Builds indycole's 2016 200 Series Build and Retrospective

[radman]

BFH?
It looks like my dissent rear sits about 1/2-1” back from what you have, and my KO2 305s run a little smaller… that or I just haven’t stuffed that hard yet

 

[linuxgod]

Yeah, I almost always run premium on road trips.

Too bad, I was hoping for an easy fix for ya. Also, that totally blows my “premium gas doesn’t seem to boil as much” theory

 

[indycole]

A few drone shots from LCDC (which was a blast!)

Imogene Pre-Run


Yankee Boy Basin


A few from Poughkeepsie + Placer + Picayune Gulches






I'd never noticed this spot on Last Dollar until this trip


A lot of 200s stopped for lunch on Owl Creek Pass

 

[indycole]

The wife and I enjoyed wonderful road trips ahead of and after the event, bookending LCDC. We logged time in Moab, Monument Valley, and Cortez on the way in. With a day and a half in Moab, we entered via Willow Springs Rd, checked out Tower Arch, and then did some light hiking along the scenic park drive. On the way south, we drove through a bit of Valley of the Gods before aborting due to bad weather. We took the extra time to drive up the Moki Dugway and enjoyed a leisurely lunch at Goosenecks State Park. Our destination was Monument Valley — ever popular but we try to visit whenever we're in the area. We made a number of meandering stops on our way to Cortez: Teec Nos Pos, Four Corners Monument, Shiprock, Toadlena, Two Grey Hills, Mesa Verde. Prior to this trip we'd never traveled between Cortez and Telluride along the Delores River... what an amazing drive.

Sunrise at Monument Valley


Shiprock (Tsé Bitʼaʼí)




On our return voyage, we made our way home via Winslow, Sedona, Scottsdale, and Palm Springs. The temperature hit 120 just east of Palm Springs. We took a detour through Joshua Tree (we love going in the winter but had never been in the summer). Probably not the smartest thing in those temperatures we but we had no issues aside from almost running out of gas (I had boiling gas and couldn't refill from the aux... eventually the problem worked itself out).

The Joshua Tree NP scenery was still amazing even though it was a billion degrees


We had a bit of extra time in Sedona and decided to run Broken Arrow... along with what seemed like 100 Pink Jeeps. Many of whom tried to talk us out of doing the trail. Not sure if they thought we couldn't do it, would just be in their way, or if they didn't want their customers to know it was possible to drive it in your own vehicle. No biggie... in any case it's a very fun - but short - trail. The scenery is amazing and it's pretty easy. Stock 200s would have no issues. There is a legitimate downhill waterfall about 3/4 through the trail.

 

[indycole]

Finally, a few truck updates.

We returned from LCDC with fewer chores/fixes than usual. I don't think the truck touched rock during this trip; however, the tires most certainly made contact with the wheel wells (and bumper). I cut the passenger side rear bumper on Wednesday just before the event (while on the street in the Ouray suburbs no less). That addressed the major issue but sometime during the trip the tire ripped what was left of my mudflap out of the plastic. It was only like a 3-inch by 6-inch piece. I'll need to make a similar cut on the driver side of the rear bumper. The plan is to eventually weld those pieces back in but with the right amount of clearance when I remove the bumper for a fresh powder coat.

New Suspension!

I had a couple boxes from Filthy Motorsports waiting when I returned home. I'd hoped to get these installed professionally but as many of you know shops are very, very busy and are generally short-staffed. I took this as an invitation to do it myself. In a parking garage parking space using only the tools I carry in my truck plus a jack stand. What could go wrong? Installing suspension components is a new adventure for me. I do a lot of DIY stuff on the truck but am really only comfortable with electrical.

Ultimately, I spent around 4 hours on the front on Saturday and 2 hours on the rear today. I only swapped the struts/shocks and kept my UCAs (but greased them) and rear spring + airbag setup. For the front, I followed @crikeymike's instructions to let the LCA drop by disconnecting it from the hub. Aside from the strut, the only other component I needed to remove was the sway bar. It worked out pretty well... I even had relatively good luck putting the sway bar back on as the last step. Naturally, my alignment is in pretty rough shape now but I only need to travel about a mile to the alignment shop.

I'll chime in with some thoughts on the new setup compared to BP51s once I get an alignment and some wheel time.

Other Maintenance

For a variety of reasons, I decided to preemptively check off the maintenance items that most folks do around 100k miles. I'm just south of 75k.

