Well, living in PA one thing is for sure, with no coating it will definitely rust from all the salt in the winter. I would do all the prep work myself so I could be sure there is no rust hiding to spread on the inside (or at least do a thorough inspection and get rid of any that might be there.

And just as a side note, to paint a funny picture, my sister-in-law has an old beater Geo Tracker. She's had that thing forever, has over 300,000 miles on it and won't get rid of it. It's rusted so bad now that when you are in it you can see the road down through where the rocker panels used to be. It won't pass inspection, so she's going to cut panels off another tracker and weld them on to hers, lol.

 

Someone else on hear had sprayed a cap on their Dually fenders, I'm wondering how that is holding up. I've talked to some dealers and they said it won't last .....?? Any one have any luck???

 

I was shocked to run across this post on accident, since it is about my truck!

I put my truck together about a year ago to be a bad *** truck that I could beat on in the desert and not break the damn thing. No SCORES races for me. I'm not that good of a driver and I don't have unlimited finances. So my wife would frown if I broke my daily driver. The Line-X came from being cheaper than paint matching the original color. 2000 dollars vs. 4500 dollars. Plus the idea that you don't have to worry about scratches was very appealing.
One thing I do like is how kids look at the truck. Sitting at a stoplight, I often see them looking out at me and they're verbalizing "WOW!"

Fiberglass is a love/hate type of deal. You have the ability to make it perfect. However, it will cost you. The trouble starts when you cut off the factory bedsides. The entire bed looses it's rigidity. There is an expensive way to circumvent this problem, but it involves a lot of money and time to install a sub frame out of tubing. I had ideas of simply building my own bed built around the Fiberglass sides. However, it would run into a lot of fabrication.
The front fenders are pretty good. The bolt pretty much right in. The headlights fit okay also. I had to chop the bottom off my fenders to prevent rubbing. KORE race trucks had to do this I've seen also. My backspacing was only 4.5". Going to 5.25" or maybe 5.5" would have been better. However, Centerline's had few options. I wouldn't want to go with a deeper back spacing since I went with a Don Thruen cross-over steering. If you go deeper, the big heims will contact the wheel.
My 37" x 13.5" Toyo MT's were rubbing on the glass at the rear of the front fenders. Plus they were hitting the body when the wheel was turned and they would articulate. So I did some cutting...






I painted the door seems to match the Line-X black rocker panel. This should have been done in Line-X also. But oh well.


Here is the overall look now. Except this photo is missing the cross-over steering.


This link has many more photos if you're interested.
http://www.citlink.net/~boehm/Truck/

 

dood. . . you need to get some vid of that thing in action and send it to cumminalong for the SOF video.

that thing is wicked!!!

 

i LOVE what youre doing with you truck. I've got a BUNCH of pics that I've kept when you were doing the build up GREAT job !!!

 

OMG dude your truck is insane! How high did the Unlimited lift your truck? And the real question is, how much did you invest all together to get your truck where it is today?

 

Most of the sprayed on liners will last foreverif the prep is done right. I am going to have my rockers done in black and use camo clad winter camo on the rest of the truck.

 

After I get out of the army in 2 years my ram will be used primarily for off roading. Seeing how the only paved road I will see once I get out will be on a motorcycle too and from work at the Palo Verde nuke plant.

 

The Unlimited lifts the truck only 3.5" above stock. However, adding the 37" Toyo's raises the overall height significantly over the 32" stock tires. So realistically, it is maybe 6" higher than stock depending on tire inflation. I run 35 psi in the front, and 30 psi in the rear. It keeps the *** from bumping during high speed.

Here is a break down of all the modifications:
2005 Dodge 3500 Ram 4x4, quad cab, short bed single rear wheel Laramie.
I had the truck customized at DRC (Desert Racing Concepts.)
I installed a KORE Unlimited Suspension system with 3.0" Fox Racing Shocks in the front, and 2.5" Fox Racing Shocks in the rear.
The truck was re-geared to 4.10. The front axle was trussed by HRC (Hughes Racing Components.) An Eaton E-locker was installed in the front axle.
Fiberglass fenders and bedsides were installed.
37" x 13.5" Toyo MT tires on 17" x 8" Centerline Turbine wheels with 4.5" of back spacing. The wheels were powder coated black.
The steering was changed over to a Don Thuren Cross-over steering assembly. A Defiant Truck Products steering box stabilizer was installed. Then a Borgeson steering shaft was installed.
Recently all the lights have been blacked out.

I got the truck at the end of the 2005 year when they were unloading them for the new body styled 06's. No one wanted the "ugly" almond truck. So I got it for 36,000. When I paid that off, I put about 20,000 in upgrades. Then I've probably added another 5,000 or so afterward. It really wants another 20,000 worth of fun added, but I can't justify it right now. DRC did most of the work and acted as the middleman for me. A couple trips I helped do some of the work to get some basic understanding on how everything worked and assembled. He did the cutting on the inner fenders, and I patched them. Installing lights and such was easy.

Prep work is key for the Line-X. If the surface is roughed up, it'll be impossible to remove.

Some drunk old man ran into the back of me in March. I thought my foot slipped off the gas and I bumped forward about 6 inches. I looked behind me and this guy in a Jeep was backing up. So I got out and looked. The front end of his Jeep was dragging *** on the ground and crushed in bad. I was afraid to look at my truck. When I looked, he actually ran for it and almost wiped out another person. I glanced at the bumper, and there wasn't a single mark on it. I didn't even have a hitch in. There was a clean spot on the bumper where he wiped the dirt clear. So I jumped in the truck and tried to chase him, but he was driving a little crazier than I thought it was worth considering I had no damage and let him pass people in the turning lane to get away.

I did have a few videos on youtube, but they sucked so I deleted them. I don't have a proper digital video recorder yet. Plus I hate to stage events. Doing jumps for the cameras sake seems a little self involved.

With the Line-X, you can forget about washing the truck. Especially in the color I have. Every 4 months or so if I'm bored, I'll go spray it down at the do-it-yourself carwash with the pressure washer. I usually do it right before I intend to do PM's and spray down hardware with silicon spray.

I still have to sell some junk I took off the truck. Like my old wheels. Most of the other stuff I just scrapped and left with Jermey.

I added a couple more photos from some offroading trips I took. In this one:
http://www.citlink.net/~Boehm/Truck/021.jpg
I tried this hill with the truck in stock form, it wouldn't make it. Now, it crawled right up without a hint of tire spin. I didn't even have it in 4 low, or engage the front locker.

 

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