Yeah. Salt sucks. Hence the wrap on the shocks and trying to protect these as much as possible. I don't get under my truck with a pressure washer, but I do pay monthly for unlimited car washes at a spot that has an underbody flush. I run through that thing every other day in the winters.

I didn't realize that Method was that restrictive. If the bronze only came in a 0 offset, I can tell you I wouldn't have gone with them. Hell if fifteen52 made any of their wheels in anything other than a 0, I would have strongly considered those. I think I have talked the lady into fifteen52 for her CR-V though. So I will live vicariously through her.

 

Well sounds like you're doing the right thing for the undercarriage, though i suspect it's not enough to get up under the arches in their entirety. Does that place have a "wand" to use at all? might be worth trying to find that to just go over the shock area really quickly, only needs a water rinse.

Be wary of the protection you're applying to them, i say this because what ends up happening is the salt water works in there anyway, and starts to eat away at the edges until it gets underneath, and not rinsing them off will exacerbate this (been there, done that )

Yeah, the wheel thing was massively annoying, only certain combos available, and i hated going for the zero offset as the 12th gen fenders don't come out quite as far (or uniform) on the front compared to the 13th gen. Having said that, i'm actually happy how they turned out, but i would never normally choose something this "extreme" and it was basically my family that pressured me into it

Some offsets were only in some sizes, not all colours, not all models.
Some colours ruled out any of the above in a seemingly arbitrary fashion. I could have a +18 if i went with 18" but not in 17", but as you found, if i wanted bronze, i could get a +25 in the 17", but not in gloss titanium!
I literally have spreadsheets from them now so i could work out what sizes/specs i could get in which colours and models etc.
I get that they're a smaller company, and i guess they bulk order from CN for local distribution in Cali, but it still sucks.

 

Man. It's like you are in my head. I thought about the same thing with the clear bra I put on the shocks. I will definitely spend a little time each week at a car wash with the wand to keep everything looking good as new.

Sounds like a great family pressuring you to buy new wheels. Hahaha. Most of my family thinks it is a waste of time.

A spreadsheet!!! That's awesome. I did the same thing when I was looking to purchase a new fat bike years ago. Even drew CAD sketches to measure angles and check geometry.

 

Yeah, i think if each week you get the undercarriage washed, you briefly wand out the arches/shocks as well, you should be good to go, an undercarriage wash is just not going to clean out the arches like it's needed - every car i used to buy i had to hose out the arch lip and dig with my fingers to get out all the built up dirt that was keeping water against the body which leads to rust.

Family knew i wasn't going to give up, and i was sick of them telling me i had an old mans truck
I worked smarter instead of harder on the wheels, turns out they were happy to send out their own spreadsheets with the details

 

So I booted up the old Forscan machine the other day to do some stuff and found a bunch of DTCs I am going to need to figure out.

First, I rewired my white fog lights in the bumper to an upfitter switch instead of the stock fog light switch. I wanted to have all of my extra lights up above. The problem is that having no load on the harness, I am not getting a DTC for an open circuit. Gonna need to see if maybe I can disable that switch and remove the DTC or come up with some sort of resistor for it.

Two, had some DTCs related to the grille shutters. I have to believe that is from the deer impact and messed up shutters. Gonna have to fix that.

Finally, I have a fault in my IPMA. I think I am going to need to recalibrate the camera after the additional lift from the new coilovers.

I did also update my stereo to Sync 3.4. Everything seemed to work there, but I haven't driven anywhere yet.

Aside from that, packing to head out camping this weekend.

 

Well. Apparently I never uploaded the camping trip. But here are a couple of pictures with the truck.




Aside from that, I had always heard about the advantages of the Hellwig swaybars. Then I read what @WVMoose wrote about it in his build thread. When @17xlsilver threw a rear up for sale in MA, I figured out a way to pick it up from him on the way to my daughter's hockey weekend. Thanks Dan for meeting up with me and making the pickup super easy. I plan to clean up the bar, repaint it, and then throw it on. Looking forward to the install.

 

I can't leave well enough alone. I wasn't super happy with the Rigid A-pillar mounts. They were better than the ZROADz, but not completely what I wanted. I swapped out for the SDHQ mounts this past weekend. I don't have any pictures of it, but have been liking these more. They are the most solid of the three I have tried and offer plenty of adjustability with two slotted holes for mounting. I expanded the slot in the Rigid mounting bracket so that I could secure each light down with two bolts instead of the one that Rigid provides. I also got shorter bolts (3/4" instead of 1") to eliminate any rubbing on the cowl. The lights are mounted, solid and working great on the backroads.

I also took some time to align all of the lights. Adjusted the headlights down after the level, and aimed all three pairs of Rigid lights. I may need to stop one more time and make some fine adjustments, but it is all so much better than before now.

Not much else to report. Haven't found the time to work on or install the Hellwig bar, but hopefully will soon.

 

Got some photos this morning of the new SDHQ A-pillar mounts.

 

They're quite smart looking mounts.

 

So I have always liked the xtrusion style bed racks for mounting equipment above the bed, but my love for a camper shell has always won out. I bought a Rotopax for water that I thought I could easily mount to my BuiltRight rack, but quickly learned I can't fit both the Rotopax and my other tools I have in the back of the truck. So I have been thinking about possibly building my own rack that I could mount using the camper shell brackets and have the bars tucked up closely around the shell. This would provide me more locations for mounting MOLLE panels and more equipment.

I am in the planning phase and thinking about it at the moment, but thinking a lot about it now. I had already been thinking about redoing my wooden divider and bike rack setup with extruded aluminum t-slot bars. Stay tuned I guess.

I STILL have the hellwig sitting around waiting to get refinished. I should have just thrown it on as it was. I just haven't found the time to get it done. I've also thought about adding some airbags and an on-board compressor in anticipation of loaded down camping trips this year. Even had some thoughts about a Raptor steering wheel and an Expedition center stack.

Lot's of thinking. Lot's of other projects. Not enough time or money to get it all done though.