Swick's Prerunner

[swickwake]

I started the build of my truck back in the summer of 08 and have been working on it ever since. The building of my truck is done in stages. So far im on stage 6 and I have 2 to 3 more to go.

A little history:

On a warm summer afternoon while I was headed home after long day of floating. Long story short I ran out of talent but blue tooth was the cause. I hit a 10" peach tree around 10 to 15 mph I was able to slow from 50mph. Thus my reason to build my truck. When I bought this truck in 06 I had the intentions to turn it in to a prerunner. So my thinking is why go back to stock when it is cheaper to what I want. That kind of thinking only worked for the first stage.

Stage 1: Fix Damage. Start date 07/15/08

What was damaged: header pannel, driver side lights, grill, hood, fender, bumper, and core support. The air bags did not deploy.

Found the glass, hood, header panel, grill, on craigslist for a $200 bucks. In the process I got new lights for both sides from ebay for $80. I was able to get the core support back in to shape.

I built a 100% bolt on tube bumper. I spent $80 for all the material.

The completion of stage 1. You can see my next stage in this pic very well. Finish date 08/10/08

 

[swickwake]

Stage 2: Find a reason to get rid on the stock suspension. Start date 07/18/09.

Little less then a year latter I was lucky to find this deal. I bought a Blitzkrieg mid travel kit used bearly had six months on it with less then 20 off road miles. With the deal I got the every thing for the kit except bump stops but it did come with 07 disk brakes. My reasoning in buying this kit is number one its supper beefy and two all four ball joints were blown, pass side disk was warped, and the pass. side lower shock mount lost its rubber. Yes my stock front suspension was falling apart. Thus my reason to get this kit.

For some reason I did not get any install pics but this is the finished product.

^^Not the cleanest install. I had to make a run to Chico, Ca when I finished it.
with this kit i needed to run a rim with a 3 3/4 back spacing. so i looked to Summit Racing for help.
For metal that I chose was Cragar Nomad II's
http://www.cragar.com/ViewImage.ashx?id=31&size=350
For meats I went to the local tire shop and they set me up with some 31x9.5 Triangle All-terrains. I really did not want to grenade my transmission.
http://ssl.delti.com/tyre-pictures/Triangle/TR246.jpg
For stage 6 I will be looking for 33x10.5 tires.

I completed the install on 07/26/09

 

[swickwake]

Stage 3: Retire the old 220,000 4.0 ohv motor. The start date: 12/14/10.

My second 4.0 was on it last leg. It was constantly eating spark plugs and leaking oil and coolant. So I was on the hunt to look for a new to me motor. I found it in the almond orchards of Chico. It was sitting in a wrecked prerunner ranger. I knew I was running a risk in getting this motor because it took a telephone pole head on at 45mph. I pulled it with 115,000 miles on it for $200.

Items that were damaged were alternator, fan, pass side valve cover.

Had to result to our red neck roots to pull it out.

To do the motor swap I had to drive home which is 6 hours and 3/4 a tank south of Chico. That was a hard trip because it took me 8 hours and 1 1/2 tanks of fuel to make it.

Old motor pulled.

New motor inspected. Which everything was in spec. For new seals I paid $150.

Finished product. Yes I had to dress it up.

Motor swap completed on 12/23/10. The motor is still running amazing except i think my flex plate cracked.

 

[swickwake]

Stage 4: 2.0 upgrade. Start date 3/13/10.

The Blitz kits come with fox stock replacement shock which I really did not like because if I wanted to change out the valving in the shocks I would have to pull the entire suspension off the truck to get to the shocks. So I found this killer deal. I was to trade this guy (same guy that i got the motor from) straight across his fox 2.0x8's for my fox stock replacements.
The differences in the shocks.

The point of no return. Stock mount cut out.

I looked to Camburg for there 2.0 mounts to build off since i'm pretty muck building a one off shock mount.

Added 2" to the Camburg mount to work with my Blitz kit.

completed mount

Cycled the suspension. Strapped at a full 13" in the front.
Drop

Bump

The finished product. I also cleaned up everything in the front.

The suspension works great but I do need to add more valving to the shocks because these came off a Camburg 5.5 kit which is about 1" narrower then the Blitz kit.

Completed on 03/17/10.

