I have a lot of work going on with the truck to get it painted to include a new cargo bed because this one's done and potentially a cowl hood as I can tell on the highway I'm trapping some air up under the truck and let her know I just like the look of it before I get it painted.
My plan is to keep most of the Chrome features off my truck in favor of black. I have the molten Pearl coloration which at this point just looks like torn up garbage so I'll either be going with a semi-flat black cherry that's close enough to the original color but a bit darker that has a clear coat designed to look like it doesn't have a clear coat close enough to match the door jambs or the professionally done bedliner job not something I do in my backyard.
I'd like to get some wheel to wheel running boards for my 2004.5 quad cab short bed without paying 5 to $700. I don't know if I'm necessarily a fan of the look of the bar that has the three settle bends. I see a lot of options on Amazon and on eBay and other places where they have just some no frills running boards even some that looks stock others that look like plastic or aluminum extruded rectangle. That doesn't look so bad and the price is an awful either but as soon as you tell them what year you are they don't have any that fit the quad cab and if they have any of that fits the quad cab they don't have any that fit the year. So I thought of looking for some running boards that were roughly the right size and maybe I could find some brackets that I could alter a bit? I started getting a bit lost there.
I have an idea that involves some standard galvanized pipe from home Depot and maybe some u-bolts along with another bracket or the same idea except modified brackets so you don't have to see the u-bolts. The other idea was to find a piece of extruded metal I already have some steel that would just about do the job but that much steel is pretty damn heavy I understand it's not too much of a consideration on these trucks but when I say it's heavy I mean it's a big chunk of steel even quarter inch. So I was thinking maybe aluminum perhaps drilling some holes large enough to fit a deep well socket into the top with bolts going through it into the brackets on the bottom and then covering the thing over with whatever perhaps some kind of a plug and working the entire step over with some kind of a grip paint such as aircraft Wing walk or bed liner. When I was looking at some of these pipes I was even thinking to myself that they might make nice compressed air compartments but then I'd have to worry about internal corrosion and draining them out it was a nice idea. you can tell I've been thinking about it for a while.
I'm only okay at welding and I haven't done it in a long time you'd better if I could find a step I could bolt together also for the purposes of if it ever had to come off. That could also use something fairly close to the stock brackets or perhaps something like them but I'm not aware of.
As a follow-up question these cowl hoods that I am seeing for sale used to be about $500 down seeing them six to $750 from key parts. Did any of these trucks actually come with those on it to where I might get lucky at a scrap yard? I know the SRT-10 and some others have hoods that have scoops and also somewhat of a cowl situation going on but it's not really what I'm looking for I don't want to jam more air into the hood I want to allow air from under the truck to slip over the top of the windshield and I also just think it looks a bit more robust it has a good look to it in my opinion. The only option I'm aware of is the key parts 2 in that sells it a number of different places but if there's something else I'd be glad to look at some options it's a good running truck I've probably spent around $20,000 trying to restore this baby and make it better make it into the truck that I want to keep forever it's about time that it looked like a truck that was well maintained and modestly upgraded. But I don't want to look like the SRT-10 or a race car with some kind of a ram air scoop on the front. I've also been looking at kits that you can buy I have a structural guy at work that I would trust to give me a hand with that but it seems like an awful lot and it also seems like something is just tacked on to the hood.
If there is a plug and Play option that maybe isn't overtly for this truck but would do a damn good job of bolting on or something I'm missing that would also be good.
Thanks in advance for any feedback help links whatever you got. Have a great day!
My plan is to keep most of the Chrome features off my truck in favor of black. I have the molten Pearl coloration which at this point just looks like torn up garbage so I'll either be going with a semi-flat black cherry that's close enough to the original color but a bit darker that has a clear coat designed to look like it doesn't have a clear coat close enough to match the door jambs or the professionally done bedliner job not something I do in my backyard.
I'd like to get some wheel to wheel running boards for my 2004.5 quad cab short bed without paying 5 to $700. I don't know if I'm necessarily a fan of the look of the bar that has the three settle bends. I see a lot of options on Amazon and on eBay and other places where they have just some no frills running boards even some that looks stock others that look like plastic or aluminum extruded rectangle. That doesn't look so bad and the price is an awful either but as soon as you tell them what year you are they don't have any that fit the quad cab and if they have any of that fits the quad cab they don't have any that fit the year. So I thought of looking for some running boards that were roughly the right size and maybe I could find some brackets that I could alter a bit? I started getting a bit lost there.
I have an idea that involves some standard galvanized pipe from home Depot and maybe some u-bolts along with another bracket or the same idea except modified brackets so you don't have to see the u-bolts. The other idea was to find a piece of extruded metal I already have some steel that would just about do the job but that much steel is pretty damn heavy I understand it's not too much of a consideration on these trucks but when I say it's heavy I mean it's a big chunk of steel even quarter inch. So I was thinking maybe aluminum perhaps drilling some holes large enough to fit a deep well socket into the top with bolts going through it into the brackets on the bottom and then covering the thing over with whatever perhaps some kind of a plug and working the entire step over with some kind of a grip paint such as aircraft Wing walk or bed liner. When I was looking at some of these pipes I was even thinking to myself that they might make nice compressed air compartments but then I'd have to worry about internal corrosion and draining them out it was a nice idea. you can tell I've been thinking about it for a while.
I'm only okay at welding and I haven't done it in a long time you'd better if I could find a step I could bolt together also for the purposes of if it ever had to come off. That could also use something fairly close to the stock brackets or perhaps something like them but I'm not aware of.
As a follow-up question these cowl hoods that I am seeing for sale used to be about $500 down seeing them six to $750 from key parts. Did any of these trucks actually come with those on it to where I might get lucky at a scrap yard? I know the SRT-10 and some others have hoods that have scoops and also somewhat of a cowl situation going on but it's not really what I'm looking for I don't want to jam more air into the hood I want to allow air from under the truck to slip over the top of the windshield and I also just think it looks a bit more robust it has a good look to it in my opinion. The only option I'm aware of is the key parts 2 in that sells it a number of different places but if there's something else I'd be glad to look at some options it's a good running truck I've probably spent around $20,000 trying to restore this baby and make it better make it into the truck that I want to keep forever it's about time that it looked like a truck that was well maintained and modestly upgraded. But I don't want to look like the SRT-10 or a race car with some kind of a ram air scoop on the front. I've also been looking at kits that you can buy I have a structural guy at work that I would trust to give me a hand with that but it seems like an awful lot and it also seems like something is just tacked on to the hood.
If there is a plug and Play option that maybe isn't overtly for this truck but would do a damn good job of bolting on or something I'm missing that would also be good.
Thanks in advance for any feedback help links whatever you got. Have a great day!