2014 RAM 1500 Express Crew Cab

[socalexpeditions]

Nice truck! Looks awesome

 

[ram1500rsm]

Took this week and was looking into more bikes. My head spins trying to sort through reviews. I def want either a longer travel trail bike or a short travel enduro. 150-160 should be more than enough especially with the technology in New bikes. It's so much different from when I used to race it's mind boggling. I'm still lugging around my 26" 200/180mm free ride bike from 2003 lol. Its getting hard to find parts to keep it updated so it's close to time to retire it to the wall.

I keep circling back to something like a specalized stumpy evo or polygon or one of those Marins, just wish I could test ride one before throwing some decent amount of money out ***** nilly.

Check with your LBS if you have one around. I have one 10 min away from where i live and they let us try much anything and yes you'll notice a big big difference between your old bike and the new ones. Try them both with 27.5 tires and 29's. 27.5's should corner faster but 29's go pretty much everywhere.

 

[hodge-xj]

Check with your LBS if you have one around. I have one 10 min away from where i live and they let us try much anything and yes you'll notice a big big difference between your old bike and the new ones. Try them both with 27.5 tires and 29's. 27.5's should corner faster but 29's go pretty much everywhere.

The one local to me I've always used recently turned into a trek dealer. Still use them for random services as they kept the tech that always did me right, but as you can imagine they are a one trick pony for sales. I'm gonna check out another spot I never knew about today. The GEO on my 26er is very close until you compare reach/ETT/wheelbase where these new bikes are just super long. My angles are very close to the same as new stuff so I'm stoked to see how a 29'er feels. Never used to like climbing etc but now a days I'm enjoying the misery of jamming both up and down.

I'm still a meat head on the downhills so I'm thinking a 160/170 bike will just live longer and be better for the east coast chunk I see. Fuji has 2 bikes I'm keen on trying.

 

[ram1500rsm]

Had my coolant flushed today, 121530 miles. Paid my local shop $125 to do it, 5 min from home, no mess to clean, same dudes who changed my trans fluid last year. I called the dealer and they wanted $230, so i just bought 3 gallons of 50/50 Mopar OAT for $57 and just dropped the truck at the shop. Picked her up 2 hours later. Coolant is good for another 8 years and 120k miles

 

[ram1500rsm]

Damn it's been a while i haven't posted a thing but i'm still here and the truck isn't going anywhere. We're just driving her and she's still well behaved, not a single sqweak, not a single drop of oil seeping anywhere, still on factory tierods, front LCA's, axels and hubs. Knocking on wood the ol girl is still kicking butt just fine like an old scotch hahaha.

2022-11-28_04-47-54 by RAM RSM, on Flickr

 

[ram1500rsm]

We got stuck in a cluster **** of icy roads and cars yesterday in Big Bear CA. I should have known better since they got 8" of snow apparently the day before so i guess everybody wanted to check it out
Took 4 hours to get from our house in Trabuco Canyon to Arrow Bear, then another hour from Arrow bear to drive 2 miles up. Lol i turned around after that, another 5 hours to get back home. I'll try again next weekend since we never made it to the town but i'll leave early morning instead. Roads conditions were marked as R2 so 4x4/AWD vehicles with MS tires don't need to have chains, but you have to have them in the trunk if you get pulled over and the authorities ask to see them. The KO2's performed flawlessly.

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[Ramrob20]

Great truck man! I am getting things together for my lift/leveling and curious how much total lift you got out of the 2.5" JT spings. Reading your posts it seems like 3.5''? Id like to sit about an inch lower in the rear than yours and thinking of going with Icon 1.5'' JT springs. Thanks for such thorough documentation of your truck, its been super helpful!

 

[ram1500rsm]

Great truck man! I am getting things together for my lift/leveling and curious how much total lift you got out of the 2.5" JT spings. Reading your posts it seems like 3.5''? Id like to sit about an inch lower in the rear than yours and thinking of going with Icon 1.5'' JT springs. Thanks for such thorough documentation of your truck, its been super helpful!with

My pleasure man. The Clayton JT 2.5 Springs gave me 2" lift total with 500lbs in the truck bed. They'll add 2.5" on a stock 4x4 crew cab 1500.
In March/May 2023 i'll officially have 3 years with all my Clayton offroad stuff: control arms, rear trackbar and springs. I've had zero issues, zero maintenance, i dont worry beating on the arms, greasing bushings or worrying about bushings getting messed up in the mounts, i don't worry about springs sagging. Could not have a better setup. The springs haven't even sagged 1/4" in 3 years. all Made in USA stuff.

If you get the Icon JT 1.5" springs, please post their free length and your measurements before after to put the info in my shock/spring spreadsheet

Have fun bro.

