Atl-atl's 2024 Power Wagon documentation thread.

[Atl-atl]

Im not sure why I never started a thread here, so its time to play catch up! Picked up this Ram 2500 Tradesman Power Wagon in November of 2024. I love the fact that you can still get a "base" model truck with cloth seats and a 4x4 shifter on the floor that also has the full Power Wagon package.




I immediately got to work on phase 1 of the project which was a complete suspension overhaul with fitting 40" tires in mind.

• Thuren Power Wagon front coils
• Thuren Power Wagon rear dual rate coils w extended sway bar links
• Thuren rear coil adjustable shim kit
• Thuren front track bar with bracket
• Thuren rear track bar complete kit
• Thuren weld on front lower shock mount reinforcements
• Thuren spec Fox 2.5 DSC shocks
• Carli front sway bar relocation brackets(if necessary)
• Carli weld in front coil isolator supports
• Factory non Power Wagon coil spring isolators
• PSC steering gear for hydro assist
• PSC hydro assist Ram
• AEV hydro assist kit for Ram HD trucks
• Synergy radius arm brackets
• Synergy 2" front bump stop drops

 

[Atl-atl]

The Thuren rear track bar was more of a ********** to install that I thought it would be. Got it done eventually.

The Synergy MFG brackets were relatively easy to install. Only problem was they didnt come with all the hardware that they should have. The trans crossmember bolts needed to be replaced, not reused as the instructions state. I contacted them about this and was essentially ignored. So I went out and bought 3 additional bolts that I was thankfully able to find locally since they are pretty obscure. Crappy feeling after spending nearly $1000 on some pretty basic metal brackets with a couple fancy billet washers. Im going to try to get someone on the phone so I can elaborate on this situation with them in hopes that they at least update their hardware.

I currently have them set in the 1.5" forward position(the other option is 1/2" forward) which is allowing me to run the 40s with zero trimming of the fender behind the tires. I did have to remove the entire front bumper and trim the fender liner in front to clear since the axle is pushed so far forward now. Whats cool is everything clears with the axle pushed this far forward. Tie rod/draglink/trackbar/hydro ram etc. At full droop and compression, at least that I was able to do with a floor jack and a forklift. The real world is obviously very different so hopefully I can get it out in the dirt soon. The front lower coil buckets are at a weird angle but they are in stock form and the coils appear to have less bow than a stock trucks so thats interesting. Having the radius arms dropped ~3" also helps keep the caster in check and will probably allow me to dial in extra caster to try correcting the coil bowing issues. Having hydro steer makes it so adding caster has no real negative effect. Though some internet engineers will probably disagree with this. Im a fan of running caster as high as possible to combat death wobble as well. If anyone is interested in more detailed pictures or info about the Synergy brackets please ask. There is not a lot of info out there and very few installs that Ive been able to find documented online.

Next thing up was installing the Carli weld in coil spring isolator supports. These simply extend the upper coil bucket so you dont have to worry about popping a coil when flexing really hard. Simply stick them in place, weld them and paint them.

I also installed the Thuren weld on lower shock mount supports. These trucks are known to blow up the stock lower front shock mounts when driven hard on 2.5" or bigger shocks and I dont go easy on vehicles so here we are. Simple install of weld and paint.

I installed some Synergy 2" front bump drops. but I dont know if Ill keep them. They dont hit the bump pad on the axle very well with the axle pushed 1.5" forward. I might have to fab something depending on what some flex tests result in. At a minimum I will have to reroute some of the brake line brackets on both sides to work with these bumps, or even the stock bumps.

Had a scary moment when I was grinding the upper coil bucket/shock mount area to fit the shock reservoirs. I hit one of the hard brake lines with the grinder. It hasnt leaked but Im worried about it. Its one of the lines that comes off the ABS unit and its a single piece that goes all the way back to the rear axle. A quick recon says it will be a huge PITA to replace. I will likely do this for piece of mind. Be careful when installing shock reservoir mounts on the driver side of these trucks.

