Darude's CreamPuff Build.

Darude

Bought an X
Location
Denver, Colorado
2003 Tan/Brown
Manual 4wd
3.3 v6 SC Engine

Suspension/Steering
-1" Body lift
-AC 3" Suspension Lift (UCA's, Torsion Bars, 3 Pack add a leaf, Revolver Shackles, Bilsteins Front and Back)
-Calmini Steering (HD Tie Rod Adjusters, Centerlink, Pitman Arm, Idler Arm)
-Extended SS Rear brake lines
-Duratrac 285/75/16
-OEM rims
-Rugged Rocks Spacers 1.5"
-Diff Drop Bushings


Armor/Recovery
-Shrockworks Skids(Radiator, Engine/Trans, Transfercase, Fuel Tank)
-RLC Front Bumper
-Hardcore OffRoad Rear Bumper(0-2" adjustment)
-InsainFab Tire Carrier
-Trail Gear Kit Sliders
-Engo 9000 Winch


Engine/Drivetrain
-K&N Apollo Cold Air
-SC radiator(mine came with single row)
-5.13 Nitro Gears Front & Back (4wd Extreme)
-2.4 SuperCharger Pulley
-Doug Thorley Long Tube Headers
-Lokka Front locker
-Terrano Snorkel
-2.5" custom Exhuast Flowmaster 44 Muffler



Lighting/Electrical
-Retrofitted Bi Xenon Projectors
-20" EYourLife LED Bar
-2 Flush mount pods used as Fogs
-2 Flush mount pods for Reverse
-Cobra 75WXST CB/ 3' Francis Pretuned Antenna
-Back up Camera 3.5" moniter


Miscellaneous
-DepHep Clone/Raingler Net
-Paracord Grip Handles
-Amazon Tire Cover
-Decals by LifeStyle Offroad
-Ford Focus ST Hood Vents


I got my X back in 2014, Originally just to go up to the mountains in the winter time for snowboarding, I actually had no intention of even modifying anything on my, I first got tired of the unpainted moldings/bumpers and soon painted those to match, around that time my buddy had just gotten a Toyota FJ and asked me if I wanted to go wheeling with him(co-pilot), it was the most fun I had in a while, soon after I figured I'd give it a shot in mine, no armor, no plans, just balls, and I enjoyed every minute of it, I'm known by my friends to go a little overboard when starting things, so when I told myself I wanted to start moding I repainted my car and the mods began, now I'm here and really happy with the outcome.


The Day i got the X
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Once i started getting bored...
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And how it sits now!
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Darude

Bought an X
Location
Denver, Colorado
Finally a new build thread, looks good.

sent from the middle of a corn field.

Thanks man i wanted to wait till i got some more things done before i started the build thread

Nice! How's it in the sandstorms?
im sure the only thing you can see is my reflective Sandstorm edition decal lol


Ha!

Nice truck man! Glad to see something new.

much appreciated!

Nice looking 1g.

Thanks!
 

Darude

Bought an X
Location
Denver, Colorado
Ill skip most of the in between stuff of the painted plastics,
when i decided i wanted to re paint it I was pretty dead set on a tan color, maybe my friends sand FJ motivated me, i didn't want to keep the white since my other vehicles were white(car/motorcycle)
I started it right away, i knew it was previosly repaired and not in the best way, it had some rust in the quarters and started digging it out... and the kept digging to find this.
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This was basically on both sides, they'd both been sectioned in and bondo'd to all hell, i did what i could to pull it out, reweld, rework bondo, I'm a painter but i can work the other stuff a bit.
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With both sides primed i got to working on the doors, those were just as bad, from sorry bodywork, and horrible doorskin jobs i decided to replace all 4 doors i got lucky and found 3 from one vehicle and the 4th around town, with a weekend i had them ready.

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The whole process of tearing every thing down and getting it ready took me about a week and a half of after work hours
The front doors are a pain to take off if you haven't tried yet, you need to remove the doors while leaving the harness attached to the car, The next weekend i came in and readied the rest of the car

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by no means so i consider myself a perfectionist but i made sure that i painted all the jambs, ive had a car i only painted the exterior and it bugged the hell out of me seeing it being different colors
the only jamb i didnt paint was the inside of the hood and the engine bay.

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Parts went first i figured if i messed something up i wanted it to be something on a individual panel so i didnt have to mess wtih the body of the car, i was happy with it.

