My "Purple Path-Eater" Tremor

[Trailbreaker-Tremor]

Definitely a beautiful truck IMO. I had a '95 in Bright Sapphire Metallic like this one but an extended cab flare side. Loved the color.
What are the advantages of wrapping vs painting? IMO, price is not the reason, as you stated it cost 5,000 plus. What happens with dings or minor scratches?

I wanted to keep the original paint while also protecting it and still have the truck in the color of my choosing. There might not be many people who would want a purple truck, so keeping it black underneath would help with re-sale in the future. Just have to remove the wrap and have almost completely untouched paint underneath. At least that's the hope, anyways...

Dings are a bit of a concern, because with paintless dent removal the wrap would have to be removed as it just ends up pulling it off anyways.

But for scratches, I got XPEL self-healing paint protection film and ceramic coating on top of the wrap and over everything else, so the hope is those eat up the scratches and don't get down to the wrap/paint. Going this route, it was certainly a lot more money than most people would be willing to comprehend spending on top of the cost of a brand new vehicle, but I figured if this works and in 10-15 years when I go to remove everything, I should basically have a brand new looking truck underneath. Time will tell if I made the right decision, or spent a lot of money for nothing!

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[Glocker]

Purple ain't my jam.

But that is looking pretty damn cool!

 

[Trailbreaker-Tremor]

Hey all!

Update for those interested in more info on the hood. Got around to taking some photos and showing some of the issues you'll face should you get one.

As you can see above, the center of each vent is open to the engine underneath, but the side channels do not have anyway of draining water (or snow/ice), so it pools here when parked. When it rains, before I drive, I open the hood to dump the water that collects in the pockets onto the windshield, then continue on my way. For Tremor owners, since we don't have the engine cover the vents sit right above the ignition coils, so if you are worried about any damage in this area, either getting the engine cover or engineering a way to funnel water away from this area is recommended. Another option would be to close up the vents to prevent water/snow/ice from getting in.

This is the full underside of the hood. Its a close, but not perfect replication of stock from what I can tell. It looks like they took the stock one, but plugged almost every hole (some taped, some epoxied), then made the fiberglass mold of it. The center was already cut out for the vent. The 2 attachments for the hood pistons were already there too. The 2 screws for the hood latch where also already installed on the hood so the stock hoop just needs to be swapped over, but for mine it felt like it was a little too hard to close and might start cracking over time due to stress, so a couple of washers were added so it didn't need to be slammed/dropped too high to close properly.

These are how the plugged holes look. Again, since its a fiberglass mold, those aren't actually taped over, so to swap over the rubber seals these need to be drilled out with the proper size drill to keep the plugs snug in place. At least they are easy to see and are pretty much in the proper spots. We had to drill the holes for all the seals, the 2 rubber bumpers/supports to the left and right of the latch, and the washer jets. As mentioned before, the washer jets are what took the most time to line up properly. Their holes looked to be epoxied over before the molding process, so they were really uneven when it came to drilling them out and getting them to still spray on the windshield.

Also installed on the truck now is the MBRP 3" cat back, turndown exhaust.

After watching a few videos of people off-roading their Ranger, I noticed that the stock exhaust tip would be caked with debris over time (being right behind the rear wheel), and in one case got caught and bent out of shape. Since I was changing so much on the truck already, this looked like a cool alternative to all the other exhaust options out there, as most of them were either a similar side exit, or a dual split rear exit (à la Raptor-style) exhaust. This one ends just before the rear axel and is definitely out of the way when I do take it off road in the future. The acceleration note is a little bit more throatier than stock without being super aggressive, and doesn't sound much louder driving at city speed limits, but on the highway it has a slight drone at cruising speeds that could annoy anyone not used to it, especially on longer trips.

Other things that still need to be installed are the AlphaRex NOVA-series headlights, aFe Blade Runner 3" aluminum hot and cold charge pipe kit, and the aFe Quantum cold air intake.

That's all for now, thanks for stopping by!

 

[Ranger54]

This is super RADDDD!

 

[BDoc]

Not normally a fan of purple on a vehicle and I had to look over the photos in the first post several times before I came to the conclusion: This is one sick Ranger!

And kudos to your wife on the Tremor decal...very nice add on.

 

[Yaegerbomb89]

Did you paint the nostrils on the grill, or is that vinyl also? I’m thinking about ditching the red accents and doing maybe green or purple against the cactus grey color. Did the wrap company make your tailgate and grill letters too?

 

[Trailbreaker-Tremor]

Did you paint the nostrils on the grill, or is that vinyl also? I’m thinking about ditching the red accents and doing maybe green or purple against the cactus grey color. Did the wrap company make your tailgate and grill letters too?

All the green on the truck is also vinyl, and yes, the business I went to that wrapped it got the files for the front and rear "Ranger" letter cut-outs and inlaid them. They work on all sorts of vehicles, so they have access to a bunch of graphics like that, but not sure if its OEM or custom files. Also since the nostrils are up front and prominent, they added a bit of PPF to them so they last longer against rock chips and weathering.

I would love to see what other colors people come up with for the nostrils on theirs!

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