Here is a pic of the inside/top of the track bar at the axle end. This is beyond full droop, there is no shock installed. You can see the spring is dangling. The track bar clears on all sides. All of the steering components clear as well which was a pleasant surprise. I was expecting to have to put the axle back into the 1/2" forward position.

Here is almost everything back in place. The coil spring looks better than stock. It does scoot forward as the axle moves upward so I need to do some more testing to see if its going to be safe when fully flexed but for now it works great and drives well on road. It would be rad if someone made a completely new upper coil bucket/shock mount that worked with the axle pushed forward and fixed some of the coil bow. I havent looked too much but Im guessing it more work than would be worth it to try to cut and weld the lower bucket at a better angle. ****** was Dodge thinking with this design?

 

[Atl-atl]

Part 2 of the suspension install is here. I installed a Rough Country spare tire carrier so I can run a full size spare. It was $200 plus a couple bucks to run some allthread for extra support. I think it turned out great. I used 1/2" stainless threaded rod that I bolted to the front of the bed rail and then ran the rod through an extra lug nut which I then threaded a nut onto. Seems to be holding up great so far.

Next up was taking care of the rear skid plate crossmember. With the new suspension the rear axle droops so far that the driveshaft will hit the crossmember. Carli sells a drop kit for the skid plate but the last thing Im going to do is lift a truck and then defeat the purpose of a lift by lowering the skid plates. So I got to cutting and welding. I cut out a 6" wide section of the center of the crossmember, scooted the cut section forward 3", welded it back together with some extra square tubing and slapped some paint on er. Just like that I gained about 2" of clearance under the driveshaft.

The only other modification that was needed was shortening one of the fore-aft skid "bars" Ill call it. These are hollow tubing so I trimmed the length by 3" and used a press to flatten the new end of the bar. Drilled some holes, ground it smooth and paint finished it.

End result looks great. We will see how it holds up offroad.

Thats it for now. Im still waiting on my new front bumper before I can do much else. Now its time to get an alignment and put some miles on the truck.

Swaybar is still connected in this video!

 

[Atl-atl]

I got my topper installed(Leer 100XR with keyless entry, carpeted headliner, side slider windows, removable front slider window) and put in a Bedrug as well as sealing the crap out of the bed, tailgate and topper door. Its quite cozy in there now. I dont know if its ever possible to make one of these fiberglass toppers totally dust proof but Im about as close as I think you can get.

The fitment is slightly off in this pic. You can see at the drivers rear corner its sticking out. I adjusted it a little and it looks better now.

For the bed, I used backer rod to plug the larger holes and then siliconed them into place. I know I know silicone will be a pain in the future if I ever want to remove it but I dont care about that. I wanted it to be as weather proof as possible. I also learned the Billet Silver is nearly identical to duct tape hahaha

 

[Atl-atl]

After putting about a thousand miles on the truck after installing the lift I decided to get off road and flex it out a little to see exactly whats working/not working, where I need to trim, check for interference etc. Im pleasantly surprised by the outcome. My biggest concern has been the front axle location. Pushing it forward 1.5 inches is quite a bit but Im happy to report that I have no major issues. All moving parts are clear of each other; track bar, axle, steering components, shocks etc. It all clears which I really cant believe. If I had an aftermarket diff cover it might hit the track bar but it would depend on the shape. I thought I would be having to custom fab a frame side track bar mount but its not needed. Everything seems to work great. Truck still flexes to the bumps and behaves correctly driving at speed.

There is one thing that really needs to be tended, the front bump stops. Only about 50% of the rubber contacts the bump pad on axle and there is a hard brake line that is pretty close to touching. The brake line actually just clears and the bump still hits the pad but Im not super happy with it. That being said, I could 100% get away with doing super minimal trimming, similar to what a stock truck running 37s needs. For now Ive actually left it alone and Im just driving the truck because I have some other plans in the works. One of those plans is to have a machine shop make me new "pucks" for the Synergy radius drops that only move the axle forward 1 inch. This would be the easiest way for me to accomplish getting the bumps to hit the axle pad in the correct spot while still having the axle forward enough to not need much trimming. Ive got a buddy who does exactly this type of thing for work and a few weeks ago we were chatting about exactly how to accomplish it and it seems pretty simple. Fast forward to KOH and I was talking to the guys in the Synergy booth who brought up the exact same idea. So I think Im going to move forward with it. More to come on that later.