 

[Ramrob20]

If you get the Icon JT 1.5" springs, please post their free length and your measurements before after to put the info in my shock/spring spreadsheet

Absolutely, but I must have missed that. Where can I find it?

 

[danielmid]

Absolutely, but I must have missed that. Where can I find it?

4th Gen 1500 Coilovers,Struts,Shocks,Control Arms,Trackbars

It's been a while since i had updated my previous list so i've been meaning to post the latest rundown. This is just me collecting info from a bunch of internet sites sites. Use as your own risk. i don't meant to pretend i made any of this parts so i'm not responsible for warranties, misuse of...

www.ramforum.com

 

[ram1500rsm]

We headed for the Anza Borrego desert this weekend, lots of rain everywhere so i didn't venture too deep in the washes. We still visited some of our favorite spots so the kids can drive in the dirt which was super fun this time for them as the previous rain had the sand very packed so they were able to give the Kings a run for the money. It's been 2 years since the last time Accutune worked their magic on them and they're still kicking butt. And now the kids can do 50mph with the truck so we let them rip in the desert.

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[czervika]

Great shots. I love seeing this truck in action.

 

[ram1500rsm]

Took the truck out to KOH 2023 today with my son and friends.. Had an absolute blast with the tires at 25psi. Put the Kings to its paces at 55-65mph like i had them installed yesterday hahaha. 125k miles and still on factory unmolested tierods, factory LCA's, factory CV axels, factory hubs. Kings for the win again

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[ram1500rsm]

Spent a chilaxing day in the Anza Borrego Desert today exploring some roads.

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[ram1500rsm]

Took the family for a couple of days and back to the Socal desert, this time 29 palms and Johnson Valley. The weather was around 70F so made it perfect to be out there having fun. Kiddos had a blast driving the truck offroad while i concentrated finding more roads to explore where they could test the Kings safely
Packed ligthly as we rented a house in the middle of the Socal desert..

Trying out this format but the pics appear to be little. So i'll goback to link them from flickr...

 

[ram1500rsm]

Packed lightly as we rented a house in the middle of the Socal desert
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Curious places you find out there, This $5 pizza place is the best Pizza you'll find in Yucca Valley.
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We did some mine exploring around Gold Crown road in the mine district
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Kids covered many miles driving around, oldest daugter finding new places


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My son learning the ropes from Daddy
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My other daugther been a little more restrained hahaha, she drove one of the other trucks
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[ram1500rsm]

Another curious thing we found on the desert, this one around Cougar Buttes in JV. No idea how this car ended up in there
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Exploring around an area called Skulls
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[ram1500rsm]

Tucked all the bikes up in the ol girl and headed to one of our local MTB trails for a little fun.
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I've been a little busy with the Jeep but i'll be giving the truck some love next. I'll start refreshing the Kings. Haven't touched them since 2020, time flies. damn.
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[ram1500rsm]

The time to get the Kings rebuilt have come. The performance degradation is noticeable so i'll install the Rancho suspension soon and send the Kings out to Accutune for maintenance.

 

[ram1500rsm]

***** me it wasn't the shocks wooo wooooo
The truck handling had started going to crap progressively in the past few months to the point i was experiencing bumpsteer when hitting road imperfections when the steering has been leaning a little towards right or left, which had me thinking how in the ***** i have bumpsteer with an IFS?. Another revealing thing my truck has been pulling slightly left or right for months out the blue even after getting her aligned and not seen anything special in the alignments. Last time after my post back in July 10 the bumpsteer condition was so scary at one pooint i had to lift the gas and actually go on my brakes as the event took me surprise, which definetely led me to check things a little more in depth. Went down there checking the basics with loose balljoints or loose something and right as i looked inside the bumper skid, it struck me, And i remember i didn't exactly like the way the skid mounted to front crossmember using the two big bolts holding down the steering rack. See post# 1163 for reference.

If you see the marks that skid has been moving a little bit for a while, and thus i'm almost 99% sure as the skid moves the steering rack moves as well, and that's the bumpsteer and the weird feeling i've been getting from the truck suspension for the past few months.


2023-07-28_01-44-04 by RAM RSM, on Flickr

I took the skid out and so far so good. All the issues i was experiecing are 100% gone and the truck feels solid everywhere again considering she has 129k miles and is still on on stock and unmolested front lower control arms, tierods, wheel hubs and cv axels.
and now i was sure to put enough torque on the damn 2 bolts, 133lbs initially, then 90* more using my new Milwakee hi torque impact.

Came from a trip to Arizona couple of days ago and not a single damn squeak, no vibrations nothing, and no more bumpsteer or feeling like the shocks went to hell.
I'll keep an eye on her anyways and keep doing normal maintance stuff of course. Best truck i've ever had and hoping to keep it for a good while and a lot more miles.

2023-07-28_02-08-36 by RAM RSM, on Flickr