Dont call it a build (Border Patrol raptor)

[Aaron]

I always struggle to call something a "build" when you just bolt on a bunch of pre fabbed parts, but here we go!

I flew out to Phoenix AZ and purchased from Rick (@dunewhore) in August of 2022 and drove home to So Cal in a monsoon with one headlight and blown out windshield wipers. Over the last year or so I have been slowly catching up on maintenance and upgrades to the truck. I will pop in here and make updates when i have some time to hopefully get caught up to current date.

For the time being here are pics of the truck Rick sent. I bought the truck sight unseen... not my typical purchase but gotta say It was pretty painless and the truck was exactly as Rick described and what I expected.

 

[Aaron]

Between buying the truck and actually picking it up there was about a two week gap in which I bought a set of five used method wheels with 33" tires for $800. I sold the tires to a buddy along with a leveling kit I installed on his colorado for $1,000 so truck math means I got the wheels for free and they were like NEW!

I flew to Phoenix in the morning and got back home around midnight due to the weather slowing me way down with rain and wind making it impossible to drive over 35 mph for a bit and dodging blown over big rigs. I also just barely missed a bridge collapse

Next day I was at the tire shop getting the new to me wheels mounted on the new tires the truck came with and ditching the mismatched gen 1 wheels. Over the next few months I was able to sell three of the oem wheels for $100 each to help fund towards future upgrades

 

[Oh4Tahoe]

I like this! How rough are former service Raptors?

I see them pop up fairly often for sale and I wonder how ragged they are?

 

[Aaron]

I like this! How rough are former service Raptors?

I see them pop up fairly often for sale and I wonder how ragged they are?

Condition varies like any used vehicle. Some of them were used as commuters between offices and some of them were flooded and spent all their time in the dirt. I’ve met a few people that have them and one was really really rough with lots of issues, but he also paid way less for the truck.

Most of them have wear on the drivers seat from the agents gear belt that you can see in one of my pics. I’ll go more into detail on the interior soon. It’s one of the first things I did because one of the back doors wouldn’t open when I bought the truck.

 

[theycallmeWALLY]

Always wanted one of these because of the price... But I just never really needed one. But they are super intriguing at those price points Rick sells them at.

Stoked this guy is working out from you.

One thing to look for with these is the vehicle run time. Not sure if you can pull that off of the ECU but I know they idle a lot even if they are low miles.

 

[Aaron]

Always wanted one of these because of the price... But I just never really needed one. But they are super intriguing at those price points Rick sells them at.

Stoked this guy is working out from you.

One thing to look for with these is the vehicle run time. Not sure if you can pull that off of the ECU but I know they idle a lot even if they are low miles.I

There is an hour meter in the console but its only showing 50ish hours.

I idle the shit out of the truck as well, ive never been one to restart my truck all day when out on a trip.

Part of the maintenance I did was replacing all 16 spark plugs/wires, evap purge valve, removed and cleaned the throttle body, removed valve covers and ran the valves, serviced the injectors and checked all the fluids. The idle was cleaned up pretty good after the maintenance was completed.

The 6.2 is known to be a pretty bulletproof motor. There are a few things to watch out for but for the most part they are solid, just keep an eye on valve springs (I rev this thing to the moon)

 

[Aaron]

Next item on the list was adding some cup holders... Some of these trucks come with a cup holder bolted onto the rear of the console, but mine did not have that sweet option so I had to add it myself.

Some scrap aluminum and $10 cups holders from amazon worked out pretty good.

I promise I'll get to some real upgrades soon. I buy/sell/rent a few cars a year as a side hustle/hobby and it took me a little bit to decide if I was going to keep the raptor stock and just use as a tow truck and get around town vehicle or add upgrades to use it offroad. I had the truck about six months before I really decided to build it for off road use.

I did do some "testing" to see how it does in the dirt. crawls good for 6500 lbs and 45 psi in the tires. I had the truck about 7 days at this point so I was taking it very easy.

 

[WW_RANGER_X]

Love it! Stoked to see another Gen 1 on here. Carlos @GimmeSand also has one, along with a few others.