Sedole's LX - Mod Log & Occasional Adventure Thread (1 Viewer)

[sedole]

Been a busy summer, not much happenings truck wise. Got a 3rd pup and mostly been working with him and shuttling them around in the LX. Still loving the Bilsteins. I've done a few casual trail runs and they are fantastic.

One mod I've done though is to delete the intake resonator for a little more V8 noises. Started off swapping in a tundra intake tube which is a very subtle increase compared to the ultra quiet stock LX tube. From there I lopped off the resonators and plastic welded the hose nipples back in. Still not a crazy loud modification but adds a nice amount of growl and throatiness under medium to hard acceleration in the middle of the RPM range. Wife has not complained at all or even mentioned anything (she was verrrry quick to do so about the exhausts), so I'd even call it wife approved!

Lastly, a little sneak peak of what I'm working on next. Time for some slidey bois!

 

[sedole]

Did a bit more work on the sliders this weekend. Good stopping point for now, calling this V1. V2 will likely include filler plates and potentially another mounting arm or two plus some courtesy/rock lights. Realistically I don't really ever go on super challenging trails where I'm rock bashing so these should be plenty strong for the occasional hit I may encounter. But then the other half of me thinks well what if.. and wants to add more strength and overbuild. There is a good mounting point to the frame forward of my current leading arm, but not so much the rear unless I get more creative.

Sliders are 1.75" .120 DOM and brackets/gussets are 3/16". Finished in krylon textured black.

 

[sedole]

Worked on the passenger side this weekend and added the additional supports. Still need to go back in and add some fill plates, but I am much more happy with the amount of support this has and the additional bolts to clamp to the frame. Will do the same to the driver hopefully next weekend. Plenty of boogers, but also some half decent welds too if I don't say so myself. Annoyingly I did end up with some slight warpage so two of the bolts slightly don't line up anymore. Off by like 1/8" on each... Will need to enlarge the holes to account for that then I can get a jack under this thing and see how it holds this heavy piggy of a rig.

 

[sedole]

Fill plates on the rear door area (worried about my dogs) and preliminary jack test. I'll be the first to say it...the fill plates look like garbage lol. I'm planning on cutting them off and trying to come up with a better looking solution. Stood up great to the jack test though! Straddling the curb my jack could barely get the tires off the ground, but did slightly. I'd say at the point with the most deflection, still about 1/4" to 3/8" clearance. I built these to have 3/4" clearance from the pinch weld of the body, so should work out pretty good!

 

[Boston Mangler]

Fill plates on the rear door area (worried about my dogs) and preliminary jack test. I'll be the first to say it...the fill plates look like garbage lol. I'm planning on cutting them off and trying to come up with a better looking solution. Stood up great to the jack test though! Straddling the curb my jack could barely get the tires off the ground, but did slightly. I'd say at the point with the most deflection, still about 1/4" to 3/8" clearance. I built these to have 3/4" clearance from the pinch weld of the body, so should work out pretty good!

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I dig it

Have a good fab shop near ya?

Maybe see if they can dimple die the fill plates a little to break up the aesthetic?

 

[sedole]

Little tweak for the fill plates. I think this will do the trick. Dimple die would be great but didn't want to spend the money haha..

 

[sedole]

The BOTCK from Dr. KDSS is a work of art! Don't know why I waited so long to get one of these. Much better. Pretty close to the factory angle again.

 

[Boston Mangler]

The BOTCK from Dr. KDSS is a work of art!

Agreed

 

[sedole]

Couple drives with the botck in now. Visually the rear wheels are damn near centered in terms of how much they poke. Before the driver was sticking out much further and the passenger was tucked slightly inside the fender. Truck feels significantly more settled around corners. Stays a lot more composed over dips and bumps. I wasn't really expecting much difference but I am pleasantly surprised at how much better it drives. Only downside I'm seeing is the bracket causes the panhard bar to sit ~4mm closer (the thickness of the stock bracket) to the spare tire. My unused 295/70/18 wildpeak at3w just barely fits. It looks like I have less than 1mm of clearance to the bar and I wouldn't be surprised if it rubs a little when articulated.

 

[sedole]

Little changes. Got tired of the bilstein HD rear springs and swapped back to the standard ones. They were fine until I removed the 175 odd lbs from the residual AHC components and I started a new job which takes me on a daily commute of a substantially crappier road. I also came to realize that there was really only one trip in the last 12 months that I truly needed the extra spring rate, so for those rare occasions I plan to just use some sumo spring helpers.

