After doing the rear suspension bushings in my driveway, I asked my mechanic friend to tackle the front control bushings and ball joints - did uppers and lower of everything because the front end felt pretty loose over bumps. It took him about a week and half with a bunch of interruptions - the upper and lower control arm bolts were really rusted in - glad I got help. The good news the truck is transformed - the ride is so much better. There is poly everywhere including the sway bar bushings.
Next I replaced the alternator with a high output one and did the big 3 wiring update per
Performing the "Big 3" Wiring Ugrade on a 3rd Gen T4R - A How To - from BigFishAllDay. I flushed the power steering reservoir out, cleaned the screen and flushed the power steering system by turning the steering wheel with the engine off - seemed to work well. I cut the o-ring at the bottom of the reservoir when I put it back on. I got a new one from the local stealership so that is all good now. I replaced the radiator with a denso part from Amazon - wanting to avoid the dreaded pink milshake. It did not fit great, I had to elongate some holes in the core support to get the bolts to line up. When I was finishing filling it up, I noticed the nipple going to the overflow bottle was broken off - crap. So I ordered another one which fit much better and had all its appendages intact. I used to get upset when stuff goes wrong - not so much anymore - life would be boring if everything was easy...
Speaking of not easy - next up was the starter motor rebuild. I decided on the starter out the fenderwell method and followed Timmy The Toolman's excellent video
YouTube Every bolt was rusty and hard to break away, but the worst was the transmission dipstick tube. The two parts were rusted together hard. I wound up getting a MAP gas torch on it and then vice grips to twist and finally got it apart - needed another o-ring from the stealership after that. I have the starter brushes replaced and am waiting for a new plunger before I put that back together.
So then I had some time to start looking at how to install the 5th gen headlights. I cut the hood down and mocked up how to put it together. The hood is a couple inches too wide, so I figured I could cut a section out of the center without creating much of a peak when I weld the two halves back together, but the headlights themselves require hacking out a bunch of the fenders and radiator core support. After looking at the work involved, I am going to skip it for this build. Kind of a bummer, but I have the parts and am going to put these lights and hood section on some future build - they are so cool looking. I am on a deadline for this truck - leaving to drive her to Oregon in less than a week and there is still a bunch to do...
My other fabrication task was to make a new rear bumper. I looked at some options to buy, but they were pricey so I figured I would do something low buck. After agonizing about it for a few days, I decided to keep the low hanging bumper hitch. Because the low hanging spare tire is just a bad as the hitch and I was not up for relocating the spare to any of the possible options (inside, swing out or on top or freeballing with no spare). So then I mocked up some tubular tubular designs and I did not like the gaps they would leave to the hatch area. Then I stuck the center section old bumper back on and I kind of liked it. I trimmed the ends down of the center section and cut some pieces out of the side extensions to clean up the exposed ends and I cut down the plastic tread part which will be nice for Ava (dog) for jumping in and out. Welded that up today and just need some paint to finish.
And I mocked up the driving lights. I went with some big ass Hella Rallye 4000s. Then need to be mounted about 6" above the winch mount in the front bumper - bracket fab coming...
