I feel like I am SOO close to getting this round of modifications complete.
Yesterday I was able to run the initial wiring setup for the front pods and start tucking it away. The winch is fully mounted but I still need to come up with some sort of a basic bracket to hold the control unit that I had to take off from the top of it and is sitting right beside. From there I will also look at building a push-off bracket to support/push forward the bottom side of the grill so that it isn't sunken downward like it is right now.
Other than that, I think all the major stuff is done.. below is the list of things I need to get done in the next 3 weeks ahead of our 2 night camping/offroading trip in april:
-finish mounting the winch control box
-make custom fender liners (material just arrived yesterday but I am NOT looking forward to making more templates and mounting points so it will wait..)
-Receive and install my own custom roof rack... and hope like hell it works since I have no other way to mount my RTT
-replace my custom cut steel spacers with the aluminum spacers under the fenders and lights
-fabricate, paint and install the swingouts. At the minimum I need the spare tire swing out complete but should hopefully only take 1 full day of fabrication to finish.
Decided since the rear bumper face is so large and flat that I will relocate my license plate down to it as well as install 2 white, flush mount reverse light pods.
Got to marking and cutting the rear bumper to install them, figured 1 hour start to finish with wiring straight up to the reverse lights, and as soon as I made it through the first hole I realized my blunder... the factory rear crash bar is literally right behind where I want to install these
. doh! Since the rear bumper is pretty damn structural in itself, I decided that today I will pull it off and notch out 2 small sections to recess the lights in. At this point I am done pretending to know how long something will/should take as another 1 hour project will turn into a 3 hour project
Good thing is that I needed to pull the rear off anyway in order to spray the inside as its still bare metal. I guess at least I'll kill 2 birds with 1 stone. The fun part will be doing this by myself on an inclined driveway, but I have a plan