Ripped

Well she is 5 years old and a little rough around the edges.

I had a machine hit my FX-4 Grille at the jobsite, so after a minor fender bender agreed to have the cheaper earlier style FX-4 grille put on it.

I was never really happy with that, so am going to change that one out.

Also a few years ago my truck was broken into. They pried the back slider, before smashing a window. The slider was damaged. Insurance company agreed to replace it. Bodyshop decided to just try and fix it. It's never worked since. I am going to chase them down, since it is supposed to be guaranteed for the life of the repair.

While checking things out, I operated the sunroof, and it crapped out. There were a few twigs in there, so that may have caused the issue. I had a helluva time getting it to go back up into position.

I ordered the repair kit (thanks to the forum guys for posting the repair) but that's for when the weather gets better.

After test driving a 2013 Raptor, I decided I didn't like it that much. It's more of an off-road vehicle. My truck is a daily driver. I like my Eco-boost, and didn't want to pay for the 6.2 gas bill.

I might like the new Raptor, but for now don't want any new monthly payments

So I ordered a mock Raptor kit. Since I am going to replace the grille anyway, I can buy the whole kit for less than the cost of my replacement grille.

Plans;
Headlights
Tail lights
Bumpers front and rear
Wider flares
Tires probably, maybe wheels too.
Black wheel lugs
Blacked/tinted emblems
LED lights
Rack
Change out the side steps

For now, I swapped out the chrome tailpipe for a satin black one.

Ripped

So my grille and the accompanying lettering are here.

Put it together and may install tonight if the rain stops.

Ripped

It took about 2 1/2 hours to install the grille.

Pretty nice product. A few little items. The wiring was not long enough so I had to solder and extend it. Not a big deal, but it only needed to be 2.5 feet longer.
Missing a couple nuts, and I am going to go back and add loctite, as there are no locking washers

The connectors for the LED's are not staggered, so there is kind of a unsightly bundle of wires tucked up at the top of the hood.

The LEDs are a different colour than the factory lights, so we will see how that looks, once the fender flares (lighted also I believe) and any headlight changes.

I'll see how the Grille looks once the other parts are installed, and if I decide to paint everything black

Ripped

The notice came in from tracking that my bumper, flares and sunroof kit came in, so I endured the 2+ hours of rush hour traffic after work to go pick them up.

Came home and went pretty much right to work on the bumper.

I scanned, but didn't see any good videos on how to take the old bumper off, so kind of winged-it.


The new bumper was definitely not plug and play.

As soon as I got the old one off, you could see there was absolutely no provision for mounting the hood latch/catch.

No instructions in the kit either (unlike the grille which had instructions)

So I dove in and decided to mount it. I reused some brackets off of the original bumper. This required cutting off about 60% of the old bracket to make it work.

It did work, but I wasn't proud of the chop job, so will have to demount the bumper again and detail and paint the brackets better. I may do that at the same time I install some led fog type lights in the angular opening.

It took about 3 1/2 hours of hard work to get it installed.
There is more to go to get the brackets nice.

When I took the truck to work today (just with the grille only) I got a whole bunch of compliments from the guys, including a bit of jealous jibes from a group of our construction crew, with a couple lifted Dodges.

Anyway glad I got it on. Have to figure out a license plate mount and a few other details. Hoping the flares are easier.

Flowpro

Looking great.

The Pony in the garage looks pretty sweet too.

tuflehundon

I wondered if the lights on those grills would be different than the ones on my truck. I may just not hook them up when I add my Raptoid grill.

That does look a heck of a lot better than your old grill.

Runningriot

Ripped its cool to see what other projects you are working on. I've followed your Pacific Thunder build for as long as I can remember.

Looking forward to seeing your progress with your truck, looks great!

Ripped

Yeah I kind of agree. I like the more amber look of the stock parking lights. I'm going to look around and see if I can get some darker LED's

Thanks!

Thanks, the 'stang has a lot of work on the agenda. I am redoing the exhaust completely (hence it being raised) along with a whole bunch of under chassis and suspension work. Picking up a 3" exhaust system tomorrow then have to modify the header back to muffler section, cause the car is too low lol.

The flares are on the truck tonight. Gonna hookup the LED's tomorrow. Check the fitment etc.
I found some LED cube lights at Canadian Tire, and decided to go with those. All the reports of leaky fog lights had me worried about buying online. If these leak at least I can take them back, locally.

Hoping to make brackets tomorrow for the lights.

Ripped

Got a few more things done this morning before the rain made an appearance.

I have been searching on the internet, for a set of lights that I like. I haven't found anything that personally I find striking, and the factory lights are actually pretty nice looking, so I decided to work with those.

I remember a post here from a few years ago, that showed how to detail the back of the existing taillights to create a black outline.
So I did that, then tinted them a bit. I didn't want them super black, just subtle.

I think they turned out pretty good.

I agree with tuflehundon that the lights in the grille were too yellow. I like the amber colour of the factory turn signals and park lights, so changed toe colour of the LED's to match more closely. A little hard to tell in the daytime pics, but they match good now.

Mounted the taillights back in place. The cellphone camera had the flash on, so you can't really see how dark they are, but are exactly the way I wanted them

The flares are also mounted. For the price that the whole package (grille, bumper, and flares) was, I am not bitching, but the flares are definitely an economy set. I may change them out in the future.

Yes I need tires/ wheels. My options are using the factory wheels (which I really like) with a good quality spacer, or change out the wheels entirely.

I am reading up on tires, on the forum. I know what profile I want, but since it's a daily driver and I take on long highway drives, in the spring and summer, I don't want a noisy tire, or tire whine on the highway.

I'd like something around a 33/12.5/20 size.

I also snapped a pic of the fog light cubes. I have 4 to make a mount for (when the rain stops) then decide how I want to wire them up. To come on with the fog light switch, to have them come on 2 at a time, or to have a more low intensity fog light, and the cubs come on in a separate switch.

I also want to find a good switch location, inside the truck and a switch assembly that looks like it belongs/matches the inside of the truck.

Ripped

Oh yeah, I have to figure out where to mount the front license plate, now. So if anyone has a suggestion, LMK. I don't want to block the bumper gap because of the intercooler.