Yay! Great news. Only a few minutes for you but two weeks later for me, all the parts are back from powder! Wooo hoooo!
Remember this?
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Now it looks like this:
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So time to get on the install! First step, I had to restick the original step pad down now that I finished welding the rear mudflap bracket onto the bottom of the board. So debur, degrease, and shtickem. Also all edge trim to avoid sharp edges was installed.
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Same for fronts:
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Next before install on truck, we had to install the front Mopar fender flares. These really look good once on the truck.
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Got all my fasteners lined up, the next step is to start mounting the brackets to the frame, boards are places on, and then the multi hour job goes to aligning everything 100% perfect as well as shimming everything as need be so all sits level.
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Next went in the ride height control for the driver’s side. Originally the truck had a single rear height control valve but I found with one side of the truck heavier than the other (fuel tank) it was making the truck lean lower on the drivers side. So the system is being split with two control rods, thus allowing each side of the truck to be controlled independently. This is a Haldex height control valve off a semi with my custom bracket to hold it:
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And the mud flaps got installed… Ooooh. Sexy. Makes me like her ass that much more. 😀
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And the big ass horns go in…
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And we have an exterior that is starting to look like a finished truck! 🙂
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The running boards were first to finish off. The back of the board stone guard had to be the first to be finished. So a template was made from cardboard so I could see what I wanted to do angle wise with the outer edge as well as so I knew how to cut the stainless itself.
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So once the cardboard was made, I traced the shape to the material:
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Add some cutting, forming…
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Then rubber trim so the material doesn’t rub on the body but can also provide a flexible contact surface to keep the dirt and debris off the running boards themselves.
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Now once the board was mounted, the bottom side had to be dealt with. The mounting surface is round, but we curved the shield with the gen 1 dually fender. So we had to add spacers so it would be solid:
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Took tubing and cut it:
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Giving us these snappy angled washers/spacers.
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And that gave us:
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Next up was the underbody back up lights. As they are being mounted off the running board mounts so they would hang long enough to light the ground during nighttime trailer backing, they couldn’t be tackled till now.
So I started with some flat stock, formed, drilled, and simply mounted.
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And there we have it!!
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Next up was to try to get my engine sealed up. So fabrication of the intercooler piping was tackled. I started off with the passenger side hot pipe, then worked on the driver’s side cold pipe. Lastly, I was then able to tackle the cold air box air filter feed to HT3B.
So I started with a 2nd gen pipe hot pipe I had here. As I have some compound angles and different distances, I would have to make the angles and lengths I needed.
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Tack weld…
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Test fit:
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The cold side feed pipe I had leftover from the twin ram intake. As you can see, the 2nd gen pipe again doesn’t fit the gen 1 setup…. So back to cutting and chopping…
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Slice and dice!! Cucumber anyone? 😀
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After a few tests, I did a clean cut before welding:
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Bottom half looks about right with its angle so the top half was welded on. As you can see here, I have about the right amount of gap for the boot to still be installed.
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So now came the time to test fit the intake. As the intake has to clear the hot feed pipe, now is the time if changes have to be made. So I started with putting the trim edge onto the sharp sheet metal I had cut out last year to allow this extra clearance I knew I would need. This gave not only give a cleaner look, but also saved my hands while digging in there.
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I then started with this 4” pipe. I started with measuring the angels and lengths, and then went to town choppin’ and cutting.
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The result was a two piece pipe in order for it to fit. Part one is an S shape that feeds the HT3B to the elbow, the elbow then feeds to a spacer pipe that goes from elbow to filter.
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Enter some sandblasting of the pipes….
And this is what we had ready for powder!
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3 weeks later……
I got the pipes back! Holy moly, das ist sexy pipen! 😀
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So I started with this for under hood bland yucky…
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Freshly washed and prepped boots…
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And ended up with this sexy engine bay:
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