Finally the time has come. Less race ‘Merica truck! We have devised a plan. Remove the blue.
This was a nightmare project. Hours with a heat gun, and scrubbing glue off. I posted on IG half way through and a vinyl installer suggested a product, Rapid Remover. If your ever removing vinyl or stubborn glue from sticker buy some. It’s a miracle. The second side took me a little over 2 hours, where I spent DAYS on the first side.
The Beginning
Lots of glue got left behind, I started use Acetone to scrub it off on this side.
Glue…..
Cutting along the lines we want to keep and peeling the blue off. Just keep going…… Rapid Remover works great, spray it on, wait 60 seconds, use a bondo spreader or similar to scrape the glue off. Just turns them to rubbery boogers.
Side one!Across the front!Annnnd Done!
Much better! A bit more subtle…. Sorta.
I even got carried away, I pulled the chunk out that I cut out for the door (yes I still had it….) And peeled the vinyl back off. Then tried to stick it back to the door. That was a fun experiment. It’s wrinkly, but looks good from 20 feet.
Since we now have the air bags in the front, the rear needs help. The stock springs are way under rated for our weight, and the airbags work, but ride harsh. So I contacted a spring builder to make me a set of custom progressive leafs. Long story short, they made the first set the wrong size, and the second set with no lift…. I decided if you want it done right do it yourself.
So I set about with a plan. Take some parts of the OE spring packs to me a zero rate spring. Just adds height, no capacity or rate change.
New springs (V2) correct length this time, but no lift. My god are they heavy.
New Springs – Pretty but not quire right….
So after they were installed, we figured out they provided no lift. So I came up with a plan. Use the block and the anti wrap leaf from the OE pack to get some height.
Salvage these two pieces.
The OE Springs got broken down giving me ~1.25″ of lift height.
Useful parts on the bottom.
Then came the fun of trying to jack up a big heavy truck, in my gravel driveway… (I had paid to have springs installed twice already, I had to DIY this time). Luckily my neighbor had a big pile of 4×4 chunks of various projects, so I was able to make cribbing to hold the truck up. It had to be held from the frame so I could remove the axle from the springs. The plan was to remove the Ubolts, lift the truck off the axle so I could roll it out of the way, install the new spring parts and the put the axle back.
Lifting the truck
Got one side in the air, Ubolts removed, and went to roll the axle out of the way. That’s when I was reminded I have a limited slip rear end. Can’t roll one side….. Enter ratchet straps, webbing a second jack and cursing.
I was able to just get it forward enough to get the center pins out. Once they were out I went to slip the parts in and the new center pins would not fit. The spring builder used a smaller pin than Ford. I had to drill through the entire spring pack for the larger centering pin. But it worked, and we got the new old bits in place.
Blocks under the new springs. New center pin in!
Then it was just reverse procedure to get the axle back to the correct place and lower the truck down onto it. Then repeat on the other side. Longer U bolts were made for both sides and we took it out the following weekend. Much better ride, still not much lift after it all settled in.
