2020 Build CCSB Tradesman - All around-er

[southern_yank]

3 years of ownership later, and finally figured I'd post a build thread, and maybe try to keep up with it. I know I enjoy seeing other members builds, hoping someone will enjoy this. I'm going to be updating this over the next several days as there are a lot of pictures to post. Going to reserve the next several replies to hopefully get most of it towards the top of the thread.

Picked this up in July of 2020, and traded up from a 14' CCLB tradesman Hemi. Looking back now, the timing couldn't have been better as covid hit just a few months later, and truck prices went, well you all know that story.

About the truck -
2020 CCSB CTD Tradesman with a few options:
Delmonico Red
Cummins Diesel
Offroad package w/descent control
8.4" Non-Nav display
Power slide rear window
Carpeted floors (High Roller Here!)
Cloth seating, solid rear bench
Mopar all weather mats - Gotta cover up the carpet with vinyl... the irony I know.
Factory cab lights (won't buy an HD without them, they look naked)
factory spray in bed liner
And, my favorite accessory this truck came with - Hard plastic door panels! (I swear on my life, these are the most uncomfortable door panel arm rests to ever exist, and I am an 80's German and Japanese car guy)
^actively seeking to start swapping interior to Laramie, or limited trims if you know of any, shoot me a message

About me, Southern_Yank: Born in Pennsylvania, living in NW Arkansas (briefly DFW, Texas area) for over 10 years, thus; Southern Yankee. Mechanic, metal fabricator, welder, project manager, designer, engineer, entrepreneur, etc. Currently working on building a design and engineering firm with a products division to provide an outlet to sell some of myself, and my teams ADD/ADHD fueled product ideas and concepts. After reading this, yea, I don't need a doctor diagnosis on the ADHD thing

Anyways, the truck is being put together as a good all around do-whatever type of rig. I travel frequently for work, so a lot of highway miles, and also love getting off the beaten path as time allows. having what I need, when I need is a crucial thing for me. in cab storage is organized as well as can be for the space constraints. I use the truck for transporting the family, job site crews, clients, and everyone in between. Cleanliness has always been a big thing for me when it comes to my vehicles. This one is no exception. I try to keep all my additions as factory looking as possible, or if it's not a possibility, then make them clean and neat so as to not look like something that came off of the shelf at AutoZone.

The mechanic side of me knows how to make it work, the designer knows how to make the parts, the engineer knows how to make sure it doesn't fail. Kinda works out alright for the most part.

Most of my modifications, or work done so far has been sparadic due to a seriously distorted working schedule. Several of these posts are over 6 months between doing anything, and a few even longer than that.

On to the pictures (this post anyway)

Old rig: '14 Tradesman CCLB 6.4L


New rig - Straight from the dealer - no PDI(I think) or pre-delivery wash as I was in a rush to get into this, and get home.



After a proper cleaning:



Next post for first "mods"

 

[southern_yank]

First things first -
Ham radio install. Simple, quick and effective. This gets redone later on, and is currently being redone again
Rig is an iCom 5100a with GPS, dual band, dual RX unit with detachable face
Primary use is Storm watch/Skywarn and trail comms when I get the chance to go out. Also a good way too kill time on long travels if I remember to program the local repeaters along my travel route(s)

Face plate mount was a modified cup holder phone mount that I used in my previous truck and it worked well enough, until it didn't. This got updated later after the flexible arm thing flexed one too many times and broke. 10/10 do not recommend this method to anyone.

power straight from battery through clutch block off plate, fused of course. Install time ~30 minutes ( had to be on the road to the next, so it was a quick install for sure.




Oh, magnetic cell phone mounts for the air vent - garbage. worst $5.00 I've spent on a cell phone mount LOL - just don't do it, no matter what the packaging or the friendly Wally world staff swear to.


Second - Literally 2 days of ownership - ditch the brown halogen headlight bulbs for some decent LED drop in's. Yes, I'm sure we can all debate which brand is the best, or how LED drop in's are an improper way to do things, etcetera, etcetera.
I really wish I remembered the name brand of these units, as they really are a good drop in bulb. I did have to adjust the lights to make up for the change in hot spot location as these are still a reflector lamp meant for halogen bulbs. But overall, I am extremely happy with these. Still running them 3 years later without a single issue.



