daily doubler build

[railman]

youve got the skills, build you some tail light boxes and throw some trailer lights in them.

thats one thing that got me to ditch the bed, fawking hated changing tail lights every trip.

yup....gotta agree with Jon

broke my drivers again when you were down.....running I think my 4th tail light on the drivers

l8r, John

 

[wahlstrom1]

I'm past my 4th complete set.... the local wreckers used to keep a stack just for me! Good thing I'd just throwin LED's in the new bed thingamajigger....

 

[bobbywalter]

gen 1 tail lights were easy to get till recently.


i have not broke many though

 

[Josh40601]

Cliff- 1....$200 LED tail lights- 0

 

[Bray D]

That's the thing, they're cheap. 35 bucks for a pair shipped. Can't complain too much about that. I'll hold off on the body work until it start happening more regularly. This time was weird. Didn't even touch the bed. I was climbing a rocky section up and to the right, my ass end must've swung over and the light was the only thing that tagged the tree. Those suckers are loud when they let loose.

I just ordered a Quart Crate too. I need to tidy up my toolbox.

 

[bobbywalter]

have you thought about skinning the bedsides off and beefing the inner structures with some tube and build a few spreader bars to further beef the inners?


then just clip the bedsides off and on and you still have the bed.


the entire bedsides can be made easily removable as well, but having a box is nice.

similar setup for the front fenders and you will be in great shape with a dual rig.

its a pia, but i my mind a good way to go when a guy wants to go park/event wheeling etc...


i had this ability till recently with the front, but i have had to deal with bracket issues and needed to relocate my overflow/purge tank system and mounted it to the inner structure, basically my front end just lifts off....real nice with the 302, but a huge bonus with that fat bastard diesel....cause....well its a fat bastard.


i can fit my rear bedsides to my flatbed thing i started and have not done shit with, but with a reg bed it would not be nearly as difficult.


if i ever have a full body truck again its what i will do.


just something i think will benefit ya with your appartent goals and desires..

....i like drivers it takes more of everytrhing to go that way

 

[bobbywalter]

I'm sick of trying to create badass stuff with inferior tools. You have to be a fawking millionaire to do things 'right'. Cutting radii into 3/16" steel with a cutoff wheel = not cool. Overhead welding with an old ass stick welder that doesn't even have a working switch = not cool. Manual bender without bendtech = not cool. Notching tube with a cutoff wheel = not cool.

To complete my setup, I need a 220v mig welder, bendtech, air over hydro kit for my bender, a quality notcher, and a torchmate table.

Its sooo frustrating putting in so much time, only to have mediocre results. It seems my expectations are growing faster than my abilities with the tooling I have available.

I guess this is why I've waited so long to build bumpers. I knew it was going to be a project that I would struggle with.

/rant

I was just all around frustrated yesterday. Welds were pissing me off. 85% of the welding had to be either vertical or overhead. That's partially the reason I like building with bolt on brackets. I can take them off and orient them correctly so I can lay a nice weld. You don't that that luxury when you're welding on stuff. Dealing with all the slag from a stick welder is a bitch.

It took me probably 1.5hrs to bend the front support. Calculate. measure. bend. measure. not enough angle, reinstall tube and bend more. repeat 10x. haha.

What I have going on is extremely inefficient. I don't have enough experience to be proficient at it, and its getting to me. I pick up on things rather quickly, but I think this may take some time. Unfortunately, it costs a lot of money to 'learn' to work with tube as well.

I'd better log off or I'll be ranting all day. haha.

remind me that you need a wedgie or a nougie if i ever run across ya too...

 

[JohnnyU]

I just ordered a Quart Crate too. I need to tidy up my toolbox.

You mean that plastic tote in your bed?

You should probably consider a spare tire mount as well...



I'd still like to hit St Joe's at some point this summer or fall. I suppose I wouldn't be opposed to Michigan either though. What I should do is buy another ATV or something and keep it in Colorado, I seem to be spending every other week out there...

 

[86 slo-vo]

Which quart crate did you get?

 

[Bray D]

You mean that plastic tote in your bed?

Yeah, that black BOX that holds my TOOLS.

have you thought about...

You should probably consider...

I think about a lot of things, all the time. haha. Still don't know what I plan to do with the rest of the truck as far as tube protection goes. Next on the list is a tube rear bumper with the gas tank skid integrated into it.

Where I go from there, who knows.

I need a spare tire mount for sure. I'd like to integrate a jack stand into it somehow. Haven't come up with a design I like yet.

Which quart crate did you get?

The same one you did. It has everything I normally carry, except I usually have 2 quarts gear oil.

 

[Bray D]

New tail light came in yesterday, got that tossed on this morning. My dash had some dead spots so I ordered some new LED's to brighten it back up.

 

[RangerSVT]

All in all, how much were the dash LEDs and where did you get them from, I've been thinking about doing that, but I can't decide if I do or not...
SVT

 

[Bray D]

I did it a long ass time ago. Some of them have died, so I'm just replacing them.

I got them from superbrightleds.com. If you just want to do your cluster, you'll need (6) #194 size LEDs. If you want to change your service lights(check engine, abs, airbag, etc) you'll need another 16 (I think) #74 size bulbs.

I did my headlight switch, 4x4 switch, and A/C panel as well a long time ago so I'm not fresh on it, but I think there's 2 194's in the A/C panel, and the other switches use individual LEDs that you have to use a resistor with.

There's a few writeups on it. Search the interior forum.

I'm replacing the 6 blue 194's behind my gauges, and I'm putting amber 74's in place of my turn signals. I'll probably remove all of the other service bulbs.

They're 1-2 bucks a piece depending on what you get. So if you replace all of them it could run ya close to 50 bucks. Just the gauges, probably 10-15 bucks shipped.

 

[Josh40601]

i updated mine cluster using the same ones. I didn't go through all the other ones though. Just the cluster lighting. I went with the Natural White bulbs and they turned out really bright greenish blue.

 

[Bray D]

Do you have any hot spots? I took my gauge faces off and sanded the blueish green off of the back of them, then replaced the bulbs with blue inverted LED's.

This round I bought both 4 diode LED's and the same inverted ones I have now. I'll try the 4 diode ones to see if its brighter/gets rid of my hot spots. If it makes it worse, I'll throw the inverted ones in there.