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Fat City Pre-Runner build

FatCity

NAXJA Forum User
Location
Wildomar, CA USA
It was a long time coming. We needed a real pre-runner.

Things I had to have:
Something big enough to tow the race jeep if I had to.
Air conditioning.
Automagic trans.
4 full size doors
Leather (didn’t get that one…)
And 4 wheel drive.

I was “this close” to buying a new Ford Raptor F-150, but just couldn’t get past the $60,000 price tag and inherent $700 monthly payment.

I told my wife I was going to buy a used F-150 for 10k and put 10K in to it. That was an easy sell, because we were standing next to the $60,000 Raptor in awe of the sticker price.

I scored an “03” F-150 with the 5.4L motor that has 80K on it and the larger 9.75 rear axle for 6,900.
Better yet, it had the fiber glass that I needed already on it, tube bumpers and had 37” BFG projects. Full poser, but perfect for what I needed…

The plan is 17" of travel all the way around.
Deaver's in the rear with King bypasses and H&M Motorsports long travel 4WD suspension in the front with a 2.5" coil-over and bypass.

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The rear tube bumper was your standard issue pre-runner style thing with too many bends in it and a receiver was pretty much a joke.
Step one was build a no nonsense bumper set up with a receiver.

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We sleeved the 1/4” plate with 1-1/4 tubing for a clevis mount and then plated over it with 3/16” to thicken the area up.

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Like I said, the tube bumper that came with it contoured to the bed and looked like a spaghetti noodle to me. I wanted it short and sweet with a step.

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More to come...
 
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Being on a budget, I need to save money so I’ve been pounding the different desert racing classifieds.
I found lots of 2.5” triple by-passes that were the right length for around a thousand, but I was holding out for 3” triples. After searching for a month and a half I scored a pair of brand new, never out of the bag 3” triples for $1,500.

We started with figuring out where the tubes would land on the frame and then made 4 tube frame mounts.

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I cant say we’ve ever built a bed cage for an F-150, so to my surprise, there was no way in hell we were going to be able get all 17” of rear travel without bringing the shock above the bed rail. I was pretty bummed, because I really didn’t want it to have “that” look. I wanted a sleeper.
Oh well, if it’s gotta be above the bed, it better look nice…

We screwed around with a couple different designs, but in the end we didn’t have material long enough to do the job. It was going to have to be sent out. We jumped on the lap top, drew what we needed and shipped it off to be water jetted out of ¼” plate with an identical .090 plate to be welded on the outside of each main plate.

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Originally we were going to tig it, but our tig is in Ryan’s garage 20 minutes from my place and in the interest of time we just mig’d it. In hind sight, I should have taken the time to do it, because it was a bitch to weld the .090 to the .250… Screw it. I’m on a schedule.

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The inside/bottom will get closed in with 1/8" plate when we pull it out to weld it.
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Cross tubes in to hold everything together. We made them flange to make removal and installation a lot easier. And also to allow my motorcycle to still fit if it had to. I made them high enough to slide the full size 37” spare underneath.

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My wife and I have a big vacation planned for early next year.
We’re going to drive to Cabo and back via all Baja 1000 course. Tent camping our way down the peninsula. That’s going to require a lot of usable storage and the bed cage with a 37” spare typically make the beds on pre-runners near useless.

I hopped on the phone to my good friends at Poly Performance and talked them into selling me just the bottom portion of their Jeep racks. I wanted square corners instead of the bent tube that they weld on the top. That way everything can fit snug and tight and I can use every square inch of the rack.
They have 3 sizes and 2 of them where perfect for my set up.

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Viola!
Plenty of storage…
I also built a smaller one that will fit the 60qt. Engle 12v/120v fridge freezer. Ice isn’t that easy to find down in Baja.

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I think those look better then the standard racks.
 
Damn that looks sexy. How much for a little rack like that for the back of the bronco!?

Also, please keep the BFGs on the factory wheels, I love that look!!
 
I started working on the lower rear shock mounts.

I want to put my air bumps outboard of the frame. I made the lower mount push forward about an inch to leave the bump area open.

Stocker:
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Top plate:
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One problem we had in Baja a few years ago in the race Jeep was the 1/4" thick metal fatigued and tore open at the eyelet on the lower shock mount so I made some weld washers for this one.
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I met up with Kevin from H&M this morning to pick up the front suspension.
It's F'ing awesome!

There's only a 2 companies that make a long travel 4WD kit for this year F-150.
Dixon Bros Racing and H&M Motorsports. Dixon re-uses a conversion bracket that bolts to your stock steering knuckle via the stock ball joint (F that!) They also only use Urothane bushings (F those!)
H&M was deffinitely more expensive but comes with all new Chromoly knuckles that eliminate ball joints all together in favor of HUGE spherical brgs.
And sperical brgs. and heims rather than bushings.
The arms are also boxed in and Chromoly.

I want bullet proof stuff so I pony'd up for the H&M kit.
It took almost 3 months to have made, but they were way cool to deal with and it was totally worth the wait.
:greensmok

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Where da axles!! Dude, this is such a nice build, looking forward to seeing it! done
 
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