Third: (a month or two later) TransForce tires are garbage. Literally dangerous tires, especially when the dealer sets them to the factory recommended specs and there is 80 PSI in the back tires of an unloaded pickup.
Moving one or two steps up from these skid happy, no traction-having, death rubbers, are the cheap-o Chinese mud tires. You know, the ones that you find two of for free on craigslist that are brand new never been mounted, so you pick them up and then buy the other two at a discount from an online supplier just so you can hope to have some semblance of traction on wet grass. To be honest, they were leaps and bounds better than the TransForce, and I got probably 20K out of them before finally deciding on a wheel/tire combo that I wanted to go with.




Additional - No photos, as, well nothing to photograph.
Purchased a spare keyfob from UWS/UMW (something like that) hardware online. Got the one with remote start and tailgate function. Dealer programmed it and added sales code as my truck already had the hood switch for remote start.
Finally got the MX+, bypass cable and AlfaOBD for Windows. Updated, tire size TPMS threshold, added gear indicator to cluster display. Tried a few other things, but those are the ones that are worth mentioning.

 

[southern_yank]

Finally a break in life - first camping trip with the new rig

Lift Kit (first round)
Rough Country spacer lift. 2.5"F/1"R with house brand shocks. Overall not a terrible kit really. Worked well for my needs, and the shocks are a bit softer than the factory Bilstein's from the offroad package. I did have a rather large problem later on with these, but I won't ruin the surprise. Not a lot of pictures, but it's spacer lift running factory coils, we've all seen this before. Oh, and thanks to this project, I became the proud owner of 2 brand new 6 ton jack stands because my 3 ton stands weren't quite tall enough... yay.

Tires are the ones from above - Mud Claw Extreme M/T 305/70/18 IIRC (35X11.5X18)








So, with newly added ground clearance, and most importantly wheel well clearance, looks like it's time to put it's 3rd set of tires on in it's first year of life.

Toyo Open Country R/T 37x12.5x18 on Vision Nemesis 111 finished in gun metal I believe these are a +18ET wheel. Finished off with some black spline drive lugs for a polished look.
Covid, UPS, Supplier(s), and general everyday life made this a 2 week date of order to date of final part delivery ordeal. Local chain tire shop was super awesome and mounted and balanced these for $75 total. Even kept the shop open an additional hour to get it done for me. Truly a good group of guys.

Stick on center cap logos purposely left off as I'm not a huge fan of logos and the likes. Still working on a cool center cap idea that I need to get back to and finish up here soon.

 

[southern_yank]

Liked the look of the door applique decals (the black between the windows) and ordered them from the dealer. Installed easily enough, and I think made everything blend together better.


HAM antenna mount seen on top of back passenger door. Usually run the stubby in-town/errands. Swap out to a Tram dual band for travel or trails.


Design time - Can't find a truck cap, and need to channel my ADHD. Started drawing up a bed rack, aux. fuel tank, molle panels, and a slew of other items. Then life and work got in the way and didn't get to finalize anything for several months. Funny story about the bed rack later on. And no, these are not finished models, just some screen shots from my design process. Also Purchased (black Friday deal) the Maxi Trac air compressor. dual cylinder unit from NAPA for less than $90 shipped to the house.


The aux. fuel tank, bed rack, and compressor mount are currently being fabricated, and we are working through some additional ideas to incorporate into the final product. No fabrication pictures yet as I need to get time to go see my fabricator sometime this week (Aug. 2023)

 

[southern_yank]

Well, the spacer lift finally let me down. Found some not too terrible trails, and may have been pushing the truck a bit faster than I should have on some FS roads, and had a coil decide to rotate on one side. This in turn put a bow in the coil, and was severe enough to cause permanent deformation of that coil. Immediately upon freaking out after seeing the damage, Went and ordered Carli 3.25" front coils, and the 4th set of tires for the truck.

So, spacers removed from the front, new Carli coils in, and mounted a set of Falken Wild Peak A/T3W's in 37x12.5x18
UPS/FedEx again, shipping delays and my tires came in 4 separate deliveries over 6 days. Yay logistics!

