2021 Power Wagon 75th Anniversary Edition

[tobyw]

Welp... if there is one constant around here, it's change in the Wilcox fleet While I cannot fault the outgoing F-150 for much, it sadly just sort of left me feeling empty inside. It just wasn't one of those rigs that makes you smile when you look back at it after walking away from it. Perfectly suitable for all manner of activities, if not a touch pretentious in it's King Ranch trim package, but I just didn't love it enough. Now, having ownt one or three of just about everything on the road at this point in my career, the list of what's next was honestly pretty slim. I have my requirements, minimums if you will, as well as a list of wants that probably fall outside the norm. Luckily, my good friends at Dodge have just the thing; the Power Wagon

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This one in particular is a 2021 with the 75th Anniversary Edition package, which tacked almost $12k onto the original MSRP and netted things like unique "mountain brown" heated and cooled leather seats, 12" Nav screen, full-length center console, LED projector headlights, interior accent lighting, and a 17-speaker Harman Kardon sound system, among others. Essentially, it's a Power Wagon with Ram's Limited trim level interior.

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What makes the Power Wagon platform so cool is the factory 2" suspension lift, front and rear locking differentials, 4.10:1 axle ratio, electronic disconnecting front sway bar, and Warn Zeon 12k winch with synthetic rope. It's essentially a full-size Rubicon, and that is difficult not to smile about

The plans for this turd are somewhat in flux, but first up will be some some routine maintenance to set a baseline along with a Blackstone oil analysis just for some peace of mind. Oh, and those side step things hafta go. Now.

[tobyw]

As the PW is the perfect candidate for the BDR-style of travel we have gravitated toward, first up was recovery because, well, because I seem to require recovery. Often

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We all know that airing down is a key part of the equation when it comes to comfort and traction at Starbucks. I've run the gamut with OBA options over the years, but this time I took a markedly different approach: battery power. Now, I'll be the first to admit this idea is wrought with potential failure(s), but I've never been accused of being the sharpest knife in the drawer. Given the simple facts that any tire change involves 8 lug nuts and I'm chronically lazy, I will be packing my Milwaukee M18 impact on the trails. As such, I'm already tasked with packing the requisite batteries and ensuring they are topped off, so a compatible compressor seemed like a no-brainer in terms of both cost and ease of "install".

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My first test going from 14psi back up to 40psi resulted in just about 4-1/2 minutes with the compressor humming away. Definitely not the quickest option, but I can live with it.

Now to address those side steps

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Better already The reality is, this thing isn't a rock crawler so for my use case, frame-mounted rock sliders are overkill. I need a step surface for the CFO to get in and out a little easier, and to keep shopping carts at bay at Costco. As it turns out, the brackets left behind from the old steps are actually pretty nice pieces, and made a great foundation to build off of:

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The first step (see what I did there ) was to make some 3/8" thick backing plates with a hole pattern to match the mounting brackets:

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These are important because the backbone of my steps is only 1/8" wall box tube, and I wanted to make sure there was plenty of meat to drill and tap them for mounting. A quick mockup:

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To ensure the aforementioned shopping carts don't get into the bulbous door skins of the PW, I enlisted the Tewb Kinker 5000. Another quick mockup:

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Fairly certain that I could stomach my creation, I carried on, utilizing the Tewb Chomper 1000:

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And the final quick mockup prior to booger welding and paint:

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[tobyw]

For paint, I went with Rust-Oleum Truck Bed Coating. This stuff is great; it's durable, lays out incredibly well, and has some texture to it making it a great choice for step surfaces:

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Once it dried, it was onto the final install:

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As previously mentioned, this isn't a rock crawler. However, odds are pretty good I'll find the occasion to try and put it somewhere it has no business being To try and mitigate damage to the greatest extent possible, I removed the low-hanging factory air dam, and in doing so gained over 5" of approach clearance :

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[Yrjan]

You sir, are a savage! I envy you!

[tobyw]

You sir, are a savage! I envy you!

