PandaPaul's Build Thread: Snorkel, 37's, Fox Coilovers, Icon UCA, Core4x4 Arms/Trac Bar, DV8 Bumper, Smittybilt Winch

[pandapaul]

Heyo! Here's a pile of pics and blurbs regarding my 2021 Badlands Sasquatch with the 2.7L V6.

Latest Look (October 7, 2023)

I guess I could get mud flaps.

Pics
September 28, 2023 - Freshly Upgraded Suspension

Mods
Milestar Patagonia MT 02 Tires in 37x12.5R17 size.

These tires are great and inexpensive for their size and capability. On top of that, Discount Tire pricematched a sale price I found on Amazon for $268 per tire. I felt lucky and happy about that. These were at the top of my list also because they are only 74 lbs, which is pretty dang good for a full 37" mud tire. So far they're good, but as of this moment they are about 5 days old. There is minor rubbing at full lock and under some compression. I think it's contacting the front of the rock rail, so I may see about trimming that back a little bit. As far as I've seen so far, it doesn't rub on the frame. I will, however, be testing this out further in the next few days.​

I like the tread pattern both visually and functionally. The noise is (as expected) louder than the stock Goodyear Territory MTs, but it's completely tolerable for such an aggressive tread. I'll have it on the trails soon and will report back on how they do there.​

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GFX TR-16 17x19 0 offset matte black wheels

These are some cheap ($146 per wheel) but perfect wheels. I wanted these exact dimensions and pretty much this exact look. They're also 30 lbs, which is a helpful 5lb weight reduction from the stock sasquatch wheels.​

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Fox 2.5 Performance Elite Series Coilovers

I'm loving these so far. They feel very good, and I like playing with the dual speed compression adjusters. I got them from Stage 3 Motorsports for about $4100. I don't feel like I need to say much about them, but Accutune recently posted a good video talking about these vs Kings. It (and others) can serve as good info about 'em until I have some more time with them.​

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Icon front tubular UCAs

I went with these particular UCAs due to the good balance of quality and price. I think I got them for about $750 from Stage 3 Motorsports. I had no desire to splurge for billet aluminum (no qualms with those folks who do go that route), and I think this looks great. The geometry is looking alright so far but needs to be evaluated while articulating.​

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At full droop...​

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Core4x4 Camp Series Rear Arms and Trac Bar

Love these. They are strong as hell and made by a small shop that is a joy to work with. Got the whole set for about $1000. The use of Johnny Joints is very appealing. Note that they let you pick from a wide range of colors. I went with green, and they look great.​

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At full droop...​

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Everglades snorkel

I've got a whole other thread dedicated to the snorkel adventure. You can find a fully itemized parts and price list there as well as a lot of pics and discussion. Total parts cost of about $1100.​

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JKS Tie Rod Sleeves

I wanted a mild strength improvement to the tie rods. Enough to gently beef them up while trying to still keep the tie rods as a failure point prior to the steering rack. $50 makes it an easy add. The Milestar 37" tires and the GFX 17x9" wheels add up to about 104 lbs (from their spec sheet. I'd like to weigh my spare to verify). That puts them at about a 14 lb increase over stock sasquatch wheel + tire (35 + 55). I'm hoping the sleeves will sufficiently account for that.​

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Rough Country Rack & Pinion Bushing Kit

In conjunction with the JKS sleeves, I just want to adjust things so that their breaking points are (hopefully) about the same as stock with 35" tires. We'll see how it goes. Another $50 item.​

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Cheap random sidesteps from Amazon

$150 for the whole dang set of 4. Hell yeah.​

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DV8 MTO Front Bumper

It was early days and there wasn't much available in the way of hidden winch bumpers. At that time, I don't think anyone had devised a front camera relocation kit, so I was stuck on the idea of hiding the winch low. I ended up with this chonky DV8 bumper, which.... is fine. But I have aspirations of replacing it with something slimmer. It was about $1100 direct from DV8.

DV8 Pocket Fairlead

I got it for $150, which was $100 off from the usual $250 price. That was my primary incentive to purchase it. It has great build quality, functions very well, and the hook is great. I just feel like the silver mesh aesthetic on it is too messy. Honestly combining that with the MTO bumper's own mesh aesthetic and the frontend has gotten too cluttered. I'll be playing with this sometime soon, I think. I also need to clean up the rust around the bolts and swap in others. Those are not the bolts that came with the fairlead, so don't blame DV8 for that.​

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Smittybilt XRC Gen3 12k Winch

It has served me very well, and I like the wireless remote. The synthetic line it comes with is decent and has held up well. I think it was about $750 from 4WP. If I have to replace it, though, I'm going to go with an Apex Badlands. No sense in doubling the price when it will perform the same.​

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Recovery Gear
Rhino USA tree strap, soft shackles, kinetic rope, and bow shackles

The shackles and tree strap have worked very well when I've used them. Haven't had to use the tow rope yet, but it's a 7/8" x 20' variant and was $105. The tree strap is 4" x 10' and was $30. The soft shackles are 1/2" x 22" and were $35 each, but it looks like you can now get a 2-pack for $60.​

