in episode of fulldrooptv, we install fiberglassfenders and a long travel suspension kit on the front of project f-150. fulldrooptv startsnow. this episode of fulldrooptv is brought to you in part by sway-a-way. hey, thanksfor tuning in to another episode of fulldrooptv. we have our silverado project completed sonow we're moving on to our new project, this ford 4-wheel drive f-150. now, if you watchedour past episodes, you saw that the way we built our silverado was as if we had all theparts laying right here in the shop. and a lot of people because of their budgets findit hard to build a prerunner that way. so we're going to build this f-150 just likeyou would - in stages. we're going to start with our front suspension, move on to therear suspension, add some bumpers front and
rear. and the first place we're going to startis with our fiberglass fenders. so we gave fiberwerx a call and got a set of their f-150fiberglass and you can see it's got a four and a half inch bulge and a giant wheel openingso our 37" mickey thompson tires should have no problem fitting. another nice feature ofthese is they're a direct bolt-on so we shouldn't have any troubles installing them. so let'sget the teardown going so we can get these installed. in order to install our fiberwerxfiberglass fender, the first thing we need to do is remove the factory fenders. and we'regoing to start with this plastic trim. it's held in by one-way plastic clips, and we'renot going to reuse so we're not really worried about them. using a 5.5 millimeter socket,remove the screws that attach the inner fender.
remove the two ten millimeter bolts for thevalance bracket. next remove the headlight. using a ten millimeter rachet, remove thebolt holding the headlight in place. to remove the fender, start with the eight millimeterbolt hiding behind the headlight. using a ten millimeter socket, remove the bolt that'stucked inside the fender. using a long extension, use an eight millimeter socket to reach throughthe door jamb to this inner fender bolt. the last three bolts that we to remove are thesetwo eight millimeter bolts here and this one that doubles as the strut mount. now rememberthe strut holds the weight of the hood up, so if you remove it, make sure you eitherprop the hood up or have someone hold it while you're taking off your fender. we've checkedout hood clearance and we have a nice even
gap all the way down the fender line. we'vemarked out our mounting holes. fiberwerx designs these fenders to reuse the factory mountinglocation and hardware so all we have to do is drill these holes out and get it reinstalledon the truck. for the lower mount on our fiberwerx fenders, again we're going to be reusing thefactory hardware. mark out the two bolt hole locations, drill that out, and reinstall thefender. for the mount behind our headlight, we're going to be using a sheet metal screw.we've lowered the valance out of the way to gain access. we're going to drill a pilothole, and then follow it up with that sheet metal screw. the last piece of hardware toinstall is the mount for our factory hood strut. tighten it up. snap on the hood strut.and you're good to go. to start the teardown
process, we're going to begin with this steeringball joint. then we're going to show step by step how to remove all the factory suspensioncomponents to make room for our dixon bros racing long travel kit. we're going to startwith this nut and a 21 mm socket. tap out the ball joint using a hammer. remove thevacuum line for the 4-wheel drive hub from the back of the spindle. remove the two brakecaliper bolts using an 18 mm socket. we need to remove the axles and in order todo that, we need to pop this cap off to gain access to the nut behind it. using a 13 mmsocket, remove the nut. using a 21 mm socket, remove the nut holding the ball joint in place.use an 18mm socket to remove the four bolts holding the hub to the spindle. remove thehub. remove the sway bar end link using a
15 mm socket. use a 15 mm socket to removethe three nuts holding the coil-over shock in place. if you're doing this by yourselflike i am, and you don't want to carry all this weight, you can loosen up the a-arm boltsand roll this down real nice and slow. use a 21 mm socket to remove the upper controlarm. you can see with our factory suspension components out of the way, we have plentyof room to access our six bolts holding on the axle. use a 12 point 12 mm socket to removeall those bolts. now that the teardown is complete on our factory suspension, it's timeto get our long travel kit installed. now if you're building a four-wheel drive prerunnerlike we are, you're limited on the choices you have of companies that make a long travelkit and still give you the ability to retain
four-wheel drive. we were in luck when wefound this kit from dixon bros racing, so we gave them call and they sent us one ofthe 04-08 f-150 kits. you can see we've got fully boxed lower control arms, we got tubularupper control arms, fully fabricated upper shock mount, and since this kit is four anda half inches wider per side, they also provide you with longer axle shafts. now another partof this kit is this upper shock brace that goes over the engine and ties the two pointtogether. now we wanted to take a closer look at these lower control arms, the ones providedby dixon bros and then the factory ones. you can see a huge difference between the lowercontrol arms provided by dixon bros racing and what you get from ford. now these fromford are made out of cast aluminum where the
dixon bros is made out of plate steel. they'reinternally gusseted for extra strength. now when you order your dixon kit, it's goingto come with a basic color, but we wanted something a little more custom. so we contactedar powdercoating and we had them lay down this nice silver color. now ar powdercoatingwent through a four step process. the first is the sandblast to help the powdercoatingstick better, then they lay down a nice primer, then came our silver powdercoating, and thento finish things off, they laid down a matte clear to tone down some of the sparkle thatwas in this silver. so if you want more information about the powdercoating process, visit fulldrooptv.comfor shocks, we contact sway-a-way for set of their 2.5 inch by 10 inch racerunner coilovers.you can see they feature a remote reservoir