Got a cargo light in a 3d printed housing that one of the facebook group members makes and sells. Forget his name, but it's super slim and a great plug and play product. No idea why I waited so long to buy or make one of these. Game changer.

And lastly, decided to part ways with the TRD pro BBS wheels. They are super neat, but after a recent snow wheeling trip where I gouged one of them on a rock, decided I'd rather sell them while they're still worth something. Which would also give me an opportunity to get new tires to replace the falkens which ride stiff. Ended up getting like 6x of what I bought them for, so got some tundra wheels and sprayed them black and some very lightly used 35" KO2s. And pocketed several hundred.

Love being back on a KO2. It was always my favorite tire back in SoCal. And since I run a full snow tire here in the winter time, not as concerned about icy/hardpack snow winter road performance. Off road I always felt the KO2 did great in snow. Eventually I'd like to get on some KO3s, but the size I'd like isn't released yet. For now, these still have like 12-13/32nds left (15 new) and were manufactured in 2024 so should last me a good while. They also ride sooooo much smoother than the falkens.

Committing to 35s this time around. So far everything clears great with all the previous mods I've done. But these do rub more on the front sway bar at full lock than the 295/70/18s did. Thank the extra width of the 35x12.5x18 for that. May take a page out of TeCKis300's book and clearance the bar a little. About 2" shy of the bumps in the photos--the best I could do to test for now. But should clear when even more stuffed. Just need to sort out the sway bar. Or only use 90% steering.

Also lower ball joint boots have started to leak...No clunks yet but will need to replace those soon.

 

[tbisaacs]

Was thinking about this thread. The piggy back reservoirs on my Dobinson MRAs are in fact rubbing between the sway bar and link mount. It’s really minor and only at full droop but it’s to the point I’m having a local fabricator make a frame mount so I can move reservoirs outboard.

Would love to hear how you feel with some miles on your HD rear sway bar too.

 

[dudemancool1904]

Little changes. Got tired of the bilstein HD rear springs and swapped back to the standard ones. They were fine until I removed the 175 odd lbs from the residual AHC components and I started a new job which takes me on a daily commute of a substantially crappier road. I also came to realize that there was really only one trip in the last 12 months that I truly needed the extra spring rate, so for those rare occasions I plan to just use some sumo spring helpers.

Got a cargo light in a 3d printed housing that one of the facebook group members makes and sells. Forget his name, but it's super slim and a great plug and play product. No idea why I waited so long to buy or make one of these. Game changer.

And lastly, decided to part ways with the TRD pro BBS wheels. They are super neat, but after a recent snow wheeling trip where I gouged one of them on a rock, decided I'd rather sell them while they're still worth something. Which would also give me an opportunity to get new tires to replace the falkens which ride stiff. Ended up getting like 6x of what I bought them for, so got some tundra wheels and sprayed them black and some very lightly used 35" KO2s. And pocketed several hundred.

Love being back on a KO2. It was always my favorite tire back in SoCal. And since I run a full snow tire here in the winter time, not as concerned about icy/hardpack snow winter road performance. Off road I always felt the KO2 did great in snow. Eventually I'd like to get on some KO3s, but the size I'd like isn't released yet. For now, these still have like 12-13/32nds left (15 new) and were manufactured in 2024 so should last me a good while. They also ride sooooo much smoother than the falkens.

Committing to 35s this time around. So far everything clears great with all the previous mods I've done. But these do rub more on the front sway bar at full lock than the 295/70/18s did. Thank the extra width of the 35x12.5x18 for that. May take a page out of TeCKis300's book and clearance the bar a little. About 2" shy of the bumps in the photos--the best I could do to test for now. But should clear when even more stuffed. Just need to sort out the sway bar. Or only use 90% steering.

Also lower ball joint boots have started to leak...No clunks yet but will need to replace those soon.

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Understand your reluctance on the wheels. First scratch I found myself sharpie filling it in. Now after several hundred off road miles and a few more gouges I just said **** it, badge of honor. Anything’s better than curbing them in front of the yoga studio.

 

[sedole]

Was thinking about this thread. The piggy back reservoirs on my Dobinson MRAs are in fact rubbing between the sway bar and link mount. It’s really minor and only at full droop but it’s to the point I’m having a local fabricator make a frame mount so I can move reservoirs outboard.

Would love to hear how you feel with some miles on your HD rear sway bar too.

Definitely makes for more rub on the reservoir because of the larger diameter, but otherwise been really happy with it. Still feel that it has helped a lot for cornering stability. Also still kicking around some ideas about how to modify to completely get rid of the rub, but it's been working good enough I haven't been pushed to actually doing something.