thanks Live I appreciate the info on your rear suspension setup... it will probably be awhile before I dig into mine, I'm just trying to gather info to help me to decide what direction I want to go!

 

well i'm finishing up #1 right now. decided to go a little crazy while i had my dash apart... i'm putting in a cobra 18 cb and a new stereo head unit. ended up spending a lot more on this than i intended, but i think i'll be much happier with this setup.

picked up some goodies at the local salvage yard
i found the only unmolested radio bezel in the yard!

 

nice find on the stereo bezel, that one is in really nice shape, like you said, it's pretty hard to find one that's not all hacked up!

 

I picked up a lighted cigarete lighter with the new radio bezel, unfortunately it didn't come with a lighted one originally and the hole is too small. after filing on it for a few minutes, i discovered that there is a steel plate that is pressed into the hole to make the non-lighted plug fit. makes sense from a production standpoint, that way they only have to make 1 radio bezel for both sr5 and base models. so all you need to do the retrofit is a pocket knife and some wire connectors







more pics to come
i also decided to do a horn upgrade. i've always hated toyota horns, so i swiped the horn from a suburban my brother was parting. it was a fairly simple upgrade, i just used a factory toyota relay out of an old wiring harness

 

finished up the radio and cb install. i'm pretty happy with how it turned out, looks a lot cleaner
BEFORE:


AFTER:

 

Wow that looks clean!!! You've just convinced me to attempt an install like that!

 

thanks, now that my interior is starting to come together i'm anxious to get new carpet in there too

 

Did you paint the dash plastic? What did you use cuz in the pic it looks like fresh from the factory looking plastic. My entire interior is blue... I'd much prefer a black or at least dark grey interior.

 

do you mean the radio bezel or the grey dash trim? the only thing i've painted is the dash pad but its not shown in the pic. i just clean everything with armorall

 

That would explain why it looks factory! Lol , yeah, I think the lighting is different too and with the armorall it looks really fresh and clean. Looks really good black tho, I might try to paint my blue dash if I could have it come out pretty decent

 

Last night i tried this:
http://www.4x4wire.com/toyota/minutemods/seatbelt/

I even washed it and it still doesn't retract very well, but it did help some.

I also made a tailgate cover plate. I didn't take a before picture, but the old one was a nasty piece of what was once carpet, and the plastic trim was brown. I used SEM graphite paint on the plastic...not sure why it looks blue in these pictures but its actually dark grey







Its made from 11 guage steel. I wanted to go with aluminum since its a lot lighter but i wasn't willing to pay the extra money for it. in the end, i'm glad i went with steel cuz i had to weld and re-drill a couple of the holes haha.
I was afraid of getting some road noise after removing the carpet cover so lined the back of it with this:


Its supposed to be a budget friendly sound deadener, we'll see how well it works

 

question, what made you choose to go with 5.29 gears, and what rpm do you run at 70mph?

 

I ran 4.56's with 33s for a long time and wanted a little deeper gearing, so when i went up to 35's i took a bigger step up to 5.29's. I ran some numbers comparing the stock gearing/tire size for the 7mge and it worked out that with 5.29's and 35's it is pretty dang close to factory. my spedo is off maybe 5% at most. it tach's at just over 3k @75mph but i'd say 60% of the highway i drive is 65 mph so it works out pretty well.

 

How does it pull up hill in 5th gear, I'm talking 6% grade, or do you shift to 4th?

 

i would have to shift to 4th on a 6% grade, even then i'd have trouble holding 75.

 

Man that diamond plate on the tailgate looks good. Saw you put 4.7s in a single case. When you go between obstacles, what do you do shift out of low? I'd love 4.7s, but feel like I'd miss those 2.28s and I'm not too sure I'd want to cut up the floor and put in duals. I made a spreadsheet trying to figure out my speed in each gear with 2.28s versus 4.7s and I'm still not convinced either way. I doubt I'd ever put in duals, so I guess I'd have to live with 4.7.

 

Been thinking about On board air for a while now. i found this write up today and it has some good ideas, so i'll save this for later
http://www.f150online.com/forums/art...d-air-how.html

 

thanks!
i love the 4.7 singe case. i really don't run accross too many times where i miss the stock low range. with the 7mge i don't need to shift into low unless i'm on an obstacle. it could be a different story with a 22re though

 

Ah gotcha, the 7mge is a big difference. For the sandy, muddy stuff here in Florida I have to use low gear quite a lot with the 22re. Thanks for the info, I still might put 4.7s in my case and just try it.

 

got my truck back this morning from getting some exhaust work done. 2" mandrel from the manifold back. still need to do the muffler (didn't want to pay them to do it) but so far i'm liking it a lot

x-over- had them put a flange on each side so i can pull the trans