What did you do to your Ranger today?

[OFC Ranger]

I've been mulling over the idea of doing a rear seat delete on my 4 door. Man I could do some cool stuff with that added space...

Hell if I could get the nerve up to toss in a passenger seat delete along with it I could do away with sleeping products outside the vehicle! Would be really cool if someone invented a way to do a "quick disconnect" for the passenger seat.

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[OFC Ranger]

Well after some other small projects starting at 5AM I started working on the under seat "brain box". Moving all my under dash wiring and my rack circuitry into this little guy to centralize everything.

 

[a33maxi]

I put my Fordpass points towards these black side steps and installed them today. I would have preferred the matching chrome ones, but I didn't feel like paying an extra $200 for them.

 

[cclayton]

Installed the Mountains2Metals lower grille insert. Quick and easy install. Literally took 2-3 minutes to install.

 

[Colo_Ranger]

I installed my new GMRS antenna! This may sound stupid, but I wanted an antenna that matched the style of the Aussie UHF antennas. That seems pretty much impossible here in the USA, so I was running a little stubby antenna...

...until the fine folks that wash my truck knocked it off! I found a small business in Colorado that makes the style antenna I was looking for, and ordered in back in mid-September, and it finally got in yesterday! I went ahead and, braving the rain, uninstalled my old shorty antenna, moved my CB antenna over to the driver side of my bull bar, and mounted the new antenna on the driver side. The rain started picking up, so I will have to wait until next week to run the wire and get it all plugged in.

OLD:

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That antenna definitely fits the look of your truck. I dig it. What company sells that?

Well after some other small projects starting at 5AM I started working on the under seat "brain box". Moving all my under dash wiring and my rack circuitry into this little guy to centralize everything.

That's an interesting idea. Mine is under the hood right now, but I have some concerns about water getting in the connections. My only concern is running the massive power and ground in to the cab. What are your plans for getting power to it?

 

[OFC Ranger]

That antenna definitely fits the look of your truck. I dig it. What company sells that?



That's an interesting idea. Mine is under the hood right now, but I have some concerns about water getting in the connections. My only concern is running the massive power and ground in to the cab. What are your plans for getting power to it?

I already have power from the battery running to the cabin. I'm simply centralizing everything.

For example this is behind my rear seat this is more or less my power grid for my rack lighting. Then under the driver dash is my power grid and wiring for my forward bumper lights etc etc.

 

[Colo_Ranger]

so... pardon my ignorance. I'm...shall we say... terrified of electrical work. Is there any concern about arcing behind the seat there and causing issues? I like the idea of keeping the electrical box out of the elements, but I also don't want to burn my truck or my wife to the ground...

Where did you bring the power in from the battery? Right now, I am using the grommet under the passenger's side floorboard. I have tried the firewall grommet several times and have been 100% unsuccessful.

 

[Glocker]

That antenna definitely fits the look of your truck. I dig it. What company sells that?

Alamosa Antenna - It's a really nice, really solid antenna. They are a VERY small shop making these so lead times are long, especially with supply chain issues getting components from overseas.

 

[SVTPaul]

Mine is a limited, clean, no stickers.

And here’s the “cat-vision” … images accentuate the feeling due to night mode on the phone camera. I took one with the flash, in reality it’s very dimmed, no intrusion on a dark run.

I like how you're getting some light on the cupholder area. I wish Ford had done this with the interior ambient lighting. Not sure why they would prioritize the footwells over this...maybe just in case you wanted to be able to make sure your shoelaces are tied in the dark ?‍

 

[onobeka]

I like how you're getting some light on the cupholder area. I wish Ford had done this with the interior ambient lighting. Not sure why they would prioritize the footwells over this...maybe just in case you wanted to be able to make sure your shoelaces are tied in the dark ?‍

Thank you! I realize what you mean, just that in the above picture the footwell is also done by me, the Limited does not have this factory option, not sure if the Wildtrak does. The footwell I've tapped into the ceiling lamp, and for the ceiling cat vision I've tapped into one of the two 12V lightning connection: the footwell follows the ceiling - dim when driving, light when opening the door/on. The ceiling lamp I have currently it's too cool white. The footwell leds are warm white. Oh well, one must be adapted .

