I painted my grille the same as the body color soon after buying the truck. Ran it like that for a couple years and it held up fine.

 

You can paint the grill, or in some cases grilles are cheap enough just to purchase a new one and install as-is without having to deal with prep/paint. Many styles to choose from.

 

Good work!!

Yep, tape and paint grill.

 

Update on the tuning.

I’ve only had about 2 hours behind the wheel until yesterday. 80 daily is crisp but not twitchy on the throttle. Clean with no smoke that I can see rolling into it or stab the pedal. Street Rocker, and Hippie Killer both smoke on initial drop but do clean up fairly quickly. TC locks and shifts are early but smooth in these tunes. it’s a freaking monster compared to stock.

Yesterday we towed the trailer up to the property. 5 1/2 hours. Shifting with a load is much smoother in the tow tunes vs being empty. Ran the 65 for most of the trip and WOW!!! The throttle response up in the 2200+ was amazing. It’s a hill killer. Nowhere along the drive did I feel like I was ‘Pushing’ the truck. It was way more relaxed cause I knew I had the power for that next hill, not get a run at that one cause it will eat me up.

Somewhere along the way yesterday I developed a boost leak though. Down from 28 -30 to 24ish so not too bad but I did notice, and EGT has climbed as well so will have to track that down once we’re home.

Still have to get to the in tank H&H, new headlights on order, and the vacuum leak in the front end.

Then PMS should be in check until 2021 when I get a new yearly maintenance allowance. Could be worse things to spend money on. It’s nice how you guys have named it. Let’s me know I’m not alone in this addiction, 🤫 I mean hobby, no... maintenance item checklist.

No tranny fluid on the ground. That’s fixed.

Shimmed A/C, wife was cold. That’s fixed.

Braking was good and it didn’t pull, that is fixed.




Got some empty slots there so I will download some PHP files and see what I think of them.

 

Wow that’s great to hear! Glad you are enjoying your “maintenance item” changes.

A billet wheel GTP38 with some bellowed uppipes is a great combo in my opinion.

I like your term for PMS and may have to start using it too.

“maintenance item checklist”

 

This is how the truck got home today. Tomorrow I will get the front end up in the air and find out where the awful grinding sound is coming from. Hub, spindle, brakes, stub shaft???

 

Oh no!!!!!

 

Tell me about it.

We we’re almost home too. 30 km and I would have been in the driveway. Thank god for AAA RV plus or BCAA as we call it, since here in Canada it is provincial. Within 45 minutes the truck was on the flatdeck and another wrecker was hooked up to the trailer. Cost me nothing other than my yearly membership.
It got progressively worse as we drove once I heard it and would smarten up when I touched the brakes leading me to believe it is either brakes or wheel bearings.
I will have it up in the air tonight after work and figure it out.

 

As much as I don’t want to... I will share my moment of embarrassment for all to see.

I now know what went wrong. During the install on the drivers side brakes it was dinner time. I had only hand tightened the caliper bracket bolts. Lost the upper and the lower was backed out about 3 turns.

Note to self, and others. If not torquing are this time leave them out, or at the least visibly loose so it doesn’t get overlooked.



Scoring on rim.

Lower bolt

Upper is gone.

 

Unfortunately this stuff happens to all of us at times. Thanks for being tough enough to come on and share the story. Someone may benefit from it tomorrow while doing some work of their own.

Glad you have it figured out and hope the repair goes smoothly.

 

We all make stupid mistakes. Last year I made a stupid mistake on my truck when I was in a rush getting ready for an out of state hunting trip. Almost ended the trip before it got started. Glad it turns out to be an easy fix for you.

 

and what was your mistake since we’re airing dirty laundry.

maybe we should start a new thread.

Embarrassing things you thought you would never do. Mechanically of course.

 

Can definitely relate to your story. My son and I replaced his rear brakes, and left an upper caliper bolt loose. it scrapped a while and eventually locked the rear wheel, skidding him to a stop. He could only back up at that point, and backed up the road until he could pull off. A simple bolt from Napa and back in business. I can relate. Good call stopping before it became uncontrollable.

 

It’s a good idea to use blue threadlocker on those bolts.

But, this exact thing happened to me - except my experience was a little more exciting.

