T-Units 2012 Ram crew super shorty "build"

[Sampuppy1]

Floor mats in, bought a recovery shackle/hook combo. Was gonna store it in the bin under the drivers side back seat. Found my 2" shadow chrome ball, locking pin and the keys swimming in a pool. Third brake light seal finally took a **** I guess. Flew to Home Depot, got a roll of auto/marine weatherstrip and made a new gasket (common problem on these things and costs about $1 to fix). Slapped some LEDs in the cargo lights, put a new 921 in the third brake and some seal tape over the chip in the lens. Never leaked before but I didn't want to climb back up there and dry the unit out, and dig out the blown bulb chunks a second time. So it got covered. I'll be looking into another unit. Not sure if I want OEM or aftermarket blacked out yet. What's there will work for now. I got bigger fish to fry.

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[Sampuppy1]

One bigger fish has been fried. Got my headlight housings! Mopar black quad reflectors! Not cheap but definitely the look I was going for. I think I may have to get rid of some more shiny down low as they flow well with everything at grille level. But the bumper is just a blast of all shiny. I think it needs to be broken up a bit. Maybe some smokes fog light housings will do the trick. Idk yet. I'll have to do more thinking on it.

This was done after dark so I'll get some pics as soon as I can. Truck is a salty effin mess but the lights look good.


Not a massive change. But it made a huge difference in the look of the truck. I feel like I need to do something with the fogs now to kinda get more black down low. Maybe I'm just crazy.

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[Sampuppy1]

One more fish fried this week. Picked up a horizontal bar grille. Not easy to find but it was in great shape.

Today as I was heading out to the truck to leave to pick up a new power washer, I noticed a nice puddle under the truck and a stream leading to my floor drain in the garage..... Water pump gasket. After removing the pump, I was not impressed to find the gasket literally crumbling like Bleu cheese as I tried to remove it. I'm very surprised it didn't blow out years ago. I spent more time digging the remnants of old gasket and baked on coolant out of the trench than I did anything else on the repair. So far the gasket is the only thing about this truck that has disappointed me and even then, I'm impressed it lasted as long as it did with it being in the shape I found it in. Brand new coolant was installed since I'm creeping up on that 150k mile mark.

Never got the power washer. Never got my hair cut. But it was a nice day at least.

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[Sampuppy1]

Scratched another item off the list. It was towards the bottom but when someone hands you a $600+ light bar for free because you helped get their **** back on the road in two days, you just don't say no to stuff like that.

Rigid industries 20" single row. Wiring will be wrapped up either today or tomorrow depending on how work goes.

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[Sampuppy1]

Wiring will probably get done today. Last couple days have been a little rough with work. I'm off for a couple after today. Looking forward to that.

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[phatphuck]

Nice. Yeah my buddy had this same gen Ram. Right at 150k I had to do the WP and gasket for him too. Good thing is it only took like 2 hours for me to do it. And I'm a SLOW mechanic despite being at it many many years.

Keep up the good work

 

[Sampuppy1]

Nice. Yeah my buddy had this same gen Ram. Right at 150k I had to do the WP and gasket for him too. Good thing is it only took like 2 hours for me to do it. And I'm a SLOW mechanic despite being at it many many years.

Keep up the good work

Wife is laid off and 7 months along with #2 so I opted to leave the pump itself alone as it had no play and just replace the gasket. We have 10k socked away right now but that's a small safety net considering we pay out almost 3k a month in bills and that's a small ass safety net if **** goes south for any reason. Honestly I'd like to see twice that to feel super comfortable.

Before we had kids, a savings wasn't even a thing. But come June, we are gonna have two lives that rely solely upon us for absolutely every little thing they may need. Not having some sort of safety net would be doing them a terrible disservice. Good thing the wife handles the finances. I have a hard time keeping money put away. If I build up anything, I usually toss the whole lot of it at a debt or I go buy something stupid [emoji1787]

I also got the bar wired up today. Rigid may be expensive, but damn it if they don't build a product that lives up to that value. This bar came off a truck with 60k miles that was modded from day one. It live front and center on that truck and you can tell. There's a couple small chips in the powder coat but the lens is still flawless, the harness is completely overbuilt for what it's running, and anyone questioning whether or not rigid is worth going that deep into your pockets, it is. Every. Single. Penny.

Same with Morimoto and TheRetrofitSource. I got a brand new hid kit from Skee that he never got around to installing. I recently had a ballast take a dump on me and contacted them about the situation to see if I could buy a solo ballast instead of a whole new kit. They asked for his shipping info for the kit and checked to see if the warranty was still active even though I was not the original buyer. I'm getting a new ballast shipped at no charge. I never even mentioned a warranty. Usually these things aren't transferrable.

So for anyone looking to do.any sort.of.lighting mods or upgrades, hit up TRS for Morimoto products. Awesome folks to deal with. Got way more more than I bargained for in the best of terms.

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[Sampuppy1]

Rigid works great! Replaced the fogs with LEDs and did the license plate lights as well. All I got left is high beams but I've got some research to do as those aren't just for looks and I need them to perform.

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[Sampuppy1]

So this truck came with some cheap ass no name cab length tube steps. They always felt flimsy and I knocked one of the brackets pretty good while wheeling last year. Well, the nutserts in the driver's side tube rotted out and the step nearly fell off. Only had one bolt out of six holding it on for the ride home. I threw a bunch of zip ties on to keep it in place and began the hunt for a set of much sturdier OEM steps. I got the deal of a lifetime and nabbed a pair of wheel to wheel ones with hardware in perfect condition for $50! Those will be wrapped up this week.

After the holiday I'll be ordering some custom wheel adapters so I can run the six lug bullet holes from my old truck on this 5 lugger.

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[Sampuppy1]

Got my steps replaced. Located a set of wheels to wheel OEM ones in damn near new condition for $50! Had to buy a new hardware kit but having $80 into a set of steps that normally run $600 and barely look used is nothing to scoff at. They feel much more stable and I can get into the toolbox much easier now too!

Detailed the outside tonight.

Scrapped the adapters idea after learning I'd need two piece adapters to the tune of what it would cost for brand new wheels in the correct lug pattern. Got a guy after the six lug set and that'll cover almost all the cost of the new wheels as I'm selling 5 and buying 4.

Not in a huge rush for LED highs anymore as the stock ones do alright and the bar covers the longer distances when there is zero traffic in sight.

Broke the 150k Mile mark. Switched to midgrade after notice a half mpg drop from my average fuel economy last summer and some very random, occasional and minor (even that would be a strong word) fluctuations in idle rpm so I'm thinking I'll be looking at fresh plugs and coil packs for the fall season.

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