I keep looking at 2017 conversion mirrors. They look nice, but i keep telling myself that if i get new mirrors I'm just going to crack them offroad. So to placate myself i decided to refurbish mine.

Managed to get the covers and everything off with a longer screwdriver and keeping the mirrors moving around.

I wanted to paint them body color, but when i sprayed them down and let them dry, it hazed up real bad and i couldn't get it to stop. I don't know if it was the humidity or temp or the paint was just bad. But I decided to strip it off again and bring them back to black.



Also decided to polish up the recon turn signals.
Before:


After:


I didn't realize these were so ugly until i saw how clean they got. I don't know if i ever saw them this clean. I bought them used already in the mirrors.

All finished up:



it rained when i was putting them back on, so hopefully that will come off when i clean it up.

The bars are still rusted, but the back caps and turn signals look better then when i got them.

While not 2017 mirrors, It's new for me and saves me money.

 

Well I've done a little bit since my last post. and I'm going to apologize in advance, this is a really long post. with a lot of pictures, but who doesn't like pictures??

I was driving home from my in laws on Easter and the guys that trim the trees back from the road took their job a little to literal. The left a branch hanging at the white line and I smacked it. From what I can tell i wasnt the only one too.


So it destroyed the back plate of the mirror popped the mirror out destroyed the mechanism inside. So it was time for replacements. I looked around and after seeing a few threads about them I picked up a set of 2017 style Syppo mirrors. They fit pretty good had an issue with the passenger side one not folding so I had to get another one shipped out. But I wired everything up so that now to remove them its 2 plugs and I can slide them off. They are power mirror with heat and light. Manual fold and telescope.


also picked up a set of manual paddle mirrors for when I go offroad. Nothing special, no wires at all.


because I snapped the factory one I upgraded the steering stabilizer setup. Ordered the PMF dual steering kit. It moves the stabilizers up about an inch or two which was always a worry. It has performed very well so far and I haven't hit it on anything yet.







I was wheeling at rausch creek weekend of July 4th and was following my buddy with his Jk on 35s. Followed his line and I got stuck. Hung up on the rear shocks and diff. Factory limited slip wasnt doing anything and I just stayed there. Little embarrassing/annoying. But I was able to get out by backing up and taking a different line.





Due to getting stuck I decided it was time to get a locker. Perusing Amazon and my lists I saw a grizzly locker for 400$ I think it may have been miss priced because the next day it was back up to 700. But I had it installed by the local dealer, and it has made the truck much better offroad. Definitely more confident with the technical stuff.

also leaned it into a tree on a narrow trail. My buddy who was leading neglected to tell me it was "pretty tight" until after I dropped in the 2 foot hole entrance. He drove back around the loop to help. the truck slid and tagged the fender and was pinned up against the mirrors. then had to be winched back so I could re position. And then tagged the bed as i went past the tree








Also took the truck 11 hours down to tennessee to Windrock offroad park. Truck did really well, and personally i like the trails out there better because they're wide enough for fullsized trucks to run without the trees being the obstacle.








Based on these trips I kinda have a new view into how I'm going to proceed to my goals with the truck.

Definitely need a winch bumper and winch. I'm thinking about either doing an Ironcross base bumper or a Move weld your own bumper. The Ironcross is appealing because i can bolt it on. But the Move bumper is appealing because it's 600$ and i can weld, I just don't have a lot of time. Winch will be a Warn VR12.

next is the rear suspension. I do think i'm going to 4-link and coil it, but that will be a few years down the road because I will have to take the bed off to do that. but for now to gain more flex I'm going to end up doing a Procomp 5" rear spring, removing the rear blocks to stop any axle wrap I'm getting with the 4" blocks, PMF Adjustable top plates, with PMF 3/4" Ubolts. This will give me an inch more in the rear and later when I fabricate a flatbed allow to me level the height of the rear with blocks down the road.

Unfortunately most of this will need to wait for spring/summer of next year because I've been put on lockdown from spending because we have a wedding to pay for.

 

 

Thank you. It's been an interesting time planning. Only another few months now. But because its an extended cab there wont be any car seats in this truck. I'm due for a new one in the next year or two and that one will be a crew cab. The extended cab doesn't really fit anything or anyone very well.

 

Updates looking good. Congratulations on the Wedding.

How is the coverage with the 2017 Mirrors? Better than the 08+?

