We promised to bring you great-looking custom trucks that could be built on a budget, and with the economy down and fuel prices up, now certainly seems to be the perfect time to show a Fantastic Four truck makeover for less than $3,000.
The circumstances around this build were pretty darn cool. We picked up an '05 Nissan Titan King Cab with low miles for under $13,000, but we only had about $3,000 left in the piggy bank. To pull off such a feat, we went to two companies known for great customer service and low prices: autoanything.com and Discount Tire Direct. Using both of these esteemed companies before, we knew our truck was going to look great and our money would have been well spent. Opting for a subtle frontend increase, a 2-inch ReadyLift strut leveling kit was ordered from autoanything.com. To add some ponies to the Titan's beefy 5.6L, we placed an order for an AEM Brute Force intake and a Gale Banks Power Monster performance exhaust. The team at autoanything.com had the parts on our doorstep in a few days. All that was left was to contact Discount Tire Direct and order our new wheels and tires.
After looking at discounttiredirect.com, we ordered a set of black 20x9-inch Liquid Metal Rhino wheels and Cooper Zeon LTZ all-terrain tires, sized 275/60R20. As one of the easiest purchases we've made in quite some time, the wheels and tires came mounted and balanced, for free, and UPS ground shipping was gratis, as well. Something else we thought was too cool: Discount Tire Direct also made sure the tire pressure monitoring system sensors were already installed on the wheels. All we had to do was take the old wheels and tires off, then put the new Liquid Metal Rhino wheels and Cooper tires on. We also installed a black mesh grille from Grillcraft to improve the frontend looks. To keep the cost down, we turned our own wrenches and performed the install in our garage, using tools you probably have at home.
Check out how we did all of this for a price that won't make you lift the couch cushions.
Out of the box, we instantly...
Out of the box, we instantly got a good feeling about the ReadyLift leveling kit because of its simplistic and straight-forward design. Here, you can see the strut spacer mount and hardware.
We began the install by rolling...
We began the install by rolling the truck into our garage, lifting it up, then removing the wheels and tires. The instructions told us to remove the anti-sway bar end links with a 17mm wrench. In this picture, we removed the lower bolt that attached to the lower control arm. We found out later, it is best to remove the bolt on the sway bar and not the one on the control arm.
Next up, we loosened the upper...
Next up, we loosened the upper ball joint with a 22mm socket but did not remove it, as per the ReadyLift instructions.