• Replaced spark plugs
• Replaced idler pulley (tensioner was done about 5k ago)
• Replaced radiator, water pump, thermostat, heater hose Ts, hoses, and coolant
• Replaced fan bracket, fan, fan shroud, fan clutch
• Replaced alternator (rebuilding the old one as a spare)

What's Next

• My top priority is getting the tires to fit without taking more extreme measures (fender rolling / cutting, body lift). I think I'm almost there. If I didn't mention it in an earlier post, I added front and rear Timbren bump stops. There's more work to be done, though. I'm committed to making it work as I really like the tires so far.
• It's been a long time since I've had tire puncture issues and the new tires are more robust than anything I've had in the past. I'm contemplating going back to a single spare along with a camping gear box on the other swing out.
• After nearly two years I'm still troubleshooting a loud whistling/chirping noise that seems to be driveline/drivetrain related. I'm going to spend some more time getting to the bottom of that noise. It's been quite the mystery.

 

[radman]

The wife and I

Btw, your wife is cool.

 

[Markuson]

A few drone shots from LCDC (which was a blast!)

Imogene Pre-Run


Yankee Boy Basin


A few from Poughkeepsie + Placer + Picayune Gulches






I'd never noticed this spot on Last Dollar until this trip


A lot of 200s stopped for lunch on Owl Creek Pass

Holy smokes… These are fantastic.

 

[saywhat]

Spacer Doesn't Fit


Trimmed with Dremel

@indycole It's been a while, but maybe you remember. Is there enough material to safely Dremel off the ducting to fit the spacer like so?

 

[indycole]

@indycole It's been a while, but maybe you remember. Is there enough material to safely Dremel off the ducting to fit the spacer like so?

View attachment 2916915

Yeah, just pay attention to what’s underneath. If I recall it’s just a bit of a lip so there was little risk of penetrating the duct. Good luck!

 

[indycole]

It's been a while since a meaningful build update. We were fortunate to enjoy some long weekend trips in this fall and early winter — a few visits to Tahoe, the North Coast, Los Padres, and Joshua Tree. Most of the trips were soft-roading, but we did hit some legit trails on occasion (cheers to @TLC2013, @1world1love, and @psnyman).

I dropped the truck off at Jason's (@TRAIL TAILOR) in November for some modifications to the rear bumper to help my tires and to re-powder coat both the front and the rear. Ultimately, we decided to simply refresh the front with new powder coat, a small connector skid between the bumper and the Budbuilt skids, and a larger 12k winch (moved up from the 9.5k.

However, for the rear, we elected to do a complete rebuild. The oversized tires were rubbing pretty badly on the old bumper and the geometry needed to change enough that it made sense to start from scratch. Here are a few of the changes:

• More clearance between the rear bumper wings and the rear tires
• Slightly taller wings with modified geometry to improve clearance
• Corner parking sensors relocated inward to reduce the chance of damage
• Bottom lip curved upward a bit to improve departure when scraping over rocks
• Eliminated full underside plating on the wings to reduce weight and increase access
• Dual locking pins per swing arm instead of one pin and a locking strut
• Trailer connector integrated into the bumper
• Swing-arm mounts offset a bit so they could be taller to move the tires up so there's more room for the license plate and a view angle for the rear camera

I'm incredibly pleased with the changes and working with Jason was a pleasure as always. I picked the truck up a couple weeks ago and can't wait to break the new armor in on the trail. He also upgraded my rear LCA skids with a new, beefier version. (Minor note on the timing: I dropped the truck off earlier than the work was scheduled due to vacation and made it clear that I didn't need it back until February due to other travel commitments)

Jason posted some great photos in his thread and here are a few more.

Connector skid between front bumper and Budbuilt engine skid

Front bumper

Another shot of the front bumper showing the results from replacing the 1.25-inch Spidertrax spacers with 1.5-inch Bora spacers to help reduce UCA rubbing

No more rear tire rubbing on the bumper

New corner geometry

Offset swing-arm mounts

Rear bumper

Moving from 1.25 to 1.5-inch spacers definitely improved most of the remaining rubbing from the tires in the front. There's just the slightest bit of rubbing on the UCA. I expect I'll be able to live with it but need to gather some more data.

The other item I'm working through is continuing to troubleshoot a metallic whistling noise for almost the third year in the row. Noise attached in case anyone has a brilliant idea.

 

[TLC2013]

Love the build, just keeps getting better and better. Looking forward to seeing it in person and hitting some trails.

 

[radman]

how are you liking the Baja Boss ATs? I need to replace 2 of my 305/70/18 KO2s, however they are "backordered" everywhere. My options are to jump over to your Bajas or downgrade to a 295/70/18

 

[indycole]

how are you liking the Baja Boss ATs? I need to replace 2 of my 305/70/18 KO2s, however they are "backordered" everywhere. My options are to jump over to your Bajas or downgrade to a 295/70/18

They're great though I'm not sure I'd jump into this size again. I didn't expect to have such a hard time fitting them.