As I was traveling down a steep grade in KY on a 100* summer day, grossing over 26k lbs with a crewcab flatbed 7.3 on a 10ton deckover trailer - I heard a thump. That’s strange... Check mirrors, everything looks good. Halfway down, I tap brakes and all helll breaks loose!! Loud bang, drag, bad grinding. I’m on the brakes now, on a 7-8% grade (going way too fast because it’s straight road and I can see the ascent up the other side). Then, BANG. MASSIVE EXPLOSION!!! Nearly lifted the HEAVY truck off the ground. WTF, over???!!!!

I get pulled off the road and get around to the passenger rear tire. About that time, this guy comes running across the road all pumped up yelling and waving his arms talking fast “yo man, that was CRAZY, your tire went BOOOOM and **** flew out all over the road and my girl was like swerving around **** and....” Meanwhile, I stick my head under the mud flap to look at the inside of duals at brake parts, etc and FIRE!!!! The inside of the exploded tire is on f’ing FIRE. A TIRE FIRE. Directly below a tank with 100gals of vegetable oil and in front of a tank with 35gals of diesel. . I crawl out from under truck and literally push homie out of the way, leap over the trailer tongue, extract my fire extinguisher from under bed tool box, leap back over trailer, dive under the truck and discharge extinguisher through an opening in the ruptured tire. The last spit of the extinguisher put the fire out. Just barely. Seriously, it was close. I had already committed to get the dogs out and watch it all burn from a safe distance if I could not put it out...

Once I’m convinced the fire is OUT, I look around and see the caliper laying against the wheel. The wheel is still RED hot. The explosion was the over pressurized (HOT air) tire having structural failure. The FIRE was the hot steel setting the bead on fire. That’s why I was almost not able to put it out.

So I crawl back out from under the truck, dusting the dirt off myself and my new friend is reciting the most recent part of the story with fast talking, arm waving, etc describing me leaping through the air, producing a fire extinguisher, diving under the truck with flames licking up under the flatbed and saving my **** like a superhero. He barely stops to breathe and without pause at the end of the storytelling says ‘you want a beer??’ Yes, yes I do. I’m gonna need that in a minute. He runs across the road to his car (with very annoyed GF making gestures that signal LETS GO, lol) comes back with 2 beers and informs me he’s gonna drink his now. LOL!!

No cell service, so I send homie up the road where my buddy is at the bar eating dinner with the family. He finds my buddy, who comes to find me stealing parts off the truck I had on the trailer and fixing my junk on the side of the road. With my spare tire, and parts off my new ‘donor truck’, I was able to complete my trip.

That beer and shower later when I got to my friend’s place are among the best I’ve ever had.

 

Let me paint the picture. I'm headed to the next state over to help some buddies of mine on their deer hunt. We had been planning things for months. I committed to go to help them and was to be their lodging while there (5th wheel) and their transportation while there (my side-x-side). So a lot was riding on me to be there. Had been getting the trailer and the truck ready for two months prior. I was finishing the last things the day before the hunt. So needless to say I had a lot of things on my mind to make sure I had everything ready. Truck and trailer were parked on the street ready to go. Plan was to head out at 4 AM in the morning, but I was too stoked to go and couldn't sleep. So I decided to head out at 9 PM that night, get to where I was supposed to meet my friend's early and just nap in the trailer while I waited for them to show. It would be nicer anyways because less people on the highway in the middle of the night and I can tow at my leisure without worrying about a bunch of traffic.

So I head out at 9 PM and I don't get but 100 yards from my house and realize I have no power. So I turn back around and head back to the house. I'm out there in the middle of the night under the hood of my truck with a drop light checking for anything that might be the problem. Call my hunting buddies to tell them I'm having problems with the truck, and may not even make it.

So I'm panicking checking for anything that might be wrong. So I think to myself, what did I do to the truck. Oil change, etc. No issues there. Then I remembered I cleaned my air intake box and filter for the trip. So I pull the lid off my air box, and like you I had that "oh ****, you dumb fu**" moment. I had wadded of a bunch of paper towels in the intake tube to keep dust from getting into the ducting and turbo while I blew dust/dirt out of the box with compressed air. Well, while I was cleaning the air intake my wife came up and started talking to me and I got distracted. When finished, I put the airbox back together and forgot to pull out that wad of paper towels. Needless to say I was under the hood in the middle of the night vacuuming out paper towel fragments. I was fortunate that I had it balled up pretty good that most of it got stuck. Wasted like 3 hrs but I was back on the road and had a good trip with friends. So I definitely know what it feels like to be a dumb a**. I'd like to blame it on my wife for distracting me......