunch of family and got a bunch of good video of all that. Need to edit it all together yet and then I'll probably post that on YouTube as well.
 
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Drummin4jc

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Great video, Brandon! That's some really great video/sound quality from that GoPro! Truck sounds great. Also, not sure if its stock Cummins trucks, but do you have compression braking?? Sounds like it when you're slowing down and coming to a stop.

Adam
 
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brandonjansen

brandonjansen

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2012 Ram 3500 Laramie Limited
Engine
6.7 Cummins - Tuned and Deleted
Great video, Brandon! That's some really great video/sound quality from that GoPro! Truck sounds great. Also, not sure if its stock Cummins trucks, but do you have compression braking?? Sounds like it when you're slowing down and coming to a stop.

Adam

Thanks Adam!

The 6.7 Cummins do come with an exhaust brake stock that's built into the factory VGT (variable geometry turbo). It works by closing up the exhaust vanes of the turbo to create back pressure on the exhaust side of the engine. When coming down a steep hill at high rpm when towing I'm burying my 60 psi exhaust back pressure gage. Works phenomenal; I often have to shut it off coming down some of the hills as it slows down the truck to much.
The reason you hear it so much more on my truck is because it's fully deleted.

Same idea as an engine compression brake like what semi trucks have but executed in quite a different way.
 

Drummin4jc

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Thanks Adam!

The 6.7 Cummins do come with an exhaust brake stock that's built into the factory VGT (variable geometry turbo). It works by closing up the exhaust vanes of the turbo to create back pressure on the exhaust side of the engine. When coming down a steep hill at high rpm when towing I'm burying my 60 psi exhaust back pressure gage. Works phenomenal; I often have to shut it off coming down some of the hills as it slows down the truck to much.
The reason you hear it so much more on my truck is because it's fully deleted.

Same idea as an engine compression brake like what semi trucks have but executed in quite a different way.

Ok, gotcha. I used to sell Peterbilts with 13L and 15L Cummins motors so I'm very familiar with what you're talking about.

Adam
 

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