Bullitt's 2004 1500 build

After a few years away from the truck scene building Mustangs, I had the urge to do another lowered truck. I've been a mini-trucker in the past, dating back to the late 80's, but have wanted to do a full-size build for a few years now. I flirted with the idea of doing a slammed dually, but the cost of admission was a little too high for me right now with a kid in college and another starting next year.

After searching the normal sources, I ran across this 2004 Ram 1500 on Craigslist, which was at a local car dealership. It was only a 3.7L with 121k miles but you have to start somewhere and I've already got the fast car, so I pulled the trigger and brought it home.

Here's how it looked when I took delivery at the dealership:



It was fairly clean, but had it's issues which I would expect from an older truck that had obviously been used for some work. It has the typical dings and dents and both bumpers are a little bent up. I already had plans of a roll pan for the back and color matched or black bumpers, so while it was a negative for the dealership dealing with price, it was a positive for me knowing that they were going to be replaced.

Got it home and drove it daily for a few days until I realized that I have been spoiled driving a car with satellite radio for a couple years and that I couldn't deal with standard radio, so the first thing I did was call Sirius XM and try to get a deal on a 3rd receiver for it. They ended up offering me one for free, so I had them ship it. Upon receipt, I could tell that this wasn't going to work for me. It had a standard cigarette lighter plug and broadcast over an FM modulator. That wasn't going to work, so I hopped on Amazon and ordered the direct 12v to 5v converter and the hard wired connection to the Dodge radio. This got a little more involved than I had planned because of the goofy factory antenna plug, so I had to order not only the direct modulator box, but both a male and female adapter as well. When all of the parts arrived, I finally got it all installed and found a decent place to mount the box. I also hard wired in a USB charging station while I was in there.

A couple weeks later, the real fun was about to begin. I had been doing a lot of research, shopping and looking at pictures to decide what I wanted to do with the suspension. My 17 year old son was pretty adamant about me raising the truck, since he has a bunch of friends in the 4WD community, but with a 3.7L that can't get out of it's own way to begin with, putting larger wheels and tires on it just wasn't in the cards. I've always been a lowered guy anyway, so I pretty much had my mind set on lowering, the question is simply "how low" and "what to use". Since I have been out of the game for a while, I used this forum to do some research to see what everyone was using and settled on the fact that I wanted to do a 5/7 drop on 22's and that the McGaughy's kit was the way to go, so the order was placed.

About 10 days later, 133lbs of boxes arrived at the house.





i had plans to let it sit there and do an entire suspension rebuild at one time, but boredom got to me this past weekend, and I decided that since I do not have to drive the truck, I would go ahead and start working on the drop and then just add the rest of the parts as they came in to spread out the work load.

I got the flip kit done on Friday and the front spindles and springs installed on Saturday. The install was pretty straight forward, although you do learn a lot of shortcuts doing the first side, which makes the 2nd side go a lot faster. I also learned that pretty much everything in the front end of the truck was worn out. My only suggestion to someone who wants to do this themself is to ensure that you have all the tools required before you get started. There are a few that do not come in your standard tool set. 21mm and 24mm will be your friend. I also suggest a large breaker bar, most of the suspension bolts are a bear to get loose, even on a rust free truck that has been in the Southeast it's entire life. I feel for you guys trying to do this on trucks that have lived up north, that has to be a nightmare.

Here is how she sits currently:



Currently waiting on: Upper Control Arms, Lower ball joints, Lower control arm bushings, ultra low profile bump stops for the front and wheel hubs.

Still waitiing to be installed: The C-Notch kit..... This will happen sometime this week. I also need to weld up the spring perches.

Still need to order: inner and outer tie rods, steering rack bushings, leaf spring bushings, McGaughy air bag kit for the rear and swaybars.

Looking good man.

Well, it's a good thing that I've already ordered the wheel hubs for it. I knew I had one that needed replacement shortly after I bought the truck and I had to get pretty nasty with it to remove it from the stock spindle which didn't help at all.

I drove it to take the trash to the dumpsters about a mile down the road. When I pulled back into the driveway, I got a nasty grinding sound from the front right. I drove it in the front yard trying to recreate the sound, which wasn't difficult at all, and found that the right side wheel bearing has given up the farm and allowing the rotor to hit the caliper bracket.

On another note: Has anyone noticed that their rear suspension gets really soft with the flip kit? I'm getting the airbags, so I'm not really concerned about it right now and I'm sure a good set of shocks and the swaybar will help as well. I just found it odd that simply switching the axle to the top would make such a big difference in the ride quality.

Looks good!

It looks as though I may have time to get started on the C-Notch this afternoon. I went and picked up 10 of the 4.5" cutting wheels and 10 of the 3" cutting wheels along with some drill bits and some chassis paint this morning.