I appreciate the sentiment, but I can assure you there's nothing here you want

[tobyw]

Since I'm aged, overweight, out of shape, and chronically lazy, there is NO chance that I'm going to routinely hop up into the bed of this pooch when I need to do truck stuff. In an effort to solve the problem, I whipped up a truckbed slider tray thingy from some cheap lumber. I'll go ahead and call this a beta test, as the OSB used for the tray is essentially guaranteed to warp in short order, and given the overall "design" it simply isn't made to support heavy point loads, particularly out on the end, but I have to admit it does work as intended. Even if I did build it

The first order of business was the base. I cut down a 4x8 sheet, added some side rails, and anchored down a grip of roller transfer bearings:

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Next was the tray; another 4x8 sheet and perimeter rails. With that laid onto the base, the base side rails were capped to capture the tray:

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A quick clearance czek to make sure the slider actually slides:

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And a quick functional czek to make sure this whole idea was even going to work out:

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With the finish line in sight, I laid out some mounting holes and sunk in some rivnuts:

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Then I added the tray and cut in a hand hole to make pulling it out easier:

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The final touch was a pair of hooks to keep the slider in place until I'm ready to deploy it:

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[tobyw]

Welp, as suspected I took an opportunity to put the Power Wagon where it really should not have been. I've owned it for just over 2-weeks... Took longer than I thought actually

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Thankfully, the shopping cart defenders I whipped up seem to have done their job, and potentially substantial body damage was avoided

[tobyw]

I generally understand why dealerships do this, and I often see vehicles on the lot advertised with "brand new tires", but said tires are of the absolute lowest quality you can buy... Honestly I'd prefer they sell it to me with whatever clapped out garbage was already there, but that's just not how it goes. Such was the case on the Power Wagon, which came to me shod in a set of 35" Chinukistanian MT's that were in fact black and held air, but pretty much all other aspects of being a tire fell woefully short of expectation

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While there was never any question that a set of BFG A/T's would be the replacement of choice, there was some consternation regarding both size and flavor... You see, we are living in a bit of a transition period in the BFG A/T world wherein the beloved KO2 is being phased out and replaced by the KO3. And to be clear, I fear change With that said, I did have some concerns about spending the coin on a new set of tires that could potentially leave me in a position of not being able to find a direct replacement should the worst happen; and there is no chance I'd sleep if I didn't have four matching tires. So... that pretty much made the decision of KO3's an easy one. Regarding size, that wasn't quite as easy but I ended up taking the leap and went with 37's

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For wheels I once again tapped my friends at KMC and went with the GRS 549 in a +18mm offset in an effort to keep scrub radius down and help with tire contact at the trailing edge of the front fender while turning. The real upshot here, aside from night/day improvement in ride and drive, was the weight savings:

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As you can see, the new 37's are over 7lbs lighter each

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[tobyw]

Given that the Power Wagon comes factory equipped with a 2" taller suspension than your average Dodge, combined with the new 37" tyrez, this turd is plenty tall... To that end, I have no intentions of adding any sort of suspension lift, especially taking into account that this will still have to serve as the official tow pig of the fleet. I want to preserve the factory rake to accommodate trailer tongue weight as well. So, long story short, the extent of the suspension upgrades begins and ends with shocks. I chose to go with Bilstein 5160 resi's up front and standard 5100's out back:

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Here are the OEM front shocks compared to the new 5160's; a perfect match:

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I had a pair of old reservoir mounts on the bench, but they were about an inch too long for the 5160 resi's so a little arts and crafts was in order to make them functional:

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Out back, the replacement 5100's are slightly longer extended and slightly shorter compressed, which works out just dandy:

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[tobyw]

With modern factory LED lighting packages, the need for aftermarket lights is, well, not really so much of a need anymore. Sure the aftermarket stuff adds light output and helps you see more, but need is a very strong word, especially as it pertains to the use case of 99% of all vehicles on the road. All that said, I'm a sucker for aftermarket lights and the simple fact is that the massive black grill/bumper combo on this outfit just needed a little sumpen-sumpen

First up was the break out the Tewb Roller 500 to make a very gentle arc in some 1.5"x0.95" that matches the grill and bumper curvature:

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Next, I scrounged up some 1/8" plate and made a couple of mounting brackets that wrap around the leading edge of the bumper using my press brake:

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Wrapping it around the bumper allowed for mounting holes in two planes, and those were added to the bumper via nutserts:

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Next up was to add some tabs for the aforementioned unnecessary auxiliary lights, and some stanchions to mate the bar to the brackets:

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A quick mockup with the lights:

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And finally some paint and the final install, minus the wiring:

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[tobyw]

As I was stumbling through Ranch & Home the other day, I happened upon an open-box special on a very nice toolbox that fit fullsize trucks. My mind began wandering a bit, as the only full-size truck currently in the fleet is the Power Wagon, and it came to me with a very nice tonneau cover that is pretty handy for keeping the weather off any contents in the bed. However, recent operating experience showed that the same was true for keeping stuff in, particularly dust from gravel roads and trails... So much so that after the last trip out, the entire bed and all contents including the slider system had to be stripped out and hosed down, which wasn't exactly fun. Good, bad, or otherwise I made the purchase and hauled it home. The mutt was not impressed with me commandeering his area for transport duties:

