Project LBZ Part 5

Gaining Traction

The first thing we did for Part Five was add the traction bars. If you’re unfamiliar with how traction bars work, let’s start with a little primer. When a vehicle accelerates (in this case, a rear-wheel drive), the leaf springs give a little as the rear axle tries to twist backwards as it imparts forward movement to the wheels. Under violent acceleration, the axle can twist the leaf springs into an S-shape, and the rear wheels will bounce up and down, which drastically reduces traction and makes them rattle violently. Also, the drive shaft coming from the front, which is normally straight, is forced to spin at an angle which can ultimately result in U-joint failure.

So traction bars keep that axle spin from happening, which keeps the wheels in contact with the road, which in turn provides more traction, hence the name traction bars. This is accomplished by securing the bars with pivoted brackets on both ends. The Flight Fabrications traction bars we chose for this build are really something special. The ladder bar style of traction bar we got from Flight Fabrications is lighter and stronger than single tube traction bars, plus they can be fitted with LEDs, which of course we ended up doing.

Before we did anything with them, though, we dropped them off at Ace Powder Coating in Idaho Falls, Idaho, to give them a nice fire engine red color to match the rest of the truck. Once they had their shiny new look, we took them to Custom Auto for installation. Installing the brackets was a relatively simple matter, but simple doesn’t always mean easy. Taylor Brendle, one of the shop techs at Custom Auto in nearby Idaho Falls, Idaho, used a cordless power drill to make holes in the frame at about the midpoint of the truck to accept the brackets. Lying on his back with metal shavings flying in his face, while his arms got more of a workout than he probably planned, it took him a while, but he finally got the holes made. Luckily, that was just for the front brackets. The rear brackets went on much easier, due to the fact that they just went underneath the leaf springs where they had installed the lift pieces not too long ago. A set of longer U-bolts later and they were in business. After that, it was a simple matter of just securing the bolts to the bars themselves and everything was ready to roll. 

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Lighting The Way

The next task at hand was installing the LEDGlow light kit on the underside of the truck as well as under the seats. We decided to undertake this part of the project in-house. Myself, Cayd Freeman, who is our sales rep for the western US, and Cayd’s buddy Kody DeShon all gathered at Cayd’s to get things underway.

Continuing with this month’s theme of “simple ain’t always easy,” we found that putting in the LED kit was another one of those tasks. That is, what we needed to do was a simple thing to plan, but executing that plan successfully was challenging. Let me explain. All we had to do was hang the brackets for the light bars underneath the sides, in the front, and in the rear. Then we just had to run all the wires to one central location. Next, we had to put the interior light bars in place and run those wires to the same place. Finally, we had to wire the whole thing up without blowing a fuse. See? Easy. Except not so much once we got underneath the truck and started looking for places to mount the brackets.

For starters, we couldn’t use the brackets the way they were technically intended, but luckily we were able to improvise. Or rather, the light bars are designed in such a way that alternate installation options are readily available. See, the brackets are supposed to go on the very end of the bars, but in our case (and apparently many others, since the instructions themselves make it a point to say that not every truck is alike, which is code for “make it work”) there were no places to mount the brackets in such a way. So we just found two solid anchor points, used some self-tapping screws, and mounted them to the frame. Next, we clicked the bars into place, used zip ties to secure them to the brackets, and fed the wires up to the front of the truck in the engine bay, where we’d deal with the lot of them later.

That was just the two bars for the sides of the truck. The ones for the front and back required a lot more thought, planning, and elbow grease, not to mention trial and error. The mandate from on high (i.e. Greg Larsen, the owner of the truck and our publisher) was that the light bars were to be hidden underneath the truck, out of view, but still protected from the elements (you know, rocks, dirt, sagebrush, animals). That posed a tricky problem on the front, since there really wasn’t anywhere that fit that description. We first tried taking off the grille and finding space behind it, but that proved a waste of time. Then we found a spot we had overlooked before: a lip just under the front bumper. Again, we had to make do with the configuration of the truck, but once the brackets were in place, the light bar fit just as snugly as could be. For the one in the back, we had to go above the spare tire, because any other option put the bar and its power cord in the way of the tire itself, or too exposed. In the end, the spot we found will provide plenty of illumination for the rear of the vehicle.

Now that the outside lights were in place, it was time to focus on the interior. After a couple of false starts, we found the right spot for the lights: directly under the front of each of the four seats, facing down and forward. This provided optimal lighting conditions without the hassle of the lights possibly shining right in someone’s eyes.

We fed the cords under the carpet and into the sidewall, then had them all exit at the same point and plug into the central control unit, which we placed just under the driver’s seat for easy access and control. Speaking of control, this unit comes equipped with Bluetooth technology so you can control the lights with your Smartphone. Control might not even be the right word; dominate might be more appropriate, given the degree to which you can change the behavior of the lights. LEDGlow advertises that the kit can produce a million different colors (yup, as in 1,000,000) and we believe it. Rather than a list of colors, you drag your finger along a color wheel to find the right one, which allows you to finesse the color until it’s just right. Not only that, but you can also set it so different colors are displayed for the outside than for the inside. Plus, you can set the lights to blink in specific patterns, or, thanks to the microphone built into the control unit, have it pulse along to whatever musical jam your stereo is currently producing.