Here are the flexed out pics. In these the front is not quite on the bumps but close enough for me to get the info I needed. The front coils actually look great given the 1.5" stretch. They look at least as good as stock and with the Carli weld in coil retainers Im not at all worried about the springs walking away. The rear isnt even close to the bumps and thats fine, theres a lot less trimming work to be done in the rear to fit the 40s.

 

[Atl-atl]

Next I installed passive entry handles for all 4 doors and the tailgate. It was quite expensive but I love having it so the price of entry was worth it for me. One thing I wish I would have done was get black door handles instead of silver. I really like the contrasting black trim pieces on the Tradesman trim trucks but Ram doesnt make textured black handles with passive entry. So I ordered color matched billet silver ones only to realize I probably could have gone with painted black handles and gotten the original look out of it, oh well. Im not going to post a writeup because there are tons of them out there. I used all OEM parts except for the wiring harness which I got from a guy over on HDRams.com.

Next up was installing my Switch Pros 9100. Since Power Wagons cant be made to work with OEM aux switches I decided to run a 9100. I had a very similar setup in my old Tacoma and liked it so I went ahead with it. Originally I purchased the SDHQ mounting kit for a 9100 in a 19+ HD Ram but I didnt wind up using all of it. Its a nice kit and I did use part of it, their switch panel mounting piece, which is just an OEM trim piece that they laser cut to work with the 9100 switch panel. It would be nice, in the future, to figure out how to wire the power steps override switch to the 9100. Im not sure if its possible to get a 3 pole switch to work with a 9100. If someone has seen a writeup for that, please post it!

The part of the SDHQ kit that I didnt use is the mount for the 9100 brain, which mounts right behind the driver headlight. I hate messy wires so I wanted to build something cleaner looking than whats out there for these trucks. This required some fabrication because I wanted to copy the setup I had from Powertrays that incorporates an additional fuse block, bus bar and mount for the Switchpros brain. The problem was where to put it under the hood. I spent a day or so messing around with some locations and landed on the area right above the fuse box. This required some ingenuity however, because you still need to access the fuse/relay box below. So I got a sheet of 1/8" aluminum and went to town. Here is what I wound up with. The parts are bolted on in this pic when I was testing fitment.

Here I am wiring up everything.

A few things to note here. I used the power wire that Switch Pros supplies with their kit, its fused which is good. I ran it straight from the battery to the unit. Its cool that there are multiple hot posts on the battery from the factory that are under their own little hinged cover. Makes adding accessories a breeze.

I did not put an inline fuse to my Blue Sea fuse block. I bought a dual MRBF terminal fuse block but didnt wind up using it. I would have had to cut a lot of plastic off the battery compartment so decided against it for a cleaner look. Since everything that will be wired to the fuse block has its own fuse, in theory if the line feeding the block from the battery were to pop, the individual accessory fuses would also pop so the only thing that should blow would be a couple feet of wire and some fuses. Anyway, Im not worried about that happening. The Switch Pros brain is fused and thats the most important/expensive part.

Here it is all complete. Im considering making a run of these and selling them if there is enough interest. I think the diesel trucks have the same battery location/orientation/setup so this should work for both gas and diesel. Not sure if Im going to powder coat it or leave it raw aluminum. Right now the only accessory I have wired to the fuse block are my power steps. Some day soon Ill install OBA and wire it to the fuse block/9100. Not sure what else Ill have in the future but its nice to have more than you need.

The mount I made is 3 pieces, completely clears the fuse box lid and is 100% removable and returnable to stock with no modification to the truck needed. There is a plate on the right side that mounts underneath OEM fasteners. I used nutserts and threaded nobs to hold the main plate in place. Then the left side is a vertical post that mounts using the brake fluid reservoir bolt. There is a stainless steel piano hinge that allows the accessory plate to be hinged upward for access to the fuse box.

 

[Atl-atl]

Well theres more!

