Bruce4

Been a member on here for a while, and I've never made a build thread. I've done lots of mods here and there, and I use this forum A LOT for product reviews and ideas. Now that I've done a good bit to the truck, I feel like its my turn to post up what I've done, share my ideas, and hopefully help some other f150 owners out! Also, I do kind of like the idea of keeping my progress all in one place.


Here's the first picture I have of the truck. It was the end of 2014 (november I believe) and I got a steal off craigslist. $13,000 for this bad boy with only 47,000 miles on the odometer. Couldn't pass up on this deal

Bruce4

Don't hesitate to ask me for any reviews of the products I've installed or any questions you have

My first mod was to replace my oem chrome headlights. I came from an sedan that had projector headlights, and I had gotten way too used to the night being lit up when I turned on my headlights. Wasn't getting that with the OEMs, so I bolted in some Spyder projector headlights with CCFL halos and 6000k HID bulbs. World of a difference. Very bright, and I personally like the look of the halos.
This is also the first time Bruce got to play in the georgia clay

Bruce4

Next up is a little too much plasti dipping.
The grille I believe is pretty original, haven't seen many others who have done the same


Next I did the wheels, bumpers, and emblems





Sometime recently, I saw an STX with a PTM bumper and thought to myself "wow, that looks so much better than mine, why don't I completely copy him." So, I saw how the white plasti dip on my grille pretty much matched my body paint, so i experimented on the rear bumper. Definitely cant tell a difference in pictures, barely can tell a difference in paint color up close in real life. I think it came out very good


emblems also got updated

Bruce4

Next two mods are lighting and exhaust. Got a flowmaster super 40 put on, sounds amazing. Nothing too loud, but lets me know I got some HP under the hood






I wasn't getting enough light when I was offroad at night, so I threw on a little eBay light bar in the hole on front bumper. For $50, thought it was worth a shot. Boy does this thing put out some light. Very impressed with the output










Wired both the light bar and halos to two different switches right behind steering wheel. Some people just wire these to turn on with brights, but I like to have all the control

Bruce4

Next up came the audio. I like my music loud and the windows down, so the stock radio wasn't doing it. The head unit is the kenwood ddx471HD matched with 4 new pioneer 4way speakers. The huge amp is a Crunch Powerone 5 channel amp from a previous SUV, and the powered sub is the sound acoustics one which i believe to either be 125 or 150 Watts. This setup sounds unbelievable to me. I dont use the 5th channel on the Crunch amp. I just reused it to power the speakers in this truck. All is kept under the rear seats, and it truly sounds phenomenal. I don't listen to much bass heavy music, mostly classic rock and southern rock, but the sub has made this music sound SO much better at high volumes. Many thanks to Brooke at Crutchfield for recommending that to me.










Couldn't resist putting a backup cam too since I got the touchscreen DDIN receiver. I ordered some $5 license plate frame to screw this rearview camera into. Looks great and I recommend it to everybody. Saw something on the news where they could fit an entire kindergarten class in the tailgate blindspot on a 1/2 ton pickup. Pretty scary.

Bruce4

Line-X and a UWS Lo-pro toolbox are the last two upgrades to this bad boy as of now. Toolbox works great, and the linex really hasn't shown any signs of wear for the 6 months I've had it. Both great products! (so far)

2014fiveoh

Nice truck and a great deal!

Cool to see another Georgia member

Bruce4

New Years present to myself was a 2.5 in Autospring level kit with an add a leaf for the rear. Ran into a couple problems, and have three bits of advice for anyone doing this sort of thing on their own.



1) SPRAY ALL NUTS/BOLTS WITH LIQUID WRENCH OR PB BLASTER THE NIGHT BEFORE. Especially if you're working on an older truck

2) Don't be afraid to beat on that steering knuckle to get the ball joint bolt loose. I was able to get the ball joint loose with 2 strikes of a kobalt hammer on the spindle right here


3) If you have an angle grinder, dont even fuss with trying to unbolt leaf spring center pins with vise grips. Go out to hardware store, pick up 2 or 3 metal blades for a few bucks, cut those suckers right off. AAL kit should come with new center bolt hardware.





Here are the before and after pics- Front was raised exactly 2.5", AAL gave the rear ~2" of lift


Before:






After:

Bruce4

Been a while since I posted to this. Changed up the color scheme, looks a lot more like an FX4 now, I'm incredibly pleased with how it turned out. Also threw some cab length nfab steps on




Sitting at 60k miles now, I followed Ford's timeline and replaced the fuel filter. I'm so glad I did, that thing was NASTY. Recommending to anyone who has bought their truck used, replacing the FF should be first on the to-do list, because it looks like the previous owners never touched my truck's FF

Here's a shot of filter cut open



Even more disturbing is the color of the "fuel" that came out of it




Lesson learned.


Now I got some change in my pocket, plans for the winter are new wheels, tires, lift kit, and SCT X4.

Currently eyeing some 18x9 -12 gear alloy big blocks in black, wrapped in 295/70r18 Courser MXTs. Really would like some 35s, but with 3.55 gears, 295/70r18 (34.25"x12") seems like a pretty good compromise to me. Would love to try the regear myself, since I have access to a hydraulic press for the bearings, but I'm sure I'd mess something up bad