[Nomad 13]

So it's way past time I started documenting the mods to the big hole in the driveway I keep throwing money in... So here we go

Username: Nomad 13
Year: 2011
Trim: Pro-4x Lux package, RF audio
Color: Night Armor
Mods:
Lots, see below

Interior:
All stock so far amazingly enough with the exception of the PIAA switch

Exterior:
"Slightly" modified fender wells and liners
Custom "NOMAD" burgers front and rear courtesy of 808UpFront..Thanks again!
De-badged tailgate and bed-side decals removed
7-pin relocated to bumper

Drivetrain:
Mostly stock except for perf mods listed below
New front diff courtesy of Fabtech

Suspension & Tires:
Fabtech lift
Bils 5100s w/AC coils
Custom Deaver spring packs
U-bolt flip kit
AC shackles
17x9 Level 8 Strike 6 satin black wheels
33/12.5/17 Pro Comp MTs

Armor:
Shrock front bumper
Shrock sliders
Shrock t-case skid
Stock Pro-4 tin foil gas tank skid
Blue Torch Fab rear diff cover

Performance:
Magnaflow Cat Back
Nismo CAI w/Brute Force dry filter
CXJ IMS
BDGT

Gear and Other:
XRC 8 Comp winch
PIAA lights
Viair 400P portable compressor
48" Hi Lift w/off-road base
Titus Hi Lift mounts
Equipt 60' expedition strap
20' snatch strap
6' tree strap
3 ton come-along
Folding camp shovel
D-ring receiver
Various other tools, gadgets and gizmos

In Progress:
Radflo ext res rears in hand waiting on extended brake lines and a slight adjustment to the rear ride height
Custom rear bumper
2.5 SAWs
PRG UCAs
Thorley shorty headers
LED light bar
HID conversion
ARB front locker
4:10 gears

I'm sure I'll have to add a bunch of crap I forgot so updates to come.
On to the fun stuff...

 

[Nomad 13]

Day one;
Last 2011 Night Armor Pro-4 CC with RF/lux package in the western states
Ain't she purty?



Digging for some pix of the CAI and Magnaflow install, I'll update later

30 days later she's off to Fabtech as a guinea pig for the 2011 kit with a brand new set of Level 8 Strike 6 wheels and 33/17 Pro Comp MTs



A week and a half later with a serious attitude adjustment :thumbup:



A week later with a grenaded front diff going straight down the 91W at 65 in 2x and back to Fabtech it goes :damn:





Two weeks later it's back home with no explanation as to why the diff exploded in 2x driving straight down the freeway. Not the most confidence inspiring repair but it's still holding together 20k later

 

[Nomad 13]

Got a goody in the mail from Blue Torch Fab





This thing is serious bullet proof armor. Weighs almost 10 lbs!





Of course I had to paint it up all fancy and fill it with Royal Purple

 

[Nomad 13]

Time to ditch the lift blocks so made a quick stop in to see some new friends in Santa Ana to place an order



2 weeks later I made another stop to pick these up... :awesome:
The extra set of u-bolts are for the flip kit



Installed with the flip kit plates I got from Partsmike.com





Gained almost 2" of articulation in both directions with the stock shackles! Not bad considering the droop is limited by the Fabtech shocks.
Ride is amazing! Can't even compare it to stock springs, not to mention it got rid of the horrible axle wrap I was getting with the 4" blocks. Even better with the lift shackles.

Waiting on a slight adjustment to the rear ride height and some extended brake lines to get these puppies installed. Can't wait! Should get me another 1.5" of droop over the Fabtech shocks.

 

[Nomad 13]

The latest crop of "new" goodies I picked up from another CF member. Been waiting for 6 years and 2 frontys for one of these (no, it didn't take that long for Shrock to build them, just for me to find them used : )



Before;



After;



I'll add some install pix for this later as it's getting kinda late...

 

[Mhannis]

Bout time! good write up. finally get to see what makes the nomad..the nomad.

 

[JB'sFrontier]

a year later the build thread shows up. nice truck and one of my favorites!

 

[minitruckin]

nice truck!

agreed.and i especially like all the little detailing you did with paint and such.real nice !