I also (finally) got my front bumper, painted it, wired it up and installed it. Its from a company that I had not previously heard of called Chassis Unlimited. It took them 3 months to build but the quality is very high and their customer service is really good. They have quite a wide array of products, mostly ultra bro-dozer stuff but they make this bumper specifically for the 2019+ Power Wagon. I like it because it sits much more flush with the front of the truck and tucked up under the OEM winch. All the other companies out there make bumpers that work on the diesel trucks as well and they stick out much farther and lower to fit a winch around the larger intercooler and radiator the diesel trucks have. They also sell this bumper in raw steel or powder coat with is cool. I opted for raw steel because their powder coat is wrinkle textured which I cannot stand.

Typically I stuff like this powder coated from a local place where I can go and match the color I want as closely as possible. This time I decided to try some fancy spray paint so I got a few cans of Seymour industrial stength "high solids" flat black and it matches the factory plastic trim pieces extremely well. This picture is a good example.

Kinda hard to capture the full bumper because its quite contoured and there is a lot of black on this truck so contrast is hard to come by on an iphone. The bumper has a lot of cool little details. Its half way between a true bumper and a cover. It integrates the OEM winch/cradle/fairlead and has cutouts for the spool lever and controller connection. It also has cutouts for the OEM parking sensors and then obviously integrated tow hooks, light cutouts etc. The bumper is actually 3 pieces, the side "wings" bolt on but you basically have to assemble them before installing the bumper if you are going to run cube lights.

I trimmed the stock wheel well liners and used a torch and sledge hammer to mould them into a better place. Future plans are to make additional liners that tie into the front bumper to protect the back side of the fog lights.

 

[Atl-atl]

Went out and farted around with the truck in this rainy weather weve been having.

 

[Atl-atl]

This past July I ran Broken Arrow with a buddy. Summer is off season in Sedona so we had the trail almost entirely to ourselves which was amazing. Only had one photo(video) bomb by a Pink Jeep Tour but other than that it was great. I cant believe how little the 40s rub with absolutely zero trimming and only removing a couple small plastic trim pieces. Time for 42s when these wear out

Ive got some video to edit but for now here are the nicer stills I took.

 

[Atl-atl]

Been working on a landscaping project for the last week. Rented a small excavator and skid to play with in the dirt. Had a blast and the truck handled it well. The Thuren dual rate rear coils held up quite well considering they have 15" of travel and ride nicer than stock!

I did have an issue with the trailer brake not functioning correctly that I was never able to sort but thankfully the rental place was only about 5 miles away. I do need to figure out what the deal is with it though. When the trailer was plugged in the truck would recognize it until I put it in drive and the truck would say the trailer is disconnected. Everything seemed to be connected correctly, the truck would recognize that I had a trailer when in park, yet when I put it in drive it would not connect the brake, would not let me choose the trailer type and would not let me set the gain. The brake also would not work using the manual switch. Its my first time towing with this truck so maybe its operator error. If anyone is familiar please help!

 

[Atl-atl]

Well Ive started doing some prep work on the Ram in anticipation of phase 2. The stock brake pads are horrendous on this truck, especially after going up to 40s. So I decided to try out new pads before blowing a whole wad on a big brake kit. My original intent was to run EBC Yellowstuff because they seem to get good reviews from truck guys. I couldnt find them in stock anywhere so I wound up with Hawk Super Duty pads. First impressions are very good, especially for only $200 for a whole set front and rear. Initial bite is WAY better than stock, under normal driving conditions they behave normally and are quiet with nice pedal feel, good enough that I think Ill be happy with just the pads and not have to spend $2000 on SSBC calipers. Though I really loved them on my RV, that thing stopped faster than most sports cars. I havent towed anything or had any super hard braking events so time will tell but so far so good.

Next up I got a water tank from Trail'd. It mounts in the stock spare location, its 15 gallons and has two separate 3/4" threaded bungs for drain/fill. I picked up a couple ball valves that thread into place for easy drain/fill. Im going to be using this as a grey water tank. If you can read between the lines you know where this is going...