 

[swickwake]

Stage 5: Fun in the sun. Start date 04/17/10

To start things off I have been itching to take the truck out to the desert for a test run. I got the chance when I locked in some buyers of parts that lived out in the desert. So I headed south from Chico to home to pick up the parts my buddy and his quad.

the high point of the trip.

We decided to deliver the parts first and then run the test session.

You can see on this trip i picked up a fiberglass hood. Traded my interior panels off my parts truck for the hood.

The truck handled great in the dirt absorbed a lot of stuff but i got bounced around a lot as well due to the stock rear end. In all the trip was 1100 miles long and took 23 hours to complete.
completion date 04/20/10.

 

[swickwake]

Stage 6: Leveling. Start date 06/2/10.

I made another trip out in to the desert. Not to test but to get new parts for the truck. I left Chico again to head south. While I was out there I picked up bed lid that I'm planing to heavily modify once I get stage 7 and 8 done. I also picked up a pair of Deavers F-31. Also on the way home through Fresno I managed to make a score a killer deal on 4 Racerunners with 18" travel.

I went south for 4th of July to hang with the family and friends. While down there I found out that my local home town canceled the fireworks show. I was getting pretty board due to the day going to wast so I decided to make fire works my self. I had the spring with me and I had all the tools to do it.

The start.

Step side beds are full of detachable win. Yes the bed sides are removable.

No more stock springs.

Cleaned up the back portion of the bed and flipped the shackles.

Its sitting on its own weight.

While I was back there and I had the sides off. I decided to add a better departure angle.

The finished product.

The only down side is that the truck rides like a brick. The ride is due to no weight and I'm also running the stock black rockets for the time being. I'm really happy the way things turned out. It does look kind of goofy with the spar hanging out under the truck. That will be fixed with stage 7 when I install the saws.

Completion date 07/5/10

I cant wait for stage 8 to get here 33x10.5 and 4.30 or 4.56 gears.

 

[swickwake]

The above pic is how the truck sits currently. Slowly saving money to proceed with the build.

 

[RavoHimself]

why did you opt to flip the hanger. it still looks like it sits low in the rear. i think it would look way better if you flipped them back.

 

[alwaysFlOoReD]

why did you opt to flip the hanger. it still looks like it sits low in the rear. i think it would look way better if you flipped them back.

Probably for more travel.
Richard

 

[swickwake]

why did you opt to flip the hanger. it still looks like it sits low in the rear. i think it would look way better if you flipped them back.

hangers/shackles pointed down would level the truck but would cause the springs to bind. the hangers/shackles pointed up (what Deaver recommends) lowers the truck but will allow the springs to have free travel. to fix this I will be moving the hangers down and back to level the truck out. plus i will be adding shackles from camburg.

Probably for more travel.
Richard

travel numbers are part of it.

even thought the truck has a nose high rake to it. I can now see out my back window and not the bed while using the rear viewing mirror.

 

[r1hatman]

Looks great! That's kool that the bed fenders come off. I wish regular beds did that. that would make things a lot easier sometimes! Keep us posted!

 

[swickwake]

Looks great! That's kool that the bed fenders come off. I wish regular beds did that. that would make things a lot easier sometimes! Keep us posted!

thanks. it was really nice when i was done because i didn't have a broken back from being all bent out of shape to get to the rivets.

i just moved into a new place so right now i'm just waiting on funds to build a bed cage for the shocks.

 

[nomiss05]

that truck is sick. i hope to get mine like that. one peice at a time. im in bako, pretty close to ya.

 

[swickwake]

that truck is sick. i hope to get mine like that. one peice at a time. im in bako, pretty close to ya.

but it sure has coast me a dime.

thank you for the complement. it really is one piece at a time. i look for deals and jump on them when funds permit. i do like the fact that im taking my time on this. because if i did everything at once i would be getting in to some thing new.

i you were close to me. im up in chico for school and work but i head south every now and then. might be headed down in a few weeks but i will have to see how that goes.

 

[swickwake]

Truck is looking real good & it's nice to make it a project. Doing it all at once takes away from the fun of building it.

Did you take any other parts from the blue prerunner that you took the motor out of?

thanks. yea im not bored with it. the shocks that i used for the 2.0 upgrade came from that truck.