Proud rhino rods for air lift and Sya kit for means no rubbing even on bump stocks. I also did some work in the wheel wells to give it more room. Moved heater hoses, cut frame horns and cut some body seams. So not easy but worth it. I don’t think it’ll rub on articulation but haven’t fully tested it yet. There seems to be plenty of room with the lift though.

 

Overhauled my AC system after installing a new compressor and condenser. Also put in a new rear HVAC module with heater core and evap. The unit came form an LR4 wreck with just 16k miles which I verified. A lot of work taking out all the lines and blowing them clean out. Had nitrogen on hand and a large shop to do the final work. The shop is actually the very place where Schneider National was founded. Does not see much use anymore tho. This is a project I never, ever want to do again.

 

Went on an off-road trip in the backcountry of SWBC, Canada. Only issue is I thought the rear upper tailgate motor crapped out, turns out it was either dust on the micro switch at the handle or the micro switch pusher got misaligned. Spent a day having to crawl through to the back cargo area to pull the lever tailgate release when on the trail.

Stop of Chinahead Mtn.

Nearing the top Mt. Truax

 

The design and mounting of the short (long too) roof rails is not the best and I consider weak.
I attempted to modify the areas to increase more meat on the screwed down areas. The stock rails are merely sitting on 3 M10 13mm hex head bolt which is bolted to the body. The M10 bolt heads are center drilled and tapped fitting a M6 torx head bolt that secures the rail to the roof. I placed a 1” wide 3” long plate center drilled to distribute more of the rail load over a wider area (rather then just sitting on the three 13mm bolt heads). The plate replaces the washer that sits beneath the rail and on the 13mm bolt head.

 

Put in some SUPER cheap Orion speakers in my front doors. The factory ones started to fart really bad. I tried to repair them but that resulted in them putting out pretty much no sound at all. The only issue with finding speakers was the fact that apparently factory are 2 ohm. Combine that with limited depth and the options for a 6.5" speaker really drop to just a few. I did have to modify the factory mounts a little but in the end I am happy. Sound is back. I need to look over the speaker specs for the 14 speaker system. I think the rear doors used the same so I may swap those too. Not sure about the D pillars tho. Really in the end I would like to replace all the speakers but retain the factory system. Oh... also swapped in a new door check, funny how a tiny fix like that makes the truck "feel" better. Mine was not super bad, but bad enough to make the door open not so smooth and a little clicky sounding at times.

 

Replace the coolant reservoir tank. Pretty sure it was leaking. Not too difficult of a job, but made easier if you remove the front grill and headlight. Service manual doesn’t state that you need too.

 

Dakota,
once you found a speaker driver that fit, was it plug and play or did you have to solder any connections?

 

I soldered them to the connector once placed in the slightly modified factory plastic mount. The speakers are just a hair larger than factory. But overall it was an easy job.

 

I picked up 4 Yoko Geolandar 265/65/18's for what I think is a pretty good price at $570 delivered. $138 a piece plus tax and a $25 off coupon with free Fedex shipping from Tire-Easy.com. A bit higher, acceptable road noise at highway speeds, I do need to check the speedometer against actual speed and see if my scanner tool can adjust for tire size. That deal is already gone!
Local shop mounted and balanced for $80.

Biggest headache was getting the chrome lug bolts off. 4 out of 5 on each wheel required hammering an oversized socket and a breaker bar to get off. Already knew that they were going to be a pain after reading here so I purchased a new set of black lug bolts from Amazon.
I noticed some play in the right front wheel hub and ordered a new one from Atlantic British. I didn't trust Amazon or Ebay for this part since there seems to be a lot of fakes out there. US made hub looked great and no issues with fitment. However the speed sensor broke and I had to get another one locally for $50.

I wasn't happy with the fit of the dash cap so I bought another from a different vendor. They all probably come from the same mold as this one was off the same 3/8" around the corners. I spent much more time trimming and got a halfway decent fit from the front, but the rear was still short. From the inside, it looks good, but if you look through the windshield from the outside, you can still see a gap. It's still better than before.

Unfortunately, the Texas sun warped this one in the same place above the air bag on the passenger side. This is where the mold is off a bit. The angle there isn't right, causing it to buckle. I'm going to try a relief cut to see if I can get it to at least lay flat. Any other tips out there?

I'm also on the hunt for a used swing out spare tire mount. This is a budget build for me. First road trip to Bonham, TX this weekend.

 

Temu has a swing out mount for an H2 Hummer, you'd ;likely have to do some adapting but it's $127.
I'm thinking of trying one myself.