I had to modify the truck slightly to make it fit by cutting off some metal that is used to keep the stock spare in place. Essentially half of a steel wheel, seems completely unnecessary.

Bye bye

New tank in place. I do need to fab up some bump stops for the tank to snug up against. Its secure but has a slight wobble that I want to get rid of before its full of 15 gallons and Im bombing down dirt roads.

Next in line was airbags. Im going to be adding about 2500lbs to the back of the truck and its payload capacity stock is only about 1200 pounds, because Power Wagon, so I picked up these rad airbags from Full Travel Bags. They mount using a quick release for the air line and the bags so you can easily swap them out for the stock bump stops or aftermarket ones that mount to an additional sliding plate they provide. The bottom of the bag is completely free so you dont lose any flex and the bags have their own internal bump stops as well.

Here are some stock photos how the bags and bumps swap in and out. Its pretty slick, you dont even need to jack up the truck or take the wheel/tire off to swap them out.

The compressor I used is the WirelessOne system from Airlift. I mounted it underneath the driver side rocker panel. Its up well above the lowest point of the truck so it wont get messed up offroad and there is still plenty of room for my Amp Powersteps to tuck up. Im contemplating making some kind of splash shield to try keeping away mud and road grime. They claim this is where its supposed to be mounted so we will see, hopefully it lasts.

I have a few more things to do like relocate the spare from the bed to the back of the truck. Ive already got something in the works for this, just waiting for it to show up. And lastly removing the Leer topper and Bedrug. Not sure if Im going to keep these or list them for sale. Probably sell them, so if anyone is interested in a nearly new Leer 100XR in silver for a Ram with 6'4" bed and a bed rug, make me an offer! All of this is being done because my new camper is almost ready. Immediately after selling the RV I placed my order for a new Alaskan Camper which will be ready for pick up mid December.

My actual unit, Alaskan 650si. Nearly complete, just waiting on QC.

 

[Atl-atl]

Well a lot has been happening around here lately. It snowed in Flagstaff so I got in one good day of skiing and then we booked it down to the valley so I could start prepping the truck for phase 2.

Did some minor pinch weld and fender massaging in front and now my rubbing is totally gone, even at full flex.

Before

After

Threw on a Rig'd spare tire carrier so I could get the spare out of the bed. So far I like it. Definitely sticks out kinda far and reduces departure angle a little but not too bad. Also deleted the rear parking sensors and relocated the backup cam. Whats interesting is the rear cross traffic alert still works after deleting the sensors. Not sure how, maybe its camera based? Also chopped the exhaust tip to gain a bunch of ground clearance.

Installed Happijac camper tie downs. When the camper is off the truck the only thing you see are two small black tabs in between the bed and cab and then two small chrome tabs on the back bumper.

Then I got to removing the topper and bed rug. I bolted some 2x4s to my camper jacks and was able to easily remove the topper by myself in like 30 minutes. It even jacked high enough to clear the spare tire. Pretty pumped about that. Just need to rig up some ropes to hang it from the ceiling. Also removed the tailgate because the camper hangs over just a little.

 

[Atl-atl]

And now we are just about caught up to the true start of phase 2. Brand new Alaskan 650si. A few mods still to do to the truck and after the first few nights in the camper the list is already pretty long. Loving it though. Its the perfect middle ground between the RV and a smaller/soft sided camper. Dont worry that hitch step isnt permanent.

Its so fancy. Its so much nicer than our old rental spec Thor RV. Its so much nicer than really any other pop-up camper on the market, regardless of price, and its priced in line with most of them depending on how you spec it. It genuinely feels like a mini Earthroamer. The use of space is perfect, the lights are LED but warm colored and everything is dimmable. The whole thing is power including raising and lowering the roof and nearly everything is monitored or controlled via bluetooth. 12v air con, 324ah of lithium, solar and dc-dc charging, toilet inside, shower outside(by choice) all the trim is real wood, no fake laminate BS here(other than the counter tops, obviously not real granite for weights sake.) And I can install/remove the thing in ~30 minutes.

 

[p nut]

Wow. 40’s look amazing. Nice work!!

 

[TommyG]

Very nice!