 

[radman]

They're great though I'm not sure I'd jump into this size again. I didn't expect to have such a hard time fitting them.

Everyone says the KO2s run small... any idea how the Boss measures out when loaded on the rig?

Also, I saw that you had Ridge Grapplers - did you have issues with them? they don't make them in 305s, so I'd have to get them in 295/70

 

[TeCKis300]

What UCAs are you running @indycole ? I've had to clearance my stock UCAs for wide 35x12.5s, but always though aftermarket UCA would provide more clearance. Surprised you're still getting contact with larger spacers?

Rigs looking as finer than ever.

 

[indycole]

Everyone says the KO2s run small... any idea how the Boss measures out when loaded on the rig?

Also, I saw that you had Ridge Grapplers - did you have issues with them? they don't make them in 305s, so I'd have to get them in 295/70

I haven't measured the tires since they were unmounted. I'll do that. Visually, they look comparable to other 35s. I had no issues with the RGs though they did seem to lose more chunks of tread than other tires I've used over the years.

What UCAs are you running @indycole ? I've had to clearance my stock UCAs for wide 35x12.5s, but always though aftermarket UCA would provide more clearance. Surprised you're still getting contact with larger spacers?

Rigs looking as finer than ever.

Thanks! I'm using Jason's Trail Tailor UCAs with built-in 3 degrees of positive caster (I think that's right) but with no other adjustability. They're beefy, easy to maintain, and have performed well; however, I may swap in the SPCs I have in storage for comparison.

Practically speaking, though, the amount of rubbing is quite minimal after moving to the 1.5 inch spacers. It's more than tolerable. It's just that among the trimming, BMC, moving around the swaybar/end inks, larger bump stops, a redesigned rear bumper, and trying out 3 types of spacers I'd like to resolve 100% of the contact. Then, I'll be in a good position to consider a larger tire and repeat the process, lol. (joking)

 

[CWolg]

In today's episode of "one thing leads to another" I replaced the plastic glovebox shelf with some baltic birch plywood wrapped in boot liner. I followed the same contour as the plastic shelf and lined the inside of the glovebox shelf ledge with felt tape on the walls and velcro on the ledge itself to keep the shelf in place.

Why? Well, I'm working on installing rear coil helper airbags and went with the full control system to set each bag pressure independently from the cab. I'm hoping to use the airbags for a bit of leveling help for the RTT (though I'm skeptical that I'll get that much height differential). The control setup requires placement of a couple paddle switches (left and right airbags) and a 52mm gauge. A while back I stopped storing stuff in the glovebox and began using it as a compartment for mounting electronics — radio head units, battery monitoring, sat phone, etc.

In order to make room for the airbag control kit, I needed a more flexible mounting surface than the plastic shelf. I also wanted something that was serviceable and easy to disconnect. I also upgraded from bus bars to a fuse block + circuit breaker and replace my two National Luna battery monitors with a Victron BMV-702 that monitors the capacity, amp draw, and instantaneous power consumption of my aux battery (as well as the voltage of my starting battery).

The glove compartment now has 3 air lines running into it, 12v power from the aux battery, dual USB charge circuit, the ham radio, the CB radio (had to reinstall it for Cruise Moab), power for the rear view camera, the airbag control gauge and switches, the battery monitor, and I left some space for a Redarc trailer brake controller. The wires and air lines may look a bit messy when installed in the glove compartment but it's par for the course as they're service loops so I can pull it in and out without stressing the cables.

View attachment 1928482

View attachment 1928481

View attachment 1928480

I know this is an old post, but could you show where you have wires and things coming into the glove box?

 

[indycole]

I know this is an old post, but could you show where you have wires and things coming into the glove box?

I don't think I grabbed any photos of that? I ran the wires and tubing up through the trim just to the engine side of the kickplate. I popped off the trim to the right of the glovebox that rests against the passenger side door. It doesn't expose much, but I was able to fish the wires into the glovebox via some holes I drilled.

If I had it to do over again, I may look at completely disassembling the glovebox/dash to go in from the rear of the box.

 

[CWolg]

I don't think I grabbed any photos of that? I ran the wires and tubing up through the trim just to the engine side of the kickplate. I popped off the trim to the right of the glovebox that rests against the passenger side door. It doesn't expose much, but I was able to fish the wires into the glovebox via some holes I drilled.

If I had it to do over again, I may look at completely disassembling the glovebox/dash to go in from the rear of the box.

I ended up making my opening in the back right of the glove box. It was a little awkward running the power cabling up to that opening from the firewall grommet, but it got there eventually!

 

[indycole]

I ended up making my opening in the back right of the glove box. It was a little awkward running the power cabling up to that opening from the firewall grommet, but it got there eventually!

Nice, that's definitely a better entry point than what I did.