Ok, so those of you that know me, know that things often present some form of social challange. This time it started off with the body shop not realizing or being able to weld the coastal off road bumper.
No big deal…they’re going to pay for whoever does
But then, they accidentally ordered the wrong grill🤦🏼♂️ I needed my truck to head back to work. So they gave me this:
They said they would do the Raptor Liner when I bring the truck in for the grill. 
That’s definitely…a look.
were they trying to go for that junkyard parts bin look? lol
Right??? I mean I don’t need a body shop for that!
at that point you’re probably better off just paint it yourself LOL
You should color-match the rest of the body to even it out.
“I don’t know what’s more stressful, cutting a hole in the box. Or drilling a hole in your fuel tank!”
Not sure, but that might void your 2014 warranty 
Well done account of your Ram-GFC - is a good read on a slow night at work!
And I’d leave the grill as is - rad contrast, and it looks intentional. Just take the credit for the compliments like it was!
Shit! I never thought of that with my warranty!
Thank you for the compliment 
Love the detail here! I recently acquired a 2017 Ram with GFC so it’s relevant to my interests! Not much buildout in the current rig. Thinking through what I’m going to do with the interior to sleep 4 along with transferring my electric/solar setup from my other vehicle. The truck came with a decked system, which is nice, but seems like a somewhat poor use of space. Considering selling and doing a plywood buildout to maximize storage and to make it easier for custom mounting of electrical/etc.
Totally ditch the Decked system. I think my next move is to rebuild a platform out of aluminum extrusion. I think I can shave some weight by doing that and reducing the width of some of the plywood mainly in the side panels (1/4” or aluminum mesh)
I’m just about to order the Carli Tuned Commuter kit (less the springs and such) and some JBA Upper Control Arms. Finally blew out the stock front shock. Pretty good life on those; 148000km.
Stoked to see what you come up with.
With my operational season done and summer like conditions in Williams Lake. I’m tinkering away at some little things. I’ve got a bad left wheel bearing and I have opted to have someone else fix it. Just not in the mood to wrestle with some rusted on bolts.
The boys and I took off the badges to match what the body shop did on the other side.
Most notable fix is getting a backup camera from a 2019 Ram. Mine failed after being rear ended and insurance said it was ‘wear and tear’.
I have a 1500 DT with Decked.
I do agree Decked makes lots of dead space and weight but to mount the aluminum extrusion system I designed, drilling the bed to mount a mounting plate is required. I don’t think I’ll ever be ready to do that.
i mean, I also thought about making a floor plate and attach some brackets to it then attach them to the bedrail, but then that’d make the bed rails useless and not as sturdy.
just something to think about.
I’d recommend just do full Carli package and not complicate it more. Carli makes good stuff that are trail tested during R&D process.
i know because I have them and my friends used to do desert runs with them when they were more free to come out and play lol
Very nice! My truck came with jba UCAs and Bilsteins (6112 front and 5100 rear). May run that for a while as I don’t do anything too crazy. A custom bed build definitely seems like it provides a lot more benefits and flexibility. How is yours secured you the bed? I’m assuming I’d do turnbuckles at the corners but curious if you did something to attach your uprights to the top of the bed?
I’ve spent quite a bit of time finding the spring solution for the rear with the weight. What Carli has to offer won’t suite that, West Coast Off-road agrees as my constant load is over 500lbs. I may get the track bar bracket; but I honestly don’t do enough wheeling that I’d need to worry about wag. It was their recommendation to go with just the shocks and using a JBA UCA instead of Carli’s boxed UCA.
I’m also not sure about the eldelbrock spring in the front coil. We’ll see how that performs with the additional weight of the bumper/winch. I may end up getting the 200lbs constant load front springs from Ironman 4x4. I am super stoked on how those are performing in the rear when when I’m towing.
HAHAHA…I’m a gambler! The bed is fastened in there by being a tight fit. The uppers on the platform are just KrigJig screwed to the platform. When I decide to spend the money on the extrusion build; I’ll probably install rivnuts in the box. That’s what I did for my heater install. Makes taking it in and out a breeze (especially when you have a dud run of heaters from Autoterm).
oh yeah ironman springs are great. i ran theirs in the rear when I had my 4Runner and they are the go-to recommendations we offer at the shop when customers overload their rears.
f*ck it, just do ironman springs all around LOL though I gotta say with the Carli HD rear springs on my Rebel with 600lb or so in the bed fully loaded with gears it doesn’t sag nor really affect handling on road. Offroad may be a bit if i go full send but i slow down a lot when it’s heavy.
Such a great looking rig! I think the addition of these Carli shocks and the UCA are going to be a well deserved upgrade. And it will be a fun summer mod project along with re-painting my raptor liner so it all matches again.
Carli shocks and UCA with springs of your choice will serve you plenty fine! (i didn’t go with their shock package because they were backordered with longer ETA than I could wait… and now I have my regrets) they don’t advertise it much but they do tow testing and stuff on their heavy duty lineups. the 1500 supplies are really… not much to be honest, especially for 5th gens. 4th gen has a lot of choices compared to 5th gen lol.
the way i see it is if a product can stand the abuse going fast in the desert, doing jumps, skipping through whoops, and floating through washboards, then it is more than enough to handle street driving and occasional towing (towing produces different stress). if you want to see it in person, I am passing BC on the way to Alaska this year (if everything goes according to my plan) and I can show you!
Heater Update from Planar.
I had a chance to go to Planar Heaters down Surrey (They’re the Autoterm heater distributor). Great guys down there. Sounds like Autoterm found an issue with the programming on fuel delivery.
They inspected and approved my install. They were also awesome enough to hook me up with the final touch on the install.
Of course I had to modify it! But now I can finally direct where the heat is going. Dimitri and Sergei are going to test my new heater when it arrives from Latvia then ship it up.
