Time for maintenance and upgrades

[weedahoe]

Now I originally had the OEM honey comb inserts that later got changed out for the mesh and a long time ago I bought a "tactical grill" from RF. Since I have my own powder coating gun and oven I didnt have him do it for me. But according to the box, its been since November of last year.....so uh, yeah, told you I had a lot of things in boxes. :ugh

Im likely going to make some mall changes to this later. Im going to cut out the center OEM grill vertical bar and take a piece of 16ga stainless and powder coat it the same "chrome" I have the mesh and fuse the two sides together as I do not like how they sit currently. The outer rings for the grill are powder coated gloss black with the mesh PC'ed Kromozone chrome and sealed with gloss clear. I looked at stainless 12pt (ferry cap) bolts to replace the allen button heads but OMG those things are insanely expensive.

 

[weedahoe]

So with my truck being an 04 at 83k, I figured it was time to do some front end maintenance. Not only that but Ive got a lot of my own personal projects that I bought parts on months ago and plenty of those are all still in the box waiting to be installed or finished.

So for the front end, the only bad parts I had were the lower BJs. But again, with age and mileage, I wanted to replace everything. So with that said, that meant lower BJs, UCAs, outer tie rods, sway bar links/bushings, wheel bearing hubs and rebuilding/powder coating the calipers and rotors.

I knew something was wrong with my front brakes because sometimes it would pull to one side or another when I braked. I found out I had a frozen piston in each caliper, thus the need to rebuild them.

Some might ask why I didnt go the infamous Moog route, well everything is greasable minus the UCAs. But with a truck thats an 04 with 83k, it the OEM parts lasted this long, why spend all that extra money for "better" parts when the OEMs last this long? I didnt see the need.

The angle iron you see is 4" and I used it to make future mounts for steering dampeners which I have but am waiting to see if I need them. The powder coating didnt come out nice but the metal is sealed. I had a local machine shop just cut some for me and put the 5/8 holes. The problem is it was really a rusted piece of metal and pitted. I cleaned out all the rust I could and used Ospho to kill the rest but I didnt feel like using metal epoxy to fill in the pits and sand smooth so I just coated them.

Anyway, being I marked my UCAs and tie rods before removing, my alignment afterwards seems just as it was before the change out but I still took it in for an alignment.

The calipers are powder coated "safety yellow" gloss

Enjoy the pics

UCAs - $75/pr
lower BJs - $40/pr
tie rods - $31/pr
wheel bearing hubs - $110/pr
sway bar links - $25/pr
sway bar bushings - $25/set
caliper seals/hardware - $20/all

 

[weedahoe]

More pics

 

[GhostRam94]

Damn that's a ton of work and trust me I did all of this this december/January. Congrats bet it rides a ton better now

 

[S2kiHemi]

Nice work

 

[johnnysart]

Great right up- and looking badasss!!!

 

[blackout11]

hey man what part of ga you from ever need a hand im in alpharetta

 

[weedahoe]

Im down in Albany which is about 4 hrs from Alpharetta. I always do my own work and usually everyone elses also

Im think of putting some RGB strips behind the grill. Ive still got to finish my Infiniti Q45 projector retrofit also

 

[LB3711]

Cool


Sent from my tapatalk equipped AT&T iPhone 4.

 

[Trupiano]

Wow, very nicely done man! I like how you replaced everything with new parts, and the parts that remained, you made look new again!

 

[Big Boi]

Looking good!

Surprised you found the time, with all the DD's ur doin.

What chemical did you use to strip the calipers?

 

[swamp_life hemi 05]

Ok spill the beans Mike!!! Those sway bar links are awesome!!!!! I need those!!!

Sent from my ADR6350