 

[glamisdude]

Nice! Looks great, glad to finally see the details

 

[Nomad 13]

Haha! Yeah, way overdue. Got lots more to add and lots of detailed pix and stuff for several of the installs but finally just had to get it started. Ran outta steam last night so I'll get some more of the mods up today
Thanks All!

 

[Rabs1755]

Trust me truck looks way better in person first time meeting he didn't have the bumper, this last pismo trip he had it and I was picking my jaw up off the sand lol! :laugh:
Could you also post a link to the flip kit. When I try flipping my springs I'd like to flip it while everything's off

 

[Nomad 13]

Trust me truck looks way better in person first time meeting he didn't have the bumper, this last pismo trip he had it and I was picking my jaw up off the sand lol! :laugh:
Could you also post a link to the flip kit. When I try flipping my springs I'd like to flip it while everything's off

Thanks! What's really funny (and kinda lame) is that I still catch myself standing there staring at it all too frequently. But it's mine so I can do what I want :nana:

Here's that link btw.
DM5051 SPRING PLATE 2.5"SPRING

 

[Rabs1755]

Thanks just ordered hopefully I can switch everything around next weekend

 

[TATTOOED NISMO]

just want to say you have a great looking truck, I also have the fabtech on mine and just added 2.0 radflos last week one of theses days ill quit being lazy and get some pics of mine on this site LOL. Are you happy with the fabtech? seems like a lot of people don't have much good to say about it ive had mine since 08 and have no complaints.

 

[Nomad 13]

Let's just say that I've had some issues with it. I'll have a DB lift thread up in the next couple days. Been messing with it for months now and finally have most of the pix ready to go so should be up this weekend finally. It'll detail most of the issues I've had with mine

 

[Nomad 13]

So a couple months ago during the Ocotillo trip with Rabs and jhughes i had a bit of a snafu with the Nismo CAI box. Started hearing a tinny creaking/clicking sound under the hood over bumps and when I took a look I noticed that one of the mounting tabs on the air box had snapped off. The Nismo box is pretty light gauge steel so not super surprised that it happened but a bit bummed that they don't back up any of the Nismo products with any kind of warranty.
Anyway, no real biggie though it nearly rubbed a hole in my AC line that runs right next to it.

I know a couple other guys had issues like mine so here's what I did.

I just took a piece of stainless angle bracket and bolted it to the side of the air box where the original bracket had been. A couple of quick holes drilled and a couple of #10 stainless machine head screws and ny-lock nuts and it's good as new.





I got a bit fancy and made it adjustable so I could get the back edge a little closer to the hood for better sealing as there was a bit of a gap from the factory

 

[Nomad 13]

Thanks just ordered hopefully I can switch everything around next weekend

Cool. They're pretty good about getting stuff in the mail asap. I think I had mine in a day or two. Quick easy install. Actually took longer for the paint to dry than it did to install them.
Once they're on the last things hanging below the axle are the lower shock mounts. I'll be re-locating mine after I get the springs/brake lines dialed so I can get the cool wiz bang shocks installed and figure out the new bumps I'm gonna need.

 

[Nomad 13]

So here's the Pro-4 Shrock install. This is gonna take a while and I've got a crap load of pix so you should be able to follow along step by step if you're looking to do this yourself.
I had to do it by myself as it was during the week and all my buddies were at work so I got really creative (and lucky as it turns out) :thumbup:

So the first step is to remove EVERYTHING attached to the front of the truck. And no, that's not really an exaggeration.
Start by pulling off the grill bezel by removing the 4 push clips from the rad support and the 3 lowers from behind it. Then it slides forward to get it off of the bumper cover mounts.
Then the bumper cover can come off.
There are bolts underneath, 2 on each side under the wheel well liner where the fender/cover meet and under the grill bezel to get the stock bumper cover off (Sorry, no pix of the bolt locations but pretty simple to find). Don't forget to pull the wiring harness off of the fogs if equipped.





Once the bumper cover is off you can pull the "bumper" off. It's 2 bolts on either side of it.



Mine was rusty underneath the mounting plate so I sanded the front of the frame rail mounts, hit them with rust re-conditioner and painted them with Rustoleum satin black.





