Now I originally had the OEM honey comb inserts that later got changed out for the mesh and a long time ago I bought a "tactical grill" from RF. Since I have my own powder coating gun and oven I didnt have him do it for me. But according to the box, its been since November of last year.....so uh, yeah, told you I had a lot of things in boxes. :ugh

Im likely going to make some mall changes to this later. Im going to cut out the center OEM grill vertical bar and take a piece of 16ga stainless and powder coat it the same "chrome" I have the mesh and fuse the two sides together as I do not like how they sit currently. The outer rings for the grill are powder coated gloss black with the mesh PC'ed Kromozone chrome and sealed with gloss clear. I looked at stainless 12pt (ferry cap) bolts to replace the allen button heads but OMG those things are insanely expensive.

 

So with my truck being an 04 at 83k, I figured it was time to do some front end maintenance. Not only that but Ive got a lot of my own personal projects that I bought parts on months ago and plenty of those are all still in the box waiting to be installed or finished.

So for the front end, the only bad parts I had were the lower BJs. But again, with age and mileage, I wanted to replace everything. So with that said, that meant lower BJs, UCAs, outer tie rods, sway bar links/bushings, wheel bearing hubs and rebuilding/powder coating the calipers and rotors.

I knew something was wrong with my front brakes because sometimes it would pull to one side or another when I braked. I found out I had a frozen piston in each caliper, thus the need to rebuild them.

Some might ask why I didnt go the infamous Moog route, well everything is greasable minus the UCAs. But with a truck thats an 04 with 83k, it the OEM parts lasted this long, why spend all that extra money for "better" parts when the OEMs last this long? I didnt see the need.

The angle iron you see is 4" and I used it to make future mounts for steering dampeners which I have but am waiting to see if I need them. The powder coating didnt come out nice but the metal is sealed. I had a local machine shop just cut some for me and put the 5/8 holes. The problem is it was really a rusted piece of metal and pitted. I cleaned out all the rust I could and used Ospho to kill the rest but I didnt feel like using metal epoxy to fill in the pits and sand smooth so I just coated them.

Anyway, being I marked my UCAs and tie rods before removing, my alignment afterwards seems just as it was before the change out but I still took it in for an alignment.

The calipers are powder coated "safety yellow" gloss

Enjoy the pics

UCAs - $75/pr
lower BJs - $40/pr
tie rods - $31/pr
wheel bearing hubs - $110/pr
sway bar links - $25/pr
sway bar bushings - $25/set
caliper seals/hardware - $20/all

 

Great job on the grille and calipers Weed! The new grille inserts are now on the outside of the grille frame? How are they attached this way? Thanks for all the photos.

 

You have to cut away the horizontal bars to make room and then they are mounted with small L brackets to the grill shell. I PC'ed those too but didnt show them. I put lights behind them also just the other day. Those pics are in the RBP folder in my gallery in my signature