Also, fun fact about Toyo R/T tires - These are by far the noisiest tire I have ever run once they hit the half tread mark. Absolutely unbearable noise emanating from these things for the over 2 hours of commuting I had to do daily to get to the office. One of the happiest moments of recent history was driving the truck out of the tire shop after getting the Falken's installed. Toyo's are great tires, and did really well off of the pavement, but intolerable noise on road. Especially on the poverty package tradesman w/o all the additional noise dampening that is reserved for the higher end trims. Also, I need to rip the interior out and add some additional dynamat or similar as I'm still working on sorting out a stereo upgrade in the near future.





Incase any of you are wondering why my tuck is always muddy/dusty/dirty - I'm not an avid off-roader that lives the adventure life and survives on campfire coffee and digs latrines in the woods. Though I am actively working towards that.
I live on a dirt road almost 1.5 miles from pavement. Rain, mud, dust, the whole nine yards. Monthly car wash membership is the only way I can keep up with it. and as of yesterday (Aug. '23) I can no longer take it through there - updates inbound in later posts.

 

[southern_yank]

Remember that cool HAM radio face mount from the first post? Yea, it broke. Sooooo of to the SolidWorks with a half concocted idea, and probably a bit too much caffeine.

Mic is mounted via a Nite-ize Steelie mount. The placement is perfect, however, I am having issues with the adhesive coming undone in the hotter weather here in the southern part of the country. Working up a solution to that currently, and will update once I have something figured out.

The actual bracket is .125" 3003 aluminum and in this design iteration is sprayed with some good old fashion rust oleum gloss black. At the time my powder coat guy was over a week out, and I needed to get something in the truck as soon as possible. Working on a revision 2 of this mount, and should have that at powder sometime next week. The mount is laid out on a standard AMPS mounting pattern and will accept any on the market mounting system available.

While this could use a bit more rigidity, I admit, it is still working great. This puts the radio within perfect reach as I'm driving down the road, and I can operate the volume, squelch, and freq. knobs without looking, or chasing it around with every bump in the road. Again, previous mount was terrible, but sufficed for as long as it did.

Also mounted the control head for the AuxBeam 8 gang switch. I still do not have this unit hooked up as I am (was) contemplating how to mount the "brain" and also deciding on what lighting to put where, and what other devices I may want/need to control. Update on that later in the posts.

 

[southern_yank]

Kept things fairly well as is for a bit. standard maintenance items, quick details, thorough details, etc. Put it to work a few times. Yea, I know, for what I call work and what this truck is built to do, the term is laughable. But hey, work is work.

Oh, and gratuitous pictures of smoked meat, because yeah, that's about my only hobby that I can justify spending my time on. Everyone's Gotta eat!

finishing up at a jobsite - picture was too good to pass up.


New equipment for the office - FedEx ramp at deck height = lifted ram tailgate height




How does Mahindra operate under Tier IV requirements and can develop a system that doesn't use DEF (Kubota and others require DEF) Yet one of the largest auto makers in the world don't/can't/won't do this? I really hate buying DEF.



Brought home the Son's new ride.

 

[southern_yank]

Had the opportunity to go to Colorado for business, and only had a few hours to explore. That was enough to start making plans to go back in the next couple of weeks. Still can't get over the views and everything out there. We were staying in the Denver Tech Center, but got to head west for a few hours and found Golden, and some other areas. Looking forward to actually getting onto some trails when I go out again.

Modifications - Post Colorado trip - Bullet point mount system after 42 hours of driving for that trip, I broke down and picked one up. Why I hadn't done this sooner is beyond me. Great product, sturdy, and well built. less than 10 minutes to install in the truck - AND they supplied literally every tool needed to install. Including the torx driver for the dash screws!

 

[southern_yank]

Up to speed - August 2023 - Prepping for a trip west.

So, the wife and I are planning to head out to Denver/Colorado Springs area in about 2 weeks. As I will be running some trails out there, and who know what else, I decided I needed to start getting serious about bed storage and gear placement.
Fire up FB market place last Saturday, and all I can say is lady luck had my back.

ARE Z2 camper shell AND a Decked drawer system both listed that morning, and both in my driveway by that afternoon. Cap was fresh from paint and didn't have the windows installed. And the decked system was missing 2 rollers and a couple J bolts. Rollers arrived yesterday, and
J bolts are on a FedEx truck for delivery today.

