NightMares 01 Sport Build

[NightMares]

I would do one if I were building a pre-runner, but I'm shooting for more of a trail rig style truck. I was thinking about the lightning rack, but like I said the truck won't fit in the parking garage where my wife works. The Fab Fours rack doesn't overhang out the top of the truck, if it does it's maybe an inch or so. I had about 4-5" under the height sign, I think it was 7 feet but might be 8. The tires raised the truck up a little bit more, I'll have to run it down one of these days and get a real measurement on it to make sure I won't have problems.

Of course I get the truck washed Saturday and this happens.

 

[NightMares]

Just ordered two of these. Going to mount them in the holes I've drilled for that light bar, then get some metal and build the filler for the open space where the light bar is supposed to go.

 

[NightMares]

Seat covers just showed up this morning, finally after almost a month now. Excited to get those put on the truck. Shipping info on the lights from Fedex is showing that the shipping label has been created but not fully shipped yet, although it’s showing scheduled delivery of tomorrow. Hopefully they’ll show up by this weekend.

I also forgot to update this thread with some mirrors I ordered a couple days ago, got some tow mirrors with power/heat/turn signals on order as well. I don't plan on joining the Moose nation with them flipped up, but I've been towing quite a few trailers as of recent for work and I feel I could benefit from them. Should hopefully be here by this weekend as well making for a fun Saturday.

Lights, mirrors, water pump, thermostat, serpentine belt, belt tensioner, timing cover, and timing chain. Also thinking I might pick up some plugs and wires as well and do a small tune up on the motor, I’m not sure when they were done last but it sure wasn’t done by me within the almost 2 years of owning the truck.

I’ll do an oil change on the motor and if time allows another transmission flush, starting to notice what feels like it’s kicking back while shifting. I noticed it before the new tires, but now it’s really noticeable. I had my CTS2 set for 33” tires and these BFG’s were noticeably about 1.5” taller when placed against the Nitto’s, but I can’t imagine that size difference effecting that much. I’m going to try reprogramming the truck with a custom tune setting (adjusting the shift points) and see what that does. Hopefully the tune and a flush takes care of it, if not then I’ll start saving and planning a transmission rebuild with some extra goodies for this spring time or summer.

 

[NightMares]

More added to my list inspired from Derekp and his build. I've got some red 1.75" round flush mount LED's, and some narrow straight red led's on order. The round ones I plan on mounting flush inside the headlights and tail lights, the straights will be mounted on the bottom side of the tow mirrors, and the bottom of the rockers above the nerf bars.

I plan on tying these into the dome lights, that way when I hit the unlock on my keyless entry, headlights, tail lights, nerf bars, and underside of the mirrors light up red.

Here's the lights that are on their way.





Here's where the flush mounts are going. Headlight I'll have it somewhat centered in the black bottom section so it will hit the mirror finish inside and should glow pretty bright. Tail lights I might have to bake in the oven to get the red lens cover off, or go from the back side and drill two holes to get the light through, but either way I'll be using the upper red reflector area. Should look pretty sweet when everything is said and done.

 

[NightMares]

Small update for the day. Did some custom tuning on the Edge programmer for the transmission. Got the issue taken care of. It really only happened for 1st to 2nd, so I adjusted 2nd gear to shift sooner and firmer, and holy balls it runs so much better now. 2nd gear shifts firm, so skips, no slip. I think it might have had something to do with me switching the tune from Performance 91 to Performance 87 to run the non-ethanol. After driving it on my lunch break with the shift points adjusted it made me realize that I started to notice it around that time, so I’ll skip the trans flush for this weekend now that I know all is well now.

 

[NightMares]

So looks like all my stuff will be here next week as far as lighting and mirrors go.

Last night I got the oil changed, new air cleaner, and took another stab at getting the wheel spacers off. Still no go, even with a torch. Gonna try again Saturday when I have more time to dink around with it.

Also performed my 1000 mile check on the suspension. Drivers side upper control arm bolt at the axle had worked slightly loose, but outside of that everything was tight. Took care of the slight clunk I've been having.

