New used LX470, advice on how to do a mild build.

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Looks real nice!! What size tire did you end up going with and are they loud on the highways?
 
Excellent choices and I agree that Mike is an awesome guy! You'll be very happy with that rear bumper. Your AHC on the other hand may not be so happy about it :)

285 75R16's.. AKA ~33 inch. Basically the widely regarded max tire size that is universally a 'good idea'. It was of course tempting to go a little larger, but I controlled the urge. (Also 295's were not available in that size) My spare tire would not fit... So be aware of that one. (Hence the tire carrier)

As to noise level: No, they are very quiet. I had to listen for the tires with the radio off to detect the sound. A phone conversation is not disrupted at all.. It's much more quiet than my Infiniti G35.

I chose these tires specifically because they are the most aggressive "quiet" tire I found. I always thought I'd want pitbull rockers, and in some ways I do..But from what I read the noise would be too much for a daily driver.

Handling on road is great as well...not that I'm tempted to take corners particularly fast.

Keep in mind the LX has better sound dampening than the LC. So non-LX mileage may vary ;)

AHC will last as long as it lasts.. I'll replace it with signs of trouble or when I figure out exactly what I want to do suspension wise.
 
AHC will last as long as it lasts.. I'll replace it with signs of trouble or when I figure out exactly what I want to do suspension wise.

That's a good attitude to have. I'm sure you'll have a 4" SL and 2" BL and running 37"s in no time :)

Weird that the 285/75/16 spare tire wouldn't fit under there. Once you install the bumper and remove the hitch, I'm sure it'll fit fine. So then you'll have to decide if you want the spare on the back or underneath. Nice thing about the BIOR rear bumper that you ordered is that the swingouts are easily removable. I thought we'd be selling my wife's car and she'd be DDing the 100, in which case I was going to remove the swing out and put the spare back underneath so she'd have easier access to the cargo area.

P.S. make sure you save a few bucks for a can of satin black spray paint to get rid of those gaudy gold emblems :D
 
That's a good attitude to have. I'm sure you'll have a 4" SL and 2" BL and running 37"s in no time :)

Weird that the 285/75/16 spare tire wouldn't fit under there. Once you install the bumper and remove the hitch, I'm sure it'll fit fine. So then you'll have to decide if you want the spare on the back or underneath. Nice thing about the BIOR rear bumper that you ordered is that the swingouts are easily removable. I thought we'd be selling my wife's car and she'd be DDing the 100, in which case I was going to remove the swing out and put the spare back underneath so she'd have easier access to the cargo area.

P.S. make sure you save a few bucks for a can of satin black spray paint to get rid of those gaudy gold emblems :D

Going to have the spare on the tire carrier. It'll hide my license plate from those handy red light cameras. :cool: (But won't hide it from behind the car.. So it should be legal.) Plus I think it looks relatively neat.

I have been eyeing the gold emblems and wondering what I'd like to do with them...They are very...shiney and obvious.
 
ARB Bumper & 10k XRC Winch Installed.

With AHC, do I need to tweak the torsion bar?

Looking forward to my BIOR rear & sliders.

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Anyone have advice on where to look for light bar mounts for the top of my ARB bar? I was thinking of putting a 30" in the center, and two 12"'s on the side. Maybe some sort of wraparound pipe clamp with rubber to prevent messing up the powder coat.

Any advice is appreciated. :)
 
Try posting in the lighting section - lots of good info. over there.
 
Light bar installed. Unfortunately the rear bumper & sliders arrived damaged in shipment. Fedex took fault, but they were packed kinda poorly(those cheap blankets from home depot) Working on getting them repowder coated..but it'll be a while.

I went with a simpler option than what I was originally thinking of. It's diffused on the edges, and straight in the middle. Provides more than enough light, not sure what I was thinking wanting 3 light bars :)

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Nice!!! Do the LEDs run off of a different switch or highbeams?

Different switch. Lets face it--The LX470 lights in general suck terribly.. Even the highbeams. You can get away with using the highbeams on a divided interstate, for instance. Heck, even on a normal road people rarely flash me because they suck so bad.

The light bar? You're blinding people on a divided interstate to a completely unsafe degree. Accidentally use it on a normal road and I'd worry about the person running into me.

Also it has a little button to dim the light bar.. So I'd still need a place for that. It's not the most space-efficient, but then again I left it up to mechanic discretion.

He also moved my winch remote control port inside the vehicle.
 
Here are pics of the light bar switch, and arb remote install. I'm not completely happy with the arb remote install location..but I didn't give my mechanic enough guidance to avoid it. ;) Perhaps I'll move it in the future.

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ARB Bumper & 10k XRC Winch Installed.

With AHC, do I need to tweak the torsion bar?

If you have access to a mini-VCI then you can check your AHC pressures. If the front is too low, crank the torsion bars up.
 
There was some drama with Fedex scratching my BIOR bumper/sliders in transit.. I took the optimal cash flow approach which resulted in a pretty hefty delay but finally I have my new BIOR rear bumper(tire carrier, ladder) and sliders installed. Mike was great through the entire process, most of the delay was me being lazy ;)

I didn't get a good picture of the sliders from the side, but the front photo shows them alright. I'll work on that tomorrow..But here they are! :)

Next up--
RAM Mount: Tablet, IC-7100 HAM Radio.
Antennas(HAM Radio)
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Looking good.
 
Nice mods - coming along quickly. At least more quickly than my vehicle (ha).
 
Wow great looking LX! I'm impressed with your build so far. Simple and clean. Same direction I plan on going with mine.

Keep the updates coming!
 
Nice mods - coming along quickly. At least more quickly than my vehicle (ha).

It's amazing how delays randomly appear. I kind of expected to be at this stage after a month.. But I'm happy to finally be here. :) Now just need to plan exactly how the amateur radio is going in and I should be more or less done for a while.
 
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New stuff---First: Window tint! :)
 
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DX Engineering ram mount. It's kind of hard to find a ram mount for the TLC, but this one fits like a glove. :)
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