I pulled it all off first so I could test fit the bumper and then take my measurements for the cut by measuring straight down from the bottom of the grill bezel to the top of the Shrock once bolted in place.

I gave the Shrock mounting brackets a fresh coat of satin as well. These are a bit more stout than the stock pieces and they wrap underneath the frame rail as well so the factory tow hook has to come off as well.



Now here's where it gets interesting...
The Shrock is about 140lbs not incl the winch (which is one of the reason's why I mounted it without the winch for now) so mounting one without help would normally be an impossibility. However, being the creative fellow I am (and don't forget lucky), I came up with this.
My brake stool just happened to be the perfect height so all I had to do was tilt the bumper up on it's end and lay it on my brake stool and then strapped it in place so it didn't fall off and splatter me all over the driveway for my wife to clean up.



Then I just dropped the jack stands until the rotors were sitting just off the ground and voila! It lined up with the mounts almost perfectly! I love it when a plan comes together :excellent:



Then I bolted it up and re-installed the grill bezel to take my measurements.



Mine ended up being 1/2" above the body line across the front of the bumper cover. I know cause I took the measurement about 15 times before I started to cut into it.



This is the bumper mating with the mounting plate on the driver's side. The mounting brackets mount to the frame with 4 bolts per side, 2 underneath and 2 in front. And the bumper mounts to the brackets with 3 through bolts on either side.



Once the bumper is mounted and your measurements taken you can simply loosen the bumper mounting bolts and it will tilt forward far enough to pull the grill bezel back out without having to pull the bumper again.

So on with the fun part : / :chainsaw:
I taped off the bumper cover around the cut line to keep my jigsaw from scratching it up and to give me a decent surface for measurement tick marks.



I used a Skil blade called "The Ugly" and it cuts through it like butter and left a laser clean cut line.
Here's my cut mark, like I said 1/2" above the body line

 

[mt.aero]

Always loved your truck! Keep up the nice work.

 

[Nomad 13]

Underneath the corners of the bumper cover are some supporting plastic frames. I cut through those as well so I could keep them in place. Once you make the cut the mounting tabs for the supports will be left on the floor so I cleaned the mating surfaces and took some 3M 2-sided Gorilla tape and sandwiched it between the supports and the cover. Then I clamped them together for a few minutes to make sure they stuck.







Now time for some more fun.. If you have a Pro-4 and you opt for the bumper with the headlight guards you'll have to make some cut-outs for the light guard bars. So I test fitted the cut down cover and marked where the bars would need to be recessed into the cover. This is a bit tricky so take your time and make sure your marks are in the right spot.
Then I went to work with a Dremel tool and a half round course file. I must have test fitted it 10 times before I got it right but it was totally worth it once it was mounted up and it looked like it came that way from the factory.









Once done with that I re-installed the modded cover and re-installed the grill bezel.
Then I had to cut down the stock fender well liners as they obviously have some no longer necessary real estate



You can also see where I re-installed the fogs in this one. You just have to snip off the alignment tabs and they bolt right up.





And that's pretty much it with the exception of the winch and I'll detail that when I get it mounted up in the next couple weeks.
So here's the finished product..





For those of you who are really on your game and noticed that the radiator skid isn't mounted up grab a cold one on me. When I got it it was slightly more used than the rest of the gear so I had it sent off to a local machine shop to have a rather sizable dent pulled out of it. Didn't get any pics of that install as it was done in a rush to get to Pismo. It's a really easy install. Just pull the lower mount bolts out of the frame brackets and loosen the sway bar bushing mounts. The rear mounting tabs for the skid are slotted so they slide up behind the sway bar bushing mounts and bolt up to the bumper frame mount brackets. The necessary bolts are provided (the ones that need to be longer anyway) and some of the stock ones can be re-used. The bolts for the stock tow hook are not long enough so if you plan on using it you'll need longer bolts to get through it and the mounting brackets. Can't imagine needing or wanting them since you now have much more serious hardware on the bumper.
I think that about covers it but I'm sure I'll come up with something I missed or one of you fine folks will point it out for me :moon:
In any case, it was a lot of work but totally worth it in the end. Took me a total of about 10 hours to do by myself so no reason you couldn't do it in 6 or 7 with some help.
Hope this helps someone out there who's sweating it out like I was.