I'm a bit giddy but I'm afraid I might get ahead of myself. (Deep breaths.) On the last episode of Project Truckdate, I learned some very obvious lessons. They also happened to be some very expensive lessons, at least for a cheap truck. Fast forward to the other night and I am driving back up to the truck with my wife as it's getting dark and rainy. We pull up to Project Series-of-Bad-Decisions, pop both hoods, and break out the jumper cables. The truck grumbles to life and I let it idle while I go to see my Amazon tires for the first time.

My eyes go wide, jaw plummets. "Oh Lawd!"I yodel in my bests southern accent. They are a bit bigger than I thought that they would be. My first car was a big burgundy expedition that had mud tires mounted on stock rims and suspension. I could have sworn those mud tires were 33" tall and they didn't seem as big as these ones. I see now that I had misunderestimated my tire capacity. This was the biggest rubber I have ever had on any of my own vehicles.

I was ecstatic! I was so happy I didn't opt for the 35" tall tires. So happy I would be gaining about 4" of ground clearance compared to the undersized tires it currently had on it. So happy that I was going to use a saw to do bodywork in the conceivably near future. I shoved all of the new MEAT into Project Green-Goblin and took it into the nearest tire shop which happened to be a Firestone service center. They said that they would have it done the following day, so I went back to my friends house and watched The Grand Tour. Skipping all the boring eating, sleeping, and being sick parts, I pick up my truck and they show me my alignment stats.

SO MUCH STANCE YO!

Before: hellaflush

I had, as the kids say these days, so much camber on my front tires. It was roughly double what it was supposed to have come from the factory. It made me almost want a flat brimmed rocket bunny fatlace hat with built in vape pen holder (I think I just made that up but I'm not sure. If I did DWA! Has the rights to sell it here http://www.drivingwhileawesome.com/store/). But then I saw my truck.

*cues the redneck angels"

It was taller, beefier, more over-compensatory! Project Manscaping was glorious... until I tried to turn. The new rubber, ribbed for your pleasure, was rubbing on the plastic front bumper air dam.

Good! I never liked that piece anyway and I knew exactly what needed to happen next. It was cutting time! With my handy-dandy hacksaw and my calibrated eyeball, the pesky parts of the vestigial front air dam were removed. This is minor victory for me but a major stepping stone towards drivability.

Want to sponsor me or help name my project truck? Check out my Insta @jsmizira and send me names!

Jamil Mizirawi is an overly ambitious if not slightly delusional Californian who fancies himself to be a good mechanic, a great husband, and really crap writer. Follow his adventures on DWA!