Treimche's White Platinum Ranger

[treimche]

This poor Ranger ?......... over the past 2 months it has been rear ended and suffered a broken windshield.

March 20th I was rear ended at a stop light by a guy in an Xcel Energy company truck, and they have paid to fix the damage. Being how I am, taking the chance to upgrade whenever possible, I used the insurance money to order an Addictive Desert Designs Stealth Fighter rear bumper. Still trying to find time to test fit it before it goes off for paint, since it will be paint matched to the white platinum paint. Along with the bumper, I finally got a set of RK Sport fender flares that will be getting painted at the same time.

May 7th, last Thursday morning on my way to work I was in the left lane on the interstate passing a slower moving concrete pumping truck. Well I hadn't noticed it was dropping rocks and chunks of crap off the chute, which were bouncing off the highway and one jumped up and broke my windshield. Needless to say, I followed the truck to their job site, called the company manager, called the police, and their company is buying me a new windshield. Good thing I have dash cam footage of this truck dropping rocks all over the road. I'm so happy I don't have to pay the $800 price tag for a new windshield for this thing!

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[mtsoxfan]

Throughout my years of being a car guy, I have yet to find black lug nuts that will last. I have had black powder coated lug nuts but those chip off and look like total crap after being removed and reinstalled a few times. I currently have black anodized lug nuts on both my car and my Ranger. The set on my Ranger look fantastic since they're new, but the set on my car are brown since anodizing fades in the sun. I don't know what type of finish is on the nuts in that eBay link above, so use at your own risk.

Thanks for the input. That would drive me nuts, no pun intended. I'm not a chrome fan, although they don't look horrible, just looking for a better look. Chipped paint is far worse.

 

[treimche]

Been a busy summer here and haven't shared any updates so here is one. I added some Air Lift Load Lifter airbags in the back to help keep the Ranger level when towing. The wireless controller and Air Lift compressor were used in my previous truck, so I held onto them for this one as well. Here are a few pics.

 

[Ranger_Rocks]

Nice ! Did you add the exhaust heat shield for the airbag ?

What pressure do you set them to while unloaded ?

 

[treimche]

Nice ! Did you add the exhaust heat shield for the airbag ?

What pressure do you set them to while unloaded ?

The heat shield is part of the airbag kit. The minimum pressure with these air bags is 5 psi. I have one of their wireless controllers so it automatically maintains whatever pressure I set it to.

 

[tehschkott]

Looking forward to more pics of your new fender flares on your truck. I mean the garage shots are okay but hoping for a few better ones ay? Great build.

On the 16in wheels - does that mess with the brakes at all?

 

[treimche]

Looking forward to more pics of your new fender flares on your truck. I mean the garage shots are okay but hoping for a few better ones ay? Great build.

On the 16in wheels - does that mess with the brakes at all?

I finally got some pics yesterday and will post up. As far as the 16" wheels are concerned, they don't mess with the brakes at all. There is plenty of clearance.

 

[D Fresh]

Throughout my years of being a car guy, I have yet to find black lug nuts that will last. I have had black powder coated lug nuts but those chip off and look like total crap after being removed and reinstalled a few times. I currently have black anodized lug nuts on both my car and my Ranger. The set on my Ranger look fantastic since they're new, but the set on my car are brown since anodizing fades in the sun. I don't know what type of finish is on the nuts in that eBay link above, so use at your own risk.

McGard spline drives color coatings have worked well for me.

 

[P. A. Schilke]

McGard spline drives color coatings have worked well for me.

Hi Doug,

These lugs do not have the taper engagement of the OEM lugs. I do not think they are robust enough for the Ranger... There are a few folks here that sent them back for this reason once this was pointed out. My opinion is Avoid.

Best,
Phil Schilke
Ranger Vehicle Engineering
Ford Motor Co. Retired

 

[treimche]

Finally! Some very obvious changes and a couple not so obvious.

Here are some pics of the ADD Stealth Fighter rear bumper and RK Sport fender flares all painted and installed. The Ranger is dirty, but this is about as clean as it will get for our shitty winter. The streets are usually so loaded with salt that they are sloppy all the time. Luckily they were sort of dry the other day.

The ADD Stealth Fighter rear bumper was a giant pain in the ass to install. Their instructions were ok but they clearly didn't do an install on more than 1 trim level of the Ranger. I mounted some Rigid Industries cube lights with diffusers in the openings of the rear bumper as they intended, and put the switch in my Lightforce switch fascia.

The RK Sport fender flares fit fantastic, especially considering they are fiberglass. I've never had a good experience with any fiberglass aftermarket body parts before this, so it really goes to show that RK Sport products are very high quality. Their flares fit great, and IMO, look better than any other flares for the Ranger currently on the market. I wasn't a fan of their mounting solution so I had to come up with my own. The flares have 3m double sided tape along the outer border of the flares which is just fine so they don't move at all and won't rub the factory paint, but they only included some screws to screw in around the inner portions of the fender flares. I'm not all about that, so I had to get some bolts and U clips that worked in place of some of the OEM fender trim clips. This way it is totally reversible in the future, and just makes a much nicer, cleaner install.

My Ranger had some paint issues from before I took delivery of it in July of 2019, so I finally made the dealership fix them properly. They had to repaint the whole front bumper, both passenger side doors, and the tailgate.

Since the front bumper paint was fresh and flawless, I finally installed some Xpel paint protection on the painted parts of the front. The bumper, bash plate, and the filler panel below the grill/headlights, along with the A pillars, door cups all got Xpel paint protection film. I also used some Llumar paint protection from a sample roll I've had for a while in order to protect the front half of the rear fender flares, bottoms of the flares right behind the tires, tailgate handle area, front door sills, and the center step portion of the rear bumper.

Lastly, while the dealer repainted the tailgate, I had the painter color match the chrome rear camera bezel, and paint the Ford logo black. Now my Ranger has NO CHROME left at all, which is perfect!

If the sun would ever come out here, I'll take some better pics, but this is as good as its going to get in this frozen shithole.

 

[D Fresh]

Hi Doug,

These lugs do not have the taper engagement of the OEM lugs. I do not think they are robust enough for the Ranger... There are a few folks here that sent them back for this reason once this was pointed out. My opinion is Avoid.

Best,
Phil Schilke
Ranger Vehicle Engineering
Ford Motor Co. Retired

Didn't mean to imply that they had an application for us. Just that I've used them in the past and their color coatings hold up well.

 

[PltFX4]

What was the prep like to paint the bumpers (rear in-particular). The ADD website kinda show a very textured surface... the photos look near baby-butt smooth...

 

[yamahaSHO]

Came here to see the AirLift system... How are you liking it? I am looking at doing the same.


Also a turbo S2000 owner.

 

[MXGOLF]

WOW great looking Ranger Troy!!! Very nice. Thanks for the great build information and photos. Awesome.

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