Waited until Monday to call around for paint shops, and lucked out again and found a shop not too far from me that was able to take it on Monday afternoon and text me finished pictures Tuesday afternoon. Picked it up Wednesday morning, and commenced putting it all back together.

Still need to figure out the wiring on the shell. the shell has the 3rd brake light, power lock, and LED interior lights. all the wires terminate to a control box of some sort with a 6 pin female plug. That may take a bit for me to get the time to dive into it. For time being, I'm going to get the 3rd brake light functioning and sort the rest out as time allows.

Also got my prototype mount back from the fabricator to install the Aux beam system under the hood. This is actually tonight's project when the temps drop below 105°. I've started the wiring, but I need to refine it, and update my 3D model with some revisions to the mount so I can get version 2 to the fabricator for cutting and bending.



Anyways, pictures below.


Fresh from the places of markets
BTW - O'reillys and Advance no longer sell camper shell clamps. So 4 overpriced chinese brand C clamps, and it was on well enough for the ride home.



Freshly picked up Decked system - and yes, the exact model need for this truck. Note the 2 missing rollers on the left side,


Topper windows. Vented pop out sides, and a fold down slider front.



Decked Drawers - still dirty



Install progress. Oh, and all those little silver specs around the windows - those are screws. #8 hex head sheet metal screws 5/8" long in stainless. and AAll of them were put in by hand with the help of one of my boys. If given the option to have someone else do this task for you, just take it. Talk about tedious and painful.

Yakima rack came with the cap, and opted to install it until I can finish designing my shell and roof rack system. That should be done (fingers crossed) right before the trip west.


Auxbeam "brain" mount prototype V1.





Gratuitous glamour shot. Also had the front windows tinted to match the rears. I was skeptical of the ceramic tint, but I can attest it works keeping the heat out. Thinking about going back and getting a 70% added to the rears and the windshield just to keep the heat out.

 

[southern_yank]

Ditch lights, and Ram tablet mount installed. Using light brackets from Baja Designs with some no-name cubes I had laying around. Light output is fine for it's intended purpose. Nice flood pattern that illuminates where I want it too. Not trying to signal mars or anything. Saving the funds for the more important lighting, fogs, forward facing spots and floods.

 

[southern_yank]

Finally broke down and tried my hand at some minor paint correction.
3 years worth of drive through car washes have wrecked the clear coat.

It's better, but it need more help than I can give it.

Wash, clay, polish, wax, full interior vacuum and shampoo.

2000 mile round trip starts tomorrow, least it'll be clean for an hour! Lol

 

[phatboy64]

I have those same Wild Peek tires on my truck and so far they have been great, easy to balance and quite on the road.

I didn’t see you mention this but when you put the 3.25” coils on did you also put the radius arm drop brackets and a different track bar?

 

[southern_yank]

I have those same Wild Peek tires on my truck and so far they have been great, easy to balance and quite on the road.

I didn’t see you mention this but when you put the 3.25” coils on did you also put the radius arm drop brackets and a different track bar?

I did forget to mention, I put an adjustable track bar on, but after some deliberating, I opted out of the radius arm drop brackets. If I decide to go full out Carli pintop, with all the goodies, then yes, i'll do that, but for now and with my uses, I haven't noticed any issues.

 

[Gray8188]

For the 3.25 springs what shocks are you running? And see you had to do a track bar, did you have to do anything else to fit them properly? I have the carli 2.5’s now and want a little more lift in the front.

 

[southern_yank]

For the 3.25 springs what shocks are you running? And see you had to do a track bar, did you have to do anything else to fit them properly? I have the carli 2.5’s now and want a little more lift in the front.

So far I've done nothing more than what I've listed. I've bot experienced any issue outside of one time coming across some railroad tracks a bit to fast, felt like it bottomed out, but not on the bump stops.

If I do anything else, it will be bump stops.
And ditch the RC shocks in favor of some remote reservoir units, but that is a use case thing, not a need.

Sent from my SM-S908U using Tapatalk

 

[84Daytona]

Great info on your build. I have a couple of questions:
1) What was the tire size of your second set of tires, I believe they were Mud Cat Extreme ..
2) Did you sell your OE Bilsteins?

thanks,
Dan