The Twisted Sister Build Thread

dersch6221992 · February 15, 2013

Removing side steps/ running boards

This is how it started this morning

These clips are absolutely annoying to get out!

This is the forum was my guide. http://www.explorerforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=188614

dersch6221992 · February 15, 2013

Custom mesh grill, trim front bumper, painted trim, bedliner, custom neon emblems

How to trim bumper
for me this was simple, on some years you can simple unbolt the bottom half, mine was attached, there was a distinct line half was down i just took a cut off tool and followed the line all the way across. it turned out good in my opinion.
How to paint words on my molding green
After the mouldings were all painted i went through with a paint brush and put about 7-8 coats on. on the sides i just taped it off used a razr and cut out the letters then sprayed about 5-6 good heavy coats. it makes it unique

well i got off work friday and i couldnt find the paint i needed. so i decided to just paint the grille, molding, and below all bedliner. i also with the assistance of my friend decided itd be sweet to outline some stuff in neon green to contrast the black. i have to paint a few more moldings with green. my shackles are here finally. so i think tomorow those will be on. and i will buy 31's. enjoy all the pics!

How to paint the bedliner
for all the paint that was actually bedlinered over i used a very fine sand paper and lightly scratched it up. and then cleaned it off and sprayed it.
for all the plastic it was just washed off and then painted. so far about 6 months later and after winner and some tree rash it all it holding up. there is one spot on bumper that is scraped off from hitting a wood post

before

This after i trimmed the front bumper, and after i painted in matte black. i had originally went with a matte black idea for the trim and then decided to go with bedliner today. this makeshift rack is a pingpong table holder!

bedlinered the keypad molding too. didnt do as good of a job covering it as i should have. but it turned out good

i also added some camo EMT edition 4x4 stickers. i like them alot

decide that itd be sweet to paint off my gas cap door. i like it bedlinered

here is the mesh grille before being painted. This was an absolute pain in the butt!!!! i regretted this as soon as i started it. so hard to do! and plus my dremmel died half way through i had to use 2 pieced of the gutter guard stuff. so that was a real pain in the butt to figure out.

painted all black. i was originally going to use the torch and take all of the chrome off. but at this point i was so flustered i just said screw it and figured bedliner would cover anything and stick to it... so we will see what happens. but it looks so much better black. if i was leaving it silver itd be a disaster.
edit- 6 months holding strong

surprise more neon green!!! and it looks a heck of a lot better with the emblem.

i actually really like this. and from a distance you really cant see how bad the grille is. but i like this. cant wait to get my new hellas in!!!

after!

dersch6221992 · February 15, 2013

new window decal

dersch6221992 · February 15, 2013

Moved bedliner up higher on wheel wells

dersch6221992 · February 15, 2013

How to do a torsion twist and shackles

did my torsion bars/ shackles. i didnt take a lot of pics. you can use the above pics as "befores" from where i did bedliner and these and "afters" i am pretty satisfied with it. i didnt think there would be a big diffrence but there definitely is!
before/ after heights

RF-34.75" end 34.5" (anyone know why this was so high?????)
LF- 33" end 34.5"
RR- 33" end 34.75'
LR- 33" end 34.5"

also i found a screw in my tires

thankfully im getting new ones!

apparently the noise that sounds like a rock in my tire is a screw....

http://www.explorerforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=329062 this is a good thread i used to help!

Also word to the wise! apparently not every shop will get you an alignment if you do this so beware... cost me $60

Kazer · February 15, 2013

Nice! Looking forward to seeing the progress on this :thumbsup:

dersch6221992 · February 15, 2013

Led turn signals and fix hyperblinking!

hey so FINALLY got the LEDs in the front turn signals. brake lights. reverse lights (my favorite) and rear turn signals.

Rear turn signals

front turn signal (looks brighter in pic)

reverse lights (my favorite by far!) with tail lights

night shots

Running lights/ hazards 10 yardish

same thing 40 yardish away

overall i like them. they all seem a lot more brighter then halogen stock besides the front them seem less bright. but at night time will show

got all the LED bulbs off of ebay. ordered the new turn signal module off of superbrightleds.com (i think is the name) http://www.explorerforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=247220 this link is where i saw the idea. works like a charm!

dersch6221992 · February 15, 2013

How to mount a mag lite

i used the drivers a pillar. bought the plastic clips off of ebay (golly i love ebay) but yea just drilled them in and boom. it is actually really nice.

dersch6221992 · February 15, 2013

how to replace ball joints... careful for fires hehe

with the assitance of a friend from work we replaced my upper ball joints on both sides. i knew they were due because the alignment shop told me but little did i know they were this bad. they were so far gone that im surprised they didnt blow up.