Factor 55 Rope Retention Pulley

Love this thing. Excellent quality and I like the rope retention pokey things that help keep the winch line against the pulley while slack. $115 is steep for such a simple thing, but it's top shelf quality.​

Original Look (August 4, 2021)

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Future Work
Extend the breather valve lines

This is an important one that I've been putting off. I go through a lot of water crossings, and the existing breather valves are bound to suck up some swamp water at some point if they haven't already. This should be an inexpensive project, I just have to get under the vehicle and plan things out properly. I might use the Everglades layout as a reference, but I might also run them higher up than that. As part of this, I should replace all the existing fluids for a fresh start.​

Seal the air intake a bit more

As it is, the Everglades snorkel is very good. I love the flippable plates and the relatively tidy design. It seals up the top of the airbox nicely. There are, however, a couple water entry points I'd like to address. For the drain hole at the bottom of the air box, I think it would be handy to have a removable plug. On road the drain would be open to allow small amounts of rain water and such to drain out. When crossing deep water off road, I'd plug it. The snorkel has a removable side plate at the fender, which I think is just there to make installation easier. I'd like to seal the side plate with some silicone or a decent gasket. There's also a small drain hole above the cowl, but I think that's high enough to leave it open. Adding a gasket around the blocking plate could be nice, but it's lower priority as long as the air box drain plug is removable.​

Grille letters

If I can settle on a six letter name for the vehicle (or just use "PANDAS"), I'd love to swap the front "BRONCO" letters out for that name. Oracle sells custom ones that are lit, but I don't really care about the lighting. I'd rather focus on making them colorful with or without light.​

Bumper update

The more I look at it, the less I like the DV8 MTO chonker bumper. I don't want to spend thousands on another bumper when it's completely unnecessary, though, so I might talk to one of my family members who is a welder. Maybe he and I could put together a small, simple solution. In the mean time, maybe I'll store the bow shackles in the cabin and repaint the mesh plates to tidy it up.​

Air compressor

I just need to buy a decent one. Maybe I'll mount it somewhere clever, but maybe not.​

Tire deflator

Small thing I just need to buy so that I can take advantage of the milestars properly.​

Inspect things at full droop and full stuff

May need to make some adjustments to the suspension and/or do some trimming.​

Deal with rub

I've observed minor rub at full lock that needs to be addressed. I think it's collision with the front of the rock rails, so maybe I'll trim those back a little.​

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[M Redwood]

don't like it

 

[M Redwood]

love it

 

[FreddieLee]

Impressive build.

As I understand it, the Patagonia's are true 37's, right?

 

[pandapaul]

Impressive build.

As I understand it, the Patagonia's are true 37's, right?

Yep! And thanks.

 

[Ninjak]

Very nice build. How hard was it to do the snorkel? Well put together.

 

[Sandbergo]

Looks great.

 

[Dom]

Very well put together. With this set up do you have any rub? Also, how are those Amazon side steps holding up? Think they will last?

 

[pandapaul]

Very nice build. How hard was it to do the snorkel? Well put together.

Hardest part was figuring out the part numbers. Check my dedicated snorkel thread for all that info and you're basically good to go.

And thank ya

 

[pandapaul]

Very well put together. With this set up do you have any rub? Also, how are those Amazon side steps holding up? Think they will last?

Thanks! There's a smidge of rub at full lock that I'm debugging. Seems to likely be the front of the rock rails, which I could trim sufficiently. Though I need to check everything out and full droop and stuff as well. Once I do, I may also make adjustments to the shocks. If that happens, I'll update the original post accordingly.

I think the side steps will be fine but I'll update on that once I've got some more miles with them. They're pretty much brand new as of this week.

 

[Dom]

Thanks! There's a smidge of rub at full lock that I'm debugging. Seems to likely be the front of the rock rails, which I could trim sufficiently. Though I need to check everything out and full droop and stuff as well. Once I do, I may also make adjustments to the shocks. If that happens, I'll update the original post accordingly.

I think the side steps will be fine but I'll update on that once I've got some more miles with them. They're pretty much brand new as of this week.

Sounds good, thank you. How much lift did the Fox shocks get you? Did you adjust the preload or kept them as they were?

 

[@BadBlueBronco]

Watching thread to see how the Tie rods do with the 37s

 

[BBQBennz]

Awesome work. Enjoy your ride!

 

[pandapaul]

Watching thread to see how the Tie rods do with the 37s

You and me both, homie. I'm tempted to go ahead and try to break them in a controlled setting and feel out how much they can withstand. The Milestar tires are relatively light for their size, weighing in at 74 lbs. If I did the R&D right, the added weight (of tire and wheel combined vs stock sasquatch) should be 15 lbs. I'm hoping that mild heft increase will be reasonably accounted for with the sleeves and bushings. BUT we shall see.

 

[pandapaul]

Sounds good, thank you. How much lift did the Fox shocks get you? Did you adjust the preload or kept them as they were?

I didn't measure before and after but I do have a pic of the wheels & tires swapped in prior to the suspension work. I left the preload as it was from Fox, but that may change once I've seen how things look when articulating.

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