Builds The beamin build (1 Viewer)

[Willy beamin]

I'm compelled to document the life of my rig. The same as many of you. It's just to special to me to not do this. Truth is I'm pretty lazy, and my truck has been a multi year project. I have a ton of pics and I'm honestly afraid my lovely wife will delete them one day so I'll immortalize them here for all fellow cruiser heads to browse and force me to remember what I did, how I did it and why it thought it was a great idea. Impulse is a powerful force and so is owning and daily driving a automobile legacy.

 

[Willy beamin]

I purchased an 08 in 2011 with 47,000 miles on it from the North east, a sin I know, but the price was right and so was the color. My dads buddy, who hauls classic cars across America offered to go get it for me so I handed him tens of thousands of dollars in an envelope and asked him to act like it was his money "if the truck was crap then drive away." Amazingly there was really only a bit of surface on the axle housing and the LCA's. Whomever owned it before me must have loved it and cared for it, God bless you. With a little elbow grease, a wire wheel, Rustoleum and some beer it cleaned up nicely and was ready for life in the Bluegrass state.
A few months later I was bugging Christo on the phone about fitting 35's. He tried his best to nicely shake me but I was focused. He guided me and told me good luck - I like that guy. I found a local deal on some clean RW's that had 34-ish terra grapplers on them, sold those and moved on to test fitting 35's. And then I took the plunge. Icon stage 4 which didn't really exist then and some beefy Nitto trial grapplers in the 35x12.5x17 size.

 

[Willy beamin]

Next came finding a local shop to take on the challenge of making my dream rig come true. No cruiser shops in Louisville. My receptionists husband owns a great local shop that took me up on my request and so the venture began. when I pulled up to retrieve my truck my first thought was oh man gawd what did I do - that didn't last very long. As soon as I pulled away I was HOOKED. Besides Chirsto, and two other guys on Mud I had one of the very few 200's on 35's that I knew of. There are more now and for a good reason - It looks great!

 

[Willy beamin]

Now I had to do something abut the face of the truck. Front bumper options were slim pickens,
and @MScruiser had me focused on the TJM T13 but Summit racing was the dealer at the time and said if you pay for it we can order it from OZ. With the help of the TJM rep in California it happened. With the bumper in hand I decided this was a home-brew affair that I wanted to tackle on my own. Prior to install I had the bumper powder coated to satin black knowing it would eventually match my future rear bumper. I followed another mudders install thread which was perfect because the directions were not so great. I picked up a Warn Zeon 12 platinum, synthetic version wasn't around yet nor would Warn suggest a rope for me. I mounted the winch up, and followed @BTUMAN 's lead on some Ebay 9" LED spotties - still weren't cheap. Oh and Slee Sliders.

 

[Willy beamin]

So that all turned out well but it was a long weekend and I had to face wife head on and admit that "I AM A HORRIBLE ESTIMATOR OF TIME FOR THESE PROJECTS".

Naturally it was now time to address the rear of the truck. link for that custom rear bumper is below - some have seen it, a few even bought it, we've tested it out - it works as intended.
RLC rear tire carrier / swing out / jerry can / custom fab bumper

 

[Willy beamin]

Time to tackle the fuse block, reverse camera relocation.Fuse block was easy and fun. I read through @pdxlc200 thread on how he rigged his up and it made sense - thanks man
The reverse camera was a cake walk. I used regular trailer light wiring harness (green, yellow and white) to connect to the OEM harness and then rerouted that around the rear hatch and out on the passenger side rear behind the bottle jack. theres a grommet / boot on the bottom side of the of the rear floor I used as the exit point, then snaked my wire up through the arm of the rear bumper swing out arm, out the center tire mounted and reattached the camera there - works out well.

 

[Willy beamin]

More

 

[Willy beamin]

Next I purchased a front runner roof rack, the slim line 2 series. All I can say is this is a great rack. It affords you the ability to attach a ton of items and all secure. The wind deflector is really the only negative I have found in the design. If you install yours by yourself as I did tape the bolts in their place as seen in the pic below...it helps.

 

[Willy beamin]

Following the roof rack I moved on to replacing the radiator and the water pump as these two items are known to fail and I was gearing up to head out to Moab for the first time ever. don't have a picot the water pump. Next was a ARB rear air locker and compressor. Why not I had no idea what i was going to get into out west so might as well give my truck an advantage.

 

[TonyP]

I'm compelled to document the life of my rig. The same as many of you. It's just to special to me to not do this. Truth is I'm pretty lazy, and my truck has been a multi year project. I have a ton of pics and I'm honestly afraid my lovely wife will delete them one day so I'll immortalize them here for all fellow cruiser heads to browse and force me to remember what I did, how I did it and why it thought it was a great idea. Impulse is a powerful force and so is owning and daily driving a automobile legacy.

View attachment 1513676

That looks far too familiar.

 

[Markuson]

Yes! You're doing exactly what I've been wanting to do re my own 2008 rig's development.

**I'll delete this post tomorrow so as not to clutter up your build thread...but had to comment since your rig was a key inspiration for the direction I took mine...

M

 

[Atwalz]

Subscribed!!! Now fill in those blanks.

 

[kevinfoutch]

When do we get to the 4:88's?!?

 

[Willy beamin]

Soon but its bedtime now - gotta work to support the addiction.

 

[Willy beamin]

The OEM muffler is big. When you removed all the rear bumper plastic you are hit in the face with a big ugly muffler hanging down and its not appealing. I stopped by a local muffler shop and they removed the beast. It was cut off just before the stock hanger and then they welded on a tucked up tailpipe. It hides nice, no sound difference that I noticed and looks MO BETTER.

 

[Willy beamin]

Next I wanted to try out the LED headlights so i went for the brand pictured below and they've work out great. Now, it was time - I talked my buddy in going with me out west and we hit the road. About three hours into the trip, somewhere in IL, my dash LIT up. I called my shop and they reduced it down to the speed sensor seeing how everything else was working properly. I love a diagnosis over the phone at 8:30pm. I said to hell with it lets go. I called Christo early the next morning and his said "you are 1000 miles away, if you make it here I'll try to fix it " I was good with that. We rolled in his direction and he did just that, fixed my issue which was a bad speed sensor. Christo said the shop that installed my rear air locker didn't disconnect the speed sensor before lower the axle and thus pulled the wire loose - rookies. Nothing ventured nothing gained. thats my buddy feeling about half dead - we drove straight through from Louisville - ha

 

[Willy beamin]

90 minutes later we were back on the road headed to the white rim trail. The truck worked great and Moab opened my eyes. I've never seen such a clear night sky before...no photo of that. The second night on the trail I came up with a test for my bulbar - it preformed flawlessly

 

[Willy beamin]

Left there, drove a few hours south east to meet up with the "elite eight" for the first ever LC200 shindig.
I also got to shake down my rig - it preformed flawlessly. @kreiten credit for the last 3 pics

 

[Willy beamin]

Next on the list is quick disconnect for the rear camera. I wanted the option to be able to remove my rear tire carrier even though the camera wiring harness was ran through the tire carrier. I used an all weather trailer connection. Its simple and should not be over complicated.

For the light bar I ran the power cable up the DS wind shield pillar theres a recess there and the cord tucks nicely. RVT to holds it in place, wire it up, ran the switch and boom - we got lights

 

[Willy beamin]

40" LED light