 

[NightMares]

Had my first recovery this morning with the truck. With my work being a 4x4 shop, we get usually at least 1-2 phone calls a week during the winter from people stuck in the snow. At times theres pretty extreme recoveries, and tow companies never want to risk taking their trucks up there and actually have started giving our number out. Normally I'll post it on our off road groups facebook account and get a couple different rigs going, but with the small amount of snow we've had this season we've had no recovery calls, until this morning.

Co-worker headed in to work early to work on some things, got a phone call from a young kid. Took his info, called me and I went out to help before heading into work.

Young kid in a 2wd single cab long bed ranger. Went out to play in the mud alone, got stuck at 3am and had no one to help. Called a tow company, was quoted $1500 to come pull him out. He wanted me to use my winch, apparently he had a bad experience using a strap and started getting annoyed with me, but with how slick and gooey the mud was I couldn't see the winch working. Would have just dragged my truck rather than pull him out. Threw the strap on, two tugs and less than 5 minutes later I had him back on pavement and on his way.









Luckily it rained pretty hard and took most of the mud off on my way into work, so minimal cleaning tonight. Made a little money off the deal as well, enough to cover gas and the time to clean the truck.

Looking forward to using this truck for snow wheeling and recoveries.



Also had some good times last night. Got to meet Scott from ARB as he rolled into town, talked for quite some time. Wound up on the subject of my bumper on my truck, and I told him the pros and cons to it. The more I spoke with him and told him about the cons, the more I started feeling regretful for going with the bumper. Nothing really fit "quite right" and everything, including the mounting brackets and winch mount, is made from 3/16th metal. A 12k winch on a full size truck is bound to break something bumper wise with my setup.

The ARB incorporates things that other bumper companies don't, and I had never given it much thought until Scott started pointing things out. For example: the ARB mounting brackets include some crush (or crumple) zones, so in case of a smaller impact, it won't deploy the air bags in the truck.

So, Monday when he's back in his office we're going to go over price options for an ARB for my truck. Once the bumper gets here, I'm thinking I'll have the bumper stripped and painted/powder coated red, and the bull bar changed from chrome to black. I swapped the Rigid SAE fogs onto my bumper about a week ago, so I can just get the Rigid round adapters and install them on the ARB, and the two 9" LED's I have coming on Monday actually look identical to the ARB 9" Intensity lights. So I already have everything for the ARB to work on the truck. Thinking I'll yank the Move and install the ARB, then give the Move to my brother for his truck and he can either spend the time with a grinder taking all the Raptor Liner off and then I can help him paint the bumper white, or he can pay to have it blasted and powder coated.

Regardless of price it's going to happen, price point just depicts whether or not it will be sooner or later, or if it will go on as is or color matched to the truck.

 

[MagSport]

Had my first recovery this morning with the truck. With my work being a 4x4 shop, we get usually at least 1-2 phone calls a week during the winter from people stuck in the snow. At times theres pretty extreme recoveries, and tow companies never want to risk taking their trucks up there and actually have started giving our number out. Normally I'll post it on our off road groups facebook account and get a couple different rigs going, but with the small amount of snow we've had this season we've had no recovery calls, until this morning.



Co-worker headed in to work early to work on some things, got a phone call from a young kid. Took his info, called me and I went out to help before heading into work.



Young kid in a 2wd single cab long bed ranger. Went out to play in the mud alone, got stuck at 3am and had no one to help. Called a tow company, was quoted $1500 to come pull him out. He wanted me to use my winch, apparently he had a bad experience using a strap and started getting annoyed with me, but with how slick and gooey the mud was I couldn't see the winch working. Would have just dragged my truck rather than pull him out. Threw the strap on, two tugs and less than 5 minutes later I had him back on pavement and on his way.



















Luckily it rained pretty hard and took most of the mud off on my way into work, so minimal cleaning tonight. Made a little money off the deal as well, enough to cover gas and the time to clean the truck.



Looking forward to using this truck for snow wheeling and recoveries.







Also had some good times last night. Got to meet Scott from ARB as he rolled into town, talked for quite some time. Wound up on the subject of my bumper on my truck, and I told him the pros and cons to it. The more I spoke with him and told him about the cons, the more I started feeling regretful for going with the bumper. Nothing really fit "quite right" and everything, including the mounting brackets and winch mount, is made from 3/16th metal. A 12k winch on a full size truck is bound to break something bumper wise with my setup.