This is the drivers side as you can see its PRETTY GONE!

Passanger side with literally no pressure on it.

So this project took be about 5 hours. the drivers side took 4 hours, we had a lot of problems because there is so much stuff on this side and its hard to get to bolts. we ended up having to cut the bolts on both sides, and we had to cut the left side end because it would not come out. This ended up causes a smidge of a fire!!!! oops

as you can see we had to cut it up quite a bit.

and the passanger side took a total of 45 minutes. so much easier cut both bolts pulled out put in boom done!

this pic is of some of the smoke after the doors being open for a while.

http://www.explorerforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=194453 very useful thread!

dersch6221992 · February 15, 2013

Kazer said:
Nice! Looking forward to seeing the progress on this

thanks! yea you will be having a hand in that for sure, we need to do a mounds run for sure. im itching to go now.

Kazer · February 15, 2013

For the custom winch bumper, you could check out the RLC thread here (http://www.explorerforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=273287)

or if you want the one-off look, try Wild Time Fab in Jackson (http://wildtimefabrication.com/)

dersch6221992 · February 15, 2013

Kazer said:
For the custom winch bumper, you could check out the RLC thread here (http://www.explorerforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=273287)

or if you want the one-off look, try Wild Time Fab in Jackson (http://wildtimefabrication.com/)

quoted me $520 for a all tube bumper with a winch- Wild time fab
the RLC one would be $500 shipped.

Thanks to Kerry aka KCameron13 im in touch with Jay from the offroad shop in Plymouth, and we are hopefully going to be getting me a front bumper and a rear swing out bumper all fabbed up! prices to come soon

http://www.emtcatalog.com/product_info.php?cPath=59&products_id=945 hope to put this cover on the spare rear tire its an EMT star of life tire cover

dersch6221992 · February 17, 2013

had a little fun parking at church today. the spot was covered in snow and said yup that mine!

it looked better in person.

dersch6221992 · February 20, 2013

just bougth $300 worth of parts for the truck! also a run to Bundy is planned

i dont really know if anyone reads this so i will just talk to myself

well i just put my order in for my new shocks!! i ordered the monroe sensa trac for the rear, and i went with the rs5000 series for the front, i did go with the lifted ones the rs5374... the reason being? on their website it had it lifted for 1.5-2.5 inchs of lift. and like offtrac said the suspension limits itself so i dont have to worry about ripping anything apart because of longer shocks. Plus i will be doing a 2" body lift eventually and with new 33s coming soon it felt like the right choice. i paid $91.00 shipped for rear, and $101 shipped for the front. there was a long thread discussion i had about which shocks to do and this seemed best. will post pics with height before and after.
also i have been having an issue with my ABS when turning at slow speeds, and with 150k miles (almost) on the truck and original hubs i decided to buy some new hubs. for the front they came with a lifetime warranty! got them off of ebay for $85 shipped for the pair.
so i did pretty good.
i will be putting these on either thursday or friday the 27/28 when i go home to my dads heated garage!

Also on march 30th around 10am we will all be meeting at bundy to go for a run! so far Kazer, KCameron 13, Jay are in. should be a hoot. check my signature for details... i realize i probably need to get a flag and i need to get a cb set back up

Turdle · February 21, 2013

Looks like another candidate for toxic green wheels!

dersch6221992 · February 21, 2013

Turdle said:
Looks like another candidate for toxic green wheels!

oh how i have seen your thread!!! haha. im getting the new black ones pictured above... but i have considered painting the lug nut cap bright green

but may be way too tacky.

although i may have some fun with my old rims

dersch6221992 · February 25, 2013

Current plan for my front bumper. getting price on wednesday

this is the tube part of the bumper which will attach to the frame/ winch plate. its been a while since ive used auto cad so unfortunately i cant get a 3d drawing cause im too rusty.

this is the top, side, front views of the winch plate which will attach directly to the frame.