Got started on the c-notch tonight. I tried to do it without removing the bed, but it quickly became apparent that it would be a lot easier to call my sons and have them come over and help me take the bed off in order to finish. It was definitely a good call, as soon as the bed was off, the job became 100x easier and was well worth the 15 minutes to pull it off.

I'll get the other side done tomorrow and while the bed it off, I'm going to pull the factory tow hitch off in prep for the roll pan and clean it up really well. It looks kind of rough under there.

Got the other side finished up this morning, now I'm waiting on the reinforcements to arrive this afternoon to put the bed back on.

As I was finishing up, the mailman showed up with some more presents. Now all I need are the wheel hubs and I will be ready to take it in for an alignment and start driving it. FedEx shows that they are out for delivery, so there's a slight possibility that it'll be ready to go today, but most likely it'll be tomorrow. My body is getting pretty beat up from working on it by myself in the yard.

I need a garage with a lift......

I got the passenger's side front all wrapped up today, new control arms and wheel hubs are installed. I pulled the upper control arm out as far as it would go and still have some negative camber, so I'm going to have to go get a carbide bit and elongate the holes for the uppers to get it to specs. Shouldn't be a big deal at all.

It is odd though, because the grinding that was in the passenger's side is gone, but has moved to the driver's side now. I know the wheel bearings were bad in both sides, but I never heard the driver's side make much noise before.

I did realize once I got it finished that I forgot to put the low profile bump stop on, so I'll have to do that tomorrow morning as well.

Nicely done and love the progress/write up thus far!

Good looking stuff!

Had to take a couple weeks off from working on the truck to deal with some family issues, but I'm getting back on it this week. I bought the carbide bit to elongate the slots in the upper control arms and I'm going to get those slotted between tomorrow and Friday. I have the appointment to get the alignment done on Saturday morning. If I have time, I want to get the tires swapped out as well, I'm thinking 275/60's or 275/55's on the 17's until I save up to get the 22's.

I'm also ordering the leaf spring bushings and drop shackles tomorrow. I like the way she sits, but I think another inch in the rear would be perfect.

Went and got the old girl aligned and she made it through with flying colors. The guys at the shop were amazed that they could get the camber perfectly in spec with the 5" drop in the front. The only thing they couldn't get was caster, but who really cares about caster except for road course racers anyway?

Today, I'm going to tint the rear window, take the Ram 1500 badges off the doors, retorque everything now that it has a few miles on it and weld the flip kit brackets to the axle. Nothing spectacular, but it's stuff that has to be done.

Placed an order for a set of Belltech Street Performance shocks, rear spring bushings and the shackles to level out the back of the truck today. I should be ordering the airbags for the rear on Thursday.

Eyeballing a roll pan, but I really want to finish the suspension up completely before I move to the pretty stuff.

Worked on the truck a little bit while I'm waiting on some more parts. I had pulled the bedliner last weekend and there was a mess underneath. I should have taken pictures before, because there was so much crud underneath, even the pressure wand at the car wash couldn't make a dent in it.

So I broke out the scrub brush, dish soap and water hose and went to work and this is the final product. This should cut the work required for prepping for the Monstaliner quite a bit.

Great progress, looking forward to seeing the 22's on there!

N1ck said:

Great progress, looking forward to seeing the 22's on there!

Click to expand...

Me too..... It's kind of funny looking dropped 5/7 with BFG All Terrains on it.

A few parts came in today. I already put the smoked taillights on the truck, but it was too dark to get pictures. These also came in, they'll probably get installed on Sunday. The Belltech Street Performance shocks are scheduled for delivery on Monday and I pick up the new (to me) dvd/navigation setup on Monday as well.

The stock shackles vs. the lowering shackles:



Got them installed which put the rear exactly where I want the ride height to be. Sorry about the glare, I'll try to get a better picture later.



The Belltech Street Performance Shocks will be here tomorrow, which will likely fix the only complaint that I have about the ride, which is the front end having excessive compression on long lazy bumps which makes the front tires rub. I know these tires are too tall, but I don't want to buy a set of 17" tires just to replace them in a couple months with the 22's. So it's something I'll have to put up with for a little while.

I will pick up the Pioneer Avic N-1 from my co-worker tomorrow as well, but it will be a little while before I install it. I want to do the entire audio setup at one time and the suspension is priority for me right now.

The next project is to put the leaf spring bushings in as well as the shocks.

The next purchase is the McGaughy's load handling bags. After that: swaybars

I don't know if you know this, but with a lowered truck, you cannot use airbags for a standard height truck.

Like the build, you went lower than me.