The ARB incorporates things that other bumper companies don't, and I had never given it much thought until Scott started pointing things out. For example: the ARB mounting brackets include some crush (or crumple) zones, so in case of a smaller impact, it won't deploy the air bags in the truck.



So, Monday when he's back in his office we're going to go over price options for an ARB for my truck. Once the bumper gets here, I'm thinking I'll have the bumper stripped and painted/powder coated red, and the bull bar changed from chrome to black. I swapped the Rigid SAE fogs onto my bumper about a week ago, so I can just get the Rigid round adapters and install them on the ARB, and the two 9" LED's I have coming on Monday actually look identical to the ARB 9" Intensity lights. So I already have everything for the ARB to work on the truck. Thinking I'll yank the Move and install the ARB, then give the Move to my brother for his truck and he can either spend the time with a grinder taking all the Raptor Liner off and then I can help him paint the bumper white, or he can pay to have it blasted and powder coated.



Regardless of price it's going to happen, price point just depicts whether or not it will be sooner or later, or if it will go on as is or color matched to the truck.

I looked at that arb bumper and I honestly think the move bumper works well with your truck, maybe better than the arb bumper. Forgive me since I haven't messed with either bumper I don't have any experience, but while the move bumper may not be of as good quality as the arb, I think it's style suits your build much more than the arb. Since the move bumper is diy would it not make marketing sense to actually modify it? You say you also use the truck to advertise for your shop basically, I do not believe modifying a diy bumper would be too far removed from the type of audience targeting your aiming for; Modifications like winch bracing and maybe swapping bumper mounts for the superior arb mounts.
Sorry if it seems I'm missing the point but I can't tell you how much I like that bumper on your truck; it suits the entire build.
On a side note, do you still have your original bumper?

 

[NightMares]

To be honest, it really depends on what they can do on the price. Retail is crazy high, and if I'm spending that kind of money I would just go with the bumper I truly really want, which is the Trailready Prerunner with dual square light holes for the Rigid Dually's.

If the price still gets outrageous then I've got plans for the Move bumper until I can afford a new one. Bracing and reinforcing are just a fraction of what I'm thinking of. Adding a Prerunner bar, custom skid plate that will tie into an oil pan skid, then tie into a trans skid and then into a belly pan, along with expanding the inside light holes to a 6x6 square and installing some CSI 6x6 lights, decreasing the size of the outside holes to allow the Rigid SAE dually's to fit right, and recoating it with a faster activator on the Raptor liner so it dries faster is something along the lines of what I'm thinking I would do with it.

I do still have my stock bumper, as soon as my brother has enough money to buy the white paint I'm going to trade him grilles and install the sport package on his truck, then with his grille customize a grille insert and paint it red to match mine.

His bumper will be used in the living room to add to the realism while he races on video games.

 

[NightMares]

Picked up an older LeBra tonneau cover last night. One of my buddies had it on his older 93 Chevy, he sold the truck for a newer one and it didn't fit the 5.5' bed. Got it for 60 bucks.

Disappointed that it's a tilt up rather than a roll up, but it goes on and off the truck in less than 5 minutes so not a big deal if it needs to come off. Will work for this winter season for keeping parts and other things dry.

 

[NightMares]

Lights showed up at 5pm today. Thanks Fedex. Gonna get them wired in eventually, but they look *******.

 

[derekp]

Can I be honest? I don't like them, not even a little bit. They would look better behind the grille. Truck looks good though. Lol

 

[BlackMagnum2000]

I like them. A lot. If they weren't so expensive I'd buy them to replace my round lights. I wish mine were bigger I liked the look of the bigger lights like I used to have but leds are so much better


Pics of the light output??

 

[NightMares]

Can I be honest? I don't like them, not even a little bit. They would look better behind the grille. Truck looks good though. Lol

I'm actually thinking about where I'm going to put them right now for a permanent location. I'm not going behind the grille, as my plans for the bumper will interfere with anything behind the grille.