 

[SVTPaul]

Thank you! I realize what you mean, just that in the above picture the footwell is also done by me, the Limited does not have this factory option, not sure if the Wildtrak does. The footwell I've tapped into the ceiling lamp, and for the ceiling cat vision I've tapped into one of the two 12V lightning connection: the footwell follows the ceiling - dim when driving, light when opening the door/on. The ceiling lamp I have currently it's too cool white. The footwell leds are warm white. Oh well, one must be adapted .

Nice touches! The North American Lariat has illuminated footwells that I can also change the color of, but if I want to put a drink in a cupholder it's in the darkness. First world problems...but I just ordered a few mini flush mount LED's I'm going to test out and install in my overhead console if I like them enough.

 

[onobeka]

Nice touches! The North American Lariat has illuminated footwells that I can also change the color of, but if I want to put a drink in a cupholder it's in the darkness. First world problems...but I just ordered a few mini flush mount LED's I'm going to test out and install in my overhead console if I like them enough.

Does the ceiling console have those two grilled slots on the sides on the USDM ranger? Mine were empty, initially I thought they were microphone openings for the handsfree system, but on closer inspection they have locking clips for additional lights/leds. If you do have those slots you could install any sort of leds, no need to be flat, just make sure you black out the area behind them, otherwise you’ll have light bleeding and it looks very bad. I’ve used black silicone, rattle free, no bleeding and they do not get hot at 12mA.

Actually, the slots are not grilled, rather slotted to have directional openings, like in this picture. I seem to have remembered the openings of my former(2008) honda accord(accura tsx for US), those had a mesh/grill. I did these 1y ago and I am getting old …

I am talking about these lateral pockets on either side: https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51-b8FILX4L.jpg

 

[Peragrin]

I installed my amber/yellow DD SS3 PRO fog lights this past week (thanks to Stage3 for the impressive shipping times). Two things:

1) Who the hell thought it was a good idea to put the bolt for the fog light splash guard directly behind the crash bar? I want to say really mean things to that person, because that added at least an hour, maybe 2, to the job. But I was able to do everything without removing the bumper, so win for me.

2) When I turn the SS3s off, I might as well be turning my headlights completely off. I have bambi mode enabled, and they make such an incredible difference regardless of high or low beams. They are so good that I feel I can wait a long time before doing the LED headlight upgrade. Seriously, these things are phenomenal. I never want to do that job again (see #1), but it was worth every moment spent.

Combined with my yellow 20" light bar and ditch lights (edit: off-road only, I'm not an asshole), I feel like I can see everything.

I couldn't figure out how to remove the bulbs, not matter what I did i couldn't pull the bulbs back far enough. Eventually I asked my brother who does custom mods for a living, and he figured it out, that they added an extra cable tie in there. move that tie away and you suddenly had enough slack.

I also got amber/ white led fogs. I love them, but damn is it funny when I leave them on at night and start the next morning with 2 different colors.

 

[SVTPaul]

Does the ceiling console have those two grilled slots on the sides on the USDM ranger? Mine were empty, initially I thought they were microphone openings for the handsfree system, but on closer inspection they have locking clips for additional lights/leds. If you do have those slots you could install any sort of leds, no need to be flat, just make sure you black out the area behind them, otherwise you’ll have light bleeding and it looks very bad. I’ve used black silicone, rattle free, no bleeding and they do not get hot at 12mA.

Actually, the slots are not grilled, rather slotted to have directional openings, like in this picture. I seem to have remembered the openings of my former(2008) honda accord(accura tsx for US), those had a mesh/grill. I did these 1y ago and I am getting old …

I am talking about these lateral pockets on either side: https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51-b8FILX4L.jpg

Ours is quite different. I'm going to test to see if I can get the light output and direction I like by placing one just forward of my Trigger 3001 switches. This would also help conceal it, although the one I ordered only requires a 6mm hole. I've already run accessory 12V power up there for the switch backlighting. Also going to get an adjustable rheostat that I can wire inline so I can set the brightness where I want it.

 

[onobeka]

Ours is quite different. I'm going to test to see if I can get the light output and direction I like by placing one just forward of my Trigger 3001 switches. This would also help conceal it, although the one I ordered only requires a 6mm hole. I've already run accessory 12V power up there for the switch backlighting. Also going to get an adjustable rheostat that I can wire inline so I can set the brightness where I want it.

I see, in the past I did this on a skoda fabia ceiling console, two red leds pretty dimmed. It turned out fantastic.
The other option would be to place them directly in the two lights you have, yes it will disperse a lot. On the ROTW ceiling lamps, the advantage is that you do not notice them at all, as they are sunken.

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