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I bought my truck, Tessa, back in 2015. It's been a busy few years with repairs and upgrades, and as I'm starting a big conversion project, I wanted to get this build thread going.
From my introduction in 2015:
I grew up with a Black 2004 4x4 Lariat SCREW, ended up putting about 280k miles on it before my parents ended up having to replace the engine (let the issues with oil pressure and timing get to the point where it was no longer ran). I loved that truck. I learned to drive on it, drove it during high school, and had my fair share of adventures and close calls with it.
Unfortunately, when I went off to school I ended up taking my parent's 2005 Altima with me, not the truck I loved so much.
Fast forward to a couple weeks ago, I blew the head gasket on the car and needed a new fuel pump to boot. Perfect opportunity to get myself a truck!
I'll be adding a few posts with the updates I've done thus far, but the real purpose of this thread is to document the merging of these two trucks. At 317k miles, my parents finally decided to upgrade to a 2015 F150. With the amount of rust, they weren't going to get much for a trade-in, but I managed to get it shipped out here.
Over the next few weeks, I'll be swapping over the entire interior, from the flow-through console to the power sliding rear window, and all the black trim and leather on the inside, over to my truck.
Here are a few photos of the truck when I brought it home in 2015:
After the fun stuff, I had to do some maintenance work to do, namely the timing (I was getting a bad case of the Triton tick) and the front suspension (upper and lower ball joints and tie rods).
Engine all opened up: engine all opened up timing components
Over the last 18 months, I haven't done much other than oil changes and standard maintenance. Unfortunately, cashflow didn't allow me to do any of the projects I was hoping to do.
Last month, I started a big new project though, swapping the interior of my parent's old 2004 F-150 Lariat with my 2005 XLT. My plan was to swap over their flow-through shifter/console, the black dash/trim/carpet, the leather seats, and the power rear window,
Here are some photos of the truck being loaded up and shipped out: Truck being loaded up in Ohio Unloading in Phoenix Two trucks side-by-side
Last weekend, I finally started making some serious headway on gutting the trucks. Here are some photos of the empty Lariat and adding sound deadening, the new headliner, and the power-sliding window to my XLT:
Since I haven't posted an update in a while, here's where I'm at:
I finished installing the seats, carpet, and headliner just before Thanksgiving. Between work and the holidays, I didn't have time to work on it in December, but I'm starting to dive back into it this month. Still to do:
[ ] Swap bumpers
[ ] Swap the passerger-side door panels
[ ] Install the new shifter cable and reinstall the center console
[ ] Swap the dash and instrument cluster + EATC system
The end is in sight!
Here's what the interior looked like with the seats/carpet:
I'm been driving around like this for a few weeks as I work on tearing apart the dash on the other truck:
Got a bunch of work done today on the truck! Swapped the bumpers so I now have fogs. I still need to run wiring - I may end up putting in off road lights since I have to run the wiring anyways, but for now I at least have the look of the fogs.
There's some rust on the bumper, so my eventual plan is to sand it down and plastidip the bottom part of the truck with a dark grey.
I also got the front passenger door panel swapped and sound deadened. Just one more door to go!
Last edited by drewwatkins11; 01-13-2019 at 11:46 PM.
@isvend Good luck! Let me know if you have any questions along the way. It's definitely worth it! While it was definitely a lot of work, every time I hop in the truck, I have a lot of pride knowing the work that went into it.
My build is all finished, though there are still a few things I'm wrapping up on the donor truck. I haven't posted photos of the finished result yet, mainly because I haven't yet taken the time to fully clean out the inside, but I'll try to get some up by the end of the week!
I finally wrapped up the project towards mid-Feb, but had a bunch of tools, camping gear, etc. rolling around in the back seat so didn't want to take photos yet. Finally got around to it today. Check out the finished build! You might notice the tan seat belt here. The lower seat bracket was completely fused to the chassis of the donor truck (I tried Kroil, propane, and an impact wrench to get them out), so I left the seat belts as they were. I think of it as a nice nod to what the truck used to look like.
11-14-2018, 11:50 PM
Tessa, my 2005 XLT -> Lariat conversion