this is the 3D drawing of the winch plate.

basically the winch plate will attach to the frame with 4 bolts. and then the tube bumper will be welded onto the winch plate.

dersch6221992 · February 28, 2013

WHAT A WEEKEND! (aka wednesday/ thursdasy)

okay so i finally got time to go to my hometown and it was quite a weekend. i say weekend cause this is technically my weekend.
well wendseday morning we had plans to work on my truck but my friends 4x4 wasnt working on his f150 so i helped him fix that (took 1 minute the vacumm lines came undo

) we also installed a tool box in the bed. and pulled his seized receiver out of the hitch. we found out my truck can drag his truck up a hill also

v8 power!!!
so then we moved onto my truck.

http://www.explorerforum.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1499806 VERY USEFUL for wheel hub how to.
the first thing on the agenda was the wheel hubs/ shocks. this took just to do the front shocks and wheel hubs a good 8 hours total. was a disaster had to cut the shocks out and wheel hub bolts were so tight and rusted on but its done! i ended up going with the rancho rs 5000 series part number rs5374 up front (these are for 1-2.5" of lift). i have test it and love the ride. everything seems to be okay.... although with the wheel off everything seemed to droop way more then when the stock shock was on. but my freidn said itd be okay with tires on.

in the pic u can see what i mean.

side by side new vs the ranchos.
oh and word to the wise before you rip your shocks off and everything make sure ALL your hardwhare is there... i like many others was missing stuff. so had to reuse stock rubber bushing on both sides.... no biggy.

so next was the rear shocks. went with the sensa trac load adjusters. had to get from orielys because i orderd online and they sent me the wrong ones. these took about 4 hours because the bottom bolts were stuck and had to be cut off so i had to go to get new bolts from hardware store.

side by side.

installed.

overall in the front i DID gain lift. both fronts started at 34" and i ended at 34.25". the back end gained a lot. drivers rear started at 33" ended at 34.25 passanger rear started at 33" ended at 34.75" so yea im happy with that

EDIT- i feel these actually numbers are off. but i did gain 1.25" in the back and .25" in the front

next i installed my factory skid plate i picked up from $15 from a member on here!

this is the gas tank. i installed it via 2 bolts up front spaced with a rubber bushing. and the top one in the middle had a alligator clip in frame already so just used a 3/4" bolt for that. then the other mount just used a nut and bolt spaced with washers. overall i liked it. it even got my dads approval!

next was just kinda on a whim cause we were bored in the heated

garage.
i have been wanting to strip ALL the wiring and stuff off my truck and the roof rack for a while but michigan is cold. so i did it! was SUPER eay. took about 10 screws out the top of the roof rack and boom it was off. it was quick. i filled the holes with some caulk and i plan to this summer bedliner the roof so that will cover the holes again.
BEFORE

AFTER

honestly i LOVE it. and my friend donny does too. we both agree that it makes it look really sleek and just really really good. but i plan to put a CARR light bar up front so it wont stay like that for long but its nice for now. i also took the lights off the front bumper. so its only has one set of lights behind grille but those arent hooked up.

and lastly.... we had a little fun in the yard and i slid into the garage ! :roll:

we have a garage right at a turn in our yard that is on the bottom side of a hill. i got side way and ended up spinning around and then BOOM smoked the garage on the side. thank goodness it barely dented siding and only busted on the tail light. my friends like NOOOOOOO cause we were coming in hot and thought for sure it was going to take the wall down. my dad needless to say since its my grandmas garage would have freaked out.

needless to say it was a good 2 days but super busy!

on the agenda now since i got my tax return.
tires. rims. caar light bar. winch plate/ winch. skid plate (homemade). new tail lights

mad

and a body lift (march 16th thank to kazer!).

also i have noted possible issues. i still feel like my ABS is now not working completly, and my light is on and i cant get it off. any advice?

dersch6221992 · March 11, 2013

well today i am ordering my new tires

decided to go with the kenda kevlar 32x11.5x15 tires for $600 shipped to my door. im pretty excited they are pretty meaty will post pics soon. I also plan to paint my rims/ tires once it warms up outside
the new 4' cb whips are here. just need to get them mounted, was going to today but rained all day.
i installed my new black tail lights yesterday also just need to get a pic up

This just may be it for a while on my truck as i may be saving up for a street bike hehe

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