 

I don't know for positive because I've never been in an 08-16 or had the mirrors myself. But they are leaps and bounds better then the 99-07. The bottom mirror is much more useful.



right now I have the paddle mirrors on so I was able to take a comparison picture.

 

Ok, thanks. The 99-07 mirrors suck, the 08+ are much better. Will price check the two and go from there .Thanks for the pictures/comparison.

 

Been chasing an alternator whine and background static for a long time. But over the last 6 months it's gotten worse. I believe taking the truck offroad has broken grounds. I have taken the first steps to try to fix this.

I did the "big 3" upgrade. Alternator + to Battery +, battery ground to body, Body to chassis, and chassis to engine.

passenger side, ran out of 4 gauge. Will still need to do drivers side.

engine ground to frame.

Hasn't done anything for the sound system so I ordered 10ft of ground wire and I'm planning on grounding the amp directly to the battery and I believe I have the head unit grounded to the dash cage, I'm going to ground the dash cage directly to the battery as well.. hopefully at that point it fixes the whine and static

 

Well I finally got over my fear of compound and polish. After watching some YouTube videos from Dallas auto detailing, I decided to buy a DA polisher and see if I could fix some of the neglect I've put on the truck. Now I know I took it offroad and gouged the paint up in the trees of pennsylvania putting my full size truck down jeep trails, but I figured since this paint wasn't great I could practice and get experience for my fiance's car or the next truck.

I started with my headlights which I didn't think were too bad, but after following the steps I found they came out fantastic.

600 grit sandpaper, pulling all the oxidation off.

my helper for the day. Wanted to use the power tools. If I'm honest, shes probably better at it then I am. More patience.

finished product. I didn't realize how bad the lights were until we finished this, they look great now.


Moved onto the roof. The before, few scratches but a huge amount of oxidation, as far as I know the truck has never been garage kept.

after a few hours, limiting factor was only having one cutting pad. Had to wash it twice on the roof, which meant waiting an hour + for it to dry before going again. Still not perfect but tons better.


Cleaned up the cab lights and got rid of those rusted screws thanks to a post I saw from Wizkid on another thread.

didn't get any wiring done this weekend, I'll have to work on it if I get a spare hour over the week.

 

Looks great! I wish I would've done that to mine before the clear decided to de-laminate.

 

Looks great.

Interesting how your roof is smooth, I wonder if Crew Cabs are the only different ones.

 

Thanks! For years I was amazed at what people could do with paint but was terrified about horror stories i had heard about burning up the clear coat. But this was surprisingly easy. Once you get everything fixed, look it up. Only downfall is how big they are, takes forever.

Thank you. I believe they are and it's a structural thing. Adding the ridges provides rigidity for the panel. With how much flex I was getting from the center of mine they probably could've added some to the supercabs as well.

 

Well I had a productive weekend. I finally got rid of all the static in my stereo. I had the stereo grounded to the dash cage and the amp grounded to the rear seat bolt. I'm guessing that in the process of going down some if the trails and just time all of my grounds broke. So I posted previously about doing the "Big 3" which did not solve anything for me unfortunately. So this weekend I decided to ground the dash cage directly to the battery and I grounded the amp directly to the battery. This also did nothing for the noise through the speakers. At this point defeated, I decided to tear everything out. I removed everything from the back of the headunit cut all the connections and then reinstalled everything again from square 1. There is now no feedback so there was obviously a bad connection somewhere behind the dash. While I had the dash out i made use of the space and installed a fast charge USB in place of the cigarette lighter in the upper dash.



Has a neat volt gauge in it. Plus where it is I can close the cover and have it appear factory.

Found this through fordmanNJs thread. it has always been for the last few years a pain whenever there's multiple people in the truck to charge things I have never had a need for any more then one cigarette port so now I can charge both phones at the same time.

it was raining so no more paint work this weekend.

 

I'm not really a fancy new electronics kind of guy. I've never even owned an Ipod, but that little usb thing is pretty damn cool.

 

Been a little quiet lately but didn't want to post until I was done. Or mostly done.









Ironcross bumper with a warn VR 12 winch. Updated front grille with the header panel.

need to take another day and modify the grille for the light bar and front camera. As well as locate the control box for the winch under the hood, need longer wire. But overall I'm really happy with the 05-07 conversion.