Adblair
Junior Member
Hey guys-
So I figured I'd start a build thread for my truck. I got the chance to off road in some Jeeps recently and fell in love with being out on the trails. My Jeep was (is) a lease, so I wasn't able to really push the limits or modify it at all which made me start looking for a rig to build. After talking to some of my Jeeping friends about buying jeeps, modifying, etc, I realized that some of the most important upgrades people did was heavy duty axles and drive train to handle big tires. So instead of buying a Jeep and upgrading to tons, I figured I'd just buy a heavy duty truck.
Using that thought, I found myself with a new truck:
It's a 2008 Ram 2500, regular cab, long bed, 4x4, auto with the 5.7l hemi. I wanted the solid axles, v8 with as little weight as possible.
So first step was to remove as much weight and save the good body panels. Here are a few pictures of the process:
Then I chopped the frame rearward of the rear leaf shackle:
Before:
After including a temporary tail light mounting solution:
Took it out for a quick test ride at one of our local parks! Apart from debeading my right front tire, and shearing the center skid plate bolts, I had no carnage:
No flex zone:
Had to get towed out of the rock pile. Tires suck and I'm way too low:
What I get for listening to my friends.... This is where my skid plate bolt went kaput.
Looks like an RC car! Bonus JL Rubicon on the right too.
The truck has no flex (obviously), I had no ground clearance and the tires are definitely not meant for off roading. But it surprised me! I can't imagine what it'll do when my tires come in
Not a lot of progress since the first two weeks but I moved the tail lights and rewired them:
"Let's play a game..."
Done! They look silly but have all the stock functionality so who cares:
Next step is removing a rear leave to get a little better flex. No pictures of it today, but I'm one stubborn bolt away from having the left side removed. Hopefully tomorrow I'll make some more progress.
Thanks for looking! Would love to hear everyone's feedback.
So I figured I'd start a build thread for my truck. I got the chance to off road in some Jeeps recently and fell in love with being out on the trails. My Jeep was (is) a lease, so I wasn't able to really push the limits or modify it at all which made me start looking for a rig to build. After talking to some of my Jeeping friends about buying jeeps, modifying, etc, I realized that some of the most important upgrades people did was heavy duty axles and drive train to handle big tires. So instead of buying a Jeep and upgrading to tons, I figured I'd just buy a heavy duty truck.
Using that thought, I found myself with a new truck:
It's a 2008 Ram 2500, regular cab, long bed, 4x4, auto with the 5.7l hemi. I wanted the solid axles, v8 with as little weight as possible.
So first step was to remove as much weight and save the good body panels. Here are a few pictures of the process:
Then I chopped the frame rearward of the rear leaf shackle:
Before:
After including a temporary tail light mounting solution:
Took it out for a quick test ride at one of our local parks! Apart from debeading my right front tire, and shearing the center skid plate bolts, I had no carnage:
No flex zone:
Had to get towed out of the rock pile. Tires suck and I'm way too low:
What I get for listening to my friends.... This is where my skid plate bolt went kaput.
Looks like an RC car! Bonus JL Rubicon on the right too.
The truck has no flex (obviously), I had no ground clearance and the tires are definitely not meant for off roading. But it surprised me! I can't imagine what it'll do when my tires come in
Not a lot of progress since the first two weeks but I moved the tail lights and rewired them:
"Let's play a game..."
Done! They look silly but have all the stock functionality so who cares:
Next step is removing a rear leave to get a little better flex. No pictures of it today, but I'm one stubborn bolt away from having the left side removed. Hopefully tomorrow I'll make some more progress.
Thanks for looking! Would love to hear everyone's feedback.