Talked to ARB yesterday and I can't get a deal good enough to go with their bumper. By the time I pay shipping and everything, I'm shy of a couple hundred bucks to go with the TrailReady bumper that's designed for the sport model truck.

So I'm going to do the mods to the front bumper I was talking about. The lights I have are going to go along with the prerunner bar I'm going to install, whether they stay where they are and the bar goes slightly over them, or on top of the bar with a 20" light bar fixed into the opening in the bumper. I've decided regardless I'm not going to dink around with the openings that are already there, just going to get these Duallys to fit in there correctly. Then I'll work on a skid plate that ties into an oil pan skid and respray the bumper, and call it done.

I'm going to do the Sport clip trade for my brother's black grille on his truck, then probably build and install a custom insert that will set the truck off from everything. This will all happen probably around tax season when I can afford to buy my hood and some flares, still not 100% positive on what flares I'm going with but I do know I want them painted to match the truck. Might as well paint everything all at once, and contemplating spraying the whole truck to fix some spots and start over with my graphics and change it up a bit.

I like them. A lot. If they weren't so expensive I'd buy them to replace my round lights. I wish mine were bigger

I liked the look of the bigger lights like I used to have

but leds are so much better


Pics of the light output??

I'll get some pics when I get them wired up. Tomorrow night I'll be wiring in the 9" spots, the Rigid Dually floods, and install plus wire up the tow mirrors that came in yesterday. I'll be wiring up the signals in the mirrors as running lights.

For now here's a better picture of it in daylight. I love the way it looks.

 

[BlackMagnum2000]

I'm actually thinking about where I'm going to put them right now for a permanent location. I'm not going behind the grille, as my plans for the bumper will interfere with anything behind the grille.

Talked to ARB yesterday and I can't get a deal good enough to go with their bumper. By the time I pay shipping and everything, I'm shy of a couple hundred bucks to go with the TrailReady bumper that's designed for the sport model truck.

So I'm going to do the mods to the front bumper I was talking about. The lights I have are going to go along with the prerunner bar I'm going to install, whether they stay where they are and the bar goes slightly over them, or on top of the bar with a 20" light bar fixed into the opening in the bumper. I've decided regardless I'm not going to dink around with the openings that are already there, just going to get these Duallys to fit in there correctly. Then I'll work on a skid plate that ties into an oil pan skid and respray the bumper, and call it done.

I'm going to do the Sport clip trade for my brother's black grille on his truck, then probably build and install a custom insert that will set the truck off from everything. This will all happen probably around tax season when I can afford to buy my hood and some flares, still not 100% positive on what flares I'm going with but I do know I want them painted to match the truck. Might as well paint everything all at once, and contemplating spraying the whole truck to fix some spots and start over with my graphics and change it up a bit.



I'll get some pics when I get them wired up. Tomorrow night I'll be wiring in the 9" spots, the Rigid Dually floods, and install plus wire up the tow mirrors that came in yesterday. I'll be wiring up the signals in the mirrors as running lights.

For now here's a better picture of it in daylight. I love the way it looks.

Are those duallys going to be on a switch or wired to the stock fog lights ?
And dammit! You beat me to the signal upgraded tow mirrors. I'm about to order mine

 

[NightMares]

Are those duallys going to be on a switch or wired to the stock fog lights ?
And dammit! You beat me to the signal upgraded tow mirrors. I'm about to order mine

I'm going to have 3 pairs of lights. The two on the outside of the bumper right now are the Rigid SAE fog lights, I have those wired into the factory fog light switch. I'm going to install the Dually floods in the inside holes of the bumper, and wire those to a switch. Then the 9" will also be wired to another switch.

I'm actually planning on using the housings I had on it before and modifying them. Going to replicate this.



Planning on another set of the SAE's so I'll have two pairs total. One for headlights, the other as "fog lights" even though they're the same exact light. The SAE's are 100% street legal fog lights, but they're equal in brightness to my headlights. I am easily able to run them at night without the headlights on and see just as well, but for whatever stupid reason cops pull people over if they're headlights aren't on. So I'm going to do the SAE's as low beam, then do a set of spots on the inside and wire those to the high beams. Then move my Putco switchbacks into those housings and seal everything up. Then the bumper will have the SAE's again, the Dually floods, and the 9" lights. Super excited for this modification, should be ******* when done.

