they arent too much bigger i dont think.

look into the 8" lights...pro comp makes one, 130 watt; hella makes the 4000 ralleye.

sounds good about the hitch though, too bad its gona take a few days, sheesh!

 

If I did change lights would I need to buy another wiring harness, or could I just use my Hella 500 wiring to hook them up? I may have to get a larger fuse since bigger lights would draw more power, but is that all I would really need to do?

 

Damn that thing looks like it should be in the performance products cataloge.

Question on your rack:

1) What length bars are those?
2) What size surco rack is that?
3) How sturdy is that surco rack?

Im going to get a rack soon but, I wanted to actually put the rack onto my stock roof rack location and then stick yakima load bars on top of the surco rack. Do you think its strong enough?

I basically want to carry ~15 gallons of gas, firewood, water jugs in the surco rack. Maybe fit my spare tire up there too. Then stick the load bars on there so I could use half of the side to stick my surfboards on there.

Hmm

 

Very nice!

 

i can speak from personal experience with surcos:

holds firewood AWESOME.
spare tire does great.

all in all, surco is a great rack.

 

how do you have yours mounted? Stock load bars, or yakima or do you have it screwed into your runners?

 

mine is screwed into the runners on the roof rack track.

it works great this way, very very simple. and what ive done actually, is use the little nobs that hold the stock load bars in place, instead of the supplied screws, that way i can easily move the rack back and forth, or take it off if need be.

 

The yakima bars are 58" and I'm pretty sure the rack is 45"x50". The site recommends the 60" Surco rack, but it would hang over the sunroof and I didn't want that. The Surco is pretty sturdy in my opinion, especially mounted on the Yakima racks. I occasionally put my spare up there, and carry multiple surfboards up top all summer long and have never had a problem with it.

 

How about those wheel spacers??? Any type of vibration, etc? I must say the OEM limited wheels look killer sticking out. I wish mine looked that way. I've seen alot of warnings about wheel spacers and seem like alot of people are against them...

 

I really like the wheel spacers a lot. There is some road vibration, mainly around 55-65 mph, but its pretty minor. Some of the vibration might be from the wheel spacers, but I'm sure that the MT/Rs and 3" spacers account for some of it also. I hated how the OEM wheels were "sucked" under the wheel well, but I really like the limited design and didn't want to fork out $700 or $800 for new rims. I got the 1.5" spacers from Marlin Crawler for about $150, so in my opinion it was a pretty good solution and looks a lot better!

 

Very nice looking truck. All this lift, tires, brush guard and lights making it coooool.

 

Tarheelrunner,
That is by far one of the best looking 3rd Gens I've seen. It just looks right - height, wheels, etc. Good job.

I go through Kinston many times throughout the year. My parents live in Beaufort, NC and we own a house in Morehead City.

Cheers,
Andreas

 

Very nice looking rig.

 

Thanks! The Morehead/Beaufort area is by far my favorite part of the state. I've lived in Atlantic Beach the past 2 summers, and I've decided that you really can't beat the "beach bum" lifestyle!

 

tarheelrunner, could you post close-up picture of your red shackles? I'm interesting how you attached them to the frame.

 

it looks great bro!

 

nice rig

 

I'm off at school right now, so no access to a camera. Basically what I did is drill 3/4" holes in my main brush guard brackets, very close to where they bolt to the frame. The holes are probably 1/2" from the back of the bracket closest to the frame, and about 3/4" from the bottom of the bracket. I bought the shackles from a local hardware store and rattle-canned them red, so there's not much to this project!

 

Thanks for write-up. Could you make some pictures when you'll be back to school? Still interesting to see them close-up.

 

Very nice !!! A great combination of form and functionality - great job putting it together...

James