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With a toolbox now sitting on the shelf, the only thing left to do was figure out what to do with it Step one was to remove the tonneau cover and toss the toolbox in the bed to get an idea of what's what:

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Since the Power Wagon is essentially a full-size version of a Gladiator Rubicon, I didn't hesitate to steal a play from my own book when it came time to address the bed area. My prior debauchery on the Gladiator platform (http://www.peakputters.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=7259#p55927) actually worked out really well and was just unique enough to make it more recognizable when exiting Costco and Starbucks, so a simple rinse and repeat was performed.

First, a quick mockup to get the toolbox appropriately placed so I could develop a mounting solution:

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Using a carpenters laser, I was able to get perfect positioning for simple 'L" brackets on the bed bulkhead and a cradle spanning the bedsides to catch the rear edge of the toolbox:

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Then I made some quick spanning straps that would lock in the fore-aft position of the cradle, as well as provide mounting holes for the toolbox itself:

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If you ever find yourself wanting to weld a nut onto a piece of steel in order to make a threaded connection point, here is a tidy little fab trick to make sure the threads line up with the hole and don't get off center rendering it useless... Use a flathead cap screw, which self-centers in the hole, and then use a flange nut on the back side to give you a nice weld area that won't get into the threads when the metal melts:

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And voila, perfectly centered blind threads (despite the camera angle ):

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With the toolbox on location, it was time to break out the Tewb Kinker 5000 and build a bed cage. Even without my utter incompetence making it look hard, the fact is that accurately laying out the crossbars to get the correct elevation and span actually is pretty difficult. I'd rather be lucky than good:

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Happy with the overall program, I cut in some tube connecters on the rear crossbar to make it removeable in the event I need to haul something tall, and then added booger welds to all of the appropriate spots:

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All that's left now is some final cleanup and paint

[tobyw]

Just some reference information for anyone interested in such things...

For anyone paying attention, I've had a couple of different trucks over the years Everything from half-tons to one-tons, gassers, diesels, imports, domestics, manual transmissions, slushboxes, cloth seats and crank windows all the way up to heated/cooled/massaging leather with one-touch power winderz. The proverbial gamut. One thing in common with all of these throughout the years, was my OCD record keeping in terms of fuel economy. The overall winner in every aspect of use was my 2003 Dodge 3500 with the 5.9L Cummins and 6-speed manual; that truck was remarkable in terms of fuel usage, and consistently netted mid to high-teens when towing the average Jeep and flatbed trailer... Everything before and since has been markedly lower, typically in the very low double digits or high singles. That includes the bevvy of half tons, and particularly the EcoBoost F-150's. These little motors make remarkable power, but at the unbridled expense of fuel economy.

For some direct comparison, back in November of 2025 I used the aforementioned EcoBoost F-150 to haul the Donkey down to Moab and was treated to just under 9mpg average. This was similar to what I'd experienced back in June of 2025 with the same F-150, when I hauled the LJ down to Truckee, CA to run Fordyce and netted just over 8mpg for the 1,500 mile round trip. Both times we were running 60-70mph while towing, and the load was in the 6-7k range.

Last weekend, I used the Power Wagon to haul my daughter's Grand Cherokee down to St. George, Utah where she's attending college. I did this using a U-Haul trailer, which although rather small in stature is shockingly heavy, and with her GC loaded to the gills I'd wager we were every bit of 7k towed weight. Covering much of the same ground as the trip to Moab, this makes for a fantastic overall comparison to the F-150 towing the Donkey... Much to my surprise, the Power Wagon averaged just shy of 12mpg towing at 60-70mph And folks, that's on 37" tires

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On the way home bobtail (which is why I rented a U-Haul trailer, so I didn't have to haul an empty trailer 1,000 miles back home), I sniffed the 16mpg mark at 80mph steady cruise

Now I'm not here to tell you that the Power Wagon is as good on fuel as your neighbors Prius, because quite bluntly it's not... Idling and getting up to speed in normal daily driving scenarios are atrocious and in the 3,500 miles I've put on it since I bought it I'm averaging 11.38mpg overall. But to say that I'm not at least a little impressed with double-digit towing economy on 37's would be a lie