As for the mirrors, can't wait to get them installed.

 

[NightMares]

Had a good day with the truck yesterday. Got the tow mirrors installed, then the Dually's from Rigid and the 9" lights wired in. The floods I can hardly tell when they're on, a little disappointed but I guess with the amount of light I have I shouldn't be surprised that they get washed out. When the headlights are on, I can tell when the floods are on, but with the headlights and SAE's on, I can't tell. The 9" spots however, all I can say is wow. The pictures I have do absolutely no justice, being in the open plains obviously didn't help, but while on the back roads heading out there last night I could see the stop sign reflecting back at me when I was about a mile away still.









After installing and wiring everything up, I headed out to do a recovery last night. Young kid went out with his 2 wheel drive chevy on Monday and got it stuck in the mud. Couple hard tugs got him out, then kept the strap on and dragged him back to the pavement.

 

[NightMares]

Still feeling the effects from Saturday night this morning from yet another recovery. Little brother decided to take some friends up and show them how to "off road" and wound up getting a kid in his daddy's chevy buried in the mud on the backside of the foothills. Called me at around 9pm frantic, so I headed up to help.

Chevy was a newer crew cab HD on stock sized tires. Buried. Bunch of high school kids who went up with nothing but sweat shirts and tennis shoes, and no recovery gear. Took me around 2 hours to dig, pull, and winch the truck up. Winch got its first real workout, everything did good except it was working backwards. Kept dragging my truck down rather than the other truck up, and I had nothing at the top to anchor to to keep my truck in position. That left a lot of pulling and yanking, and a lot of digging. Finally got the truck out far enough that I was able to use the winch for the last 15 feet.

No pics of the recovery, it was late and I was a little on the edgy side. Only snapped some on the way back down through the snow. Of course by the time we got about half way down temps were up in the high 30's which meant no snow, and some deep sloppy mud at the bottom. Luckily no more pulling or winching, the Chevy made it the rest of the way through.

Let me again say, I really hate the mud.













At the car wash. Got there a little after 12:30am, didn't pull back out until around 1:15. Almost 12 bucks to wash it, not too shabby.



Some pictures from yesterday when it was cleaned up.

 

[derekp]

Sounds like fun. Lol

 

[NightMares]

Not sure exactly what happened, but after that run I started running into issues with the truck, then they magically disappeared this morning for the time being.

Sunday morning it felt like the truck was idling a little on the rough side, but as the day went through it seemed to be clearing whatever issue it was having on its own.

Yesterday morning when I started it to let it warm up, I noticed from inside my home the idle seemed off. Sounded like it was idling super high. When I got outside with my kids, the idle started to jump every couple seconds or so, almost as if it had a kick down like an old carbed engine that wasn't performing correctly. As soon as I put it in gear, it went away. I parked it at the daycare and let it idle outside, immediately it started jumping idle again. By the time I got back outside from dropping my kids off, it was sitting at 1200 rpm while idling, then dropped back down once again as soon as I put it in gear. While driving or in gear, it acted 100% normal.

Last night when I fired it up to leave, it started doing the same thing. High idle, or jumping idle, then as I went to pull out of my work it threw a check engine light.





Misfire on cylinder 8. When I would come to stop lights, the idle was rough and it was missing like a *****. Every couple of seconds you'd feel it, along with idle jumping up and down. As soon as I would take off from the stop light, everything was normal again. Again and again it did the same thing through all the stop lights until I made it home last night, never cleared up.

Now, weird thing, this morning everything was 100% normal. Started it to let it warm up, check engine light was still on but no weird idle, no miss, nothing abnormal. Around 10 minutes later I had my kids outside, buckled them in, then when I got in the drivers seat the check engine light was off. Code was still stored, so I shut it off, cleared the code, and fired it back up. Ran perfect all morning, when I got to work I checked for codes again and nothing is there.

It was suggested that it could be the IAC, so if the symptoms return I'll start there. Otherwise, hopefully it was just some water or mud from Saturday night that cleared itself out.