Gentleman Jackal's 470 Build

[Jackal44]

The title is a bit misleading. This is a project that my better half and I are working on together. She has her FRS up for sale and wanted a reliable car to get places in the snow. We still take care of her parents and for the 1 week of snow we seem to get yearly in Calgary, we still wanted to be sure we could get places.

These first posts are copied from another forum that I have tracked all my builds on. It's a Subaru forum and pretty much only Western Canadian members. Out of habit I put all my builds on there. If you wanted some other reading, here are those threads. Most of my builds revolved around auto-x, so if that isn't your jam, I'd just skip them. Some of the threads are archived and don't display as they should anyway.

The "My Beatrice" thread. 1999 Birkin S3 http://www.westernsubaruclub.com/smf/index.php?topic=23514.0
The "My Bianca" thread 2006 BMW Z4MC Login - http://www.westernsubaruclub.com/smf/index.php?topic=52540.0
The "My Brynn" thread 2007 Lotus Elise SC Login - http://www.westernsubaruclub.com/smf/index.php?topic=56792.0
The "My Biene" thread 2008 BMW 135is Login - http://westernsubaruclub.com/smf/index.php?topic=46603.0
The "My Betty" thread 2003 Subaru WRX Login - http://westernsubaruclub.com/smf/index.php?topic=6404.0
The "My Bernadette" Thread 2006 Porsche Cayman S Login - http://westernsubaruclub.com/smf/index.php?topic=51840.0


We have had her since late November and almost immediately needed to consider modifications. The plan was relatively mild, but I figure we can explore other aspects of the motorsports hobby by getting out and enjoying the off highway vehicle parks nearby as well... so as they do... the plans got modified.





Within one week of having her, we got a big dump of snow, and the ride home one day was too much for a lot of people, and apparently myself included. Fella driving in his first snow storm put himself sideways in front of me, and even though we were both going slow for the conditions, I ended up hitting him. Thankfully nobody was hurt.





That's when the plan started to change. We have been looking at these trucks for a little while now, and we know that in this current market (crazy!) these trucks don't suffer the same depreciation that others do when heavily modified. They still do, but seemingly not as much for the time being. my guess is the interest in Overlanding has significantly increased and folks are ok with buying a reliable built truck.

 

[Jackal44]

Shamefully decals were the first mods, but if you've seen any of my builds the racing stripes are usually the first mod on my cars anyway. No racing stripes here, just a love for my country, and a poke at the Yota drivers. Other parts were on order at this point, but as everyone is familiar with, nothing had arrived yet.

Around this time I had also replaced an ungodly number of LED's in the truck. All the map, console, footwell, glovebox, reverse, puddle and door lights got changed out. It's almost too bright inside now. I'll post a picture of the results sometime later.

 

[Jackal44]

Not satisfied with the running boards on her, we set out to find a usable set that still increases clearance. I still need the steps since we still take care of the inlaws. I found a set off a Gen 3 4Runner, and quickly set to cleaning them up. Since the rust was bit more than I liked, I went to Consolidated Compressor and had a day at the beach in one of their DIY sandblasting booths.





Quick lick of DIY spray bedliner, and they looked mint again.



Before:


After:

 

[Jackal44]

Just in time for my recent Birthday, the bumper we had long since ordered, and the front Grille had come in. The bumper is still missing 4 Diode Dynamics light pods, and they'll be mounted in between the round bars on both sides of the bumper. The lights you do see are wired to the stock fog light switch, and the others will be on separate switches I have on order. I want the truck to have a factory finish feel in the cab, so I've got Toyota replica light bar and ditch light switches on order.





Next up was the Grille from Garage Alpha. The stock grille looked pretty ratty next to the new bumper, so in went the new one with Raptor lights. Is it a bit cheese... maybe... does it make me giggle... hell yeah.



Last task this past weekend was to replace the headlights and hi beams with LED bulbs and adjust them down slightly. The rest of the truck has all it's lights replaced with LED, and the last ones had to go. Amazing the difference a bulb can do. I just went for a set of MotoMaster bulbs. Nothing fancy, but they come with a great warranty, and I can replace them at any CT in Canada. I'm satisfied.



As of Today, we are all caught up. Wheels and tires are still shipping and they should be the next items to arrive if all goes well. Here's a couple shots playing in the snow this week.

 

[Jackal44]

Tomorrows project is to attach the new running board lights under the truck. There were lights in the running boards, but they were rusted and had nowhere to attach. I disconnected the running board harness and shortened it up to fit these little janky brackets I made for the rock lights. Amazon to the rescue with the rock lights. Cheap and bright... they should do the trick. The brackets should bolt right up to the middle mount for the nerf bars, and be tucked way up out of the way. We will see.

I'll cut the bolts and give them a lick of the same bedliner once I've made sure the fit is satisfactory.

 

[Jackal44]

After a bit of juggling, the wheels finally arrived. I ordered a set off Tdot performance for black friday and new it was a bit of a risk. As late as two weeks ago there was no timeline on the wheels. A set of fortunate events had the KMC rep here in western Canada reach out and get me on the path to having them. 10 days later they are all mounted up, and I love them. As much as I like TE's in general, it seems like every GX owner gravitates that way. I wanted something a touch different.

 

[Jackal44]

A foggy night recently resulted in some cool shots.