Lemans

Well, the weather was really hot again this weekend, so we decided to do some armoring work on Saturday, then hit the trails on Sunday to stay cool in the mtns.

Our goal was to get the front bumper, rear bumper lower half, and the gas tank skid plate mounted up. I did some prep work Friday night after things had cooled off a bit, so when Dad arrived on Saturday morning we made quick progress. I forgot to snap a few pics I should have, so I will have to fill in a few more details than usual to make up for it.

I started on the rear by removing the pigtail socket from the hitch assembly. I let it hang while we were sorting out the rest of the disassembly, but later I bagged the end and zip-tied it, then zip-tied it again into a nice tight loop and hung it off the body for later re-installation. I used one of the heavy plastic bags from all the various parts, which _should_ keep it from getting full of dirt or corroding before I'm ready to deal with it.

In the first photo the gas tank heat shield is removed and Dad has air-chiseled the thing off the retainers at the rear exhaust hanger. The new skid plate will provide the majority of the shielding now, though I may revisit the front right corner of the tank later if I feel it's required. I'll do a "heat check" out on the trail in the future to see how much heat is actually bieng transferred and go from there.

In photo 2 Dad is removing one of the "frame" bolts from the bumper, after we literally tore off the plastic skirting on the top front of the rear bumper, which gave us much better access to the bolts and improved visibility to boot! The new bumper has a steel dress panel that covers that area well enough to suit me so I had no qualms with a rough removal.

In the third photo it is stripped and ready for the gas tank skid plate to be test fit. We put the weather seal back on now that we were ready for installing parts. You can see up above where I temp relocated the harness belt reels to the B pillar hoop for wheeling on Sunday. I am awaiting the replacement 3" 5-point harnesses to come in this week, so I just needed them securely out of the way of the intended passengers on Sunday.

The fourth shot shows the exhaust hanger mounting detail from the passenger side, with the skid plate held in place by a jack and wood blocks. It fit perfectly with all holes aligning dead on and cutouts where needed for other mounting bolts on the frame unrelated to the skid itself. This is a quality fab part IMHO. Thank you JCR!

In the fifth shot you can see the rear lip mounting bolts for the skid plate are in place, and I have the big jack with blocks waiting for the test fit on the bottom rear bumper.

Lemans

We did a quick test fit of the bumper and everything looked good except the rearmost nut on the nutstrip was preventing it from seating against the body properly. In photo 1 you can see the rust line and bright spot where the moutning plate was interacting on the new bumper. Specifically the problem is the mounting plates on this bumper are multiple times thicker than the stock plates, so we needed to remove the last nut on the strip to get it bolted in properly. Photo 2 shows one of them cut flush to the face of the rear mounting point.

In the third shot, you can see the frame tie-ins for the rear bumper in place. They wouldn't quite line up with the slots on the bottom of the bumper, so we misaligned them as much as possible and redrilled them instead. Remind me to get a drill press one of these days lol, that steel is hard!

In photo 4 Dad is putting in the last bolt, resulting in photo 5

truckntractorhick

u better put reverse lights in there! (if thats what there for)

Lemans

The rectangular cutouts in the rear bumper are for 55w Pilot Halogens. I figured they would do a good job of giving me some illumination in the back when needed. I just bought the hardware to mount them so they will likely go in soon, though it'll be awhile before I get to the electrical stage yet. I plan to do wiring for front 5x7 KChilights, the rear Pilots, the winch, and the CB all at once, or as close to it as possible. Electrical is weak for me so I will be leaning on Dad's knowledge for most of that :-p

Crazythingsido2

looks good. so your tires are 33x12.5, what size rim did you go with? 15x8 or 15x10?

duncan807

looking good il be keeping my eye on this build

kellan_musseau

Awesome build..same wheels as me..i like em too.

zte87

bump for updates!

Pheonix(480)

nice build mann i want to see it complete already.. you should fab up a roof rack. if you fab up a strong rack then it can double as a rool cag if you secure it right

Walter

That is sweet, how you liking your lift I was looking at the same one.

braves7pro

nice build