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The body soon after, as said before the body work wasn't perfect but i was more then happy with it for a car i was planning on taking through hell and back, i did the hood and hatch after but i cant find an image of that.

Reassembly soon after

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Before the brown i was going to make the rest orange, i drove with the orange rear bumper for 2 days and got bored of it really fast...

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there after i decided on paint it brown like many other things on the car, emblems/ ski rack and such
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Darude

Bought an X
Location
Denver, Colorado
A little while passed and my front bumper came in from RLC no hoops no holes,

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right away i got to painting it, it never crossed my mind to not have it match.

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the bars coming accross were painted in the brown and mounted, also a little later came my amazon light bar, fairlead, and d rings

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At this point everyone that saw it would joke about how it'd be a shame if i scratched it or its to pretty you should not take it off road, as i said before my intentions from the start of this were to have fun with it. very soon after i got Lokk'd, Drop'd and Shrock'd


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I ordered all the skids from shrock, installed the lokka myself along with the diff drop that frustrated the hell out of me!

Sliders were next i was split between spending on the name brands or saving some money, i really liked white knuckle but couldn't see myself spending that much, later i ran across CptMorgans build where i saw he ran trail gears, and jumped on those.
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again im not a master welder but i welded the hell out of these things, ugly but tough.
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Painted and thrown on.

I heard about NORAC and joined the FB page, they had a trail day and i decided to tag along, i was so late i showed up as they finished... they said no worries and invited on the run after.


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I joined NORAC soon after.
 

akuria

Wheeling
Yeah. I painted my grill matte black and it was a pain. Now I want to go matte white to match the matte wrap I have now.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

Darude

Bought an X
Location
Denver, Colorado
The rest of my lighting came along, my projectors were an on off thing for about a month then i got to installing them, along with my 2 fogs and 2 reverse lights, painted my rims with some rattle cans that turned out a whole lot better then i thought they would have, got my rear bumper/tire carrier installed along with a painted to match tire cover with a swag decal.

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I decided on the AC 3" lift and picked up a calmini steering off of a member on here, rattle can was the weapon of choice on those since i paint everything.

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My buddy hard at work while im busy taking pictures of everything

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Prime

Shut up Baby, I know it!
Admin
Location
Denver Adjacent
Okay, so none of the pictures show up on mobile. But, with a proper browser...I have one thing to say to you.

Damn son! This build is bad-ass. The theme work and painting is fantastic. Well done sir.
 

Muadeeb

Nissan al Gaib
Admin
Location
Dallas
Yeah, the connectors for the doors are horribly buried under the dash. Like right behind the AC vent buried.
 

Darude

Bought an X
Location
Denver, Colorado
Snorkel time! i was back and forth on the snorkel i disliked the safari and the ebay one just wasn't what i wanted, then i ran across Nd4SpdSe's build and saw he had some crazy ass snorkel from a terrano, it was pretty much exactly what i'd been looking for, so later that week it came in and me and my boss got to cutting a hole in my fender, i was surrounded by weird looks at work... of course it was painted to go along with the other stuff.

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It was harder then i'd expected to line up the stencil due to it being from a different car, we placed the snorkel where i liked it and pulled the stencil towards the car since the inner tube kept it a few inches away,


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boom! we have a hole, it took a little bit to file the hole into an oval since that was the shape of the tubing. I Now have it connected to a KN APOLLO with a fat flex pipe, with a shortened intake tube, the tube also replaced the rubber one thats prone to cracking, the reason i replaced it was to move the apollo further back so that the flex pipe wasn't kinked. in theory its as sealed as its going to get.

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from the inside the snorkel isn't even distracting let alone visible

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rokdaddy

Wheeling
Founding Member
Location
New Mexico
Glad to see you started a build thread here. Your 1st gen is one of my all-time favorites.

My son and I had a blast wheeling with you in Moab a few months ago(Strike Ravine), it's great to see that you're still upgrading things. Hope to see you on the trail again soon, bud.

-Rok
 

Darude

Bought an X
Location
Denver, Colorado
Glad to see you started a build thread here. Your 1st gen is one of my all-time favorites.

My son and I had a blast wheeling with you in Moab a few months ago(Strike Ravine), it's great to see that you're still upgrading things. Hope to see you on the trail again soon, bud.