that holds more oil for more cooling. thebody itself has a cadmium finish and all these aluminum pieces are red annodized. now somethingwe needed that unique for our install were these extended lower eyelets. this give usthe clearance we need for our four-wheel drive axle shafts. now for springs, we contact eibachfor a set of their 18 inch long 800 pound springs. and this silver powdercoated goesgreat with our shocks. when your suspension compresses, you want to do something to limitit so that it doesn't go into bind. now we're going to that a set of these two inch hydraulicbumpstops that we got from sway-a-way. they slide into these cans and it's going to getmounted somewhere here on the frame. now we won't know the exact positioning until weget the rest of the suspension installed but
this will give you an idea of where it's goingto land. now conversely, when your suspension fully droops out, you also want to limit itand we're going do that with these limit straps that we got from butch's speed shop of lasvegas. now we're going to show you just how easy it is to get this dixon bros long travelkit installed on our f-150. to install our dixon bros racing long travel kit, we're goingto reuse the factory hardware, starting with the lower control arm. next install the axleshaft. be sure use thread locker on the six bolts that hold the axle to the flange. usinga 12mm 12 point socket, tighten all the axle flange bolts.i'm using a jack to support the lower arm, that'll help be install the spindle startingwith the lower ball joint. install the factory
hub and use an 18 mm socket to tighten thefour bolts holding the hub in place. use a 13 mm socket to tighten the nut on the outsideof the axle shaft snout. before we mount our sway-a-way coilovers, we need to bolt in thisfabricated shock mount that comes in the dixon bros racing kit. now it uses three of thefactory coilover bolt location, but you'll have to drill out the four remaining locationto utilize all the bolts to bolt this in place. we're using seven 3/8 grade 8 bolts to holdthe shock tower in place. the last major part of the dixon bros long travel kit is thistubular upper control arm. slide it into the pocket and use the factory bolts. once youget them in place, drop the ball into the spindle and tighten it up. dixon bros providesyou an extension for your factory steering.
we've remove the ball joint off of the tierod. we're going to clamp in vice, use some thread locker, thread in the steering extension,and tighten using a 13/16 wrench. with any long travel kit, you're going to need to runlonger brake lines. so we contacted crown performance for their 9+ kit. that gives usfront and rear brake lines that are nine inches longer than stock. and we ordered ours inthis smoke finish. the only part of the dixon bros racing kit that requires welding is thisremoveable shock tower brace. it passes from one shock tower, up and over the engine, backdown to the other to disperse the load evenly between the two. once we get it tacked inplace, we'll unbolt it, remove it and weld it on the bench. in order to install our bumpstops and our limit straps, we have to be
able to cycle the suspension freely. and wecan't do that with the coil in place. so we're going to remove the coil, and then bolt theshock back into it's original location. that way we can cycle the suspension and checkfor any binding or tire clearance issues. well as you can see with our suspension inthe fully compressed position, we have plenty of clearance for our tires and our suspension'snot binding. so now we know exactly where to mount our bump stop cans to the frame.the bump stop cans we got from sway-a-way come just like this. we needed to add twoplates to either side so we can weld it into the frame. as you can see, i've already donethat here. now the reason i already welded these plates on is because you never wantto weld to the bump stop can with bump stop
installed. so now that it's all cool, i canslip the bump stop into the can and get it tacked in place. to mount our limit straps,i've cut out a tab that's going to get welded into the frame. now from that approximatelocation down to the welded tab that's on the lower arm i took that measurement anddetermined i need a 14 inch limit strap. now with a 14 inch limit strap, you're going toget stretch over time. so what i did to account for that is brought in a floor jack underneaththe suspension and instead of leaving it at full droop, i decided to bring the the suspensionup so that way i'm going to get any bind in any of the ball joints. with this set in thecorrect position, all that's left is weld into frame. fdtv talk is presented by prerunnermaniac. "i want to get more travel out of
my rear suspension. can y'all make any suggestions?"that's a great question, mike. when you're thinking of which type of suspension you wanton your prerunner, you basically have two options for the rear. you have a link typesuspension which involves a lot of fabrication and a lot of parts and it's something youmight see on a race truck. but the good thing about that is it'll net you about 30 inchesof travel. now for most street trucks and prerunners you're going to want to go witha set of these deaver leaf springs. they're a multi-leaf pack with a very progressiverate so they'll keep up with you in the desert, and using these leaf springs in conjunctionwith a bedcage, you're going to get about 16" of travel. so i hope that answers yourquestion mike and remember if you have a question
you want answered on air, visit fulldrooptv.comand click on the fdtv talk icon. stage one of our f-150 project is complete and if youremember in the beginning of this episode we told you we're going to be building thisf-150 just like you would, in stages. we've got our dixon bros long travel kit installedand in conjunction with our sway-a-way coilovers and bump stops, we should get us about 14inches of travel with the four-wheel drive still intact. now all the suspension workwould do us no good if we didn't have a good set of wheels and tires. so we contacted kmcfor a set of their 17x9 addict wheels that feature this matte black finish on the outsidewith this machine finished spoke. and we wrapped them in these mickey thompson 37 inch bajamtz tires. now since we're running such a
large tire, we needed plenty of room up frontand these fiberwerx fenders give us that room. in our next episode, we're going to be tacklingthe rear of this f-150. we're going to install our fiberglass bedsides from fiberwerx andinstall our deaver leaf springs. so be sure to stay tuned and if you have any questionsabout any of the products that we used on this episode, visit fulldrooptv.com
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