-Rok

Thanks Rok, i appreciate it! It was a good time and i was glad to have an awesome spotter, Ethan and yourself were my decision makers on my 5.13 gears and i'm glad i went that route, i've told all my buddies about the "Sleeper" X in moab, It'd be great to see you guys again soon.
 

Darude

Bought an X
Location
Denver, Colorado
The time had come to go bigger on tires, I personally don't like body lifts and the 2" seemed like over kill to me, then i ran across NMxterra's build and saw he had a 1" i dunked myself into the forums to find more info, sadly i wasn't really able to find any, which surprised me that it never popped up because UofAxterra actually had the list of materials in the DIY body lift parts thread, i don't have any pictures of this, once i got my parts and got to work, finished the lift on my own in about 3~4 hours after work.

About a week later i went in and got my 33's mounted. Duratracks were my choice, the Colorado winters can get a little gnarly and as stated before i enjoy going to the mountains in the winter time.

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Literally on the first turn getting out of the lift the wheels took off my mud flaps, i laughed and carried on with my day.


I Moved up my Bumpers and installed my winch, luckily for me the Hardcore Off Road bumper had a 1inch adjustment, and i just had to bevel out my RLC bumper,

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I took and air hammer to my wheel well and put some rock guard to protect it from corrosion.

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Shortly after the RLC bumper was bugging me because the fenders didn't line up with the bumper i took care of that soon after, i was pretty gun-hoe about it so i cut away until i liked what it saw

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Darude

Bought an X
Location
Denver, Colorado
These are some of the few quick things I stole this idea from Prime with his 2nd gen build. its now Cut and Programmed to my X

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Paracord handles i made with the help of my girlfriend all around, i made them with small D rings i've held myself up with them so i'm not worried about them giving in.

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this Nismo shift knob because racecar

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also made my own depclone

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granitex

Skid Plates
Founding Member
Location
Columbus OH
That rack looks sort of familiar,,,,

Have you looked at the cover plate for the fuel lines on the passenger side, outer frame rail, in the fender well.. To fit 33's with no lift, I had to relocate it up a couple of inches, a little trimming and a couple self tappers is all that it takes.

I welded some 16th rod to the backside of the cover to add a little more resistance to mother nature nature having it's way with the fuel lines. The swampers that I had for a while would touch at full lock.

Have you decided on how you are going to attach the basket to the rack, Mine is just bolted through the factory rack, 10 years and no issues yet.
 

Darude

Bought an X
Location
Denver, Colorado
That rack looks sort of familiar,,,,

Have you looked at the cover plate for the fuel lines on the passenger side, outer frame rail, in the fender well.. To fit 33's with no lift, I had to relocate it up a couple of inches, a little trimming and a couple self tappers is all that it takes.

I welded some 16th rod to the backside of the cover to add a little more resistance to mother nature nature having it's way with the fuel lines. The swampers that I had for a while would touch at full lock.

Have you decided on how you are going to attach the basket to the rack, Mine is just bolted through the factory rack, 10 years and no issues yet.

ive had no issues hitting the plate i hit the hell out of my calmini steering but its no biggie, i do have a small BL
i made the mounts like the one on the dephep with 1/8 stock to wrap around the oem rack, and i also have the raingler net
 

Darude

Bought an X
Location
Denver, Colorado
I took a break for a little while from the stuff to get ready for Gone2016 had a great time and met some awesome people.

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[video=youtube;lz7R2AZyk18]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lz7R2AZyk18[/video]

[video=youtube;qkeJR0ngTO8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkeJR0ngTO8[/video]


I managed to roll backwards into a tree on Frenchys Fin an smacked out my corner plastic piece but no worries i took care of that soon after i got home

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Darude

Bought an X
Location
Denver, Colorado
I broke my winch hook some time in moab, it happened when i drove right into a rock, apparently i wasn't tall enough.. i replaced that with a Factor 55 Block

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Once i got home i had some fun things to order

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I had my 5.13 Gears installed by 4wd extreme in colorado, i do everything myself but i didnt exactly trust myself with the gears.

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Back to work i went to installing my headers, i thought it was going to be the worst thing of my life, especially after the very first bolt on the heat shield got stripped and took me 30 minutes to take it out, the rest was pretty easily removed,

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the 2nd cat was removed to make it easier to drop the cat from the header, i couldnt get the right angle otherwise. after about a solid 6 hours they were done and they were on. No Codes no worries.

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